#and also wanting to give examples... oh! and I even added a tldr on it with specific must-read questions!

[x-on-the-calendar-business]

ryan ross iceberg explained (masterpost and tier 1)

tier 2, tier 3, tier 4, tier 5, tier 6, tier 7, tier 8

if somehow you have no idea how icebergs work/what they are, then i’ll give a tldr: it comes from the saying “it’s just the tip of the iceberg,” so basically, the entries at the top of the iceberg are the stuff the average person would know, and as you go deeper, the content becomes more obscure. for example, if you’re a more casual panic! fan, then a lot of the entries in the sky tier are more likely to be things you would know, whereas you’re probably only going to know the stuff at the very bottom if you’re an insane person (me).

i got most of the entries from this iceberg from a couple of others that i found on twitter, here and here [i]. i combined them, shifted some stuff around, and added some things to make this one. of course, a special thanks to the twitter users areyouIlooking and checkyesjuul for making the ones i used to create this one.

i also want to give a special shoutout to the tumblr blogs @pathetic-at-the-disco and @prettyoddfever because i got so much info from them for this iceberg and they are just incredible sources of information for panic! fans.

finally, i'm really hoping everything on this iceberg is correct; of course, i did my research and there was a lot of it i already knew. however, i was not actually there for presplit panic! so i can't speak off of firsthand accounts for a lot of things. with that being said, if something is wrong, or if there is something you think should be added, please feel free to let me know, and i will go back and edit the post.

enough introduction, let’s get started.

the sky (tier 1):

guitarist of panic!:

what he is most well known for. ryan was the original guitarist of panic! and one of the true founding members. he departed the band in 2009 with former bassist jon walker, which we’ll come back to later.

rosevest:

this refers to an iconic piece of clothing that ryan wore while they were touring their debut album, a fever you can’t sweat out. he wears it in live in denver as well.

(side note: the post i got this pic from is a very interesting look at their outfits from that tour so i would recommend checking it out here!) [ii]

good at makeup:

during the fever era, ryan was really well known for doing makeup looks, some elaborate. i’m inserting some examples here, but i’m also going to link a post that showcases more pics of the makeup looks he did. there are more that he did than just the ones shown in that post or here (like the god awful blue eyeshadow he did on that red carpet), and there were a lot of times he just did the classic black smudged eyeliner.

and the tumblr post as promised: the makeup styles ryan ross wore in summer 2006 [iii]

ryden:

oh boy, where do we even start with this one. there are actually going to be quite a bit of ryden references in this, but at the end i’ll link a masterpost for further reading (although most of it will be covered here). but to be keep it short and simple, ryden is the ship name for ryan ross and brendon urie. it was arguably one of the biggest ships in early 2000s bandom, as evidenced by the litany of fics written with them as a pairing. this ship (unfortunately) still lives on in people’s hearts today even though ryan and brendon don’t speak anymore.

also, i know it would seem to make more sense if their ship name was ryDON not ryDEN because of how brendon’s name is spelled, but the ship name comes from the mashing of their nicknames ryro and bden (which still doesn’t make any sense but i digress).

unfortunately, all of the ryden content on this iceberg will probably be long because i am a former rydennie (yes u can make fun of me for it go ahead) so i have a lot of knowledge on that ship. but trust me i know that ryden was not real.

“creative differences:”

this entry refers to the july 6th, 2009 split where ryan and jon left the band. the most cited reason for the split was musical differences, as stated in these interviews with brendon and spencer [iv]. however, most people believe the band actually split due to personal reasons since they basically all stopped speaking afterwards, and because of some comments jon made [v]. in fact, one MTV interview specifically singled out ryan and brendon as not getting along, but it has since been deleted [vi].

cheez wiz:

this references a clip from the pretty. odd. short-film called american valley [vii]. the video went viral circa 2015/2016 and became a huge meme in the bandom community, especially in the crankthatfrank yeemo fanbase (that sentence wasn’t in the bible). if you were a panic! fan during that time, you know the cheez wiz jokes were inescapable.

milk fic:

“ryan was kneeling in the bathtub…”

this is also unfortunate. to be blunt, this is a ryden fic in which brendon gives ryan an enema with milk. it catalyzed a trend of other shocking fics within the bandom sphere, such as the comb fic. it’s just cringy. sadly, it became so iconic that brendon knows about it and even made a vine referencing it [viii].

i would link it but i’m not going to because the author, druscila, is a pedophile. so there’s that.

onceler jokes:

i’m going to put a picture of the onceler, who is from the lorax, and ryan side by side. and that should explain this.

now let’s move on to the next tier.

tier 2

references:

[i] https://twitter.com/areyouiooking/status/1366887508441718790?s=46&t=srOJ3YueMMsx9_sm96odQQ, https://twitter.com/checkyesjuul/status/1368794897499615233?s=46&t=srOJ3YueMMsx9_sm96odQQ

[ii] https://prettyoddfever.tumblr.com/post/628882839458512896/panic-at-the-discos-2006-summer-tour-costumes

[iii] https://prettyoddfever.tumblr.com/post/629161631117656064/the-makeup-styles-ryan-ross-wore-in-summer-2006

[iv] https://patd.livejournal.com/2943372.html, https://patd.livejournal.com/2928377.html#cutid1

[v] https://oneweekoneband.tumblr.com/post/131968366779/jon-walker-and-ryan-ross-from-a-2009-interview-in

[vi] https://whisperdlullaby.livejournal.com/9051.html

[vii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBot_X9pquo

[viii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyWlisnfrm0

[firexima]

YOUR ART IS INCREDIBLE DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS /nf

Thanks so much!! I’m so grateful to hear you like my work :)

And boy oh boy I could go oooon and on and on about tips, like genuinely pages upon pages or talking hours upon hours but I’ll share a few things!

1: Put your drawing in black and white to check the values

TLDR: It helps check that your drawings are clear and helps figure out what needs to be brighter/darker.

-> First if all, I want to explain what value is. Value is how bright or dark a color is. Every color has value even when fully saturated and those values change depending on the color. Red for example is naturally darker in value than yellow but naturally brighter in value than blue. You want to be aware and therefore deliberate with how you use value in your art.

Push your darks and push your lights— unless there’s a deliberate reason as to why you don’t want to, you want a fairly large range in values: that means that if you were to put your drawing in black and white only, you would be able to see a large range of greys going from very dark to very bright, black to mid/light grey, mid/dark grey to white depending on the mood of your drawing.

This helps to give your art more depth and volume and generally helps to read better and is nice to look at. When you’re creating art it can be difficult to keep track of everything, so by putting your art in black and white you are only focusing on value and it helps you see what’s getting lost and what you can push and pull more to make brighter or darker.

You can do this by either taking a picture of your drawing and editing it in your camera roll to remove the saturation or set it in one of the black and white filters or if you’re working digitally you can create a new layer above all the ones you already have, fill it with black/white/grey and set the layer to “color”. With your layer, you can turn it on and off whenever you want

2: Do multiple small thumbnails!

TLDR: It helps pushing yourself to brainstorm other options and it helps finding out if your composition works before you spend time on it.

-> Obviously not a complete necessity whatsoever and I don’t even do this with all my drawings especially if they’re just to have fun and de-stress but if you have an idea for a drawing and you really want it to get to its full potential, sitting down and forcing yourself to do more than one sketch can be really great! It doesn’t have to be good at all, just enough for you to know what it is supposed to be.

Often when I come up with an idea I’m excited about I already have a vision for how I want to do it but making myself brainstorm other ways I could draw the same idea and forcing myself to make them noticeably different has helped me come up with some of my proudest works! You are deliberately considering all options for how you can execute the same thing and realizing ways you could do it that you hadn’t initially thought of. In my experience by doing this I realize that the first idea I thought of isn’t always the best possible one or I merge it with another one and therefore end up making it better. (This can also be applied to other creative processes)

Another good thing about it though, is it helps focus on just the composition. Again, there’s a lot of things that go into making an art piece so isolating just the composition helps you figure out a plan and checking to see that it looks good before you spend hours and hours on it. It’s as if you were to build a house and spend days of work and loads of money on making it beautiful but it isn’t structurally sound and falls apart. You don’t want to spend so much of your time on all the details only to realize it just doesn’t feel right all because the composition itself is off.

3: Remember to have fun and don’t be discouraged!

-> I know it’s something nearly everyone says and at first I kind of always ignored it because it felt like it was something people just added to be nice but it is just as important as anything else. Art takes so much time, even just doing a single piece— let alone time to keep building up your skills over time. We don’t have unlimited time, and what you choose to spend your time on matters. Honing your craft and even wanting tips to help you improve means you care. The reason why is one of the most important things of all, don’t lose sight of that. Whether it’s to have fun, to decompress, to express yourself, to depict something you care about— whatever it may be: remember that and don’t beat yourself up or stress yourself out if you aren’t where you want to be or stressing yourself out to meet certain expectations. It really does impact both your art and your learning process whether you’re having a good time or not.

A few last quick tips:

- Don’t be afraid to start over or completely redo something that isn’t working!

- When drawing from reference, trust what you see and not what you know! Drawing what your eyes are telling you is there instead of what your brain thinks should be there will usually always give you better results.

- Step back from/Zoom out of a piece regularly! It also helps to squint your eyes.

- It’s great to make a folder of pieces/artists/pictures that inspire you!

- When studying other people’s art, be aware that they can also make mistakes so that you don’t repeat those.

- You don’t have to take every tip/rule by heart, as long as you understand why they’re there, you can also deliberately choose to go against it if it enhances what you want to do with your piece. Most rules artists teach can be broken, just make sure it’s a deliberate choice to not do those things and why you’re choosing to do that instead of just not knowing about it!

Hopefully these are helpful! I have way more but this is already long enough as is. I wish you the best! <3

[lakesparkles]

hai me again! I hope you don't mind me adding on, I'd understand if you choose not to respond, just wanted to give my thoughts-

I first want to say that I relate to the emotional overwhelm of such situations. I'm very sensitive, especially when it feels as if I've been hurtful :( I just recently I got an ask that condescendingly said I was being insensitive about some fandom things (they misunderstood my point so I clarified and it was okay) but I felt that same feeling of rejection. it's like guilt and embarrassment and makes you feel like everyone is mad at you, lol... it always takes me a few days of recovery to feel comfortable posting again

secondly, I want to say that I agree with all your points. I don't know anything about mouthwashing, but it sounds like other people are making their shallow interpretation of it your problem. opening a discussion, as you did, is not an invitation to be harassed or accused of terrible things. you didn't deserve that!

saying that evil/abusive characters can have good qualities, do good things, or be nice, is not at all excusing (or God, forbid, endorsing) their evil/abusive actions. it's actually a grounded and realistic opinion to have. the idea that all abusers are just evil monsters isn't true. in my experience, one of the most dangerous things about abusers is that they can be nice, normal, even good people. anyone is capable of abuse, even good people. even normal people. if you talk to any abuse victim about their abusers, they will say things like, "yes, they were terrible, but they were good sometimes, too, and that's what made it so hard to hate/leave them"

I have watched bojack horseman. bojack is an excellent example of a realistic abuser (if you don't mind me calling him that). because he is written to have good moments, and to have deep and complex feelings, and to be sympathetic, sometimes, too! the things he does to others I would still call abusive, but because he is so complex and multifaceted, people sympathize with him more. he's a very interesting character and, imo, the comparison between him and jimmy is justifiable (from what I know)

(sorry a lot of this is nonsense. tldr, I think you're right, and other people just have poor literacy skills)

salukes!

