#like. setting is secondary to characters imo

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

Hot take

Night furies are actually perfectly evolved for hunting and killing other dragons and the only reason they aren't a dragon-hunting species like the death song or deathgrippers are is because DreamWorks couldn't have their adorable main character dragon be a "cannibal"

(below I'm gonna try to summarize what we've figured out in a convo with friends on discord)

(also tw animal death via predator)

First of all yes I'm aware that pretty much every decision made about their design was with consideration of the effect it would make on human audiences but hear me out

Night furies are most iconically known as dive-bombers. They are built for speed, high maneuverability, night-time camouflage and for striking targets from above. If we remove human settlements out of the equation (which would not have existed long enough to actually influence night fury evolution, come on), what does that leave us with?

They aren't built for catching fish for sure, they aren't very hydrodynamic and their head is round, wide, and their teeth are dull. Honestly, the monstrous nightmare is much better suited for catching fish, with its long neck, almost pelican-like jaw and rhamphorhynchus teeth

Compare to

Yeah the jaws look kinda like a porpoise of some sort but for that the whole body would have to be a lot more aquatic imo. The light fury looks a lot closer to an aquatic diver, it has a sleeker body, rounded fins instead of spikes, and a long neck.

I don't really see them hunting land animals either, they just don't look like they're adapted for that minus the resemblance with large felines and even then, they're too large to effectively hunt in forests.

The one thing I can kinda imagine them hunting is large mainland megafauna, but we're working with a setting that takes place pretty much exclusively on islands. And overall, dragons are the only abundant species there with the exception of fish and human-bred sheep and chickens.

In general, night furies have duller teeth, smaller claws and are smaller than most dragons. Disregarding the movies making Toothless weirdly OP, a night fury would be disadvantaged against most dragons in a 1v1 fight and besides, it has four huge weak spots that would highly discourage it from a direct physical fight - the primary and secondary tail fins. One unlucky rip in the membrane and the night fury is fucked.

The night fury however noticeably resembles falcons, given their dive-bombing ability and high maneuverability.

Falcons too have smaller beaks and weaker claws compared to most birds of prey, and for that they compensate by simply picking up speed, balling up their talons and Punching. Really. Hard.

And they use that ability to kill other birds, even much larger ones, by knocking them right from the sky.

Here, the night fury's plasma blast works the same way as a falcon's punch. Dragons are fire-resistant, so what the plasma blast does is really just a densely packed bolt of energy that has the effect of either stunning or outright killing prey by damaging its spine. And what the plasma bolt doesn't do, rapid contact with the ground would finish. And if even that doesn't do it, the night fury's wide jaws and dull teeth are just fine for simply clamping around the unlucky dragon's neck and strangling it, like a lion or a pitbull.

The night-time camouflage allows the night fury to soar for extended periods of time perfectly unnoticed in the night sky, and by the time it strikes, the dragon wouldn't even know what's coming.

Unless

Say the hunting night fury is aware of other dragons sleeping under the trees, as most dragons probably would at night (village raids aside, most dragons seem to be diurnal), so how does the night fury get them in position where it can use its signature attack? Well, there's That Iconic Screech Of Death. Since in the movies it tends to appear not just during dive-bombings but also when charging up a blast, I imagine it's something the night fury is able to control to some degree. So by simply fake-diving in close proximity to sleeping dragons, it can effectively terrify them into leaving their hideout and fly out into the open where it can easily take them out.

I dunno, the possibility of night furies as predators to other dragons just makes so much sense to me, I really don't know what other reasons there would be for them to evolve these particular adaptations.

And one more little headcanon to add to this whole rant - since night furies are significantly smaller and less equipped for dragon vs dragon fights and are primarily speed-based predators, I imagine there is this very likely scenario:

There is one dragon who resembles a hyena, a lil bit

Ok, rant over

[specialagentartemis]

the big thing about worldbuilding is that it’s ALL about tone. The other thing about worldbuilding is that it’s about repeated tropes that keep showing up in aggregate. You can control your story’s tone but unfortunately your story exists in conversation with all the other stories in its genre and you can’t control those, only how your story engages or doesn’t engage with the trends those other stories set.

“why are there potatoes in this Generically Vaguely Medieval European Fantasy World?” gets mocked a lot but it’s a question worth asking. If your world has Wizard McDonald’s with a McDragon (dragon hamburger) and Magic Fries no one is gonna be asking where the potatoes come from because you have set the tone of the world: it’s silly and satirical and those aren’t the relevant questions to be asking.

