#but this specific part? the way it comes together into a cohesive story? yeah

[andbrokenmemories]

So it's weird how like. The Kennet girls are good at everything, aren't they? [pale spoilers ahead]

Like that's obvious, it's textual -- it's very textual, other characters being in something like awe over it over and over and over across the story. The girls are very good at this, and they have a deep well of power. This comes up continuously.

what's weird is thaaat a lot of the fanbase seem to like, enjoy that. Enjoy having protagonists who can play around with magic in a way Blake never ever could have. I kind of get that, I won't like shit-talk it too hard. (I do like Verona, y'know?)

But it's an interesting fact. Because Wildbow's the underdog protagonist guy! At least in action scenes, that's his whole thing! Taylor and Blake have to eat shit and die to claw their way to victory, and often those scenes work for me. And it's one of the things I think WB gets the most praise for? Like, from his established base. It's a conscious choice to not do that for Pale. He like, introduced the idea that this kind of wild practitioner would be especially powerful. He made that up for this book.

I wonder what that decision looks like -- after Ward, and Ward's issues, especially, since that seemed to be the first break from this. Underdog protagonists seem to be the default, for him; the thing he has most experience with. I've seen posts from him describing his process -- put characters against the wall without having a pre-planned out for them, so WB himself has to puzzle out exactly what they can use to make it out alive -- and he seemed to derive like... An actual enjoyment, out of it?

Yeah, there are fights in Pale where they're up against the wall... even one where, with Dire Consequences for us all, Wildbow had them lose because he couldn't see a way for them to win!

But it's not the same. I'd honestly say they usually lose because of their like, lack of full maturity -- their child soldier-y emotional rawness and uncertainty -- their lack of cohesion, as the book usually plays it. Lucy cannot stop John from joining the Contest because she can't hold her nerve against him. The girls cannot stop the murder plot from coming to fruition because they lack unity, aren't working together as a team. Emotional stuff. The girls have more tools in their box than any Wildbow protagonist before them, by far, but they can't always use them properly to get the W, for emotional reasons, for character reasons.

In theory, that's an interesting direction (maybe, possibly), and I should be relieved that Wildbow is trying something fresh. In practice... I've said I don't like Pale's fight scenes. I think Wildbow is plainly worse at this than the content of his previous works.

Part of this is seen in the Contest. Or, at least, how Wildbow Posts about it. If you can't tell, a specific WoG lives in my brain: Wildbow said once that he kept the story going past Break because he genuinely did not believe the trio could beat Maricica. I can imagine him doing his typical calculus for this, and what led him to that conclusion, maybe. For example, we've heard a lot about the ability of the Fae to manipulate stuff, aaaand to have the girls come along and undo all of that with minimal information to begin with wouuld sort of. Damage our belief in Faerie significance. Still, though -- cards on the table, here -- I think this was a Dumb and Bad choice. (It's a sidenote to this post, but I think it's very strange that, in-story the straw that breaks the camel's back is shown to be the Alabaster allowing shit to go on rather than throwing in with John, effectively a betrayer revealed moment -- a thing that, even if sorta his intention from the start, he could simply say 'aw beans i never really planned this out far enough' and just drop. for the sake of wrapping up a better story. and naturally i believe this would have been better also because it means we never would have fucking gotten White Woman Animus!! i digress. i digress.)

Maricica had weaknesses the story gave us to nibble on, and those weaknesses... are just kind of dangling threads, now? As of where I hopped off? like, guess she can't be that inexperienced with people if she became a goddess and started a cult and helped with all that red heron shit lol

So it's that thing I said, about fight scenes being more character driven. But then also, he's clearly thinking about this the same way as ever! As shown by his weird logic with framing the story going past Break as a thing he Had To Do, for Logical Reasons, or at least that weighing on the decision. a thing that is silly and i disagree with on it's face. right?

And then this shows in the sheer quantity of fight scenes -- if the girl's main limiter is internal emotional context and stuff........... uh... why are there so many fights? Why wouldnt the story naturally curve towards. having fewer fight scenes when theres no other way to square things away. that progress character arcs. whyyy do i care about fight scene 129 when i know how strong these girls are. whyyy are we fighting so many random others, and dedicating genuinely long segments of story to them, rather than montaging that shit? Getting it over with? If it has to be there at all? (for reference -- I just tried to think of a Random Pale Fight i fully don't think mattered. i selected the random like. angel summoner guy? with the fortnite constructor angel. that's a part of the musser invasion or whatever. this is a character with literally no substance, just a musser-side goon. From him entering the ongoing! fight to Lucy getting out of dodge is 4.6k words. Plague 12.7, the Mannequin fight, up to Mannequin leaving -- that's almost the entire chapter -- is 6.9k words. on the worm wiki, i saw there's a brief 'major events' summary of that chapter. i couldnt tell you the major events of the Pale chapter, of which that section of fight is like a third, maybe. lucy gets a bit more upset. lucy gets in a few quips against musser-side characters that actually matter but actually dont matter much to how that broader conflict is resolved. i guess.)

Wildbow writes any random fight the girls get into as being worth as many words as his fights in the past! the scrappy, pay-offy ones. bleh. My point in all this: you cannot simply set your protags up in the way I'm positing, here, and then continue to use the same vocabulary of every other serial anyway. it straight up doesn't work. it's exhausting. The Future is An Eternal Slaughterhouse 9000 Arc. Look, thats a criticism that boils down to 'web serials are too long'. And I'm not sure I care too much about web serials being too long! I have read longer web serials with longer fight scenes! I have written fiction with a longer average word count per chapter than Wildbow, at least during Worm! its a real criticism, but its not one im amazingly interested in personally. But the Kennet three could've had weaknesses to play around -- or at least, more weaknesses. We are in a Post-Pact world, and in this Post-Pact world, the magic in Pale really barely feels like it, uh, relies on discourse and presentation. like at all. And that seems like an option to give these characters obstacles! An option Wildbow gestures at during the Musser meta-arc!

but what struck me getting that word count comparison earlier, skimming that fight? The girls just aren't operating in that world. There's never a thought for presentation -- maybe sometimes, for a slight edge. But it never really matters, certainly not after the blue heron. They're using glamour as a workhorse tool, covering goblins in it for brief misdirects to get an edge in a fight; they're calling on the same shrine spirits over and over. They don't build up tools over a portion of story then cash them out for a satisfying win, they're just... strong. They have more items in their bags than Wildbow probably knows what to do with. Strong enough for just Lucy to dunk on any random set of practitioners, but not strong enough for the story to just skip that part, and not strong enough to just solve the plot until it's time to go fuck up Charles and end the story.

I know you could argue that I'm making this up, or that it's what some people prefer to what Pact was doing. But I just think it's not even what wildbow is good at! (and i always theorize that when wildbow is writing kind of bad, it's probably because he's not actually engaged or happy with what he's putting himself through. did he read a specific thing that made him personally excited to make the girls so versatile? I don't really know, but I don't get that vibe.)

And I have a couple of specific things I want to point out to try and prove this is like. a thing at all, to wrap up on: First, Glamour is used as this very, uh, soft magic thing, this very basic narrative tool. A pure mechanic of, like, mental states. If you're shaken, if you're uncertain, your glamour gives out on you -- if you shake your opponents, make them skittish, your glamour is better at misdirecting them. This is fiiine? But too vague for what Glamour is. Wildbow simply failed to properly present tradeoffs to one of his character's main action verbs, one that literally had those tradeoffs in Pact. And one last example to try and prove this: they dont even wear the hats and cloaks anymore duuude. Like, in my eyes: there was a very simple to read gambit being made, with the hats and masks and cloaks? You are awakening early, you will always have awoken early: You accepted an early shield against what that meant. A constructed image in place of the image of a fully-fledged adult, masking that youth; Whimsical and inherently magical, inherently wild. It's a very basic tradeoff, and one the story promises you it knows: even if they really would rather not have to go through the whole song and dance of suiting up, if it's tactically suboptimal or else they mature out of it and realise it's not for them, they will never be able to escape it -- not without giving up power. A mark accepted that cannot be given up. A mechanical restriction on their powersets to make up for some of their advantages, that also has some character relevancy. The Good Stuff.

except yeah it can. be taken off. it doesn't super matter. not really. they do plenty of magic without all the stuff on or even any of the stuff on -- it's rarely presented as an obstacle. it doesnt really matter. Because then, you see, they couldnt mature out of it and do cool stuff! it'd be. annoying. frustrating. they'd have to like. deal with changing past the natures they made for themselves. they'd have to. be characters. with character issues. that present themselves in fight scenes. you know?? what are we doing.

[princeescaluswords]

Something that really gets me is the "stupid Scott" mentality many of the anties have. Especially considered in on several occasions throughout almost all seasons we see some semblance of Scott who really trying to put his foot down to get better grades\ maintain his grades. There's even a few scenes of him studying and even promising his mom that he will be better. Season 3 saw Derek actually looking back at Scott questioning what he was doing there when he should be at school. It gets implied heavily that it's his involvement in the supernatural world that gets in the way of his studies. Something we physically see. Yet the anti Scotts love this rhetoric that he's an idiot or an imbecile. Yet he's able to maintain well enough grades to stay on the lacrosse team and get into AP classes.

Side bar: those last two points make me question if Scott's grades or really as bad as he thinks they are or if they're just not where he wants him to be. Which would actually explain Kira and Lydia's reaction because he's always saying they (his grades) suck and yet he's in class with them.

Your question actually made me take a moment to re-evaluate the scene you mentioned in Parasomnia (5x02). Don't get me wrong, I still hate the whole bit because the heart of the scene is cruelty presented as humor. Other than the fact that the joke's not funny, the set-up also relies on a dynamic between Scott and Lydia that we haven't seen since Season 1 and a dynamic between Scott and Kira that we haven't seen since Season 3B. Even though I feel the scene is demeaning and regressive to all three characters involved, I have to admit that it serves multiple narrative purposes.

Yeah, but no one's tried to kill us in six months either. Other than Belasko's surprise attack at the Senior Scribe, the characters have been at peace. Their decisions are no longer matters of life or death, so they've been able to relax. We get a little Season 1 Lydia, the Queen Bee of the school. We get a little of Season 1 Scott, though instead of focusing on making first line, he is focusing on becoming a veterinarian. We get a little of Season 3B Kira, who wants to fit in and be friends and is thus a little susceptible to peer pressure. The scene tells us that they got to be kids for awhile.

Why wouldn't you tell me? Were you worried what I would think? The scene helps set up the crises of the season. Scott doesn't think he's smart enough, and that insecurity, coupled with the doubts that Stiles, Malia, and Liam exhibit, leads him to doubt his own decision-making. As a result, he doesn't take action until it becomes problematic, such as with Kira's fox spirit or violating Corey. Kira's timidity exacerbates the danger of her fox caused by the Doctors.

You'll get them back; you have to. As much as I also dislike the scene in Status Asthmaticus (5x10), it underlines the importance of the pack. These kids like each other and they need each other. As cruel as Lydia's behavior is, she's not doing it because she despises Scott. She is genuinely wondering if he's in the right class. As weak as Kira's capitulation is, it comes from a desire to be friends with both Lydia and Scott. And Scott needs to grapple with failure and a lack of faith. They are a pack; they reinforce each other.

So, the scene does serve a good purpose; I just didn't find it aesthetically pleasing. That's okay. It's not the only scene I have with this problem. But they hang together as a cohesive whole.

But fandom? Fandom's a different story. Parts of the fandom have this habit of taking scenes out of context in order to make their point, and their point is always that Scott shouldn't be the lead protagonist. In this specific case, he's stupid and thus shouldn't be entrusted with the story. For example, they take Stiles's barbs such as "I don't know how you would survive without me" and "Still want him in your pack?" as proof positive that Scott is unworthy and that Stiles doesn't really like him (yet when he says nasty things to Derek or Peter, it's banter) and then ignore scenes like Scott outwitting Peter in Season 1 in terms of the mall scene and Peter's date with Melissa. Scott outwits and out-thinks the villains -- Peter, Derek, Gerard, Deucalion, Theo, Gerard again, and the Anuk-Ite. When push comes to shove, Scott's smart enough for the responsibilities he takes upon himself, even if he confuses bestiary with bestiality.

I mean the scenes where Scott defeats the villains by perceiving their actions and coming up with strategies that defeat them happens every season and they're never blink-and-you-miss-it events. Then why do parts of the fandom keep up the illusion of Stupid Scott? As it always is, it's the racism. They cash in on the Lazy Uneducated Mexican trope in order to delegitimize Scott in favor of some other white boy.

Take Season 2. I've actually read Sterek stans blame the destruction of Derek's pack on Scott's plan to stop Gerard. How that works, I don't know. It's not like Derek ever expressed any single strategic thought aside from "kill them before they kill me." And it wasn't working, because Derek was playing right into Gerard's hands; that old hunter knew a werewolf's nature was an instinct toward violence. It's Scott whom Gerard underestimated as a guileless simpleton, and he spent 18 months spewing black goo because of it. But who cares? To parts of the fandom, Derek should have won due to him being a hot white man with a sad backstory. The color of his skin is the only thing that really matters.

Take Season 5. Stiles stans will go on and on and on about how Scott should have listened to Stiles, but that's where they stop. They have to stop there, because Stiles didn't have a plan. He couldn't prove to anyone his gut instinct about Theo -- not to Scott, but also not to Malia, Liam, Lydia or Sheriff "Tender Hug" Stilinski. The show didn't blame Stiles for not being able to defeat Theo and the Doctors on his own, but parts of the fandom can't tolerate that, so they blame Scott for Stiles not being able to defeat Theo and the Doctors. Because it can't be Stiles's lack of honesty and incredible self-loathing that's the problem.

In the end, that scene in Parasomnia can't be taken by itself. There's another scene in Mrs. Finch's class, where Scott gets the first quiz back and he scored an 86. It's not a 100% but it's not a Fail either. And that's the nuance their racism doesn't allow them to see.

[thefirstknife]

Mara said Nezarec is out of the picture so does that mean it's over? That was all there was for Nezarec :(

Pretty much yeah! We might get some extra info on his role in the Collapse, but he is not going to be an active character in the future. Link to the video where she says it.

And he never was an active character! This is something that I actually wanted to touch on because I've seen way too many comments and sentiments about Nezarec that are incredibly incorrect. A lot of it is on Bungie's handling of this lore, which I and others have spoken about at length before; the introduction was clumsy and disjointed and left a lot of people wondering about how relevant he is.