-🦊

Hello!!! As usual, you don't need to worry at all! I love reading your thoughts, you can always express your thoughts so well!

First things is that YES, this is exactly how it feels! :( I'm also very sensitive with negative opinions towards me. I'm aware this is something about myself that I need to change... But oh man, I wish I knew how to actually do it. I just can't, and not even therapy helped me a bit. I feel so guilty I convince myself everybody - including my friends and mutuals - will start hating me too... Part of me knows it's not true. Part of me knows that people should and will have criticism about my actions. But nothing of it makes this type of situation easier.

Thank you for thinking so, what I was hoping was that I would be able to listen to other people's opinion about both characters, which is a very interesting topic to me. I like to see how bad people are represented on games/shows/movies, even more when Bojack and Jimmy have such different character arcs and are both the protagonists.

And I do think that admitting that abusers can be good people sometimes is a truth most people don't want to admit. But, at the same time, it's something very important to talk about because the same happened to me! (Vent coming, sorry) When I decided to stop talking to my ex, I felt so guilty. Because she treated me in a terrible way but, at the same time, she had so many good moments. She was cool, funny and made me feel very comfortable. There are some conversations between us that I still remember clearly because she inspired me and changed my way to see everything.

But she was still terrible and she still hurt me in many ways, no matter what.

I also wish things were different, but they aren't.

And Bojack is such a good character to show this. I do believe he was abusive many times and being able to relate to him is what makes the show so painful to watch. The problem is that he's so much more complex than Jimmy that people forget how he traumatized many other characters. I think more people should read his crimes on the Villains Wiki to remember Bojack is not a good guy. But well

[salad-006]

I know you already gave us your thoughts about Eddsworld Legacy, but what do you think about Eddsworld Beyond for now?

To be completely honest, I'm really on the fence with beyond. They're in like this weird fluctuating state, and to me that comes off like them not knowing what they're doing

Sometimes we'll get something hilarious, but more often than not beyond feels awkard and rushed. Stilted is the best word i think. (I'm also just really not a fan of jons animation for the show, which doesn't help at all. His EW style has always felt extremely flat to me ,sorry jon)

More options down below vv

Stuff usually feel unfinished or rushed somehow , ex surf n turf. Part one was probably the most uncomfortable episodes we've gotten so far. you could've easily rearranged things so that the intro of them arriving at the beach was at the beginning of part two, and have it be a single episode. It feels like filler before the actual plot starts next episode

It kinda feels like they're trying to imitate every aspect of Edds work, and it's giving me like. Skinwalker vibes. I get it, Edd made little short animtions with random new characters occasionally. But when a full team makes one with a new character, ties an ad read to it, then never touches that character again, it feels confusing and out of place. IDK i just feel like you loose that ability to just make whatever you want when you put together a team, even if its a small indie group. Maybe im wrong there but the point is i thouht the birds and the bees was dumb

I'll keep my option on the team brief. I don't hate anyone on the team nor do i think any of them are Bad People, but there's definitely been a lot of questionable behavior that has come from these guys. Example, I've always been offput by their relationship with Tord’s characters. In the website they put this:

Yet consistently tease the fans with his existence (ex the caveman episode, tori being canonized, his picture clearly torn out in SnT1, having an entire month of tord merch) Either address the situation or don't, guys. You can't sarcastically be like "oh get over it" when YOU'RE the ones that keep bringing him back. You didn't even answer the question dude, no wonder so many kids beg for his return

I guess I can't be THAT pissed when the money all went to charity, but it still just feels inherently weird and disrespectful to merchandise this character after his creator removed him nearly 15 years ago. Atleast Tomska allegedly asked permission and had good intentions. This feels like they (beyond) just don't give a fuck. If any team members are reading this I'm BEGGING YOU: STOP LETTING THEM BRING BACK TORD . THEY CANT KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT . Tord Larsson deserves to be left alone, and to stop getting connected to this show in his past.

Despite everything, I still want to support the team. I'll be honest, SnT2 gave me hope for the series I haven't had in quite a while. It wasn't the greatest, but it was a step upwards. And I'd love to see them keep going up ! Genuinely, I would love nothing more than to see these guys succeed in recreating what made the show good initially. Eddsworld changed my life, so really its incredible to see it still kicking around today. Even if it's in this weird, amorphous glob state. They just need to figure out what the hell they're doing

TLDR: the current state of the show is kinda rough, the team feels discombobulated and has made some weird decisions, however I still have hope that they can make this into something amazing someday

[my-castles-crumbling]

hey, cas

so, i kind of wanted to rant a bit, but theres a few things in here i know could get people riled up so honestly im a little nervous sharing this. i also want to preface it by saying that i am NOT hating on any fics i name here, they are just well-known examples and fics that the fandom hold close

as a fic writer myself, i love adding my own little headcanons to characters. sometimes theyre hcs ive seen from someone else and loved, and other times ive thought of them myself. in the latter case, ill often then see that someone else thought of it too, which is really cool!

but then there comes the hcs that people see and think "oh! thats from x fic!" for example, if you bring up dyslexic remus to most marauders fans, theyre gonna talk about atyd. ive never read the fic myself, its not my taste, but ive heard a lot of things about it and it does honestly sound like a great fic so genuinely no hate towards it. but i hc remus as dyslexic and i did so before learning that atyd has dyslexic remus, and any time i consider putting that hc into one of my fics all i can think about is that people will see it and talk about atyd. maybe theyll say i was copying or stole the idea. maybe theyll compare the two and decide the way i depict it isnt as good. maybe ill end up accidentally using a similar or the same thing for remus to have aiding him, for example a spell or something one of his friends do, and ill be told im plagiarising, and i absolutely hate that.

another example is best friends brother. its such a well known fic in the fandom that anyone who writes anything similar is going to be compared to it. or crimson rivers; anyone who writes a hunger games au (even if its not even remotely similar to cr) is going to be told theyre trying to copy. i love both bfb and cr but i wish people could accept that two writers can have the same idea without copying or trying to recreate/steal it

one of my current ongoing fics has the same central trope as another big fic in the fandom (i dont want to reveal which, because i dont want to risk being de-anoned) and i went out of my way to avoid reading the big fandom fic until ive finished writing my own because im so terrified that if theres even a single vague similarity i might get called out and told im copying

i want to say im just being paranoid, but i cant. i hate that the fandom has come to the point where authors have to bring something out that absolutely noone has ever done before ever just so that they dont get told theyve taken the idea from someone else. even if they had, its perfectly normal and fine to be inspired by an idea to make it your own! obviously actual plagiarism is not okay and should be called out, but theres a difference between plagiarism and just having a similar idea or hc

going back to my original point (because this was where my frustrations with this started) i hate that dyslexic remus will always be seen as an atyd thing, when it isnt. again, no hate to the fic or the author, this isnt an attack on them at all, its just unfortunate that the fandom has kind of taken it so much as canon that anything will always be compared to it, if that makes sense?

tldr: let me have dyslexic remus without telling me im copying atyd! let me have him use magic or have his friends do little things to help him without telling me i stole it from atyd!

sorry about that cas haha, i realise its a bit long. it just really really frustrates me to no end, yknow?

Hi!

Yes, I can definitely see what you're saying. I think if something is inspired by another fic (i.e. you read CR and then you're like...oh, I wanna write a Hunger Games AU) it's good to give credit where it's due by saying "inspired by x." But in a fandom with thousands of fics, the same ideas are bound to come up even without having read other fics. If people accuse you of copying and you genuinely haven't, I would just let them yell. People are always going to have negative things to say, you know?

[volo-omnia]

So for those that aren't as brainrotten as I am, for the longest time Volo's team was a subject of discourse and many tumblr posts. The subject being that if he's a villain, why does his team in Legends Arceus have so many friendship evolutions?

And because Tumblr loves dichotomies and black/white conclusions, a lot of conclusions at the time were that either:

1. Volo is just a horrible person and is manipulating his pokemon as tools like other mainline villains (for example, Ghetsis)

Or 2. No actually Volo is truly 100% pure at heart and his goals are justified because why would a villain have so many friendship pokemon? They clearly trust him!

Masters finally puts that that conundrum to rest. And I think one line in particular everyone is losing their minds over really contextualizes it:

This single line of internal monologue really paints a clear picture of what Volo's character is like and his actions back in PLA.

To him, nothing in the world is genuine and kind, and that the actions of others are inherently selfish to get something in exchange. For one that really reframes his role as a merchant, but also gives a literal canon reason why his goals are the way they are. Even actions that may appear kind and selfless at first actually come with a cost, and that fuels his skewed worldview that the world is inherently cruel. And that anyone, no matter who they are, are out to get you.

First of all, wow that's depressing. Not only is that a nihilistic and cruel view of the world that kinda just ends up isolating himself from others and seeing the good in the world, that's also indicative of him having much worse problems. But let's focus solely on his team.

Let's shift to his conversation with N, which I also think provides some added context to how Volo sees the world- and more importantly, his own pokemon.

I don't know how to explain this, but that's not the reaction of someone to takes care of their pets out of love. Given the way N describes Togepi's feelings, Volo is surprised his own Pokemon like him.

This, combined with the conversations with Volo in the lounge (particularly when you give him gifts), show that Volo absolutely does not know how to receive genuine love from others. Note he uses the words "observing" to describe Togepi, not "love" like how N says. This combined with the way he always describes himself as a "Wielder" instead of a "Trainer", and how he sees the world, finally puts to rest why and how Volo raised his main team.

Volo sees his pokemon purely as a transaction. While I also want to put a disclaimer here that no, he absolutely does not abuse his pokemon like how Ghetsis does, but his surprise at his ace genuinely liking him goes to show how little emotional intelligence he has.

Volo comes from an era where pokemon are feared, powerful creatures, way before it's common to see them as equal partners. Given how harsh the world is it would be useful to have such powerful creatures by your side protecting you. And in turn, you take care of them.

You know those pet videos with animals like snakes, fish, or spiders? And how sometimes people comment shit like "Oh that thing doesn't ACTUALLY love you, it just tolerates your presence because you provide it food and shelter"?

THAT'S Volo.