There’s also something very fair to be said for the Vaguely Medieval England Fantasy World, like the Vaguely Star Trek Sci-Fi World, as a known setting: we all know it, we all know its tropes, we all basically know How It Works, so authors don’t HAVE to do any meaningful worldbuilding any more than they’d have to if they set their story in, like, London, or New York City. Anyone in the English speaking world is at least vaguely familiar with how London or NYC work; similarly, the Generic Medieval Setting and the Generic Space Setting are places English language genre readers Basically Know. It’s a pre-made world full of inbuilt connotations to drop your characters/plot/concept into. There’s value in that, imo particularly for short-form works.

But if you take your secondary fantasy world to stand seriously on its own, to support a fantasy epic of your own, it can fall apart at the seams under the conflicting weight of own casual assumptions, and that’s what the “where do the potatoes come from?” question is all about. It’s about assumptions. The potatoes question is basically a synecdoche for, “if your world has the (literal) fruits of nonwhite people’s labor and cultures in it, does it have any nonwhite people?” The Shire has potatoes, tobacco, and iirc sunflowers and strawberries: all plants native to and domesticated in the Americas by Indigenous American people. The question is for you to ask yourself, why are potatoes a quaintly charming English thing for hobbits to eat, while, say, a hobbit eating quinoa or avocado toast would be jarring? Why do the royalty of Westeros eat lemon tarts but not curry? Why is coffee normal in this temperate-climate setting, but papayas and bananas would break immersion? Why are some foods “normal” and others “foreign”? What does this indicate about the assumptions baked into your story-world about what is Normal and what is Foreign? And why are potatoes, in particular, so common in fantasy worlds that are Vaguely European? Why is this a Normal Part Of The World but quinoa or maize corn (other South American Andean staple crops) aren’t? Why don’t we think of potatoes as a South American food?

It’s not about the potatoes, not really. It’s about whether you’ve thought about how Your World works, whether you’re being deliberate with the tone and the type of expectations you set, or if you’re just repeating what Feels Normal without digging into what’s Normal and what’s Foreign and why.

[marzipanandminutiae]

one thing I'm curious about re: Frankenstein is that it's not a woman-centered or at least heavily woman-focused story and so few gdt movies are like that

Pan's Labyrinth, Crimson Peak, the Shape of Water, the Murmuring (one of two stories he wrote for Cabinet of Curiosities), Pacific Rim, Nightmare Alley, Mama, Scary Stories to tell in the Dark...I don't get the vibe that he sets out to be A Feminist Director(tm), but he clearly sees women as compelling and full people who are interesting to explore as main characters. which, IMO, makes his work more successfully feminist than if he HAD tried to create "feminist movies" on purpose. even his works that do focus on a male MC tend to have really rich female secondary characters

Frankenstein has like two female characters and both play extremely minor roles, which is very much not usually the Del toro way. Mia Goth is a big-name actress and has been given top billing, so I'm expecting him to give Elizabeth more to do than in the original book?

really looking forward to seeing how this plays out!

[districtunrest]

ONGOMGOMGOMG. (share thoughts. any n all. you know i need to know. PLEASE!)

HAHA sorry. anyway:

I didn’t really like it and I’m sad about it. ☹️ even though there were some interesting ideas and cool new characters, I was taken out of the story too much to fully enjoy them. it read to me like the laziest (most rushed? least edited?) yet most forced storytelling of the series, which sucks bc it’s supposedly the REAL backstory of my favorite character. but I just couldn’t shake my doubt while reading that this was what we and Katniss were missing all along. too many details (that I memorized by heart as a tween and have made everyone’s problem since) didn't match up, even with the card-stacking*. so I just don't believe this was always the intended ‘real’ story when it’s so hidden from the trilogy... imo, SC went back to it with a mission statement in mind after recent current events (and, more tellingly, after Ballad) and did her thing. which is fine, that's her right - it's just, when this whole book seems more like a writing workshop thought experiment than the intended backstory, I will treat it as such. bc as it stands, all the callbacks & connections & Everlark parallels in the world cannot replace Katniss & Peeta watching the highlight tape of his Games, Haymitch telling them what he did was “almost but not quite” as bad as them with the berries, Katniss finally understanding who he is in that moment, and Haymitch later admitting the loss of his loved ones were because of "that stunt [he] pulled with the forcefield" (which is. simply not true anymore with all of his stunts in and out of the arena). like say no more, that’s good enough for me! it’s what I prefer and what I find more compelling than what’s revealed/subverted in Sunrise. and tbh that discrepancy makes Sunrise unfaithful, at least in my eyes, for all it relies on references to the rest of the series. 