But also a lot of it is on the fandom mystification of random story elements and characters, as well as the fandom's inability to distinguish between important topics and curiosities that exist to spice up the setting. This is a problem in general with media, not just Destiny. Fandoms tend to not have a filter when it comes to things mentioned in the story and the setting. The truth is that some things that are mentioned are simply not important or are less important and will never be brought up again.

Long post below where I go into details about this trend in the community and specifically about Nezarec, tangentially related to the ask:

A really good example for this is Suraya Hawthorne. I know. I want more about her too. She was a really cool character and I love getting updates about her. But is she relevant and important enough to have more special storylines dedicated to her? Not really. A part of it is on the fact that she has fulfilled her character arc back in vanilla. She served as the human element to the Red War and was a face for the civilians impacted by the invasion. She served as someone who survived due to her exceptional skill and reluctance to join the rest of us in the City; she was not there when the attack happened, which saved her. Her survival skills in the wild helped her survive while on the run and allowed her to save others, including us! She fought alongside everybody to retake the City, a place she shunned but nonetheless felt connected to.

It ended with her accepting her role as an exceptional human that can help the City grow; she accepted that her potential is fulfilled when she joins everyone else in the City and helps humanity, instead of pretending that everyone should live on their own in the wilds. Destiny is inherently about people coming together against insurmountable odds and Suraya's story showcases that and ends with her understanding that message. Her story is over. There is nothing more to be said. Outside of small lore snippets that are really nice to see (Suraya playing Guardian Games, Suraya visiting her dads often), there is nothing to add to Suraya's story and theme. Sometimes we have to understand when a character arc ends. It's a good thing. The story has been told in a cohesive way and it ended.

There's also meta reasons such as VA availability. Amanda fills almost the same niche as Suraya and her VA is available since she also voices Caiatl so Amanda featured more often than Suraya. This also doesn't mean that no story can ever be made involving this character; just that expecting her to be a part of some big ongoing plot is not reasonable. Getting minor updates is fine.

There's a lot of this in Destiny. The game has A LOT of characters. There are plenty of others that fit the same issue as Suraya; their stories have concluded or they weren't as important as people thought in the first place. We always want more about our blorbos, no matter how niche they are. Sometimes, the more niche they are, the more attractive they are. The element of mystery often makes the interest skyrocket.

This is where Nezarec comes in. I want people to fully understand that Nezarec was just a name mentioned twice. He was never a character. It's highly unlikely that he was created with the idea of him being a disciple in mind; he was created as a mystery. It's a cool sounding name on a cool looking exotic with a mysterious lore tab. This immediately sparks people's curiosity. Nezarec's Sin was literally the only information about this character we had.

I've seen a lot of people claiming that Nezarec was a huge thing being set up for 5 years; this is simply incorrect. He is definitely a concept that was of personal interest to people who like digging and imagining solutions to mysteries, but he was never "set up." It was a cool name. The fandom created and enhanced the mystery around it, trying to "solve" who that was for years. The game did nothing to encourage this until Season of the Haunted.

There was a brief mention in Y2 where Drifter mentions that he's been to the "Fourth Tomb of Nezarec." Or rather, Shin mentions that Drifter mentioned it. This was meant to sound cool. That's all. You can tell because Shin mentions other mysterious things that Drifter claimed he's seen, none of which have ever been given the same scrutiny because people understand that they are supposed to be cool names;

"He says he's seen the deep side of Jupiter. Been to the Core Mines of Saturn. Name drops old myths no one's heard—the Luvial Crux, the Shift Chasms Below Elios, the Fourth Tomb of Nezarec. Goes on about the Idols of Lower Sul, the Treasure of Exodus Prime, the Solar Engine of Dead Star-Six.

Every single one of these is a "cool name" concept that you can speculate about for a thousand years. They don't mean anything, or at least they didn't in 2018. Nezarec only popped out because the exotic exists and people started imagining, again, that this is some incredible set up for epic reveals in the future about a character that will become super important and relevant and be the raid boss or whatever.

In a lot of writing, especially big ongoing MMO games and projects that last for years, things will be mentioned to spice up the setting and its mystery and size without the writers actually knowing or even planning to ever know what those things are. But then later, if they ever need to use something, they can look at those unexplained mysteries and pick one and use it to explain current content. It's easier than coming up with something brand new AND it gives you credit with the diehard fans who will see their niche blorbo being explained.

I can't confirm this obviously because I don't work for Bungie, but this is most likely what happened to Nezarec. He was never planned as a disciple, he was never planned as a big player or a huge character or a huge reveal. It was a mystery to make the setting exciting.

When they needed mysterious cursed artifacts for the pirate season AND they needed to tie that in with the current big story (Witness and its disciples) AND they needed to tie it with a location they can use AND that location has to be something known to people and mysterious in of itself AND they need a reason to talk about a very important historical event that shaped the world (the Collapse) which was also reframed in the current expansion by Savathun telling us we don't know anything about it = "revealing" that Nezarec was a disciple tied to the Lunar Pyramid whose body is used as evil artifacts is the perfect solution. Why invent a new character when you can name drop people's niche blorbo?

I'm mentioning this because people still insist that Nezarec was some huge mystery planned for years that kept us teased and primed for the eventual huge reveal. In reality, it really wasn't. That's personal bias talking, which I am also a subject to because I was obsessing about a name mentioned in two lore tabs as well. But it's important to recognise when the game is actually setting up an important plot point and when it's not.

All that said, you'd think that it doesn't really matter HOW it came to this. It only matters that now, Nezarec is no longer just a niche lore tab; he is a character! Which is true, to a certain extent. Once again, people tend to overblow the importance of something that is perceived as a big reveal.

Nezarec is certainly a character, but he is not an active one. He has been established as dead and gone ever since he was first mentioned. There have been vague hints about how he persists after death and how "he shall rise again." Persisting after death is not uncommon in the Destiny universe (Ahamkara are the most notable example), but it doesn't mean the character is active. Hints about him wanting to return are there, but don't necessarily signify that the character WILL return. Just that he wants to, as our villains tend to want. It's not exactly something to write home about? Taniks came back like 8 times and he's not even a disciple of the Witness (that we know of...............).

In Plunder, it was definitively established that Nezarec is dead and has been dead for a millennium. It was established that his body parts still have residual energy that whispers and influences people, but that keeping them apart effectively nullifies it. It was also established that these things can be cleansed and used for good, effectively ending Nezarec's influence and ambitions to return. Which is what happened and was always going to happen.

He is a character from our past who was always meant to be a mystery. Any further extrapolation of what that means is purely fandom speculation and fandom overhype of a name. He doesn't have a personality, he doesn't have a character arc, he doesn't have a story, he doesn't have relationships. Some of these might be explored in the context of the Collapse if they're relevant. He is part of our history and always was. Whatever the fans decided to overthink about him is on the fans.

And that's fun! I still like overthinking about him and speculating. Enrichment! The problem is when Bungie eventually says "there is nothing more to this" and people get disappointed and angry because of ideas they themselves conjured out of thin air. Bungie never gave us any reason to think that Nezarec is the next big villain that we will talk to and fight in the game. No more than they are implying that any of those mysteries mentioned by Shin are going to be new in-game locations or raid bosses.

Again, a lot of this is obviously on the storytelling itself. While there are obvious markers of stuff that's just here to enrich the setting and make players think and speculate and imagine, sometimes these markers aren't clear or they don't land well. I think with Nezarec a lot of this has to do with the additional hype created by the relase of Nezarec's Whisper glaive in Haunted that casually dropped flavour text about him being a disciple after not having heard of this niche mystery for 5 years. People lost their minds (me included) because that was an obvious hint that he is no longer purely a mystery.

And then we had to wait three more months in which people speculated to hell and back and conjured a story about how he MUST be an incoming next big bad disciple for us to fight. Only to be told, in Plunder, that he's a corpse. People's instinct is to say "No WAY they brought this guy back after 5 years just to have him be body parts." But there was never anything to "bring back." He was a name. Plunder gave information about that name. It's not like there was a treasure trove of information before or a promise that this specific concept will be the next villain.

Much like Destiny community insisting there's a secret mission when there isn't one, they're like that with this type of lore as well. Parsing through the overwhelming amount of information to figure out which bits and pieces are relevant and which are flavour for the setting is difficult, but it's something that has to be done. Every character is the most important character to someone in the community, every niche concept mentioned once is the most important next big hint to someone. And sometimes they will be correct! But in most cases they will not. And instead of sighing and moving on, a lot of it turns into "the writers are bad" spiel.

And sure. Everyone makes a bad storytelling decision sometimes. But that includes the fans as well. We can all be exceptionally bad at recognising and distinguishing between intended important events, plots and themes and those that are background information meant to enrich the setting.

Personal example would be the Aphelion. I desperately want to know more. I want an entire expansion about this. I think this is one of the most fascinating things in the entire setting. But that's just my personal preference. Bungie never explicitly stated that the Aphelion is some incredibly important concept that will be explored in the future. It's a flavour. It's meant to be mysterious. It's meant to be a cool scifi concept. I would love to see more, but if I never do, I will understand why that is. Bungie can obviously flip the switch and actually turn this into a big plot if they want to at any point in time, but we can't be angry with them if they don't.

This was not entirely related to the ask, but I had the need to write something about this anyway and it sort of fits. I've seen a lot of this recently especially with Nezarec. People have been claiming that Bungie "wasted" the potential of a super important character like Nezarec to end with him being turned into soup. They also tend to insist that it's impossible that his story is over and that he will still be some big villain or that it will turn out that he is possessing Osiris or something. The latter of which makes zero sense since Osiris had a storyline akin to this already. He will not have it again. I hope we can put that to rest. Osiris is Osiris and he will remain Osiris.

And the truth is that Nezarec was never an important character. He was never set up for anything extraordinary in the future. He is a curiosity from our past that has ties to the Collapse. He certainly WAS important in-setting for whatever happened back then, but he is now dead. Bungie didn't "waste" anything; whatever importance the fans projected onto Nezarec was the fans' own invention.

Remember back in Splicer when a completely new dialogue dropped where Mithrax mentioned the old Eliksni legend about "Skira the Watcher" and how it terrorised the Eliksni for a long time? And how it sparked about 7 billion posts and videos and theories about who this is and how this is hinting to the next big bad and how it has ties to everyone and everything and how this is obviously the next raid boss or whatever? Yeah. Does anyone remember now? Not really. It wasn't a hint for the next big bad. It was what it said on the tin; an old Eliksni legend.

Furthermore, Mithrax explained how it was defeated before the Eliksni had the Traveler and they did so by staying silent about it. I don't think that really spells "raid boss" or "big bad." Whatever it was, pre-Golden Age Eliksni were able to deal with it. It's probably not the Witness' next greatest agent.

Curiously, the new dungeon is called "Spire of the Watcher." I could make a clickbait video about this. Is there a connection for real though? Unlikely. And Bungie will not have "wasted the potential" of it to be, because it's not supposed to be. There's a difference between something being possible and something being probable. It's always possible because Bungie controls the setting, but it's not very probable.

You can genuinely make any connection to anything and blow a single mention of some lore thing out of proportion. And sometimes you'll be correct! A single lore mention of something called "Nefele Stronghold" led me, and others, to the conclusion that Rasputin has to be involved somehow with the story of Neomuna before Lightfall and that Rasputin needs to be brough up as a season this year. And we were correct!

To an extent, we were also correct that Nezarec was more than a flavour text on an exotic helmet. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he's the next big thing. Sometimes things are mildly important, or just temporarily important or important just for specific context. Just because something exists in the setting or was important in the setting once before, doesn't mean that it will remain important forever or that its narrative arc can't end.

[journeytomonkiekid]

Hopefully I’m doing this right (never sent an ask before so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) but — how did you come up/plan the storyline to your comic? I’ve always wanted to start my own, but I struggle with that specifically. I only have bits and pieces for ideas, then when I need to fill in the empty spaces, I don’t got anything .-.

Also do you got any tips for drawing? Like specifically for human/animal anatomy and ‘special effects’, those kinds of things? (if the first question ends up being too long, i can send a second ask for this one, so you don’t gotta type a lot in one thing :3)

Sorry if these got answered already!! I might’ve overlooked it if you did!!

Ah well- For context, I used to be in a DeviantArt group that was kind of...improvisational storytelling. You would draw pieces, comics, or write chapters everytime the mods posted a new "mission" which often had rewards, a rating system, and a segment of the "main" story line that everyones characters would be affected by. My...method of storytelling/planning, as a result has always been very loose, to make room for unexpected changes. This works for me, because I have ADHD and get bored with my own story, if I don't have room to try new things, or write in new story beats. I'd say it depends on you as a person. This story started out with me having an idea based on something that happened irl; ( a very tiny thing, mind you, it doesn't even play a part in the story anymore) If you only have bits and pieces; maybe expand on those instead first? Find out what about those makes you so hyped to write the story. The "empty space" you can fill in with basic logical steps if theres nothing else. Figure out what the story pieces you have are connected by and follow the string to see how you can work them together cohesively. Remember that your characters drive the story, not events in between. Say the story piece you have is "They wanted to see penguins" think about that statement. Why do they want to see penguins? You got that part? Great! Now, where do you find penguins? the arctic. How can your character get there within the realms of your story? Do they have to fly? is it a trek? Do they live in the arctic, but are somehow isolated from the penguins? etc. Does that make sense? Eitherway; you should also remember that a story doesn't have to be long or epic. If you have a simple story idea, that's some pages long, just write that. I chose chapters, because its easier to break down the work into managable chunks so I can force myself to take a break in between. You just have to know what works for you and start experimenting. I can also recommend this youtube channel; because they have a lot of good insights on writing! But yeah, rounding back to the context bit, that style works really well for me, because it keeps the story from feeling stale, and I have somethin' else to refer to whenever I get stuck. As for anatomy, all I can offer is that you do life drawing. Thats the only way you'll learn how to draw anatomy properly. (Take life drawing classes if you can, teachers are always better than learning alone)

[likeabxrdinflight]

comparing battle city (not the finals, the actual battle city part. battle city finals we will discuss when we get there) to duelist kingdom, I feel like...overall, I think duelist kingdom made the stronger tournament story and had much better character arcs. yeah the duels themselves were kinda bananas, but there was much more focus on multiple characters and their arcs. like mai actually gets a story in duelist kingdom, in battle city prior to the finals she's just kinda. there sometimes. we never even see her duel. and man if you thought anzu and honda were side characters in duelist kingdom? damn battle city just fridges the hell out of them. like, five or six episodes feature anzu and honda just running around looking for jonouchi and yugi. really? sure they're mostly emotional support cheerleaders during duelist kingdom, but at least they were consistently present. yikes man.

that said, there's no question the overall plot of battle city is stronger. you've basically got two story arcs going simultaneously- the god cards saga and jonouchi the true duelist. they're both compelling, they both have some excellent duels, and they both tell a cohesive story. but man are they focused in on very specific characters at the expense of the rest of the ensemble. really, I feel like the only characters that get any real growth during battle city are atem, kaiba, marik (the god card trio), and jonouchi. everybody else? back seat until the finals.

the worst part of this to me is the way yugi himself feels very fridged. duelist kingdom had a whole arc spanning three separate duels about atem and yugi learning to work together, to appreciate each others' strengths. it made a whole big deal about how they balanced each other out. battle city pays lip service to this for a while, but damn, where the heck is yugi in all these duels? unlike later seasons, which show atem and yugi communicating during duels all the damn time, battle city doesn't depict this hardly at all, even after atem stops hiding his true motives from yugi. this doesn't affect the plot much, but from a character building perspective? god what a missed opportunity. and it's kind of jarring in some places. like, where the fuck was yugi for the entirety of the atem-puppet marik duel? there was a whole scene right before that where atem and yugi literally discuss how yugi gives atem the strength to fight at all, and yugi affirms he knows what atem is doing and why and that he's okay with it. and then we just. we just pretend yugi doesn't exist. for that whole duel.

and it's kaiba that encourages atem to go on when the duel seemed hopeless. not that it's such a horrible thing for kaiba and atem to get a moment but like...we had just established that yugi was the one giving atem strength, they had just reaffirmed the strength of their bond, and we saw a season ago that they're better working together- so why the heck wasn't this duel used to show that now that atem wasn't keeping secrets he could rely on yugi again? to show us that yugi was supportive of atem even if that meant separating eventually? I mean?????

missed opportunity honestly. yugi doesn't even show up again in a meaningful capacity until the jonouchi duel. which is one of yugi's best mini arcs, but I mean, come on....it takes like ten episodes for him to appear again??? yugi gets basically no character development and barely any screen time between episodes 52 and 76. and he is the main fucking character.

so yeah from a character building perspective this arc is frustrating to me. even if again, the plot is much more consistent. but it's a stepping stone to get to the battle city finals which is one of the best arcs in the whole damn show, so...we slog on.