Volo is a villain that doesn't abuse his team, there's definitely a layer of respect with how he interacts with pokemon, but that pretty much sums up how he got this team. Volo takes great care of his own pokemon, learning all about them and taking the best care of them as he can, purely in exchange that he can wield them by his side when needed. And when it (sorta) backfires and he has multiple powerful pokemon that genuinely love him and evolve out of friendship? Well that's how he got the team in PLA.

TLDR: Volo has such a skewed view of the world that he raised a bunch of friendship evo pokemon for their alliance in exchange of food and care but is completely oblivious to the fact that they genuinely love him.

Oh my god. Pokemon Masters was really the key to the whole discourse of Volo's team isn't it.

[infin-8-morphosis]

Monthly not-dead progress post here we go

Still working on my model. Theres too many little bits to say what I have and havent done (sooo much redoing) but umm in brief,

Oh this isnt brief whoops lets put a cut, tldr model good still wip, new map with Peirce Quinuncial projection, more website work, lots and lots of little half done things as usual

Functional eyes and eyelids, actual mesh is more or less 100% done, and partially unwrapped, but havent skinned it properly.

Partially rigged, but rigging will neeeveeer be finished. Thankfully my twisted setup with multiple rigs and multiple rigs inside those rigs actually seems to work...?

A brief rundown is:

The rig is made of 3 sets of identical bones: the scaler, poser, and deformer. The poser handles, most posing, shocking, and is more or less the 'crown' rig. The scaler doesnt move but scales, and said scale is copied to the poser. The deformer is the only set that deforms the mesh, it copies the location of the poser. So, Scaler scales the poser, poser moves the deformer. You should never need to view anything except the poser BUT and its a cool but, since the deformer is isolated from the poser, it also acts as a sort of pseudo FK rig, allowing fine adjustment of the posers IK positions. VERY handy!

There are other rigs, like an eye rig for just the eyes, a character-specific rig for the face (just not possible to use the same rig even with my scaling trick, and i dont want to have to worry about breaking the most important part of the mesh) and soon i will begin the harrowing task of a hair rig... for each hair. Fear and suffering ahead, but also funny hairdos.

Thankfully my trick to use geo nodes to fuse the meshes together seamlessly seems to work, but it seems to mess with uv's so still a roadblock. I nedd to really knuckle down on understanding geo nodes, and also get more fmailiar with uvs in the technical sense...

Also making an effort to completely ditch shape keys (FUCK shape keys) by using lattices instead. This is... unfortunately janky. But, useable. I dont care if it isnt perfect anyway, I just hate shape keys. The main trouble is how dogshit lattices are... They work so odd. And very destructively, so if I screw up a pose, tough shit...

Yet to step into the scary world of 'so will we actually model our characters with this' since at any point I can break things and will need to redo things... but also the sooner i start the sooner I catch things that dont work or need fixing...

Non-model wise I'm making pretty good progress on the map. As you probably dont know I have yet fucking again started from near scratch, but this time with the sexy as hell Peirce-Quincuncial map projection (go look it up its very good). This means a less warped map and also more sensible views of the poles, which were always a bit hacky on an equirectangular map since my planets 'poles' are on the equator. ie imagine a globe rotated 90° so the bottom and top are at the sides. Im feeling much better with how it fits together (even 'simulated' the plate tectonics a little to get them more accurate. Surpisingly my eyeballing it was about 80% correct!) but yet again the main headache is the actual height. Very, very hard to keep heights consistent and proportional.

Today I worked on my website! I had not checked on it in quite some time. Refamiliarised myself with its inner workings (loooove css. Very fun. Oddly fun battling wordpress to change things from its defaults that are often quite odd. For example, drop shadows only go to the bottom right. You cant alter it in the editor. Why??? So i just... edited the default shadow's css. Easy peasy. The hardest part was tracking down where exactly wordpress defined shadows. However there is some good to this since i dont need to add a class to things to give them my own shadow~) and have got it looking very smooth. Almost everything from my original website has been re-added, code wise. All that remains is the actual articles, and well, lots and lots more tweaking and new things. Still no mobile menu, that'll be a doozy... ah, also reimplemented tooltips properly. Verrry nice. Just not sure how the plugin manages colours... i will crack it open and study it...

Hmmm what else. I guess ive begun to organise my notes on everything, but i have attmepted this many times and it is a total mess... hoping this one sticks since i moved to using obsidian instead of google docs, so maybe i wont fuss over organisation and style as much and actually work on things.

Story wise eeerrrr. I mean. The problem i had is now, reversed, in that i used to have an end and no way of starting the plot, and now ive come up with a great hook that no longer works with the old ending... hrmm...

[7goodangel]

Geez it feels like it’s been a while since I’ve posted something here!

I’ll have to queue up stuff in the next day or so... and man, I haven’t even drawn in a few days!

Well - at least I was able to update my FAQ once again! 

https://www.deviantart.com/7goodangel/journal/7goodangel-F-A-Q-843498145

It used to be a long page full of words and paragraphs, so I decided to shorten up the answers to make them straight to the point! Even dA noted it was a 14 min read before, but now it’s about 6 min! 

I probably still missed a few questions, but at least it’s in a format that’s easier to read! Hopefully it doesn’t sound too formal! XD

[literaphobe]

a lot of mcc'c audience (but not the majority) doesnt agree that the enjoyment of the event comes from watching passionate competitive players do well and win. If I decide to watch someones vod and the first thing they say is "we didnt practice at all LOL" then I dont want to watch because it seems like they dont care about the event. Illumina is an incredible player but I once watched sot from his perspective and holy shit it was so boring mainly because everyone in the team was so quiet, almost no comunication, no strategy nothing no chemistry, like, I'm sure they were having fun and wanted to team but there was zero excitment.

The problem is that the few people who are competitive/practice and strategize, win a lot (dream and sapnap are the best two examples, purpled might be up there soon) but everyone else (and their audiences) cries about it saying "oh the same people win everytime, its boring!!" but like, if your streamer cared and practiced and got better, they would win, simple as that.

So, imo, mcc tries to please the annoying crybabies by adding non-competitive people on the event-> less likely to have cool interesting moments-> less likely to care about mcc gameplay/skill-> even when they win, its boring

Just to clarify, you're allowed to not like competitiveness, Im not very competitive myself, but if, as a player you say "I'm here to have fun and if I win then cool", you have no right to cry about other teams doing well. If I have the skills that sapnap has, I'll be happier winning against fruitberries than winning against grian (GRIAN IS FINE, I'M just saying skillwise he is not an s-tier, and he doesnt have to be). I'd much rather lose to tryhards than win an event where I was the only one who tried.

To me it comes down to passion and genuine interest in minecraft skill, if mcc adds less cracked players, it shouldnt be a championship- it should just be an event.

Also, there are issues with team creation, there sooo many cool ideas and then scott comes up with a random reason as to why some people cannot team and honestly its frustrating, I'd rather you please your audience by giving them a team/duo that they ask for than banning memorising the builds at buildmart, you know? Some rules are kinda dumb.

Tldr, people who claim they play just for fun(and their viewers) show negativity to people who play competitively when those people win, and that is just annoying

honestly. like… the truth is. mcc has become much more competitive. the unfortunate thing is that some people don’t wanna admit it? to the point where there are people who don’t try and then get upset when they don’t win. like. its a different case for players who are put there specifically to nerf and get fucked bc of underpowered teams, tina’s a good example. as much as i wish she wouldn’t sit out mccs on purpose, i completely get where she’s coming from. it feels hella embarrassing to fall so far behind, to feel like a heavy weight dragging your team down. and tina deserves better than that!!

also yeah… i mean to be honest. sapnap doesn’t even practice for mcc, he’s just good. dream is a mix between doesn’t practice vs practices heavily and strategizes actively with teammates. but yeah. team balancing just needs to be fair? op teams are a fun interesting idea and honestly i hope theres an op mcc one day just to see crazy team ups but honestly i think i just miss seeing him play maybe i dont care about anything else idk

[morguemaw]

hang on i wanna rant

Tldr of it is im also the kind of artist/creator who loves popular media/fandoms and adding it into characters either as a trait, personality, design feature, ect, but i really hate getting those comments because they trickle into my ocs that arent at all related to that and even if its obvious i really want to try and just self indulge then try and build up a actual creative character

WARNING NOTHING STARTED THIS I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SPIGGY A BROTHER WHO WAS WHITE AND PINK BECAUSE HE IS A INVERTED VERSION OF SPIGGY BUT THE ANGEL DUST COMMENTS HAUNT ME EVERYWHERE I GO HAHAHA im really shy with saying that i like certain things because then i dont want people to think EVERYTHING is inspired off that certain thing i like an example is the whole angel dust thing. I love that character, i adore the anatomy, the silhouette, even things down to the voice and how they are animated, but, when i say i like that character, some people instantly think of my ocs like Spiderguts sometimes. When, funnily enough, Gutsy isnt inspired off Angel Dust, but in some cases ocs that have no correlation with AD (anatomy, colors, ect) ARE actually inspired off him Does this matter? Oh, hell no. No one cares what i like or what i like is inspired by, its just irritating when some people comment, compare, ect, infact i know 100% no one gives a shit if i even say that my Fursona Cinder fights and acts alot like Bakugo, because its a common interest, its a common trait, and theres others like me who also like this, some who go further then i really go who have characters that are a furry version. (im one of them jsjsjsj) Sometimes it makes me feel funny, or silly, but im still just getting used to fandoms really, im very used to being near big creators who get so pissed that you even DARE draw like them, let alone have a character who has a green hoodie i guess its the whole "nothing is original anymore" shit, but im not used to the fact there are people who do what i do and like what i like and enjoy putting it into their own characters just yet AHHAHHWA

[henrysglock]

okay okay i love talking about dnd - dnd anon back again

just general fyi, there's multiple editions for dnd. new monsters get added over the course of them, some stats change, game mechanics get reworked ect. we're on E5 right now. the party in ST would be playing with E1 which came out in the early 80s (E2 came out in the late 80s and is definitely relevant to anything S4 and onwards). i know most of the original 80s stats, but just mentioning here that some numbers went up or down a few digits over the years

okay and now breaking this down:

in dnd you have CRs (= Challenge Ratings) which are a number between 0 and 30. those give you an idea of the general strength of an enemy, the higher the stronger. that's generally how you as a DM decide what to throw at your party since you don't want to give and absolute BeastTM to you Lvl. 1 party (CRs also aren't always 100% reliable since DMs can tweak stats slightly to fit their parties better, but CRs DO give you a pretty solid idea of how fucked you're going to be on average going into an encounter)

and long story short, a Mindflayers CR is 7. Vecna's is 26. and yeah that'd basically already be enough said, one of these is Not like the other. Tldr: Vecna is an absolute Unit and wins this competition every time

but now also, more in depth:

first more stats: CR only give you the General difficulty of an enemy. you also have AC (Armour Class) and HP for every enemy for example:

AC -> MF: 15, V: 18

HP -> MF: 71 (potentially up to +13 with additional roles when creating the enemy), V: 272 (with a roll up to +128)

Vecna, again, unsurprisingly given the CR, wins everything here BY FAR. but besides stats, the actual game lore is also interesting:

for one, i said A Mindflayer intentionally because there's actually multiple. it's not a unique enemy type (it's still rare though). they're also called Illithids and are actually much more human looking than on the show -> a bit of a wizard type - also much more human sized than the one in ST. their faces are very much spider tentacles tho so I'm guessing that's from where we got the visuals for our favorite Big Guy. (also, fun fact: Illithids/ Mindflayers tend to show up in combat with a handful of followers they're mindcontrolling, very similar to the plot of s3 actually, just think that's neat :D)

and then there's VECNA. THE Vecna. the ONE and only (ha). totally unique. actually, as of E1 Vecna wasn't even a fightable enemy with stats yet. he was only Referenced in the monster manual (where all the dnd enemy lore at the time came from) + his eye (or arm actually? sorry not sure which one it actually was) were super strong items you could find. but no Vecna in the flesh yet - he was just this elusive evil in the background. only in E2 did Vecna actually get a stats sheet and was something you could actually try and fight. and Vecna is Big in dnd, a bit of a staple figure actually - especially in E2 at the time. Mindflayers may be more of an enemy class than a given "name" for one specific person/monster. but oh boy did Vecna sure make a name for himself alone. multiple names actually, that's the guy people call "the Arch Lich" and "the Undying King" to name a few, if there's One wizard you're going to be sweating to fight in late 80s dnd it's THIS guy. Hard as Hell to beat! and a dnd icon on top of it!

and even the fighting in itself is going to be an absolute Bitch, so here a general idea of how combat works:

aside from attacking, you constantly roll saving throws. that's how you avoid dying/ taking damage/ suffering negative effects like poison or burning etc. the saving throws are all in a specific attribute so Intelligence or Wisdom for example. you roll with a D20 and need to get something higher than a certain predetermined number to actually get the save and avoid whatever made you roll for the save in the first place. depending on the stat you're rolling in, the numbers for the MFs are basically all between 6-7. but for VECNA they're all between 12-15.

the combat system in E1 and E2 is slightly different than today and i'm not Totally in tune with it, so i'm not Completely sure if/how saving throws might have worked a bit different back then,

but the HIGH requirement for saves (consistently rolling over 12-15 with a D20 is Fucked btw) is also why we see the game in S4 go down the way it does. the entire group makes it to the final boss alright but then starts falling like flies. because you'd have to consistently roll REALLY high to keep hitting saves and not chip your health down slowly or get CRIT'ed in one go. and even if you're lucky with rolls, the longer the combat goes on the more likely you are to start missing saves and either die from a direct hit or get a negative effect that kills you over time. which is why we see the entire party go down alongside Mike during Eddie's game, except for Dustin and Erica who are both still 1 hit from death.

even the parts of the game sequence we actually get SEE on screen in s4 show us this directly, when we see Mike going first in the combat order and look upset immediately when he presumably fails his first save right away (unlucky) -> i've seen people confused why Mike looks upset but an Enemy figure gets knocked down on the board instead of his paladin. this is why as far as i can tell here. he might have still won against whatever he was fighting but took massive damage or got a passive negative effect from failing his first save. he zero'd out later at some point, since only Erica and Dustin are left by the end, but i probably wasn't Directly after the first hit he took (even though it could obviously be Because of that hit, since it might've been a passive effect which can kill you with a few rounds delay)

so Yupp, that's the general breakdown here! so tldr Again: if you had the choice between facing the Mindflayer or Vecna on the condition that everybody sticks to dnd rules you do NOT go for Vecna. Ever. that guy is Horrible to beat. literally the chance of fucking up like Mike here and missing your FIRST save right off the bat is 60-75%, that's BAD, that can KILL you

me with my melted ice cream brain: yeah what u said

but actually yeah looking at the numbers it’s v clear who’s the big bad even from the dnd framework. and it also makes sense why El et al. are able to defeat the mindflayer twice but not Vecna/Henry even once

[wickedpact]

dear tumblr user crim wickedpact pls write the essay/dissertation about nicky being shakespeare's fair youth (if you have time, ofc!!)

Not To Imply Nicky Was Shakespeare’s Fair Youth But Ive Read The Fair Youth Sonnets & Nicky Was Definitely Shakespeare’s Fair Youth, an essay by me, tumblr user crim wickedpact

background knowledge: our man shakespeare wrote some 120 sonnets about a young man referred to as the Fair Youth during the mid 1590s; there has been some debate among shakespeare enthusiasts whether shakespeare’s interest in the Fair Youth was platonic or romantic (but like. they were definitely romantic). no one knows for sure who the Fair Youth was, but it was definitely nicky and my first and most important piece of evidence regarding this hypothesis is the ‘lmao babe do you remember that guy who had a crush on me?’/ ‘i try not to remember the guy who had a crush on you’ look joe and nicky exchange when Merrick brings up shakespeare during the movie. especially since gina confirmed in a tweet that joe and nicky canonly did know shakespeare

my second piece of evidence is that it just Works (except for a couple small facts like.. the Fair Youth was prolly closer to his 20s than his 30s. and the fact that shakespeare implies that the Fair Youth slept with his mistress at one point. but he doesnt know what hes talking about shhh we IGNORE)

long post under cut

A. The Description Matches

when describing the Fair Youth (who I’ll call the FY from now on), shakespeare says he has a ‘gold complexion’ and ‘beautiful eyes’ and compares him to a ‘summer’s day’. He says the FY has “A woman’s gentle heart" and “An eye more bright than [women’s are], (...) Gilding the object whereupon [they] gazeth”

As much as shakespeare’s perceptions of sexuality and gender are very........  late 1500′s (whoo boy sonnet #20 is a wild ride) ...... the description does match, and also:

  B. The Fair Youth Refused to Get Married

it’s never really said why one way or another (shakespeare assumes it’s because the FY is selfish) but the FY didn’t/wouldn’t take on a wife and have a kid, and this was something that was a real sticker for our man Willy S. because, as he says in his sonnets a million times: beauty doesn’t last forever, but having a child not only passes down the FY’s beauty, but also blesses the woman the FY would have a child with (im not saying shakespeare wanted to bear the FY’s children, but he definitely did)

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

(ie. If you don’t renew yourself/ have children, you deprive the world and deprive a woman from having your child, since what woman out there is so beautiful that she wouldn’t want to bear your child?)

Like.

1.) if nicky is the FY then so many of these poems center around the idea of nicky growing old sometime soon and that must have been pretty funny to Nicky and

2.)  the fact that shakespeare would have been So Desperate for nicky to find a wife must have been the opposite of funny to joe. considering the ease of his and nicky’s relationship and the fact that being gay in late 1500s england was probably not a walk in the park, it is very likely shakespeare wouldn’t have known they were in a committed relationship-- or at least not known how close they actually were. Thus:

  C. The Rival (aka. Joe)

shakespeare mentions having a poetic rival in regards to the FY in several sonnets. In sonnet #21 he talks about how he’s not like Those Other Writers who use grand metaphors to talk about their muses

So is it not with me as with that Muse, Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse, Who heaven itself for ornament doth use And every fair with his fair doth rehearse, Making a couplement of proud compare With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems, With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,

(ie. I’m not like other poets who, when inspired by a ‘painted beauty’ use heaven and every other beautiful thing on the planet to make a grand comparison to their muse: he specifically lists the sun and moon as examples as well as other beautiful things)

He then goes on to say

And then believe me, my love is as fair As any mother's child, though not so bright As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:

(ie. my love [the FY] is as beautiful as any other beautiful person, though I wouldn’t compare them to the stars/heavens (which is what he means by the 'gold candles’. those are stars.))

So shakespeare insults poets who compare their subjects to the sun, moon, and stars (amongst other things) and in the comics, Joe does literally exactly that

That man is the stars in my sky, and the sun that lights my days. That man is the moon when I'm lost in darkness, and warmth when I shiver in cold.

shakespeare also goes on to say in the same sonnet “Let them say more that like of hearsay well / I will not praise that purpose not to sell” which is to say ‘let people who like that kind of language use it, I wont because I don’t want anyone else to have the subject of my affections (the FY)’.

(which is a bit of a contradiction regarding his feelings abt the FY getting married, but these sonnets are full of contradictions. shakespeare was a confused dude; man spent the first 100 or so sonnets convinced the FY loved him back only for him to start wondering if the FY ever loved him near the end)

(not to mention Marriage For Love wasnt really.. much of a thing in Ye Olden Times but thats a different conversation. so shakespeare prolly didnt associate marriage with love/competition? anyways)

Shakesy-boo goes on to complain about this rival several times. In #79, he says

Yet what of thee thy poet doth invent He robs thee of, and pays it thee again. He lends thee virtue, and he stole that word From thy behaviour; beauty doth he give, And found it in thy cheek: he can afford No praise to thee, but what in thee doth live.

(ie. everything ‘your poet’ (as the FY apparently favored this unnamed rival) says about you, he takes it from you in the first place. he talks about your virtue, but learned the word from watching your behavior. he calls you beautiful but only discovered beauty by looking at your face. every compliment he gives you he took from you in the first place)

[and, as a smaller example, he also bemoans the fact that people want to paint the FY in #67, saying, “Why should false painting imitate his cheek, / And steal dead seeming of his living hue?”. and yknow. Joe’s an artist.]

And then another example in #86

Was it the proud full sail of [the rival’s] great verse, Bound for the prize of all too precious you, That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inhearse, Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?

Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?

(ie. he’s talking about how he’s having difficulty writing abt the FY and is rhetorically asking if ‘the proud sail’ of the rival’s verses was the reason his ‘ripe thoughts’ were killed in their ‘womb’. He then asks (again rhetorically) if it was the rival’s ‘spirit’ (or creativity, maybe) ‘’’‘by spirits taught to write’’’’ that killed his own drive to write. none of the analyses I’ve read really explain what shakespeare means by ‘spirits taught to write’, other than maybe being a joke or reference to something we dont know, but... ‘taught by dead people to write in a way mortal people can’t’ very much sounds like a description of an immortal poet, eh?)

Which brings me to,

  D. Willy Boy Thinks There Are 500 Year Old Writings About the Fair Youth

shakespeare talks about people having written about the FY ‘500 years ago’ from the late 1500s in #59 which......................... would have been around 1100 AD. :thinking face:

Oh that record could with a backward look, Even of five hundred courses of the sun, Show me your image in some antique book, Since mind at first in character was done, That I might see what the old world could say To this composed wonder of your frame;

(ie. Oh if I could look back 500 years and see how you were described in some old books so I could see/reference what people used to write about you)

Which again brings me to,

  E. I’m Not Saying shakespeare Stole From Joe, But:

1.) In #22, shakespeare says this,

For all that beauty that doth cover thee, Is but the seemly raiment of my heart, Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me: 

(ie, your beauty is due to the ‘clothes’ my heart gives you-- probably means something like ‘you’re beautiful because i love you’. goes on to say his heart lives in the FY’s chest, and the FY’s heart lives in shakespeare’s chest)

so: shakespeare tells the FY he has shakespeare’s heart. in comparison, Joe calls nicky ‘my heart’ in the comics...... :thinking face x2:

2.) In #109, shakespeare tells the FY ‘thou art my all’,

For nothing this wide universe I call, Save thou, my rose, in it thou art my all.

which rings similar to Joe’s ‘he’s all and he’s more’ as well as (from the comics) ‘he is my everything’

and just saying. joe looks pretty #done the mention of shakespeare.

  F. The last One

Despite shakespeare writing 30+ poems about the FY eventually growing old, the very last poem he writes about/for the FY says,

O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy power Dost hold Time's fickle glass, his sickle hour; Who hast by waning grown, and therein showest Thy lovers withering, as thy sweet self growest. 

(ie. you [the FY] have power over the ‘mirror’ (fickle glass) of time as well as time’s ‘harvesting’ ability (sickle hour) and as you grow older, you remain beautiful while your lovers [shakespeare] wither and grow old)

The transition from ‘get married and have a baby before you get old!!!!’ in #1-20 to talking about the FY’s presence in 500 y/o books in #59 to admitting the FY isn’t growing old in #126 kinda seems to imply shakespeare learning of/about nicky’s immortality at some point, and this last poem is him accepting it.

TLDR: not only does it make perfect sense if nicky was the Fair Youth from the FY sonnets, but it also makes perfect sense if joe was the Rival from the FY sonnets. its canon nothing will convince me otherwise

[kachinnate]

,,,,okay i know i just said i wasn’t going to talk about the deh movie but actually yeah imma talk about it for just a sec bc y’all actually make me legitimately distressed sajkfndsmjkgds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQ_A0H1otc i dont have the braincells to do a shot by shot analysis right now but here’s what we’re lookin at

under a readmore because ghhhhhhh

firstly, let me lead with this: yes, from what we know, there’s a lot of things wrong with this movie. 

the worst, in my humble opinion, being the bts treatment of the (very few) actors of color, and the lack altogether of any production team members of color. that’s something that should be acknowledged, talked about, and fucking dug into especially at the current fucking period of time we’re living in. it’s unsurprising, but disgusting nonetheless, and it set this movie up for failure from the very beginning. i’m a white person so by no means so i feel inclined or like i have any authority in saying what one should feel wrt all of that, however i will say if there’s to be a boycott in not watching this movie, that should 100% be the reason why. it’s fully poc’s choice whether or not to forgive the production team or give this movie a chance for the irredeemable shit it did in regards to handling the movie’s production. the movie imo definitely doesn’t deserve their forgiveness, but again, that is not for me to say. 

there’s some little things too that i can’t fully think of off the top of my head - like, the whole making larry connor’s stepdad thing fucking irks me, for example, but, like...... listen.

if you know me like at all, you know my favorite word is nuance.

so, i’m going to say it outright: the way you people are approaching this three minute trailer shows literally.... none?? no nuance ??? is it no-nuance november over here or ???? like i’m begging you i’m BEGGING YOU to put aside your pre-determined prejudices against this movie and like stop pretending to be a renowned film critic for ten seconds because it’s really not as outright fucking abysmal as you are saying!! and also it’s possible to have opinions that aren’t completely fucking polarized to one side because guess what, the deh movie? a piece of media! what is the shit y’all are constantly preaching about having the ability to consume media critically ? because you’re trying to cancel a fucking trailer based on the contents of the trailer alone !!!!! hello !!!!!!!!

media is bound to be problematic. if y’all were as quick to judge any movie as you did this one, guess what you wouldn’t be watching any movies like ever <3 

anyway lets get into the parts that are probably going to get me cancelled lmao 

ben platt - listen. LISTEN. listen i know he’s too old to be reprising evan we ALL know he’s too old to be reprising evan i’ve heard this same argument since the announcement was made we get it we all know. haha he’s a grandpa yes bestie ur so right ur so funny wow. i do agree that we should’ve maybe had a not-ben-platt evan moment but here’s some things to keep in mind: the arguments of “oooh ABF is right there !!!!!!” 1. who’s to say he was available? 2. the environment of a movie is so, SO much different than that of a musical -- as much as you wanna pretend you know everything from just a trailer, there’s no way of knowing what scenes were added that might’ve made the movie like.. idk possibly more intense story-wise not even COUNTING the fact that just inherently a movie set is different than a musical one? like yes ben platt might be just being used as a device but that’s probably not the sole and only reason. Also, if i see One (1) more comment about his FUCKING HAIR ��� first of all it’s not that deep like... if you’re so distracted by an actor having their hair different that’s on you, but going as far as to call it bad or distracting or being like Vehemently a way about it? y’all i know it’s most likely not your intention but that is literally just ben platt’s natural fuckin ETHNICALLY JEWISH hair sajknfgkjds!!!! i’m not the first to make this point, but like dsjnfkjdsg!??! y’all are being so mean about it and for WHAT? again, maybe not intentional, but it reads as like high key Very antisemetic and you should.... maybe not 😳 be that way

connor. the thing about a trailer is that they don’t show you all the scenes because they want you to come see the movie. right? can we agree on that? all the connor scenes in the trailer had SEVERAL hard cuts, omitting a lot of the scene -- like the computer lab scene! we see the beginning of it, there’s a VERY obvious hard cut, and then he’s running out! in my opinion my first watch through of this trailer i had a very like “:// hmm all these actors feel a lil like dry”, but man oh man the comments ive seen about connor. holy shit guys. this boy gets 7 minutes of stage time in the actual musical, and the whole thing is we DON’T KNOW VERY MUCH ABOUT HIM. not to burst your bubble, and i by no means hate connor, i love me some good connor lives fics and stuff, but everything we write with connor being alive? that is !! speculation on our part !!!! those are headcanons and us using the little context we have!! connor doesn’t have any significant development IN THE SOURCE MATERIAL that is being adapted into a movie !!! you 1. can’t fully judge a character with already limited screentime in a 3 minute trailer, 2. can’t really call what connor has canonically in the musical as in depth character development !! what is his arc then !!!! he pushes evan, goes to the computer lab, has an outcast loner kid moment, gets upset, takes the letter, DIES. sorry stans, that’s just how it is !! and, AND, everything in between, all the idiosyncracies, that depends on the actor playing connor! speaking of, you know who the actor is playing connor in the movie? that’s right, colton ryan! so, i don’t know, maybe... have some trust in the process, in an actor who ALREADY has played connor on broadway???? and also trust that you will get more connor content then u are seeing from a 3 minute trailer!! dhgnijsdg and some of the comments on like his appearance specifically? like are you really made that he doesn’t have long hair?? they kept his nails and his rings but nahhh the hair was apparently a MUST HAVE (even though like.. not all connor actors on broadway always had/have long hair but w/e).. REGARDLESS. tldr on THAT , the movie would have to do a pretty shitty job if they want to take something from someone who doesn’t have much to begin with and i think y’all are being extremely harsh on this point 

jared. honestly i’m a bit worried too about the like... name change, because it does have the potential to be taking out some representation, but... they did change the name to fit the actor’s ethnicity? it’s a really [hmm] topic because, again, from a trailer and from what we have been told we don’t KNOW a lot of the context, but i think it’s important to remember that uh.. jewish people aren’t just? always white ?? there’s a possibility they changed the last name to fit with the [ethnicity] while keeping him jewish?? ofc there’s the possibility that they Didn’t and ... again hm that’s its own thing altogether but just reiterates the point that you can’t knock a whole movie just based on the trailer. you can’t talk about things you know nothing about. 

alana. same thing as before, you can’t.... completely bash a character based on a 3 minute trailer. there was discussion about how she seemed ‘shy’ when talking to evan, which like.. maybe she is but also that scene was them talking in a library like if u actually take notice of what’s happening in the scene jdskngsd though i do share the general consensus with many others that she won’t get a lot of screen-time but that’s neither here nor there 😔 moving on

scenes and the setting. one of the things i was most like.. tentative about in regards to a switch from a musical to a movie was how they were like... going to do certain scenes? naturally, a lot has to be different when we’re going from a minimal stage set to an entire movie with like.. settings. there are going to be new scenes because a movie lends to have like, physical places that aren’t just [evan’s bedroom] and [murphy kitchen] and [implied school]. so new scenes, new conversations, slightly different pacing.. this is all to be expected right like are y’all geneuinely surprised here or ........

there’s a lot we aren’t seeing yet because this is a TRAILER. again i already mentioned this re: connor but like... again, y’all are making some Claims that just... fucking outlandish. there are so many moments in the trailer that are very obvious Hard Cuts. you don’t have all the information yet. you are angry at a tiny fragment of something that is confusing you because you don’t have all the context. is there a chance that some of this shit is just genuinely Bad? yeah but you really cannot 100000% say it with your chest and gauge it without seeing the movie and understanding what that scene is in context. lowkey uhhh saw some jokes about the zoe scene in the car and :’))) ? jesus? christ????

concluding thoughts because my brain hurts but like. you don’t have to like the movie. you don’t have to WATCH the movie. like all media if you choose to consume the movie you should do so with some CRITICAL THOUGHT. but, just like the novel (and i do not want to have any discussions about that i don’t care if you think it’s good Or bad that’s not what this is about) you guys are going in this WANTING to believe it’s bad and completely polarizing your thoughts on what this is going to be. yeah, maybe there shouldn’t be a movie. i genuinely think we could’ve gone without. but it’s just a piece of media, it’s not a progression like all your (musical is good, novel is bad, MOVIE IS WORSE OH NO) posts are suggesting. they are all just. different pieces of media stemming from a source. at the end of the day it’s just a fucking movie. if you already hate it so much, guess what? you don’t have to watch it! you don’t have to put so much needless fucking hate into a 3 MINUTE TRAILER. you can stop being performative and dissing it for its poor treatment of POC while then going on to make fun of ben platt’s hair and just targeting a different group like! please !!!

i’m not trying to be a fuckin’ advocate for this movie because there’s so much opportunity for it to suck, i do Not have high hopes for it, and i’m not even really sure i want to watch it (i bought the novel when it came out and have yet to read it, and i’m sure the movie will like.. elicit very similar vibes from me lsdngjkdsg like im just not uhhh feeling it) but y’know what? watching the trailer did not bring forth the fucking onslaught of hatred in me that apparently has fuckin posessed all of y’all and like djnsgjksdg plagued my dashboard for this whole evening. don’t come into my inbox trying to like.. argue with me about this (preemptively im turning off anon because i like i Can’t lmao) this is just like... a rant i needed to get out of me real quick. 