[demonandthedogstar]

meta writing asks: all odds!

Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it? Currently editing my upcoming werewolf novel, We Are the Beast in The Woods. Progress is....fine. Editing is always the part where I'm just looking at it in pieces, adding some stuff, taking some stuff out, re-arranging stuff, and hoping I can fit it back together as a cohesive narrative. I love that I've actually finished a draft of it when I thought I would.

What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway) I have a very specific, like, the heroes are fighting against a villain who has gained the power to rewrite all of reality to fit their (terrible) vision of a utopia, and they begin the process while blaring Heaven Is A Place On Earth by Belinda Carlyle. I will never be able to come up with a good reason why the villain would be doing that, though. So.

What character that you’re writing do you most identify with? I have been noodling around with something new recently, and the MC of that is so far the one I've put the most of myself into. By a fair amount.

What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree? Hmm... I honestly don't know. @graysongraysoff What do you think?

Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other? Longfic. I had to look up what Pantser meant just now, but that one for sure.

What do you envy in other writers? Their way of putting together sentences and paragraphs in such a beautiful, flowing way that it just feels satisfying to read.

Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself? Yeah, I've published one (1) novel so far, with more to come this year. It is Desert Witch by Nicholas Todd on Amazon, available as an e-book and paperback. I have many projects that will never see the light of day, that I wrote and edited and read again and decided to shelve it forever.

Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)? Titles are so hard for me.

Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations? Maybe? I'm not sure what would surprise them? Maybe that I've never written a real outline for anything. I generally have a list of characters and important places in a doc, and then I just start writing in a separate doc.

Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?) Every story I've ever written has a really tall queer woman in it. I will never stop.

What other medium do you think your story would work well as? (film, webcomic, animated series?) Comic books, probably. I feel like half the time I think about scenes in my head as I'm writing as comic panels and splash pages. So I think it would translate well.

What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest? An Urban Fantasy about three friends gaining powers from an eldritch monster and using them to protect the Earth while grappling with the fact that the powers originated from a thing that was pure evil.

What part of writing is the most fun? Writing the one scene in the story that made me want to start writing said story in the first place. I love getting there.

[genderbinaryisforlosers]

i want to talk about the shepherd’s boy

i always want to talk about the shepherd’s boy. for anyone who needs their memory refreshed, which is very reasonable because it’s been nearly six years since Heaven Sent/Hell Bent first came out, this is the shepherd’s boy as the Doctor tells it

There's this emperor, and he asks this shepherd's boy, how many seconds in eternity? And the shepherd's boy says, there's this mountain of pure diamond. It takes an hour to climb it, and an hour to go around it. Every hundred years, a little bird comes and sharpens its beak on the diamond mountain. And when the entire mountain is chiselled away, the first second of eternity will have passed! You must think that's a hell of a long time. Personally, I think that's a hell of a bird.

the Doctor tells this story while he chips away at his own diamond mountain, a wall of twenty-foot-thick azbantium, which is four hundred times stronger than diamond. it takes him two billion years to gouge himself a hole big enough to walk through. he tells this story because he is the bird, and he’s right - it is one hell of a bird.

but he’s also the mountain. he has been trapped inside his confession dial, and for every cycle, secrets are extracted from him. he is resilient, and unmoving - he knows there is one confession he can give to end the torture, but he does not give in. he forces the Veil to come back time and time again, until eventually, it kills him, and in the terms of the story, one second of eternity passes. he is renewed for the next second, and the cycle begins again indefinitely.

but there are two other characters in the story, the shepherd’s boy and the emperor. Twelve embodies those, as well. in Hell Bent, the Doctor’s story begins with him sitting in an old barn, where he used to sleep as a child. where we saw stars reflected in his eyes, one dark and fearful night (in Listen). when the emperor asks the shepherd’s boy his question, he does not expect the boy to have wisdom of infinity from nights sitting under the stars, far away from the dazzling palace the emperor calls home, full of its clueless wise men.

the Doctor doesn’t mention this part of the story when he tells it, but in the Grimms’ version, because the shepherd’s boy could tell the emperor the size of infinity, he was named the heir of the empire. Hell Bent sees the Doctor lay claim on Gallifrey, wresting it from Rassilon’s grasp before he can be cheated of his “inheritance” by firing squad. so the Doctor becomes the emperor - he also has been the emperor all along. he is the man trying to understand the shape of infinity and how he might preside over it. he does with the laws of time and space what he pleases, placing his goals above everything else and holding the universe to his personal standards.

the leitmotif of ‘The Shepherd’s Boy’ appears in another notable scene - in The Day of the Doctor, directly before Twelve’s first appearance. the track is ‘This Time There’s Three of Them’ (2:19-3:20), and the Doctors make the decision to try and save Gallifrey with their combined power. it’s an act of hope, defiance, and unimaginable hubris - kind of like punching through a wall of azbantium over two billion years. it is him staking his claim on infinity, saying “the laws of time and space are mine to control, and this war will not have its way over me or my empire.” because it's also when he takes Gallifrey as his own, the moment that allows him to depose Rassilon in Hell Bent.

that scene from The Day of the Doctor goes on to define Twelve - it's why he chose his face. “Just someone. Please. Not the whole town. Just save someone.” (The Fires of Pompeii) the people of Gallifrey burn, and he can't save everybody. but some of them. he can do that.

“And above all, it’s kind. It's just that. Just kind. If I run away today, good people will die. If I stand and fight, some of them might live. Maybe not many, maybe not for long. Hey, you know, maybe there's no point in any of this at all, but it's the best I can do, so I'm going to do it. And I will stand here doing it till it kills me.”

the Doctor is every part of the shepherd’s boy. that’s why it comes to represent him in his final moments - first as he fights to his death in The Doctor Falls, in the hopes that some people - just a few people, not everyone, but a few - might escape, before he collapses and stares up at the empty sky, wishing he could see the stars. then as he begins to regenerate, and accepts the next cycle. “How long can I keep doing this, Clara? Burning the old me, to make a new one?” he asks in Heaven Sent. “I suppose one more lifetime won’t kill anyone. Well, except me,” he smiles in Twice Upon a Time. the shepherd’s boy is humble, arrogant, helpless, resilient. eternal, and finite. and above all, the shepherd’s boy is kind.

[vickyvicarious]

Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “In the Ambience.”

Had a conversation on discord last night where I became aware that I left Sunny and Adam’s interactions at a place where it was sort of nervous and awkward. So thank you DZ for talking that through with me.

I am not really well versed in writing relationships, and I didn’t want it to overshadow the rest of my writing, so I pulled back from it, but I think I pulled back too hard. So if you care about the Sunny/Adam dynamic, I wrote a story this morning to acknowledge that. Hope you like it, and I hope you all have a great day. 

She got up in the dark, with only the dim ambience of soft blue lighting to accompany her. She stretched all four arms, and rolled her neck. It struck her as mildly interesting in that moment, how something so small could connect them to humans, The thought was fleeting as she took another step forward to kneel down on the floor. There, in a little alcove in the wall, she had set a volcanic rock from Anin, dried moss, and other paraphernalia from her home world. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath resting her hands together.

Praise and respect to the spirits of Anin. Praise the fathers and mothers of war gone to their rest below the moss and the earth. Praise their spirits that watch from the sky and peer through the ether down upon us.

She continued the slow mantra in the style of Prayer learned from Naktan and pulled her concentration to her core ignoring anything and everything around her. A deep state of meditation overtook her. She would never have done this if she  thought there were any chance that she was in danger, but below she knew Earth glowed like a sphere before their orbiting ship. There was no worry of invasion.

She thought she heard something at one point, but chose to ignore it as she continued her mantra.

Eventually, and after an unknown amount of minutes, she stood and turned slowly to find-

She stopped, and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What are you doing.”

Adam burrowed his way further down into her blankets nuzzling his head up against her pillow, “So warm, and comfy!”

She tried not to smile, “You dumbass.”

He pulled the blankets tighter around himself, “You know, I did come here to talk to you, but I actually really am comfortable, so come back in two hours.”

“I-”

He closed his eyes and pretended to snore loudly.

She rolled her eyes as she watched him theatrically pretend to sleep. She looked around mildly for a moment before picking up another pillow and glancing at the door. She casually walked over, dropped the pillow on his head and then held it down as if she intended to smother him.

That got him up and moving.

Before long the two of them were grappling for the upper hand, him trying to put her in a choke hold, and her using her lower arms to pinch him.

He yelped, “Ouch! Pinching is illegal.”

“SIssy.”

He clamped his legs around her lower arms pinning them in place. SHe struggled for a minute and then went limp.

SHe could feel his smug smile, “I win, I beat the saint of Anin. Everyone bow at my feet.”

“You say that, but if this were a real fight, you’re the one with a self destruct button.”

“Self-destruct button…?”

“Meaning if this were a real fight, I would have punched you in the balls.”

“Please don’t”

Finally he let her go, leaving the two of them to lay on her bed, sheets scattered on the floor around them, and her pillows in disarray. Adam put his hands behind his head and sighed.

She glanced over at him, “I don’t suppose you came to just hang out. Here on Admiral-ly business?”

He groaned pulling one of her pillows over his face, “Please smother me for real this time.”

SHe leaned up on one of her elbows, “Why?”

“I don’t wanna be an adult anymore,” She tilted her head to the side watching in amusement as he attempted to throw a childlike tantrum, but only really had the energy to kick his feet once, “It’s boring and lame and they wont let me wear heelies to important meetings…. Children don’t have to pay taxes.”

She laughed, pulling the pillow from his face, “Adam you are many things, but ‘adult’ is not one of them.”

He grinned slightly, “True enough.” He sighed again and rested his head back against the pillows, “I just want to get back to what we are supposed to be doing, exploring the universe and making cool alien friends.” He threw up his hands in frustration, “But Suddenly I find myself embroiled in stupid annoying politics that I don’[t understand, being used by people who are, lets face it, WAY smarter than me, constantly finding myself getting manipulated.”

She huffed, “They aren’t smarter than you Adam, they’re just manipulative, and you aren't.”

He sighed, “Fair enough.” Then he looked at her, bright green eyes reflecting the soft ambient blue light, “I just, I miss this, I miss us, I miss hanging out and doing stupid shit, and all of the things I could do when I wasn’t so important and this operation was smaller.”

She smiled rather sadly reaching one hand over for his, lacing the four of her fingers through the five of his, “Well someone has to do the hard things, who better than you.” 

He glanced over at her raising an eyebrow, “Or you, miss saint”

She rolled her eyes again, “Can’t seem to get you off of that. I’m still the same person I used to be.”

“But with power.”

She elbowed him gently and he grinned, “But really, I am proud and impressed and…. Let's be honest super super smug that ‘I’ know you personally.”

“I know, I am pretty terrific.”

The two of them laughed for a minute before settling down again. He glanced over to her little shrine on the wall, “What were you doing just then?”

She looked up at the ceiling, following the lines of metal and rivets with her eyes, “Praying to the spirits of Anin.”

Embarrassed, he shifted, “I didn’t know you were….. Well I didn’t think you were all that religious?”

SHe shrugged, “Don’t feel bad, it’s sort of a new thing. Back before all this, it was sort of just stories to me. Like I believed it because that was what everyone believed, but I didn’t really accept it, or feel it the way I do now. After everything with my mother, it was hard to feel connected to something I felt I wasn’t a part of….. But then after visiting my mother, after becoming a saint for a religion I never really followed…. Well it started to make more sense. It feels real now in a way that it never did.” She turned to look at him, finding him watching her, the UV blue stripes in his skin glowing blue.

“I believe in the spirits of Anin more than I ever have.”

He smiled at her and squeezed her hand, “I’m glad to hear it.”

They lapsed into silence for a long moment staring up at the ceiling before, inevitably he broke it, “So this makes you like, space Moses.”

She frowned and turned to look at him, “What is a Moses?”

He grinned, “A guy from one of the Earth Religions. You know guy follows god’s directions to lead his people away from slavery, climbs a moutain, recieves the word of god, comes down to give it to the people, that sort of thing.”

Sunny tilted her head slightly to the side, “Are you religious?”

He paused, frowning, “I…. well I…. don’t really know. My family has been some flavor of Christian for a long time.”

“Christian?”

“Uh yeah, The general idea is that there is one all powerful deity who created everything. He has rules and laws that you are supposed to follow, The general tenants of this specific religion mostly boil down to, love everyone and don’t be a dick, which humans are notoriously bad at. You sin you go to hell, a very bad place after you die, and if you are a good person you go to heaven. Problem is everyone is a sinner and breaks the rules, so really no one was going to get into heaven.”