SO. tldr for now: have critical thought about shit you consume, there’s no ethical consumption under [the film industry], you can’t judge a movie entirely on its trailer, and y’all need to calm the fuck down 

[itsclydebitches]

Hello again! Im the tinfoil hat anon with the long ass asks and I finally had the time to read your response. Thank you, it makes my day reading your answers. I honestly just enjoyed them over a cup of coffee like a good book.

Now, the gun pointing scene I mentioned was in fact the one from the droid fight facility like the other anon suggested. But I really liked that you covered the boat scene too, I haven’t thought of it much myself and now I definitely have!

I also would like to mention I love your “candy bar” choice analogy and I 100% agree Hunter’s “invitation” to join back wasn’t welcoming in the slightest. It is very likely just an obligation as you said. Sort of “you gave us a chance, we owe you a chance too”.

And the problem with it is now I am struggling to figure out how the batch members might change their attitude toward Crosshair going forward, especially Hunter. As of right now Crosshair’s best relationship is not with his brothers but with Omega(as surprising as this is). And I think he does realize now she cared about him the most out of all of them during the short time they interacted(both 1st and last episodes). Even between themselves(not counting Omega) I find most of the bad batch members to be cold and distant to each other. They feel less like a family than Rebels for example. And they aren’t even a “found family”(a trope everyone loves) but an actual one! And I get that they’re soldiers and supposed to be tough, I don’t expect them to share all “the feels”. I just can’t put my finger on it but something feels off. I agree with your previous post, the show doesn’t do a very good job showing or even telling they love each other.

Will Hunter and co only start caring about their brother again only after he leaves the empire?(assuming he does at some point). What about Disney’s prevailing theme and message that “family always love and care for each other no matter what”? I guess it’s “family always love and care for each other but only if you’re good guys making right choices”. There is no room for mistakes or wrong decisions. In the last episode everyone form the batch seemed to have given up on Crosshair(besides Omega). For now their attitude seems to be just “you’re not our enemy” and that’s that.

I realize Crosshair is a “bad guy” and consciously made his choice(and we know it’s the wrong one) but to me it felt like he thought he didn’t even had a choice or rather became so lost and confused he actually thought he chose the empire as “the lesser evil”(as in the less shitty choice out of all the other bad ones). We as audience have the benefit to know exactly how atrocious the empire really is but maybe Crosshair still doesn’t realize that.

So what exactly must Crosshair do to get back “in their good graces” as you say? Start saving “the good guys”? Save the bad batch multiple times? There is a popular opinion on how Crosshair can redeem himself. That he eventually heroically sacrifices himself to save them. I personally REALLY hope it’s NOT what’s going to happen but I heard so many people speculating his story is set up to be redemption=death. I know you mentioned you don’t want “Vader style redemption” either. Personally I think it would be a waste of a character who has a lot of potential. And I just think that the batch kind of don’t really deserve his sacrifice(maybe save for Omega) after how they never tried to save him themselves and how they treated him overall. Maybe he will risk his life to save Omega at some point and that will “prove” to Hunter he cares? Although he has already shown he cares by saving her(even if in Crosshair’s own words it’s just so they’re “even”). And the thing is, he doesn’t need to prove that he loves them, he already did that in episode 15 and made it clear he does care. He actually went to extreme by shooting his squad to prove his loyalty. What were the moments the batch demonstrated they care about him? Hunter saying “you never were our enemy” and taking his unconscious body to safety? To me Hunter “not leaving him behind” during bombardment felt more like guilt about the last time it happened and an obligation to Crosshair for helping them with droids, rather than them showing care. And I kinda of think if that was any random civilian(or anyone other than an enemy or a threat) they would carry them out too just because that’s what good guys do and not because it’s their brother. You also mentioned that minutes later Hunter snaps at him with “if you want to stay here and die, that’s your choice” which I agree can be interpreted in different ways. And I think it’s one more point to it being an obligation that in Hunter’s eyes is fulfilled now. He corrected his mistake of leaving a brother behind and saved him this time, now his guilt won’t burden him any longer.

Anyway, I can’t wait for season 2 and I appreciate you and all the anons sharing the tinfoil hat, interacting and speculating together. Those discussions have been a lot of fun!

TLDR: How do your think the relationship between the brothers will mend or evolve in the next season? Do you think S2 will improve in portraying the batch more as a family rather than a group of mercs doing missions together? What are your thoughts on the popular idea of Crosshair’s redemption by ultimate sacrifice? As in, how likely do you think this scenario is?

Anon, that is just wonderfully hilarious to me. Ah yes, the sunrise, a good cup o' joe, and the overly long character analysis of a snarky, fictional sniper. Exactly what everyone needs in the morning! 😆

You know, TBB is far from the first show I've watched where there's an obvious, emotional conclusion the creator wants the audience to come to—the squad all love each other Very Much—yet that conclusion isn't always well supported by the text. It creates this horribly awkward situation where you're going, "Yes, I'm fully aware of what the show wanted to do, but this reading, arguably, did not end up in the story itself. So what are we talking about here? The intention, or the execution?" It's like Schrödinger's Bad Batch where the group is simultaneously Very Loving and Very Distant depending on how much meta-aspects are influencing your reading: those authorial intentions, understanding of how found family tropes should work, fluff focused fics/fan art that color our understanding of the characters, etc. And, of course, whether someone saw TCW before they watched TBB. I personally wouldn't go quite so far as to say they're "cold" towards one another—with Crosshair as an exception now—but there wasn't the level of bonding among the squad that I expected of a show called The Bad Batch. Especially compared to their arc in TCW. The other night I re-watched the season seven premiere and was struck not just by how much more the squad interacted with each other back then, but how those interactions added depth to their characters too. For example, Crosshair is the mean one, right? He's the one picking fights with the Regs? Well yeah... but it's also Wrecker. While they're trying to decide what to do with Cody injured, Jesse calls out Crosshair on his attitude—"You can't talk to Captain Rex like that!"—and Wrecker's immediate response is, "Says who?" and he hefts Jesse into the air. And then he just holds him there, clearly using his superior strength to do as he pleases, until Hunter (sounding pretty angry) tells him to put Jesse down. If Wrecker had put him into a more classically understood bullying position, like pinning him to the ground, it would probably read as less funny—less "Haha strong clone lifts Jesse up in the air!" and more "Oh shit, strong clone can do whatever the hell he wants to the Regs and few are able to stop him." It's such a quick moment, but it tells us a ton about Wrecker. That he's going to stick up for his brothers, no matter the context (Crosshair deserves to be called out). That he will gleefully assist Crosshair in bothering the Regs (something that is reinforced when he later throws the trays in the mess hall, after Hunter has already deescalated the situation). That he's likely been hurt by awful treatment from the Regs too. That he'll only listen to Hunter when it comes to backing off. Little of this work—that interplay among the squad that shows us new sides to them other than basic things like "Wrecker is the nice, happy brother"—exists in TBB.

Or, at least, little exists after Omega becomes an official member of the squad.

Because, as said previously, she becomes the focus. I don't mean that as a total criticism. As established, I love Omega. But if we're talking about why the squad can feel so distant from each other, I think she's the root cause, simply because the story became all about her relationships with the Batch, rather than the Batch's relationships with each other. Having dived headfirst into reading and writing fic, it occurred to me just how many of the bonding moments we love, the sort of stuff we'll see repeated in fics because we understand that this is where the story's emotional center is, are given to Omega in canon:

Someone is hurt and in need of comfort. Omega's emotional state is the focus + moments like her being worried over Hunter getting shot.

Someone needs to learn a new skill. Echo teaches Omega how to use her bow.

Someone reveals a skill they never knew they had before. Omega is a strategic genius and plays her last game with Hunter.

Someone is in serious danger and in need of rescue. Omega rescues the group from the slavers + is the most vocal about rescuing Hunter. (Which, again, is a pretty sharp contrast to the whole Crosshair situation.) Omega, in turn, needs rescuing from things like the decommission conveyor belt.

Similarly, someone is kidnapped and in need of rescue. Omega is kidnapped twice by bounty hunters and the Batch goes after her.

Someone saves another's life. Omega saves Crosshair from drowning.

Someone does something super sweet for another. Wrecker gives Omega her room. Omega gives Wrecker Lula.

A cute tradition is established between characters. Wrecker has his popcorn-esque candy sharing with Omega.

Someone hurts someone else and has to ask forgiveness. Wrecker is upset about nearly shooting Omega and they have that sweet moment together.

Note that most of these examples could have occurred between other Batch members, but didn't. Someone could have created a space for Echo on the ship too. Wrecker also could have apologized to Tech for choking him, etc. It's not that those moments shouldn't happen with Omega, just that there should be more of a balance across the whole season, especially for a show supposedly focused on the original squad. Additionally, it's not that cute bonding moments between the rest of the Batch don't exist. I love Hunter selling Echo off as a droid. I love Wrecker and Tech bickering while fixing the ship. I love the tug-of-war to save Wrecker from the sea monster. Yes, we do have moments... it's just that comparatively it feels pretty skewed in Omega's direction.

So, as a VERY long-winded way of answering your question, I think we need to fix the above in order to tackle Crosshair's redemption in season two. Now that we've had a full season focused on Omega, we need to strike a better balance among the rest of the squad moving forward. We need to re-established the "obvious" conclusion that the rest of the Batch loves Crosshair and that's done (in part) by establishing their love for one another too. To my mind, both goals go hand-in-hand, especially since you can develop their relationship with Crosshair and their relationships with each other simultaneously. Imagine if instead of just having Wrecker somewhat comically admit that he misses Crosshair (like he's dead and they can't go get him??), he and Tech had a serious conversation about why they can't get him back yet, despite very much wanting to. Imagine if Echo, the one who was rescued against all odds, got to scream at Hunter to go get Crosshair like Omega screamed at them to go back for Hunter. Imagine if we'd gotten more than a tiny arc in TCW to establish the Batch's dynamic with each other, providing a foundation for how they would each react to Crosshair's absence. Instead, what little we've got in TBB about Crosshair's relationship with his brothers is filtered through Omega: Omega's embarrassment that she knocked over Crosshair's case, Omega treating Crosshair's comm link like a toy, Omega's quest to save Hunter that just happened to involve Crosshair along the way.

Obviously, at this point we can't fix how the first season did things, but I think we can start patching over these issues in season two. It would be jarring—we'd still be 100% correct to ask where this "Brothers love you, support you, and will endlessly fight for you" theme was for Crosshair's entire time under the Empire's thumb... but I'd take an about-face into something better than not getting any improvement at all. It is frustrating though, especially for a show that I otherwise really, really enjoyed. For me, the issue isn't so much that the show made a mistake (since no show is perfect), but that the mistake is attached to such a foundational part of the franchise. Not just in terms of "SW is about hope and forgiveness" but the specific relationship most clones have with each other: a willingness to go above and beyond for their brothers. The focus on Omega aside, it's hard to believe in the family dynamic when one member of the family was so quickly and easily dismissed. I couldn't get invested in Hunter's rescue as much as I should have because rather than going, "Yes!! Save your brother!!!" my brain just kept going, "Lol where was this energy for Crosshair?" It messes with your reading of the whole story, so in order to fix that mistake going forward, we need to start seeing the bonds that only sometimes exist in season one. Show the guys expressing love for one another more consistently (in whatever way that might be—as you say, soldiers don't have to be all touchy-feely. Give us more moments like Wrecker supporting his brothers' bad habits) and then extend that to Crosshair. Which brother is going to demand that they fight for him? Which brother is going to acknowledge that they never tried to save him? Which brother is going to question this iffy statement about the chip? In order to buy into the family theme, Omega can't be the only one doing that emotional work.

Ideally, I wouldn't want Crosshair to go out of his way to prove that he's a good guy now. I mean, I obviously want him to stop helping the Empire and such, duh lol, but I'm personally not looking for a bunch of Extra Good Things directed at the Batch as a requirement for forgiveness. Simply because that would reinforce the idea that they're 100% Crosshair's victims, Crosshair is 100% the bad guy, and he's the only one who needs to do any work to fix this situation. Crosshair needs to stop doing bad things (working for Empire). But the Batch needs to start doing good things too (reaching out to him). Especially since Crosshair made a good play already, only to be met with glares and distrust. He saved Omega! And AZI! And none of them cared. So am I (is Crosshair) supposed to believe that saving one of their lives again will result in a different reaction? That doesn't make much sense. And no, his own life wasn't at risk when he did that, but does every antagonist need to die/nearly die to prove they're worth fighting for? As you say, he's already shown that he loves them, far more than they've shown the reverse. Every time Crosshair hurt them (attacking) it was while he was under the chip's influence. In contrast, the group has no "I was being controlled" excuse for when they hurt him (abandonment). Season two needs to acknowledge the Batch's responsibility in all this—and acknowledge that they're all victims of the Empire—in order to figure out an appropriate arc for Crosshair's redemption.

Right now, the issue is not Crosshair loving his brothers, the issue is how Crosshair chooses to express that love: trying to keep them safe and giving them a purpose in life by joining the organization that's clearly going to dominate the galaxy. The only way to fix that, now that his offer has been rejected, is for him to realize that a life on the run from the Empire, together, is a better option for everyone. And the only way for that to happen is for the Batch to seriously offer him a place with them again. They need to make the first move here. They need to fight for him. And yeah, I totally get that a lot of people don't like that because it's not "fair." He's the bad guy. He's with the fascist allegory. He's killed people and has therefore lost any right to compassion and effort from the good guys... but if that's the case, then we just have to accept that (within the story-world, not from a writing perspective) Crosshair is unlikely to ever come back from this. When people reach that kind of low, they rarely pull themselves out on their own. They need other people to help them do that. Help them a lot. But with the exception of Omega's reminder—which Crosshair can't believe due to how everyone else has treated him—they leave him alone and seem to expect him to fix himself first, then he gets their support. It needs to be the other way around. Support is what would allow him to become a good guy again, not "Well, you'll get our love when you're good again, not before." That's unlikely to occur and, as discussed, it doesn't take into account things like this bad guy life being forced on Crosshair at the start. If the story really wanted this to be a matter of ideological differences... then make it about ideological differences. Let Crosshair leave of his own free will, right at the start. Don't enslave him for half the season, have him realize he was abandoned, imply all that brainwashing, give him no realistic way out, and then punish him for not doing the right thing. This isn't a situation where someone went bad for the hell of it—the story isn't asking us to feel compassion for, say, the Admiral—it's a situation where Crosshair was controlled and now can't see a way out. That context allows for the Batch, the good guys, to fight for him without the audience thinking the show is just excusing that behavior. They should have been fighting from the start, but since they didn't, I hope we at least start seeing that in season two.

Ultimately though... I don't really expect all of the above. The more balanced dynamics and having the Batch fight for Crosshair rather than Crosshair going it alone... I wouldn't want to bet any money on us getting it, just because these are things that should have been established in season one and would have been more easy to pull off in season one. (If the Batch wouldn't fight for Crosshair while he was literally under the Empire's control, why would they fight now when he's supposedly acting of his own free will? It's backwards in terms of the emotional effort involved.) But again, it could happen! I'd be very pleased if it did happen, despite the jarring change. I don't want to make it sound like I think they're going to write off Crosshair entirely. Far from it, I think there are too many details like his sad looks for that, to say nothing of Omega's compassion. But the execution of getting him on Team Good Guys again might be preeeetty bumpy. I expect it to revolve around Crosshair's sins and Crosshair's redemption, even if what I would like is balancing that with Crosshair's loss of agency, the Batch's mistakes, and their own redemption towards him.

Honestly though, I just hope that whatever happens happens soon. It's a personal preference, absolutely, but after a season of Crosshair as the antagonist, I'm ready for him to be back with the group, making the Empire (and bounty hunters) the primary enemy. Whether his return happens through a mutual acknowledgement of mistakes, or through Crosshair being depicted as the only one in the wrong who has to do something big to be forgiven... just get him back with the squad lol. Because if the writing isn't going to delve into that nuance, then the longer he remains unforgiven, the longer some of us have to watch a series while going, "Wait, wait, wait, I really don't agree with how you're painting this picture."

[the-bloody-masquerade]

Bloodlines 2 - They/Them Pronouns and Trans and Asexual Representation

There has been some discussion recently regarding information that was presented in a recent podcast interview given by Bloodlines 2 writers Brian Mitsoda and Cara Ellison. I think it is important to know what was and what was not said and understand it in context so I would like to provide a transcript to the passages in question for us to reference as we continue to have discourse around the issue.

I also want to try to give a little more insight as to why they/them pronouns were not able to be added to the game as there are some substantial programming concerns when it comes to adding conditional content that cannot be accessed in versions of the game where the language used only has two pronouns instead of three.

This comes from episode 22 of The RE:BIND Podcast. Published on June 22nd, 2020. The interviewer is Emily Rose, the interviewees are Cara Ellison and Brian Mitsoda, lead co-writers of Bloodlines 2 (Mitsoda having been the original Writer on Bloodlines 1)

Character Creation and Pronouns (passage starts at 1:14:45)

Note: [...] denotes a false start or when they start their sentence over a couple times.  

Emily: In Bloodlines 2, how is character creation being handled in terms of gender?  

Cara: Oh, character creation. So, one of the major problems we have is, and actually this is not unique to us, but the entire industry, is that localization severely limits the way you can write characters and we’re actually coming up against this problem now even though we have made a bunch of decisions on like how you refer to the player character and the characters in our game. But like, a major problem that we always have in video games is that English has a way to refer to people who don’t want to have a gender. And a lot of languages around the world, don’t have that.   

Brian: Currently, there’s like, movements in some languages to get that.  

Cara: Right like, so if your Quebecois, there’s a term that’s like generally recognized as being ‘they’ that you can use, but a lot of languages might have people who for example are agender, but the terms that they use to refer to themselves are not thoroughly recognized throughout their language and country. And that provides us with a humungous problem because we are making a game about Seattle, and there are a large number of people who live in Seattle who don’t want to have a gender or don’t want to be referred to as a particular gender or they frankly don’t identify as a particular thing, so we represent those characters like we normally would, but we run into a bunch of problems when we try to localize. So like, in the character creation section what we decided was the best option for us is to essentially let you create the way your character looks in like, entirely separate of gender, so you can make your character look any way you like as masculine or as feminine or whatever you like. […] You basically can then say ‘I want to be referred to as ‘he’ or I want to be referred to as ‘she,’ and that’s the option that we give you. The reason we don’t give you the they/them option is because […] I think there are four or five languages that can do this, but a lot of European languages can’t refer to the player character as ‘they’ or ‘them’ because they have to choose one or the other, so, we ended up not being able to do the they/them option for the character creation. So we basically tried to give you a way of expressing yourself and how you look, whatever, but we do end up actually asking you to specify ‘he’ or ‘she’ because it actually is just the way we had to do it for localization. […] For example, when I worked at MiniMolecule they had the exact same problem and it’s a problem of scale as well, because if the scale was just like we only release in English, we could have done the third option, we just couldn’t do it. And also because, we actually systemically throughout the game, its structured to be able to like have lots of interactions based on your identity so we had to sort of choose that early on, so it kind of got structured that way as well. But we do have main characters in the game who do not have a defined gender, and at least if you play the game in English they will be referred to as ‘they.’ We did have the option for NPCs at least in English, to have that referent, but unfortunately, we were very limited by localization on that point. And we’re not the only game that’s limited by that, but as this is kind of more, this kind of specific thing in language rolls out across lots more languages I think actually it will become easier to do this over a time, I think, as well. I’m hoping, at least.  

TLDR; You will create your characters appearance separate from physical sex or gender and then you will pick he/him or she/her pronouns. The reason why they/them is not being included is because most of the languages that the game is being localized in do not have a 3rd/gender neutral set of pronouns and [presumably] would require all version of the game that only include 2 pronouns (because of language) to have their dialogue systems reworked/separately programmed. 

This is a bit different than “they should just put they/them in the English localization then.” If pronouns will be a character creation option that probably means they will be set up as a content trigger, which is what determines which voice and text lines you get (to correspond to your gender). For languages that only have two pronouns, what would you do with that third content trigger representing the they/them pronouns? They also talked content “structured to to be able to have interactions based on your identity.” If there were interactions that were only triggered by the they/them choice in character select, this content would effectively be lost in localizations that only had two pronouns in character select, (barring a comprehensive structural overhaul for regions with only two pronouns) 

The quicker way to do this would just be to have most NPCs use as little gendered language as possible to make most lines an content universal/not have to trigger alternate text/content based on the pronoun choice, but then this may defeat the purpose of being able to customize your PC’s gender and pronouns to begin with.  I do not mean to be an apologist. Gender neutral pronouns in RPGs are frankly overdue as an industry standard it is disheartening to hear that they/them will not be a choice in Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 2. I just wanted to try and elaborate on why the inclusion/exclusion of gender neutral pronouns in a game slated for world release is from a programming standpoint more involved that one may at first think.

Trans Representation in Bloodlines 2 (1:19:37)

Emily: So obviously we have some kind of gender-nonconforming representation. What is there in terms of maybe more specific representation, like say, are there any transmen are there any transwomen? Anything like that. Is that brought up at any point during the game?