“That sounds bleak….”

“Well that's where the other stuff comes in. Basically this all powerful deity sent down his son in human form to live a perfect life, so when he was martyred he took on the sins of all of humanity and paid for them in the greatest act of mercy to open the gate for the rest of us into heaven.”

Sunny shifted as he tilted to the side to lay in the crook of her arms, “Of course that is just one religion among tons on earth, we aren’t really as cohesive in our beliefs as Drev are….. As for me…. I’m not really sure.”

She tilted her head to the side, cheek resting against his hair, “After seeing space, I become more and more convinced of some….. Thing that created everything, but beyond that it's sort of a tossup.”

She ran one hand through his hair, course but still soft somehow.

“You know my name comes from that religion.”

She turned her head to look at him, “Oh.”

“Adam was the first man.”

“WHat do you mean.:”

Adam shrugged, “He was supposedly the first man that god created, from the dust of the earth…. I think?”

She gave him a sidelong glance, “Look, and you get to be the first idiot in space.”

He snorted and poked her in the ribs.

“There were PLENTY of idiots in space before me, believe you me.”

“Mmm I don’t know, you are pretty dumb.”

He laughed, grabbing a pillow and hitting her with it. She rolled over so she was lying on top of him and then went limp.

He struggled, “Get your big ass off me.”

“Oh no, I have been attacked by a sudden acute case of the, my spine doesn't work anymore disease.”

“If you don’t move, you’ll suddenly find yourself with a case of fist in your face disease.”

She laughed and rolled off him, making su7re the hard parts of her carapace were sticking down for maximum discomfort. 

He grunted.

They returned to lying down next to each other in the half darkness. Sunny reached over and turned on some quiet music in the background as the two of them sat and talked, and laughed.

“I can’t wait to get back to deep space.” He closed his eyes and hummed softly at the thought, “Just the crew and the darkness and nothing ahead of us but an endless frontier.”

Surprisingly, she found the thought to be more than a little comforting, and closed her eyes thinking about the vast reaches of blackness and the endless spinning galaxies. 

“And while we are out we can drop Conn into a pulsar.”

He snorted,

“That billowy bastard would survive and you know it.”

She huffed, “Still though, if I have to hear one more smug lecture how he has a child with you, I’m gonna wring his scrawny neck.”

He grinned teeth flashing blue in the light, “Is someone;.... Jealous?”

Sunny laughed, almost tipping him off the bed and onto the floor with her mirth, “Yes Adam, I am totally jealous, really I am. I mean who wouldn’t want to have a child with YOU, big dumb, dork. Really the perfect place to put my superior genes.”

“Superior genes, says someone who can’t reach the top shelf.”

She kicked him foot clanging off his prosthetic, “I am a foot taller than you.”

He placed his hand next to his ear, “What was that, I can’t hear you over how short you are.”

Sunny shook her head, “At least I have binocular vision and both my knees.”

“And weird neck nostrils, don’t forget about those.”

“Oh yes so I can house them on my face like you and your bigass nose.”

“Low blow, low blow.”

“There are…. Lower things…. I could make fun of.”

He snorted, “Can’t make fun of it if you’ve never seen it. You on the other hand, walking around in the nude.”

“You’re welcome. Who wouldn’t love.” Sse gestured to herself, “This.”

“Mmm yes,.... chitin , very sexy.”

“I am a gift to the universe, and should be appreciated by everyone.” He brushed a hand through his hair, “Well I find that real gifts are gift wrapped, so jot that down.”

“Oh yeah, like a prank gift when you put something lame in a box for something cool.”

He frowned at her, “You wound me,. My feelings are so very very hurt. I might even cry.”

“I drink human tears.”

“That, that’s really gross.’

She laughed and then they lapsed into silence. She could hear him breathing quietly next to her in the darkness, his chest rising and falling under the ambient blue light. She looked across the room to where her saint armor was hanging in it’s climate controlled case illuminated to a pearly sheen.

“Adam.”

“Yeah.”

“You know I’m just kidding about calling you dumb riught.”

“Yeah I know.”

“I’m proud of what you’ve been doing.”

Adam turned to look at her rather incredulous, “Me, of what? I haven’t been doing shit.”

“So we are just going to ignore you overthrowing a maniacal politician while simultaneously piloting a 2,000 year old spacecraft?”

“That was more Conn and Eris than it was me,”

“It was your idea.”

“Lets not forget Admiral Kelly.”

Sunny pulled him closer, “I am sorry, I will not be accepting anything other than you acknowledging that you did a good job.”

“Screw you.”

“You’d like that wouldn’t you.”

He sighed, “You’ve been talking to Ramirez WAY too much.”

She was only slightly smug as she rested her head back against the pillow, “I really should get up and train.”

“We should.”

Neither of them movies.

“Alternatively we could just…. Lay here…. All day and do… nothing .”

She looked up at the ceiling for a long moment and pretended to be in deep contemplation before “Well it’s official, you have convinced me. You and your silver tongue.”

“I am a master negotiator.”

He shifted position putting one arm behind his head, “Think about it, by this time tomorrow we will be back to space exploring and doing what we should have been doing all along. I can’t wait.”

“That makes two of us.”

[gb-patch]

Ask Answers: January 28th, 2021 (Part 1)

And we’re back with many more ask answers! Thank you for waiting.

Is lizzie/the main character tripping over a rock a random event in barbecue? or does it require certain choices? i picked the same choices in multiple different playthroughs but ended up with three different outcomes (1. nothing happens 2. liz trips 3. i trip)

Yep! It’s completely random. Just a little moment of life you don’t have control over, haha.

wait just double checking you stated that derek would be another romantic interest you can pursue in step 4 right??? im just asking cuz hes my fav character 

oh wait and btw i was the one that asked the question about derek being in the step 4 just now, and will you have to pay extra for like a dlc or something bc i play the free version rn and i just wanted to check!! 

Yeah, you will eventually be able to romance him, but unfortunately it is a paid DLC. Cove is the only love interest who’s entirely free-to-play. You can  follow our social media for when we giveaways for a chance to win a key for it, though.

i know that y’all said the step 3 dlc and step 4 will be released early 2021, is there any update to that? for example, a rough amount of days/weeks until release? no pressure at all, i’m super excited!! <3 

The Step 3 DLC will be about in maybe two-two and half months or so. Step 4, we’re not entirely sure. Maybe a few months after the Step 3. We don’t want to give set dates until we’re really close to the release since otherwise we wouldn’t be able to 100% guarantee them.

First off love the game. Second I'm a little confused on how the nsfw dlc is gonna work. Because based on some stuff you've said it sounds like a patreon only thing and others make me think it could be an itch/steam thing after the fact? Would you mind clarifying for me 😅. Also if it's a patreon only thing do you need to become one before it's released? 

It’s not going to be on Steam/Itch. The actual game of Our Life is safe for teens with no adult content. Any 18+ stuff we’re releasing is separate bonus content. Right now the only for sure plan is having it available through Patreon. If there’s another hosting site that’s not Steam or Itch that’d be easier for people than Patreon we might consider uploading it there too, but nothing else is set.

If you want the bonus Moment you’d have to join once it’s already out or sometime after the release. Joining now would get you our current rewards, but wouldn’t get you future content that’s coming later.

this is probably an awkward question and i apologize, feel free not to answer, but i just wanted to address the elephant in the room....will step 4 acknowledge covid/2020 world events?? i kind of hope not bc i'd like to just exist in a fictional version of the world where things are happy in this quaint seaside town and the world isn't falling apart, but i'd understand if there are some references to it. just thought i'd ask so i can Prepare if that makes sense

Step 4 isn’t going to include Covid or even reference it. When we set Step 4 in that year we definitely didn’t know there’d be a global pandemic during it. It’s too late to move the timeframe earlier or later, but we’re not going to make Step 4 stressful for anyone because the real world became so much more stressful. The universe of Our Life will just be an even more idealized place than it was before.

hiiiii! i'm really sorry if this is a bother. i was just curious if cove has a canon setting for each step, like is it canon that he stays candid the whole game and is super sporty for instance and the rest are variations? thank you for your time!

None of those settings are canon. They’re all equally valid.

I love the game and Cove so much that I ended up spending most of the holidays playing it. Definitely worth it! Idk if you're taking suggestions/criticisms, but I chose the peach skin tone and seeing it written as "my peach skin" in the game broke immersion for me because I kept thinking it was referring to the fruit instead of my skin color. I think that skin color is most commonly referred to as "fair" but "peachy" or "rosy" would work too if you're looking for a different word 

Thank you for sharing your experience. We’ll change it to “peachy” in the next update!

So I accidentally overwrote a save file with a different one, is there any way I can recover that save? 

Sadly, there isn’t. Not unless you had a backup of the actual save file files in a separate location you can get. I’m really sorry. You can try using the skip feature to quickly speed through the game and get back to where you were though.

Do you try to maintain the color scheme for the clothing throughout the years in Our Life? 

Yes, though in hindsight not as much as I wished I did, haha. It could’ve been a little more cohesive. It was a bit too broad in my opinion.

I noticed that Cliff mentions he wasn’t much older than Cove before finding out he was going to be a father when he finds MC in bed with Cove during Part 3 so doesn’t that Cliff and Kyra were teenage/young parents? 

Yeah, Cliff was nineteen and Kyra was eighteen when Cove was born. They were just a couple of kids.

Does Cove have a favourite holiday? 

It changes depending on the year. Around Step 1 he’s not a huge fan of a lot of holidays because he’s not together with his whole family for them. But once he’s older and Kyra comes around more, he starts appreciating major family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas more than other holidays because he knows how it feels not to have that. Though summer vacation is of course his most favorite all the time, if that counts as a “holiday”.

I tried to join your patreon but I can’t seem to? The website keeps saying something went wrong and to try again. 

I’m sorry you’re having trouble! I think contacting Patreon support would probably be the best option if the joining process itself is having issues.

How much is it to become a part of your Patreon? I don’t have a lot of money currently but would love to help you out more than just buying the games and dlcs. 

Aw, I appreciate you wanting to support but the Patreon is really optional. You don’t need to push yourself to join if you don’t have extra funds for it. To still answer the question, the tiers are $1, $5, $10, $15, and $20 in USD. Each come with different perks.

I had this idea for a future daughter for the MC and Cove being named "Poppy", after the flowers on their hill~

That’s a really sweet idea! I’m sure Cove would be a fan.

So if you don't mind me asking, how do you get Cove to propose to you in Step 4 and not the other way around? 

I’m afraid that’d be too big of a spoiler to give away before the epilogue’s release, at least in terms of specifics. Generally you’ll just have to be patient and try not to propose first, haha.

will we get to move in with cove in step 4 😮?? or is that a secret 

You can be living together with Cove in Step 4! Though you wouldn’t get to see the place itself. That’s up to your imagination.

Is it bad that I'm completely in love with Cove's dad... What I gotta pay to romance Cliff 😭 (I don't mean as Jamie because that would be wack) 

That’ll cost one million 20 twenty dollar bills, haha. I’m really glad you like him, though sadly we aren’t able to make a separate game where you can romance Cliff. I wish we had enough time to make tons of new scenes/extra stories in the Our Life world, but it just takes too long. Maybe people will make fanworks about it.

—–

We released a new FAQ! It answers common questions and we’ll keep adding more to it. Please check there before sending an ask. FAQ   Also, if you prefer to just see the main posts without all the asks/reblogs, feel free to follow our side account instead: GB Patch Updates Blog  

[codenamethebird]

Celestia and Dreams (Genshin Impact Theory)

Ok so this is going to a very long meta post about my thoughts on Celestia, what Dainsleif means by those who “dare to dream”, what is the dream, Khaenri'ah, and just all that stuff, Archons the like. This is going to cover a lot, but hopefully it will all make sense in a cohesive manner. Basically, I’m going to explain why Celestia is the true enemy, and how we are totally going to send that floating island crashing to the earth and allow Teyvat to dream again.  

Warning Spoilers for like everything so far (1.3, including Hu Tao's story quest), also I will talk about some stuff from the “Teyvat Chapter Storyline Preview: Travail” video, so if you’ve been avoiding stuff like that, um, leave this post.

To start, I want to note that I am treating the Archons and Celestia/The Divine as different entities. Well, more accurately if we are going for a metaphor, if the world is a giant corporation, Celestia is the President/board of directors, the Archons are just the middle managers. There are several lines in Dain’s trailer that hint to the Archons and Celestia being not necessarily allies for example in the Water Archon's section “The God of Justice lives for the spectacle of the courtroom, seeking to judge all other gods. But even she knows not to make an enemy of the divine.” Implying that she as an archon is beholden to the divine, and of course our dear Tsaritsa’s “Her followers hope only to be on her side when the day of her rebellion against the divine comes at last.” Which yeah, definitely puts her in opposition to Celestia. On that note, super interesting how seemingly all the “enemies” of the game are acting in opposition to Celestia (Dain, probably the abyss order, Fatui, etc). 

Anyways now that’s out of the way, what does it mean to dream in Genshin Impact? Dreaming comes up an awful lot, but not necessarily in the way you might expect, like look at these two lines from Albedo and Dainsleif (two associated with Khaenri'ah)

“The universe is heaven reversed, and the earth is a dream lost to time.” Albedo

“In the perpetual meantime of a sheltered eternity, most are content to live, and not to dream. But in the hidden corners where the gods' gaze does not fall, there are those who dream of dreaming” Dain

I’ll return to the heaven reversed part, but the “the earth is a dream lost to time” and the “most are content to live, and not to dream'' are interesting parallels. The implication being that the people of Teyvat, under the god’s eyes, aren’t dreaming. Only Khaenri'ah’s (where the gods’ gaze does not fall) dare to dream.

I think the line “perpetual meantime of a sheltered eternity” is important, in reflecting the current state of Teyvat. I have spent a long time thinking about what those a bunch of complicated words mushed together in a line might mean, and I think I have come to a conclusion. That sentence has a lot to do with time (Albedo also mentions it too), specifically however time not moving forward. I don’t necessarily mean that literally, but in a sense that Teyvat is not progressing. It’s trapped in a perpetual meantime, lost to time. But well ok, what am I saying? How do we gauge progress, how do we note the passage of time, what makes today different than yesterday, then 100, a thousand years previously? What hasn’t changed for Teyvat since the rise of the archons?

Well, technology of course! While we don’t have the clearest view of this, there is very little evidence if any at all that in the past 2,000 years humanity has made any major technological progress. Honestly there is more evidence that they have regressed in technology! Look at the ruin guards and other stuff like that which implies earlier civilizations had much more advanced technology. Basically, what I am trying to say is that Celestia has been intentionally stopping humanity from advancing technology because they know that if Teyvat advances enough the gods won’t be needed anymore, and humanity might pose a threat to their power. Notably Snezhnaya, who I have already mentioned is planning to rebel against Celestia, has the most advanced tech in Teyvat (except maybe Khaenri'ah).