Cara: […] I think what we want to do in the future is, actually have some main characters be transmen or transwomen, but I don’t—unless the junior writers have actually—actually no the junior writers have written some characters new that we have specified to be trans. But I would have to check, unfortunately, I don’t think we have actually put anyone who’s trans into the game currently unless I’m forgetting about someone. But yeah, I think our plans are to do that, but we didn’t want to do it like we’re just oh, we’re gonna just put it in…

Brian: Yeah there’s definitely […] when you’re doing the [game] design stuff, you’re looking for a character that might fit for the scene or the quest or the story beat that you’re doing and so one thing I never want to do just try to shoehorn in everything that we want to do.

Cara: By the time I had joined the main cast had been very clearly defined, so we didn’t have the option to add a trans main character which is what we have wanted to do.

Brian: Yeah, I would also like it, if we do add a trans character, we can find a voice actor who’s also…

Cara: …trans as well.

Quests with Trans Themes and DLC  (1:21:24)

(immediately follows last section)

Emily: That was gonna to be my next question, so that’s really good to hear actually. So I totally understand how it goes just in terms of like, the preplanning and establishing the world and things like that, and the main reason I bring it up in the first place is just because so much of Vampire does tend to gravitate around people’s identities their expressiveness with both their sexuality and who they are and so it’s just something that’s like kind of been kind of been some sort of undertone in the series for a long time so I was just curious how it was being handled in Bloodlines 2. Those are pretty sufficient answers.

[…a brief interlude where they talked about a random quest from Bloodlines 1]

(1:23:00)

Cara: We actually have a quest based on the idea of dysmorphia, like feeling like you’re trapped in your body and it doesn’t match the way you perceive yourself. A lot of our writing is based on what it actually feels like to be in this state of stasis when you weren’t expecting to feel that because it has happened suddenly to you. And so there are loads of issues that would be really valuable to explore in that way, and you know we have staff who are super interested in giving their input on that, so I think we should definitely approach it, we just haven’t actually put it in the game in terms of main characters. We wanna make a trans main character, I think that’s important to us. We’ve got some DLC coming up that we’re gonna like make a greater effort on that front, like its Seattle, it would be so weird if we didn’t have trans characters. [Note: Cara lives in Seattle currently. 

Brian: Mmhmm

Cara: So, yeah. [to Brian] Ask Margaret as well, our voiceover director, if there are any trans actors that she would recommend we could cast for the role and maybe write it for them. So yeah.

Emily: So that’s the thing and even I struggle really to think of many games that have a trans character in a main role, let alone--I can’t actually think off the top of my head unless they’re very like micro indie stuff any games that feature like a trans woman protagonist. I think the last time I saw a transwoman in a game was I think I wanna say like Dishonoured 2, one of the semi-core side characters you encountered for one of the quests is a documented as trans.

Cara: And I think the Dishonoured 2 team really really really made a huge effort on that front to be able to represent a huge variety of different backgrounds of people. They were very interested in [doing that] from the start, so yeah I think there are like some games where it does matter too, and it really feels like the world is bigger when you actually provide those characters.

In-game Asexual Characters and Their Ideal Approach to Portraying LGBT+ characters.  (1:25:29)

Cara: But yeah, like we have tried to represent asexuality as well in the game.

Emily: Good good.

Cara: We have characters who are asexual. Who are canon asexual. And yeah, […] We try as well, not to write it sort of clumsily, we don’t write characters that like, out themselves, because that’s not—

Brian: No, because generally someone does come up and say that immediately.

Cara: when you’re from a background that has been marginalized, you’re very aware of your own safety. Especially if a stranger who looks shady approaches you, like our characters, you’re not gonna like immediately say it. But we make it explicit that this is who they are, but not in a way like ‘Hi, I’m Cara! I’m transgender!’ You know?

Brian: Yeah, yeah.

Cara: I think some of the ways in which people have done it in the past have been a little clumsy so I’m very aware of that as well.

Brian: Yeah, I would never want to handle it in a way that’s like ‘The main thing about that character is that they are trans’ like that’s not right at all

Cara: I want the main thing about that person to be something that they’re interested in, like, actually like exploring with the player character and I think like, most people are coming from somewhere when they approach you and its not going to be about I want to talk about my…[they both trail off laughing,]

Brian: They probably want to talk about a way in which they’re going to fuck you over. Or get something from you, or get you to do something for them.

Cara: Yeah and I would love to write a trans character who is like really really interesting and really really involved in something and I don’t want it [their transness] to be their defining [feature].

~~

Thank you for reading.

[eeemarvel]

Uncommon characteristics ask, Pyre, numbers 15, 30, 40 and Letter B please!😊

Let’s see if I can manage to not erase this response this time lol. Sorry for the wait and thank you for the ask!!

15. How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

I’m gonna take the best stab at this I can because I’m not exactly the best at describing physical things (although when I think of Pyre speaking, I know exactly what he sounds like). 

I’ll say that he’s boisterous, loud, and explicit. He sometimes takes special care to enunciate words with an added degree of sharpness. I can definitely say that Pyre doesn’t rehearse the things he says, even if he does often sound like an actor delivering lines on the stage of Broadway. But his words are not premeditated; he’s got plenty of venom to spare at the tip of his tongue and everything he says, he says with the intention to sting. 

His desire to hurt people with his words coupled with his teasing and somewhat flirtatious personality is what makes the things he says so powerful (???). He’s definitely a pro at getting a rise out of people. He isn’t manipulative and doesn’t play mind games, but what he does is good enough. He makes people angry enough to give him a real fight which is what he wants. He just likes stoking fires. 

30. Who do they most regret meeting? 

It’s definitely not Victor, that’s for sure. Victor is a constant in his life that he has come to expect and has resolved himself to look for whenever it does not come immediately to him because.. well there’s a lot going on there with that, isn’t it? His relationship with Victor isn’t exactly the question so I’ll just leave it at this: Pyre is competitive and egotistical. Victor is the only one alive who he believes to be on his level and he wants to change that. Permanently. 

Pyre doesn’t really hold anyone in high enough regard or esteem to have as strong a feeling as regret towards their presence in his life. That being said, there aren’t many in his life. If I had to pick someone, it would perhaps be the Ares Island warden. The person in charge of the prison housing the world’s most dangerous super villains is no Mr. Rogers. At least when Pyre talks back to Victor, he has his powers to fall back on... on AI, he’s just some guy.

40. How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

Ah, now this is the passage that caused me the greatest deal of pain when i GOOFED and deleted it. 

Pyre is acutely aware of his ability level as well as areas that have room for improvement or evolution, so much so that he doesn’t need to be using fire in order to practice how to use it. For example, when he terrorized Victor with that huge burning bird, he said he got the inspiration when he heard the news about Victor’s fire flock. He heard that news while on AI but still managed to imagine a way to make that happen without ever having done it before. 

But this doesn’t necessarily reflect his own abilities of introspection. 

Pyre is stuck in a routine of seeking validation through trying again and again to best heroes at his game. And in a way, it works. Just because the good guys always manage to arrest him in the end doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve “won”. Some heroes come out of fights with him looking ... a bit crispy? And if not badly injured, they are most likely some combination of incensed, riled up, distracted, or dishonored in a way that is not befitting of a hero. 

Heroes are noble and good. They take the high road and do not behave the way a villain does: out of anger, vengeance, or spite. If a hero behaves that way, their image cracks a bit, and those cracks are harder to fix than a crack in a bone. If Pyre can create some of those cracks, that’s somewhat of a win, is it not? A hero with a wounded ego is easier to overpower the next time they throw hands. 

Oh wow, maybe he is manipulative?

But, I digress. 

Pyre is stuck in a routine of seeking validation because that is what he can afford to think about when it comes to imagining his future. To summarize the words of a very long and dead passage that I unintentionally murdered with my own hands: he’s not going to have a revelation on his own. Right now, the game he’s playing works for him. It gives him a goal, every day, for as long as he can keep it up, and those goals satisfy him. He has no reason to stop playing the game. And to be clear, the game is to get as many strong people as possible to prove to him what he’s already thinking: that he’s the best in the world. 

I’m not sure how much I want to elaborate on this right now because I’m still debating how much of his story I want to flesh out and with which characters... but for now, just know that he sees no reason in changing the way he does things, no reason to be introspective and take a step towards some change.

B)  What inspired you to create them?

When I originally imagined this fic, it was just supposed to be fluff about the YOI gang as heroes. But even back then, Pyre was still pretty much the same character that he is now. I made him specifically for Victor because Victor needed an “archenemy”. 

Victor has control over an entire spectrum of power. On one side of that spectrum, we have powers that are more often associated with “good”: water and ice. Those elements can be healing, defensive, or protective. The elements of heat and fire are more often associated with “evil” because it’s hard to do much protecting with something that hurts to the touch. To add insult to injury, he doesn’t really have a choice in the matter because he can’t use water during the day. If he wants to be a hero, he has to find a way to make his power work for him. Victor worked diligently to figure out exactly how to make fire gentle. How to turn a weapon into a shield. 

For most people with fire abilities, this isn’t really a problem. For starters, they’re not heroes lol. They just don’t have the sheer amount of power that Victor does. He can make a bonfire with a snap of his fingers without breaking a sweat. Comparatively, someone like Noor can light their fists on fire for a few hours before they start feeling woozy. So normal people don’t feel the kind of pressure Victor is under because they’re playing with matches while he’s got... idk... a bazooka? 

Pyre is on his level, but Pyre woke up and chose violence. And in this world, people kind of expect him to in an ironic (but definitely not ironic when they’re right) way... the social culture around powers is kind of like our culture surrounding astrology. People with fire powers are kinda treated the way we treat people who are scorpios or geminis. We just kind of expect someone with fire powers to have a “bad” personality. Idk why I’m rambling but I’m basically saying that Victor could be Pyre but far worse. 

Pyre is egotistical. Victor himself admitted he was a bit vain. They’re both competitive, Pyre to a horrible fault, Victor to some degree of regret and embarrassment (heroes shouldn’t behave the way he does around Pyre). Pyre and Victor are both teasing and flirtatious. They’re both dramatic. They both crave attention, in different ways, but again, they’re occupying opposite sides of the same spectrum. And they’re both insanely good at using fire; they’re innovative, sharp, and quick. 

Pyre is deeply flawed, horrible, and definitely sorta kinda yes definitely a murderer. Victor, while he has his minor flaws, is no where near the kind of evil Pyre is, so I’m not saying that Victor would just start terrorizing the town after having a bad day. I’m saying that if he wasn’t also compassionate and loving, he could’ve gone down a darker road. Pyre’s goal is to prove that he’s the best. Victor’s goal is to protect those who don’t have the power to do it themselves. That alone puts miles and miles and miles between them on that spectrum they occupy. 

Victor needed someone to give him trouble. I also needed a way to show the difference between a hero using fire and a villain doing it. 

So Pyre was originally made for the plot, I guess. 

TLDR: Pyre is naturally a drama queen, he doesn’t regret meeting anyone except maybe the AI warden, and I made him so everyone can appreciate the fact that Victor is good and not a dirtbag.