We have evidence in them already doing that too! Look at the lore from Dragonspine, which tells the tale of an advanced (look at their fancy tech in the ruins) quite happy civilization, that one day Celestia sent down the nail and froze the place, killing everyone off (and maybe turning them into monsters, that seems to be a theme with them so I wouldn’t be surprised). The scribe box even says this “I've heard of people who are building a new nation without gods. Perhaps they'll have the power to stand against this world.” Which definitely implies Celestia did them dirty, also I am pretty sure that is referring to Khaenri'ah, which is a good segway.

I think that’s the same thing that happened to Khaenri'ah, they advanced too far (they became experts at life creation alchemy as Albedo says), dared to create a civilization without a god, so Celestia struck them down. I would even hazard a guess that Gold’s greed and massive army were exaggerated lies (if they are in fact Albedo’s master, Durin spoke of his mother quite nicely), and even if there is some truth in that, I think they were just an excuse. A way they could spin this curse into a warning to the rest. 

Another possible example of this happening is the Guili Assembly. They were seemingly doing pretty great (in general it seems there were plenty of societies doing pretty well, the salt god's kingdom etc) and Guizhong notably from the Memory of Dust description said this

"Because they are afraid, they try so hard to become more intelligent. This I understand." "So I thought that since there is such a gulf between us in strength, I should use technique and wisdom instead."

Guizhong was creating advanced technology (ex. her ballista) to help humanity, and conveniently she died in the Archon War, which was caused by Celestia going ‘hey there are 7 seats here, fight amongst yourselves’. I am not necessarily saying Guizhong was intentionally killed by Celestia, making it look like she died as a tragedy of the war but also yes. But even if my conspiracy theory there is wrong, Celestia intentionally created a survival of the fittest war where of course the warriors would win. 

And who suffered the worst from the Archon War? Yes, a ton of gods died until there were only 7, but those who suffered most were humanity. Hu Tao’s story quest talks about how not just conflict killed humans but curses and disease totally screwed them over and it was only due to people like Hu Tao’s family that saved them, not the gods. It all points to the fact that Celestia doesn’t care about humans whatsoever.

“This world has people who gained Visions, and those who did not. Which of the two do you think hold more importance in the eyes of the gods?” Dainsleif

“Perhaps... none of them do” The Traveler

This conversation from Dain’s world quest stood out to me a lot, and I find that one Traveler response option to be the canonical one, and if it isn’t, it's notably what your sibling would have said. In the eyes of the Gods, in the eyes of Celestia, humanity is all the same, vision, no vision, they are all pawns, means to an end.

“The gods goad us on with the promise of their seven treasures. Rewards for the worthy. The doorway to divinity. Yet buried in the depths of this world lies smoldering remains, a warning to those that dare trespass. ‘That throne in the sky is not reserved for you’ ” Dainsleif 

All allogenes have the possibility of ascension, of becoming gods, but as Dainsleif says here, at how the Sustainer of Heavenly principles responds to you and your sibling literally leaving the planet, it’s just a false promise. They make one or two rise, the exceptions like Vennessa, so that it seems you achieve that, so that you will work and worship them, but no one really will ever get there.

(also blatant self-promotion, but I have another theory that we will get a later boss fight where Vennessa will be forced to fight us by Celestia that I drew here.)

And I think it's also true in the reverse, those of Khaenri'ah are viewed as sinners, as the cursed, those who dared to defy the Gods and have suffered for it. The warning to the rest (that “smoldering remains” that Dain references). But as I said before, humanity in the rest of Teyvat isn’t viewed any better. Khaenri'ah is underground, a literal hell of sorts, but Teyvat is the one ruled by Demons. Barbatos, Morax, (Paimon) etc. Khaenri'ah might be hell but so is the rest of Teyvat. Bringing back Albedo’s line “The universe is heaven reversed”, heaven reversed is hell. They are all viewed the same. (also, if that one Teyvat is upside down/underground theory is true, then literally there is no difference between Khaenri'ah and Teyvat, they are all underneath Celestia and the Abyss (which is likely to be connected through the spirals)). Also “perpetual meantime of a sheltered eternity” gives me purgatory vibes which is also applicable here.

To continue my 'everyone's the same to Celestia' rant, look at the archons. I already talked about how I think the Archon War was a big scheme to consolidate power but look at the gnosis. They are literal chess pieces. They might be fancy chess pieces with lots of power but at the end of the day they are just pieces on the board for Celestia to play with and discard if necessary. No one is more important to Celestia, they are all pawns to keep their power.

So, to wrap up, Celestia has been keeping Teyvat (and possibly the rest of this planet) strictly under its control by dividing its population, ruining everyone who dares defy, and sabotaging Teyvat’s technological advancement. Forcing the world to remain in a “perpetual meantime”. However, there are currently movements within Teyvat to fight back against this, the Fatui, the Abyss Order (possibly) and Dainsleif/ Khaenri'ah. In the case of Khaenri'ah specifically, I’ve talked about this in another post, but I think Kaeya being the so called only hope implies that he is instrumental in their plans to defeat Celestia. Specifically I think they are trying to make him into an archon/human weapon to fight Celestia, but who knows. As I said before Khaenri'ah is known for its life creating alchemy so I think it’s related.

Either way Khaenri'ah is daring to dream, to dream of a world without the gods, where technology and humanity can flourish. And I think, you, the Traveler from afar, will be instrumental in deciding if they will succeed.

 Anyways hope you all enjoyed and if anyone wants to talk about this and other theories let me know!

[imaginationxlost]

For World Building Wednesday:

What has been the funnest part of creating a universe that's home to multiple stories? Have there been any unexpected roadblocks (e.g. you want a character to have a specific ability, but it doesn't fit in the world you established)

Been having a lot of conversations about neurodivergence and cultural expectations. How does the world impact your character's experience of neurodivergence?

Oh my GOD I love you for asking that first question. This is going to get long, so under the cut!

There's a lot fun about creating a universe home to multiple stories. The Shadowed Dreams setting didn't start out connected like it is. The whole thing started as... a joke? With my friend Ava, because we had a silly crossover with our OC stories (found under the Demonkids Bookclub tag on my art blog) because they had things in common and were both in California. And then I was like "you know I have another two stories* set in northern Cali what if that was part of it too lmao", and then Sparks got drawn in for being in Seattle, on the same coast and it went from there.

Making them work together originally? Well. It was a process. They really didn't work together at all at first. But bringing them together worked so well once I figured it out. Like, the moment things clicked together was so satisfying, and it made every story involved stronger, and made all of the magic systems more robust and cohesive.

It also resulted in several of the storylines shifting overtime for the better too. I couldn't separate these back out if I tried.*

But the most fun part? That is without a doubt where new stories arose from the shared setting. I don't just mean the proper crossovers; I mean whole new stories that only exist because these are all in the same setting.

Quiet Days, Permafrost, and Summer Moons all wouldn't exist as ideas if not for the Shadowed Dreams setting. The way the elements came together to form wholly new things is just so much fun.

But uh. Roadblocks? Yeah there's been a few. Mostly right at the start, as I tried to make the magic systems work together. At this point, it's well established, and I've gotten pretty good at coming up with ways to make other magic systems fit within the overall magic system of the setting.

Man, I should finish answering the ask about that on my art blog, lmao. It's been in my drafts for a long time.

Non-magic system related roadblocks was, uh, the pandemic? I have the stories in the setting dated, deliberately. Like, most of them start in 2018 (with a couple expectations starting earlier). It was broadly plotted before 2020.

Uh. So, the pandemic altered my plot for the crossover parts to a significant degree. It didn't feel right just saying it didn't happen in the setting when I'd otherwise carefully kept track of dates and such, so I had to work around it.

For half the setting it was easy enough; the king of demons gives zero shits about the pandemic, and he needed stopped regardless. So only a few things needed tweaked and shifted around to account for the real world. And I could basically ignore it after June 2020 because there's a big change there that officially says "screw the real world".

But... there's two the halves of the setting. Everything I'd talked about above was the first half, but all of the inspired a separate combining of stories that then ended up tied together. Hence, Shadowed Souls, Dreams, Shadowed Dreams.

Well, the crossover plot of Dreams got completely trashed by the pandemic. The King of Demons might not care about the pandemic, but Conrene Alderman, the original villain of Dreams, who was on Earth and vulnerable to disease? Would. Does care. And also he wasn't really evil in the way the King of Demons is, so he doesn't want to risk a bunch of people he had helping him getting sick

So, uh, I didn't have a plot for Dreams anymore. But there were things that needed to happen for Shadowed Dreams (which the plot of was completely unaffected by the pandemic, aside from how Dreams was affected) to work. So I needed to figure something else out.

What ended up happening was that a different story (Conrene's redemption story, which was supposed to be half flashbacks and half set between Dreams and Shadowed Dreams) was completely scrapped to take it's villain for Dreams. It took like, a year to figure all that out. It's such a petty problem in regards to the pandemic, especially given that my day job is in healthcare, but GOD was it annoying.

*Of the four stories that originally made up the basis for the setting, one of them is no longer in it, because the time travel elements of it when combined with Sparks/Storms and Eyes Wide Open resulted in having to track like, fifteen different timelines for all of them; not worth it. I had to carefully excise it and replace the elements where it was firmly tied in (which Permafrost slotted into).

―

So, neurodivergence and how the world impacts their experience of it.

Most of my characters are autistic, because I am, so this is a hell of a question. And it varies a lot. Since the Shadowed Dreams setting is in a world that in part resembles our own, a lot of the character's experiences would be akin to the ND experiences of people in our world.

Not all of them, though.

For what's on Earth and not one of the other planes, there's the way neurodivergence is in mage society. I should point out here the mage society tends to be a little... reactionary? So -isms and -phobias tend to be a touch more intense across the board, and that does apply to ableism. So, that in mind, the more interesting detail.

The social specialty. It's all about the way magic related to the mind. This has actually been SUPER on my mind lately because I've been outlining a story with Ethan as one of the main characters, and he's an autistic guy who is of the social specialty.

He's not actually the best example though lmao, since the way he uses his magic is to just not feel difficult feelings because he's nitwit lacking a good support structure that realizes he's also ND.

But in general well directed social magic can do a lot to help with processing difficult emotions, or help with understanding the pesky neurotypicals through magical empathy.

Of course, that can go the other way too, with feeling other peoples feelings too much (which is very much a thing for Ethan oops), so it's a bit up in the air on that one.

There are also spells to help with the likes of dyslexia or dyscalculia, basically helping your brain where it otherwise struggled. Basically, magic as an accessibility tool! Social Magic stimulation for the likes of ADHD is likewise a thing.

In the same vein, some sensory specialty spells are invaluable, if say, you're autistic and have sensory issues. Sensory spells are basically all about the senses, so it's simple enough in concept to devise a spell to mitigate whatever sensory input my be troubling, or even to use it for stimming!

Just, you know, magic as accessibility aids. I love it a lot. So, an ND mage would be likely to seek out learning or be taught that kind of magic, regardless of their innate specialty, because it can genuinely enrich their lives. Which, you know, is good. Especially since their society is more than a little hostile to anything that's considered 'different'.

This post is very long as is, so I'll do cliff notes for the other planes.

Heaven: Neurodivergent people are kind of immediately shunted to the bottom of society if said neurodivergence is at all disabling? The society of the angels is intensely all or nothing, so the neurodivergent are either savants, or they're "wasters"; people who aren't able or "willing" to contribute to society. And this is dictated for them as children, because the angels have a whole thing about their whole lives being magically predicted for them, and they're expected to roughly follow the path laid out for them in said prediction even though that's not how future predicting works. And even if it actually did work that way, it's shitty to treat people based only on how they can "contribute" to society.

Dreamland: For the most part it's cool? Dreamlands whole thing is that it's all about the mind? It's driven by the thoughts and imaginations of those on earth, so all kinds of minds are treated with reverence. NT or ND. You might approach the magic of dreamland differently as someone who's ND, but the fact of the matter is that the society of Dreamland doesn't have any expectations of a person being either.

I already covered earth here.

The fey! Oh my god the fey. So the thing is, there's one group amongst the fey who are more prone to being neurodivergent than all the other fey and... and it's the changelings. So in the feyworld, being neurodivergent is being "Changeling-like" which... is... interesting? It's sort of othering, because most changelings don't live in the feyworld, but it's not considered a negative? So neurodivergent fey would generally feel a little like outsiders, and probably spend more time on earth as a result. Many mage families are likely originally descended from neurodivergent fey who were spending more time on earth, because mages are humans with fey ancestry. And those who weren't are likely descended from changelings. What I'm saying is that despite how much their society sucks about that, most mages are descended from people who were ND.

Demons: Uhhh, they don't care? It's a power hierarchy; who can kick who's ass decides where you are in society, and ones neurodiversity has little to no impact on that, over all?

...

Okay, I've rambled enough. Thank you so much for asking these questions; I loved them.

[candiliam328]

Season 1 was SO musically superior! Like imma be honest, there are very few songs I remember or liked from season 2. I think in hell I’ll be in good company, golden brown, and major Tom are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Season 1's soundtrack is iconic. Phantom of the opera? I think we're alone now? The Walker? Shingaling? Kill of the night, hazy shade of winter, happy together, run boy run, picture book, don’t stop me now... they’re all so good! No mistakes were made XD

YES. YES. YES. 

ok this is going to be an extremely long answer and... 

Necessary disclaimer: these are just all my personal opinions (pls don’t attack me)

Season 1 was a musical masterpiece. The OST and the pop music worked really well together. But I... wasn’t impressed with the music in S2. There’s lots of reasons why.

But what you’re talking about... honestly same. I just looked through a playlist of the pop music in S2 and I didn’t remember most of them? Couldn’t even guess what scenes they might play in? That’s... an immediate failing. If you put a song in a show, it needs to be a deliberate choice and it needs to mean something or else why would you bother including that song? 

yike I can literally talk about this for hours (more below the cut)

Music in cinema is really... weird. Even more so when you introduce pop music. 

Ok, let’s go from the beginning... a good musical scoring is supposed to reflect what is happening on your screen. It’s meant to support but not overwhelm. A good musical scoring will implicitly tell you more about the story than what you are visually given... but it’s incredibly subtle. You’re not meant to realize that you’re getting some extra info because that would distract you from what’s actually happening on the screen. Some background processing of info, if you get what I mean. (more to come in my OST analysis, should it ever be finished I guess lol)

This isn’t the case with pop music. This can’t be the case with pop music. 

Remember, the OST is original composition. Written specifically for this show. Only introduced to you in the context of this show.

Popular music, by definition, exists outside the context of this show. 

So there’s a really subtle balance that needs to be kept here when introducing pop music because you risk taking your audience out of the moment and making them think of other memories they already associate with that song. 

How do you combat that? Well, diagetic music (music built into the show, like “I Think We’re Alone Now”) tends to be more easily digested and accepted as part of the show material, since the characters are obviously hearing this music as well and interacting/reacting to the music. You have visual confirmation that this music is part of the show as well as auditory stimulation, so brain is less likely to wander off on its own journey. 

But the more clever way? Have an incredibly meaningful scene tied with it, something that fits in all the right ways and allows it to work like the score, giving you additional information without you even knowing it. Something that overpowers your brain’s tendency to get distracted by whatever other context you may associate with that pop song. Something that will grab your brain and be like “Sorry, brain. This song is officially a TUA song.”

This obviously works best if you have very little memories associated with the song, so the more obscure the song the better. But if you’re an absolute mad genius with your music and your cinematic timing, you can overpower any association with any song, no matter how popular it is. (... ever wonder why every song in Shrek became an immediate Shrek song? yeah lol)

You also have to recognize that the pop music in TUA or in any other piece of cinema that includes pop music? It does not exist in auditory isolation. There’s a running stream of background music and sounds and noises. Clever sound production will make the jump between music as smooth as possible. Clever scoring will think about how to weave a narrative, while keeping in mind the pop music that will be inserted as well. Make everything as subtle and smooth as possible. Your job is to not take the audience away from the narrative of the screen.

Ok, that was a lot of background info. You may be asking, “LOL BEAN WHAT’S YOUR MAIN POINT?”

Alright, so here it is.

The pop music in season 2 was pretty much doomed to be less effective from the get-go. 

The original score of TUA is composed by the lovely Jeff Russo. From my understanding, he knew what pop music was already planned for season 1 before he even got to scoring. This is important. Because he could make choices about the score and the motifs, while keeping the pop music in mind. He could make a more cohesive sound and music experience. And it worked.

There were deliberate choices made with the pop music. They prioritized and made sure you heard them in the right contexts. I will tell you now that there may be some pop music in season 1 that you completely forgot about. That’s OK. You weren’t necessarily supposed to remember them that much. You can’t be expected to pick up on everything. But the ones that played during the most important scenes? “Run Boy Run,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “The Walker,” “Never Tear Us Apart”? You know them. They played them longer and they took the time for your ears to appreciate the music and recognize its context in the show. None of this works if your ears and your brain don’t have enough time to process and form the associations of this song with what is happening on the screen. And they resonated with you the most because they reflected what was happening in the show the strongest. These are the important scenes you were supposed to care about and will play in your mind now whenever you hear those songs. 

But an even stronger testament to the integrity of pop music in S1: The other songs you forgot about and can’t name off the top of your head? You can listen to them again and maybe even make a good guess at when they were playing in the show. They... fit the show somehow, even if you can’t exactly place it. 

And this all makes sense if they chose these songs even before they started filming. Even before they started most of the scoring. 

In season 1, choices were made because of the pop music. 

... not so much the case for season 2. 

I’ve spent less time on the music for season 2 and honestly I don’t plan to spend much more ahaha... But here’s my two cents:

The music in season 2... is incredibly confused. You no longer have this cohesive sound experience that showed up in season 1. The OST is stuck with motifs that were developed with pop music from s1 in mind. Also, Russo played really hard into the fact that Vanya played the violin in season 1 and now there’s no violin at all on-screen, but he’s stuck with an excess amount of violin in the scoring, so there’s already less of a connection there. Not only that, but Russo is no longer the sole score composer, was working on other projects while scoring this one, so there’s less time from him dedicated to make this score work, but also a slightly different sound being introduced from another composer.

Now, add in the messiness of time travel to the 1960��s. The OST is not the 1960's. Not even the new tracks introduced. So the 1960′s sound is... trying to come from the pop music. The pop music that doesn’t blend in with your OST because your OST was developed for a time set in the present. 

But wait! Your S1 soundtrack got really popular because of its prime pop music choices... music that fit really well with your scenes. Let’s do that... but even more. Let’s use really popular music !! Backstreet boys, maybe some covers of Billie Eilish, and Adele. Everyone knows these songs !! They’ll see how clever we are and it’ll make them laugh !! 

(Notably, this kinda ruins the charm that they were hoping to replicate from S1? Honestly, several times while I was watching S2, I literally shook my head and closed my eyes, thinking.... “of course, they would play this.” Took me completely out of the show. Yeah, it can be really fun, but idk if you are thinking about the people behind cinematic decisions during your first watch of a show, those people probably messed up at their job?)

But wait, I thought you were using your pop music to establish the 1960′s theme? Now some of your music is directly clashing with that and the environmental setting? You’re confused. What are you supposed to be taking away from the pop music now?

And here’s something even more messy: the pop music in S1 was so incredibly important in establishing the musical identity of your characters, since they were played during some of the most defining character moments. Consciously or not, you have some musical expectations already for each of the characters. Not only that, but you’re expecting this pop music to be telling you more things about your characters than what you’re seeing on the screen. What happens when those expectations are not met? There’s some cognitive dissonance. You’re mentally taken out of the show, thinking about other things. Confused about what you’re supposed to take away from this music. Bad. Musical. Decisions.

So... what does that leave you with for the music in season 2?

A mess of 1960′s music and clunky ‘on-the-nose’ music choices, which may or may not clash with the established musical identities of the characters and all clumsily tied together with a struggling OST for the musically confused ears of the audience.

Tldr; Season 1 was a musical masterpiece. The Season 2 music never even had a chance.

[tasloveskk]

Some folklore thoughts 💭🌲✨🏳️‍🌈 

Part 1

 I’m going to take it song by song while also tracking key themes in red! Please also feel free to add in your thoughts in the comments, I’m curious to see what else people think folklore is about...

folklore

‘folklore’ is defined as “a body of popular myths or beliefs relating to a particular place, activity, or group of people.” or, by Steve from Taylor’s IC,”the traditional beliefs, customs, and stories of a community, passed through the generations by word of mouth.” Taylor herself in her introduction/prologue says  “A tale that becomes folklore is one that is passed down and whispered around. Sometimes even sung about. The lines between fantasy and reality blur and the boundaries between truth and fiction become almost indiscernible. Speculation, over time, becomes fact. Myths, ghost stories, and fables. Fairytales and parables. Gossip and legend. Someone’s secrets written in the sky for all to behold.”

the 1

- firstly, it’s the best opening track she’s ever had! 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

- “I’m doing good, I’m on some new shit” = sounds to me like a conversation you have with an ex, like someone is saying “yeah I’m doing great, I’m dating/doing ‘x’” the first time they run into their ex in a while.

-“I thought I saw you at the bus stop” has BIG “this city screams your name” energy but is also very clever by Taylor because Miss Karlie Kloss is ALWAYS on advertisements on bus stops/literal buses around the globe 🚌

- “I hit the Sunday matinee” to me seems like an inside thing, because obviously as the world biggest pop star, if taylor is going to go to the theatre or cinema, she’ll pick the least busy and most filled with older people which would be the Sunday matinee.

- “you know the greatest films of all time were never made” —> the greatest love stories never get told? happen behind the scenes? There’s something deeper here but I’m still forming the cohesive idea!

- “if you wanted me you really should’ve showed” = showed up or showed for the world, either way Taylor wanted KK to chose her not Josh so they could work but that didn’t happen so now she’s left to wonder.

- “roaring twenties” evokes two clear images for me! 1. They were both in their 20s for the entiretyof their relationship, the best years were spent together and 2. The Roaring 20s were a time of independence, pushing boundaries and breaking the rules of prohibition - which is basically what Taylor and Karlie were doing behind the scenes.

- “if my wishes came true, it would’ve been you” = let’s say, ONLY FOR ARGUMENTS SAKE, that Taylor really IS with Toe, that still means that this song is her yearning for someone else who she always loves more AND had to lose at some point. Looking at her past beards “relationships”, there are only two plausible options - Joe (which seems unlikely seeing as they’re still “together”) or CH who she supposedly wrote “you would’ve been the one if you were a better man” about. Either way doesn’t seem like it fits. However, if you look at it as Karlie is the 1, it becomes clear - it would’ve been fun being best friends and lovers for ever baking cookies and dancing around the kitchen, it would’ve been forever if Karlie hadn’t “married” jerk, it would’ve been her and it still is. 💗

- “in my defense I have none, for never leaving well enough alone” & “I know that I went psycho on the phone, I never leave well enough alone” are about the same moment with the same person = she didn’t leave well enough alone because she kept writing about Karlie and re-engaging us Kaylors as well as I’m sure, she kept up with seeing Karlie or keeping tabs on her to the point where it forced someone to reach out to the other.... she can’t apologise or defend her actions because you can’t explain the things you do for true love.

- “I have this dream you’re doing cool shit” aka starting a podcast, expanding businesses, making headway as an entrepreneur and being a highly-paid and respected international model? Seems straight forward 👀

- “you meet some woman on the Internet and take her home” = 1. Karlie is specifically interested in tech and the internet, it is literally her entire business and 2. if Karlie and Tay did break up, then because Karlie is actually NOT married to Josh, she hooked up with someone she met through the internet somehow (probs social media not an app) and Taylor found out this is probably a snarky comment about that from a jealous ex. Could possibly also be about the dream mentioned above. 💔🔐

- “another day waking up alone” = lost her lover, sleeps alone? Bold claim on opening tack.

- “persist and resist” = very famous feminist saying, civil rights/political echo?

- “the temptation to ask you if one thing had been different, would everything be different today” = this what if mentality continues through the album but personally, I think this is about Kissgate.

- “Rosé flowing with your chosen family” = repeats later, your chosen family could refer to Karlie’s group of friends like Derek and Jourdan etc.

- “would’ve been sweet if it could’ve been me” = flipped perspective, wishes Karlie chose her.

- “dragging up the grave another time” = firstly, THAT pin on her EW jacket now makes more sense. second, Taylor has written about Karlie for 4 straight albums now, she hasn’t let their love story die even if they did.

-

cardigan

- “brand new phone” = this is not some story, this is current reality. Taylor hides behind era-specific language and imagery in some other songs but this one is clearly about here and now, and her.

- “sensual politics” to me stands out because only really here and in TLGAD is politics explicitly mentioned and sensual politics to me screams sleeping with someone for political gain or with political connections which certainly sounds like someone...

- “when you’re young, they assume you know nothing” = sounds to me like a lot like a) love story and b) “you don’t know you’re gay, it’s just a PHASE! you’ll grow out of it!” 🏳️‍🌈

- “chase 2 girls, lose the one” = supposedly, when KK and TS met, Taylor was still in love/entangled with Dianna so perhaps she’s reflecting on making the wrong choice?

- CIWYW links: my baby’s high above the whole scene—> heartbeat on the high line, tidbit:as is clear in both Lover & 1989 New York is a sacred place for TS and KK’s love story, the high line is a) a beautiful NYC icon and b) right in between the girls’ two places...

- as mentioned, miss Karlie ELIZABETH Kloss was the brand model for Levi’s and definitely has worn some sequins and black lipstick on cobblestones sooooo.... 🤷🏼‍♀️

- “you drew stars around my scars” = see Drake’s birthday party and the infamous third Polaroid mystery 👀

- “stepping on the last train” could mean one of two things to me; 1. The last resort for KK was marrying J*sh or 2. the last train could represent some goodbye the girls had where KK chose something/someone else over Taylor.

- “peter losing Wendy” is such an interesting metaphor on so many levels but specifically, Wendy loses Peter because she wakes up (from nearly dying but nvm) and grows up and stops believing in Neverland and magic, basically Wendy loses an attachment to Peter because her reality shifts and that’s what gets remembered especially in the Disney version of the story. HOWEVER, the opposite is also true meaning Peter Pan loses Wendy because he can never co-exist with her again, he can never grow up or bring her back to Neverland without either killing her or ruining her. So this idea that someone wanted to change the ending from peter losing Wendy because he had to do what was best for her because he loved her echoes as Karlie didn’t want to marry Jerk or hurt Taylor but had to in order to protect her. Right? 😅

- “leaving like a father, running like water” = Taylor’s parents got divorced and there’s SOME thoughts Scott left the house and Taylor lives with her Mom in Nashville in her teen years.

- “I knew everything when I was young” - Taylor has always know she was LGBT+ 🌈 and also, baby VSFS vibes because as we all know, “we were both young when I first saw you...” send tweet.

- “I knew you’d come back to me” hopefully, HOPEFULLY foreshadows the girls being together/coming out soon !!!!!!! 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼

- music video wise, I’ll do a break down soon.

TLGAD

- ‘Rebekkah’ refers to the previous owner of Taylor’s Watch Hill, RI house, Rebekah Harkness. She was a divorcee until marrying Standard Oil heir William (aka Bill) Hale Harkness, a new-money dynasty was formed in this time from their profit. There are MANY wild, whimsical stories about ‘Betty’ (which is obviously an extended metaphor of folklore)  that this song tries to re-create/recapture.  

- Taylor is also known as ‘Becky’ due to the popular meme so this is quite literally a play on her own character as well as the previous inhabitants of the house.

- St Louis is not only Rebekkah’s hometown, but also Karlie Elizabeth Kloss’. 

- “the wedding was charming, if a little gouche” seems like a direct shot fired at Karlie’s woodsy photoshoot of 2018 😂😂(ironically, folklore’s key aesthetic is the woods!!)

- “it must’ve been her fault his heart gave out” refers explicitly to William dying of a heart attack in the house, but subtly I feel like this is a dig at the media who constantly blame women for things they cannot control, as they have done with Taylor too many times to even count. 

- “who knows if she never showed up, what could’ve been” seems like Taylor is stuck thinking about what may have happened for her and Karlie if things had been different, see the 1. 

- “she/I had a marvellous time ruining everything” is such an incredibly provoking lyric on two fronts, 1. obviously taylor buying her RI house had a massive impact on an otherwise sleepy holiday town that is now more famous for Taylor’s july 4 parties than anything else and 2. seems introspective or personal, as if the things that ruined everything for Karlie and Taylor were the best and most marvellous parts of their relationship (big sur, kissgate etc.) 

- “flew in all her bitch pack friends from the city” is not only about the friends and celebs Rebekkah was notorious for hosting but also Taylor’s ‘bitches and model’ girl gang circa 2015 which includes one Karlie Kloss. 

- “blew through the money on the boys and the ballet” refers to Rebekkah’s love of wasting her fortune on things, including a ballet company that went under not long after she created it BUT also refers to Taylor paying so many boys to be her beards and PR stunts whilst also spending her money on a certain ex-Ballerina. Also remember her AMA’s performance of Lover/ bts of Shake It Off? 😉😉😉

- “50 years is a long time” - 50 seems deliberate, a bit of a reach but note it WAS the 50th anniversary of Stonewall last year. 🏳️‍🌈

-  “free of women with madness, their men and bad habits and THEN IT WAS BOUGHT BY ME.” - this clearly shows that ALL the songs are being narrated by Taylor, some of the lyrics are about her, some are about these fictional or fantastical characters she’s created but there is her truth behind all of them too. 

- “the loudest woman this town has ever seen” = Taylor is undoubtedly the most famous woman in the town who regualrly causes uproar there (see the Sea Wall debacle and the Taylor Swift Tax)

- in all, the two famed women owner’s of Holiday House have many overlaps and are forever intertwined. 

exile

- “i can see you standing honey with his arms around your body” as the opening line is LOUD. to me, feels like this is about ALL those staged photos of Josh and Karlie uncomfortable/fake as hell on social media. 

- “laughing but the joke’s not funny at all” is something we’ve all thought about Karlie’s marriage before and is about that moment where if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry at the situation. 

- “it took you 5 whole minutes to pack up ... holding all this love out here in the hall” to me is about someone moving out of a shared home, like Karlie from Taylor’s NYC apartment, after a break up or fight. We know it is MORE than likely that the girls’ broke up, for a while or for good, in 2017/18. 

- “I think I’ve seen this film before, and didn’t like the ending” is a lot like “Cause cruelty wins in the movies, I've got a hundred thrown-out speeches I almost said to you” / “All of my heroes die all alone.” which makes me truly believe that delicate > the archer > exile are all the progression of the same love story.  ❤️

- “now I’m in exile seeing you out” = both of them have lost their home, exiled from the relationship.

- “I can see you staring honey, like he’s just your understudy” has a lot to unpack. Firstly, see this photo. Second, as a beard, Joe is quite literally Karlie’s understudy - stepping in only to fill a public void or play her part when she can’t. 

- “like you’d get your knuckles bloody for me” is basically this tweet

- “second, third and hundredth chances” - hopefully this means the girls WILL be together again soon!!! 

- “those eyes add insult to injury” - Taylor has often made explcit reference to her lover’s eyes, but this could also mean the eyes of the public on her every move and relationship not allowing her to properly grapple with break ups. 👁️

-  “i’m not your problem anymore, so who am i offending?” - homophobes love to say wlw or mlm relationships “offend” them or their beliefs, so who could taylor be offending if she’s publicly in a straight relationship? 

- “you were my crown”, Taylor was/is Karlie’s princess, if Karlie is gone, Taylor doesn’t feel like she’s a princess anymore. Likewise, Karlie is Taylor’s sunshine which makes the moody, misty, dark aesthetics all the more relevant to this album. 

- “so I’m leaving out the side door’ - this side door? the other side of the door?

- “all of this time, we always walked a very thin line” between outing themselves and being happy? 

- “I gave so many signs” - Taylor has queercoded EVERY album since her self-titled, she has been dropping hints and signs for years that she is LGBT+ so it must be exhausting to have to keep hiding who she loves. This is repeated so many times - it means a lot. 

- written with William Bowery who nobody can quite identify, but Karlie and Taylor have been to the Bowery many times together and William is mentioned earlier in TLGAD

- this whole song is a duet, a two-sided conversation between lovers - her and karlie both without each other. 

my tears ricochet

- Track 5 is, as per usual, deeply confessional, personal, emotive and moving. 😿😿

- there are lots of theories and layers to this masterpiece of a song, including that it’s in reference to big machine. I personally think every single song of Taylor’s is made up of layers that reflect multiple things in her life and experience so plausibly it can be about multiple things all at once including Sco** and Scumbag as well as Karlie, who was under Scumbag’s management for the majority of the decade. Another theory which with every new listen I think is more and more possible is that this is alternating between Taylor and Karlie’s perspectives. 

- ‘if i’m on fire, you’ll be made of ashes too” whoever is associated with Taylor will ALWAYS be dragged down with her. If she’s being attacked, they will be too. Big 2016 energy. 

- “even on my worst day, did I deserve babe, all the hell you gave me?” could be directed at a lover, or at Big Machine, or even the public for all the shit they’ve said about Taylor over the years. 

- “I swear I loved you ‘till my dying day” seems a lot like the 1, as well as could be about the music and the label she helped build. 

- “I didn’t have it within myself to go with grace.” Taylor was LOUD about her split from Big Machine, she called them out (rightly) and made noise which is not a ‘graceful’ split. 

- “you’re the hero flying around saving face” very easily is about S+S jackasses but deeper than that, while Taylor was under immense attack and criticism, everyone who actually like her music pretended suddenly to hate it and her to stay ‘cool’ 

- “cause if I’m dead to you why are you at the wake?” this lyric becomes especially important in the final verse but essentially those who publicly distanced themself from Taylor still showed up when she was thriving again and/or because they actually truly loved her *uhmm karlie uhmm* 

- “cursing my name, wishing I stayed” either at Big Machine or with Karlie/Taylor. 

- “some to make a diamond ring” > firstly we still have never understood the ring image from the LWYMMD and ME! videos, it is entirely possible this is a continuation of that same symbol/image. Second, I think this hints to Karlie getting ‘engaged’ while still being with Taylor, the rock for the ring in the song was found by the two people gathering stones after all. 

- “you know i didn't want to have to haunt you” both Taylor and Karlie have big reputations all over the world that follow them everywhere. For either one, they will always be haunted by reminders of each other. 

- “you wear the same jewels that I gave you as you bury me” - on the Big Machine side, Taylor made the label professional and big, she is literally the sole reason it succeeded in the music industry so she handed Sco** his fortune and reputation which he still had when he sold her music to Scumbag and got into a very dirty bed with him. From the Karlie side, many people have noted that not only does she wear her black cartier necklace, which is assumed to be from Taylor, but to her ‘wedding’ wore a necklace she’d worn before with Taylor. 

- “when I’d fight you’d tell me I was brave” could refer to Sco** encouraging her in 2016 to defend herself. Could refer to Karlie supporting her behind the scenes. 

- ‘and I can go anywhere I want, just not home” seems like a continuation from exile, as in she’s lost the place she called home because her lover is no longer there but could also mean she can’t go back to her other albums and the house (see the lover music video) that they created as her musical home.

- “you will still miss me in your bones” could be about Sco** losing his money and label without her there to physically support and carry it or about the fact that the love Taylor and Karlie had is so ingrained it’s in their bones forever. 

- “and i still talk to you when I’m screaming at the sky” this lyric has a lot of possible interpretations (i’ve seen one about cursing out God?) but i think it’s similar to “asking the traffic lights if i’ll be alright” as in, it’s Taylor asking the universe to help her make sense of things. 

- “when you can’t sleep at night, you hear my stolen lullabies” suggests a) sco** + scumbag is still haunted by the music they stole from Taylor because it was literally the backbone of the business which is now practically worthless and b) that Karlie is kept awake by the songs Taylor has written for and about her over the years which again were stolen away by the jackasses at Big Machine.  

- “you had to kill me, but it killed you just the same” again, same idea - big machine will never be profitable without her/while they hold her masters hostage. BUT Karlie wise, breaking up with Taylor broke her too? 

- this is where the song changes. it shifts from Taylor’s story to someone else’s, personally I think Karlie. 

- “you turned into your worst fears” as in she settled for the money and sold her values off by marrying Josh. Also, Karlie was under Scumbag’s management for years (part of Taylor’s hatred of him was him keeping the girls’ from doing as they pleased) so by being completely controlled by him, she turned into this completely fake person. Contrast 2014/15 Karlie with 2017/18 Karlie and it so much more all about PR and money. 

- “you’re tossing out blame, drunk on this pain, crossing out the good years” - sco** and scumbag have made so many false excuses for their behaviour and completely erased the good relationship between the Swifts and sco**. Not sure yet what the Karlie side is here but it’s here somewhere. 

- in conclusion, this is about Big Machine and Karlie. As the first song Taylor wrote for the album, I think it’s clear just how incredibly multi-faceted this album is. ☕☕☕

mirrorball

- first off, we can never forget about this and this look from both girls. ✨✨

- “I’ll to show you every version of yourself tonight”, the public and the private sides to them both. this is big glass closet energy in my opinion 

- “and when I break it’s in a million pieces” is so personal and heartbreaking. 2016 and Kaylor breakup vibes. I cannot elaborate at this time. 

- “when no one is around my dear” = the secrecy, forbidden love motif returns and again, if she’s in a hetero relationship, what’s to hide? 

- “you’ll find me on my tallest tiptoes”, Just an fyi, Karlie, a giraffe, is 6′2″, Taylor is 5′10″ -- thats a big difference. 🦒🦒🦒

-  “i know they said the end is near” = end of the relationship or the end of hiding it, either way, it’s a romantic last private moment together, swaying as the room burns down. 

- “i can change everything about me to fit in” = Taylor when she was starting out was forced to create this all innocent, american-girl image of herself. She has had to hide herself to succeed, as she said in Miss Americana, she was muzzled. 

- “you are not like the regulars, the masquerade revelers” = Karlie is different to everyone else, or any other ex, ‘masquerade’ implies masked or hidden figures at a party, very Love Story 

- “and the called off the circus, burned the disco down” = the ‘circus’ could be the media/public, or all the illusions Taylor has cast in order to appear straight. The ‘disco’, and Taylor is the ‘mirror ball’ to her lover means that this isolated existence of just the two of them. 

- “I’m still on that tightrope, I’m still trying everything” for now, she’s still closeted, she’s still trying to have the best of everything. 

- “I’m still a believer, but I don’t know why” believer in everything working out perhaps, or perhaps believing it’s better if she’s in the closet and it’s only the two of them. 

- “never been a natural” = she has completely created herself through years off trying to be what people want, not who she naturally is. 

seven

- “picture me” implies this is retrospective of Taylor, she’s reflecting on her childhood/youth. 

- “I hit my peak at Seven” could either refer to the age 7 or album 7, ‘Lover’ which many critics argued was her best work. 

- “Over the creek I was too scared to jump in” = fear of jumping is something Taylor has discussed in many songs but this is different, the creek represents something she fears will drown her.

- “High in the sky with Pennsylvania under me” = obviously, Taylor was born and raised in rural PA, so this truly is a childhood memory unearthed and explored. It’s personal to Taylor, it’s her story. 👏🏼

- “Are there still beautiful things?”  Recognizing the world isn’t all daisies and rainbows 

- “cross your heart, don’t tell no other” = again, secret keeping and hiding something is a big queer image, ‘cross your heart’ is a quite childish phrase but it’s adult equivalent in Taylor’s world is an NDA, ie swearing people to secrecy is something she's always known... 🔐

- “Although i can’t recall your face, I still got love for you” = this childhood love has faded with time to memories, this girl simultaneously forgotten and remembered. 

- “Your braids like a pattern” = definitely about a girl (1996 rural Pennsylvania was not the kind of place where boys had braids), specific use of YOUR pronoun not ‘my’ or ‘our’ suggesting again it’s about a girl. Very obviously about a first girl crush. 🌈 

- “passed down like folk songs, the love lasts so long” = firstly, reference to Neruda’s poem Taylor used in the red prologue. second, folksongs change slightly from generation to generation but the heart/melody remains the same meaning that in Taylor’s mind, the story of her first girl love has changed but it’s still the same song/story all the years later. also, clearly a reminder of the setting of the song and the album as a whole being folklore. 💛

- “your dad is always mad and that must be why” feels a lot like Love Story and forbidden love, also again rural Pennsylvania in the mid-1990s was not the most liberal place so I can imagine a lot of homophobic ideas that perforated Taylor’s childhood.

- “I think you should come live with me” is such an innocent image of someone in love and wanting to just fix things by bringing them home, it also is like a baby gay version of uhauling 

- “we could be pirates” = pirates are not just a childhood image/motif but also one historically seen as gay, gangs of pirates often had ‘mateolage’ agreements that basically were like widow’s benefits. See John Swann. ☠️

- “you won’t have to cry, or hide in the closet.” = I think this one is explicitly clear but just to be sure, Taylor could’ve said “hide when he lost it, hide if you wanted, hide in the woods too” etc. Read this for a full understanding of why it such a LOUD image to use.  It is VERY DELIBERATE PEOPLE. 🌈🌈🌈

- “just like a folk song, our love will be passed on” = different from the first bridge but deliberate again. Their story, aka Taylor liking girls from a young age will always be talked about, AND their love lives in this song she wrote.

- “picture me in the weeds before I learned civility” = again, given the homophobic attitude, ‘civility’ and straightness should be read as the same so Taylor is saying when she was a child, free in the grass and herself, she wants to always be. 

- “I used to scream ferociously any time I wanted” = she wasn’t muzzled as a child, she could say and be who she wanted, screaming it aloud for everyone to hear but that changed as she grew up. 

- “pack your dolls and a sweater, we’ll move to India forever” = ‘dolls’ again would imply it’s two girls running away together and India is this exocitc far off place to a child, a place where they can be together without anyone knowing them or controlling them. 

August

- Karlie Kloss is born in August. Karlie Kloss posted yesterday about being a Leo (an August born). August belongs to Karlie Kloss. 🦁♌

- “rust on your door” = image of something well-worn, perhaps someone who’s been here too a few times before?

- “whispers of are you sure?” = obviously there is the sexual connotation, but beyond that, what if it’s about Taylor and Karlie going public etc. 

- “never have I ever before” = see above but also the game ‘never have I ever’ evokes youthfulness and sounds almost like a reminder of a fun night with friends. 

- “I can see us lost in the memory” = implies they’re still together, losing themself in the memory together

- “I can see us twisted in bedsheets” = again, sexual imagery but also the intimacy of sharing a bed with the person you love after sex 

- “Like a bottle of wine” = matures the song a bit, the youthfulness of earlier is now more adult. 21 is America’s drinking age, 20s were mentioned early etc. 🍷

- “Cause you were never mine” = the whole of Taylor and Karlie’s relationship, Karlie has publically been dating Josh so she was never solely Taylor’s. 

- “Will you call when you’re back at school?” = Karlie attended NYU in 2015, the height of Kaylor. 

- “back when we were still changing for the better” = instead of changing to adapt/survive or keep up appearances. 

- “wanting was enough” = wanting Karlie without labels was enough, rather than having to go public etc. Many have said for a long time that Karlie and Taylor fought about coming out or not. 

- “cancel plans in case you would call” = sounds like a very love-sick Taylor Swift thing to do. Also waiting on a lover’s call when they constantly are travelling like both Karlie and Taylor do makes sense. ☎️

- “so much for summer love” = cruel summer echo? Summer 2015 was again, peak Kaylor so this could be a specific reference to that period

- “Do you remember? Remember when I pulled up and said ‘get in the car’” another specific reference, comes up again later in Betty, clearly is something personal. 

- “Back when I was still living for the hope of it all” = back as in the past when everything was happening, hope of it all being the hope they’d still end up together. 

TO SUM UP PART 1:

BENEATH ALL FICTION OR MYTH IS FACT & FEELING. Taylor is no longer hiding. Yes, some of these songs are about stories and people not her but there is so much of herself and her own story layered in too. PAY ATTENTION!!! Obviously, these are just my opinions, I’m not Taylor so I cannot know exactly what these songs are about but I think, after years of analyzing her music, these images/themes and deliberate word choice are well-versed in this part of the fandom. It is entirely possible this is the beginning of Taylor’s full, public coming out journey. 

I’ll be back with Part 2 tomorrow.  Stay Tuned!

[zed-36]

@ 18: the questions weren't actually that strict! you could interpret them however you liked :) that said, im curious what you would add to the story? i love reading ur ideas and interpretations of the characters n stuff!

oh no prob, i did enjoy thinking of what i could change without adding anything new (i will talk too much if i dont contain myself) BUT since you have asked...

ill share these ideas as a general change to the series as a whole (WR and Acceleracers- also i will call Acceleracers AC for short if i need to).

There is a lot i feel needs to change- but two major points are lore (and direction of it in the story) and characters.

The lore of the series is all weird due to what changed between WR and AC, but its also too surface level. its for kids, its probably why its not so expansive. but it does leave a lot of confusion to me and while i would have to spend much more time to fully “rebuild” the world, i will give some ideas on what i would see changed.

One, at least making it make sense all the way through. i think Acceleracers had the best ideas but it shouldve been expanded on in WR- WR barely touched on actual Acceleron lore. Overall i would like to see the Accelerons 100% remade from the ground up. i LOVE aliens and alien society but i feel all we know of them is they race. and thats its. and sadly AC wasnt seen through to where we may have seen a bit more. but they need to be redone, with lore also point to exactly why the drones woke up when they did, what their drive is, etc. Why is Gelorum the way she is too, very important lor aside from characters. I wouldnt want the series to become a huge Lore Dump but there are moments where they intended to drop lore and they just. dont really do that, at least not well. Imagining the series with more extensive lore would obviously see it being longer than what it is, which i think makes sense. in the end if i was to properly write out all lore it would be a huge rebuild of 1) the Accelerons as an alien society, in depth 2) the full origins of the Drones/Gelorums (how they ended up where they did, what makes them how they are now and 3) a more cohesive plotting of events that would lead to lore revealed. also developing what “Scrim” and “clyp” were, along with the actual depth of Silencerz and how far back they go has been on my mind a lot. scrim and clyp just vanish from lore but in my headcanon backstory for Gelorum, i mention how those things existed too. if anyone has more specific questions on lore tho i can answer those individually! its just a lot to go over lol.

The characters though, oh god where do i start. not gonna touch on every individual (feel free to ask about someone and how i would rewrite them/change them), but theres a lot i would want to see different.

Theres some good ideas in the series that are just not explored much, or the actions dont feel like they have impacts. And many characters have literally zero backstory to go off of... Everyone needs at least some kinda origin in mind, doesnt have to be said but knowing where they come from is one key detail that i think is nice to drop some times. characters referncing locations, where they went, etc... its little but its good to have. In the WR comics, most of these characters do have origins! but theyre completely forgotten in the movies it seems. it would have been cool it WR tied together some of these ‘really good drivers’ and maybe they were in the same races together or something. there are 35 people and none of them seem to know each other at least not in detail- other than Vert and Alec who are clearly friends. Kurt Wylde was written to have done some “illegal” modifications in a race, what is someone there knew him? what if it brought up tension/suspicions? Things like that, its all part of where they come from and its a shame the movies just dont connect them very well.

I think theres some specific characters i will give examples to ‘rewrtiting’ and most of it is AC focused!

Kurt & Markie..... i love them, really do! but after WR i just did not like where they went. i get it, kinda ironic for Markie to become such an opposite. buuuut it was a bit much to me. first off, i would actually expand on the “crime” and that would 100% change the outcome of the two. the period between WR and AC shouldve gone different and in turn, i think wouldve changed up MM and Teku completely! i want to imagine Kurt is trying to get away from bad habits after WR but, perhaps has a really good deal with someone who had also gotten him into illegal car part business in the past. he is tempted and ropes Markie in with the idea they could do so more secretly but are caught, and while Markie is nervous and young he spills all the beans, but none of that evidence goes to Kurt and he stays silent, managing to get out of it. However instead of Kurt going to Teku and Markie going to MM.... Kurt tries to join Teku in the idea of joining a less rowdy gang, but Vert believes full Kurt let his brother take all the blame- so they dont allow him in. He goes for MM, which takes him easily but this team’s energy really doesnt help him. In turn, Markie leaves jail and Vert is swift to allow Markie into Teku because theyre friends! and it helps keep Markie in a better place, not wanting to get back into bad stuff. The important thing is tho, this switch up wouldnt result in super harcore, asshole Kurt. i feel like instead, he would be in an awkward place of wanting to improve himself but MM’s rebellious attitude coaxes him into worse attitudes. AND... very much an oppurtunity for Gelorum to manipulate him once more, as the accelechargers are much more important to acquire, with multiple, we’d loop back again. in the end though! i could imagine the story would still bring in the same scenario- Markie gets taken by drones, Kurt saves him, they rekindle and Kurt also comes to realize he shouldnt give in to the ways he used to practice.

i think for AC, in order to find more interest in the characters,  a switch up with the teams would be neat. Markie and Kur swapping was always on my mind, but i have thought about Teku!Taro. I think it would’ve been cool to throw in an background guy from WR into MM... like Harrison Lau. some more familiar faces would bring interesting dyanmics considering their backgrounds. and it think it wouldve fleshed out the teams a bit more in places they lacked.

Another thing i think is clear is there is lots of unexplored potential. Like dyanmics i express with Markie, characters like Lani, Karma, Tork, etc... oh there is so much i would add for them. Karma has a weird thing with being mentioned to look like Gelorum, and her prefectionism too but it was never touched on. What if it caused conflict? What if it made her question their morals? Or with Tork- i would honestly just rewrite how he tackles Tone’s death and the resolution, that whole thing in movie was weird and messy and made no sense to me imo. Lanu had something going for her but she felt so disconnected from the WR characters in AC, which is a shame! oh there are so many to go over lol. i hope to tackle some of these loose ends in the fics i have in mind but yeah... there is so much to say about changing these characters!!

[hot-tea-gardenparty]

After this past week’s incredible episode (15.18) and the Destiel canon reveal, my imagination was having a damn field day with how many ways the story could go in the finale. I have so many ideas and have been speculating so much (and literally have no one to physically talk to about it in my real life) that I just had to get them down and share them with you all.

Just a quick note before you read on:

I am definitely not saying any of the following ideas will actually come to fruition during the last two episodes of Supernatural Season 15. This is being posted just for fun and not to be taken as serious spec or meta. If you’d like to read serious meta there are so many other wonderfully detailed and thoroughly researched metas, specs or deep-dives out there by incredibly talented and intelligent fans like @verobatto-angelxhunter​, @amwritingmeta​ and @wigglebox. So please go check those blogs out if you are in need of something a little more cohesive and less....flail-y and fangirl-y.

With that said....let’s get on to the fun stuff....what I’d like to see or what I think we might see happen during the finale of Supernatural!

I would love Castiel coming to save the day somehow. He doesn’t need to be the final source that brings down Chuck, as I think that would be best saved for the Winchester brothers (since they have been the main target for the pain and control under Chuck.) What I mean is that I want Castiel to serve SOME important purpose, whether that be him bringing the angels back with him from the Empty (either to fight Chuck or just near the very end as a saving heaven move) or him helping turn the Empty against Chuck so that the Empty aids in lowering Chuck’s ability to fight back. OR….and this is my favorite idea, that Castiel’s positive influence over Dean, the love Cas has shown the Winchester brothers, the intense faith he had in the power of love….makes Dean and Sam fight Chuck not with intense anger and confusion, but with a realized faith in themselves, their abilities and their trust in each other.

My personal feelings on Cas’ return will be that his rescue will take place in the finale episode or (less possibly) during the final half of 15.19. It should at least be set up by the end minutes of 15.19 and hopefully set in motion by Dean, knowing he can get Castiel out of the Empty because he is DEAN FUCKING WINCHESTER AND HE LOVES HIS ANGEL SO HE IS GONNA RESCUE HIM GOD-DAMMIT.  It is also my belief that Jack will be the one with the ability to “open” or “get access to” the Empty for Dean to go in and get the love of his life back.

I see all the people who “poofed” away in 15.18 coming back once Chuck is gone….it may not be that easy but I can’t expect it to be too difficult (because we only have two eps left). Sam will get Eileen back by the end of 15.19 or the beginning of 15.20 before Dean gets Cas back because Chuck will be defeated before Cas can return.

Castiel’s rescue will take place in the finale. Like I said above, I think the set up for the rescue will take place at the end of 15.19 and the actual rescue will be the finale episode. Or at least that would be my ideal pacing of the events. I want an entire episode (or at least the most of one) focused on Dean’s intent to get Castiel back. I also want Sam and Jack specifically focused on getting Cas back as well. Castiel means just as much to them as a father and friend for them to leave the rescuing up to Dean. Jack will do the ‘waking-up’ of Castiel just like before. Jack will open the, proverbial, door to the Empty for Dean to walk through. I keep flip flopping on if I think Sam would be there in the Empty too or not….there are pros and cons either way. I am more leaning on the side of no Sam, in this particular situation since I am a Destiel clown and just want Castiel to hear from Dean how much he is loved and wanted.  Castiel can always hear about how much he is loved by Sam and Jack a little later.

My imagination sees Dean end up in the black void of the Empty and he sees nothing for a minute, until the Empty entity shows up (maybe wearing Dean’s face?) and they have a tense discussion about Castiel and letting him go. I do not think the Empty will ‘die’ or disappear. The Empty will remain. So with that in mind….is it just intimidation Dean would use to get past the entity (possibly using Jack as the powerful being on their side) or would it be more of a ‘hey you can go back to sleep and everything will go back to normal’ kind of persuasion? I am leaning towards the second option….but again that’s just my own ideal path the story could go down.

Once the Empty entity is dealt with…Dean finds Castiel. How this happens, I literally can’t fathom. I am still a little at a loss of how the Empty truly works, so I am not sure if Dean could ‘walk around to find him’ as it were…or if Castiel could just be manifested in front of him….*shrugs* BUT if I had my way, I would love for Dean to have to call out to Cas somehow to find him. What I mean is that I would love to have Dean need to pray for Cas to return to him or for their profound bound to bring them naturally together (like it did in Purgatory earlier in the season). Like Dean could just think of how much he loves Cas and needs Cas and then suddenly…out of the ether…. manifesting and slowly walking towards him, is Castiel.

Castiel will not believe Dean is there, he will believe the Empty is taunting him again. Dean has to convince Cas that it is truly him…that he is here to rescue him. What I would love to hear from Dean would be something like this (I apologize for the following horribly corny dialogue, this is a quick run-through, not meant to be taken super seriously):

   Dean: It’s me, Cas. It’s really me. I’m here to take you back. You need to be with us, with Sam, with Jack…..with me. You’re family, Cas. You’re my family.

    Cas: Dean, I can’t leave. The Empty….

    Dean: I’ve dealt with the Empty.

    Cas: Dealt with the Empty…? Dean how….?

    Dean: Cas, please. Please, I…I don’t know if I can do this without you.

    Cas: Do what…?

 Dean: I don’t think I can do….life…without you….because I love you too, Cas. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to say it but I do. I love you. I’ve known I loved you for years, I just never had the balls to admit it. You’ve seen me at my worst, over and over again and yet you never left me. You’ve put your ass on the line for me and Sam more times than we can even count. You were always the one with free will. The most out of all of us. You saved us, Cas. You saved the world. You saved me.

DEAN PUTS OUT HIS HAND, PALM UP.

CAS TAKES HIS HAND, DEAN PULLING CAS IN CLOSE, A HAND AROUND THE BACK OF CAS’ NECK.

DEAN KISSES CAS.

  Dean: So, I am here to grip you tight and bring you home.

Now this piece is just 100% my own selfish desire: It would be great if somewhere in the whole, Cas-leaving-the-Empty rescue that Cas must chose to become human. The Empty will tell Dean that sure, Cas can leave, but he cannot leave if he is still an angel….he needs to lose his grace. (Honestly, I just really want a human Cas by the end of the show…it just seems like that would be a wonderful full-circle way of wrapping up his story…choosing to live within the humanity he so loves.)

Okay on to the final scenes…..like I am talking the very final scenes, right before we cut to the black THE END title card.

I would love a final scene that involves Dean and Sam sitting on the hood of the Impala, discussing what they will do for the rest of their lives now that they are fully free of Chuck’s grasp. They are at a rocky beach (something like Oregon’s coastline) and the sky is clear and sun glints off of Baby’s shiny black paint. It’s about a week after defeating Chuck and getting Cas back. Dean asks Sam if he’s talked with Eileen at all. Sam will reply that they’ve been talking about getting together at her house for a few days, to get to know each other better. Dean will chuckle, make a joke about Sam’s sex life, but Sam will immediately get serious and ask if Dean will be okay with that plan. Will Dean be okay in the absence of his brother? Dean will think for a second…his eyes wandering off to where, off in the near distance, Castiel and Jack are out on the sandy part of the beach, smiles on both their faces as they have a conversation. Castiel is more relaxed than Dean’s seen in a long while, his trench coat, suit jacket and blue tie all abandoned in the trunk of the car….his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, his hair a mess from the wind. Dean will smile and reply, eyes not leaving Castiel down on the beach, “Yeah, I think I’ll be just fine.”

Or ya-know....something like that.

Anyways….those are the ideas floating around in my head. Again, DO NOT take any of these as serious spec on the finale, I am honestly just having some fun imagining all the different scenarios that could happen.

Let me know your ideas for the finale if you’d like as well! I’d love to hear them and what you think would be the perfect ending to Supernatural.