now, obviously I had mixed feelings about this prequel in the first place, and my concerns/reservations mounted with each excerpt, only to be confirmed now... but I did try, okay!?? haha I’d told you and several others privately that I really wanted to like this book and I was willing to set aside my gripes if it was good - but it had to actually be good! instead, the book was exactly what I was afraid it was going to be *and* suffered a drop in quality. I found the narration underwhelming, dumbed down and repetitive, and not evocative of Haymitch's voice. even things I thought there was NO WAY would actually happen and I was just being paranoid - but then they did, lmao. like, it was a letdown for me personally *and* it didn’t even do it well enough where I could at least respect it and oblige, lol

overall, it was just too off for me. by answering and explaining so much, it ended up taking away a lot of the trilogy's charm and intrigue - and did so in a way that left a bad taste in my mouth. it made me view Ballad in a more negative light, too, tbh. so I think going forward I’ll just consider it a weird spinoff that is secondary to the main/trilogy canon. 🤷🏻‍♀️

(some more Haybitching under the cut)

tbh, what guts me the most is what SC chose to do with Haymitch’s voice & character, where she watered him down to what he needed to be for this lesson & this plot. it’s frustrating that the dangerous, cunning, arrogant boy that Katniss sees in the highlight reel and can easily recognize in adult Haymitch is all an act. the character we thought we knew is not present here, sacrificed to make yet another point about propaganda, and that’s a crying shame. and his deterioration in the final chapters is so underwhelming (as are the death scenes 🫣) - I've read that same story countless times but told better by people who love the character as is and weren't on a time crunch for a movie deal, I guess.

Sunrise!Haymitch skews shockingly immature and moralistic and hates the idea of being a sarcastic, selfish “rascal." but since when are we calling surviving and fighting to get home in an unthinkable situation selfish? that’s now assumed in Sunrise’s logic, where instead having a ginormous alliance against the Careers with no exit plan (big ‘WHAT IF ALL THE TRIBUTES BANDED TOGETHER AND DIDN’T FIGHT?’ energy) is much smarter and nobler than going it alone and heading in one direction to get to the edge for no reason other than bc nobody had tried it before and trilogy!Haymitch, we know, is an out-of-box thinker & strategist. I know he & Ambert were operating under the notion that they were going to lose no matter what and had their own plans (which. hmm) but it was just so oddly accepted by the Newcomers, too, who had no such threat from Snow. they were so willing to be selfless martyrs and band together when they all know at the end of the day there can only be one survivor - which was heartening in a way, sure, but it almost seemed trite? and again, needlessly moralistic in an established world like Panem, where these things happen every year...? not even self-righteous (Katniss' words but with Haymitch's backing!) Peeta 'not a piece in their games' Mellark thought so narrowly. Idk. I might have to mull that one over more. but anyway, then Haymitch trying to rescue Maysilee is turned into a mini redemption arc in post, when all it was in the first place was a glimpse into his protective & caring nature underneath all the bravado, which was surely part of Katniss’ deepening understanding of him. but Sunrise wasn’t interested in exploring that, either, or even honoring it. okay

and I can’t get over how SC had to kind of retcon the final pages of Mockingjay to fit Haymitch’s epilogue into it, which didn’t help how it already rang so hollow for me, I hate to say. it��s not even done well, containing the most rushed, wrap-up-everything-before-the-deadline writing I’ve ever seen from SC (and it STILL doesn’t read like Haymitch’s voice to me :/). some things can just be; they don’t need some big, loaded, tragic explanation. Haymitch can glibly call Katniss ‘sweetheart’ once, bc she’s been sullen & hostile to him and he is in fact sarcastic (the horror!), only for it to go on to become an actual term of endearment by the end - like, that’s lovely in and of itself. why weigh it down further? who asked for that? I know I didn’t. 

most insignificantly & pettily of all: geese do mate for life - as in monogamously, meaning they stay together until one of them dies. then, they mourn and find another mate. just putting that out there, lmao

*how tf was Haymitch able to kiss his token and set up a bomb and throw it over the edge and put his token back when we know he was convulsing from shock by the end? to where Silka was able to start staunching her wound as she waited for him to die? if him going into shock was taken from footage anytime after, the arena would've been quaking/on fire around him?? Idk fam. it just feels off.

[utilitycaster]

Not the same anon, but I would be extremely interested in more book recs for fantasy/sci-fi that contain queer romance on the side. Cozy, romance-heavy novels aren't really my jam either, but I do enjoy a romantic subplot in an otherwise non-romantic, intriguing main story.

Sure! This is going to have a bunch of stuff I've almost certainly talked about before because I am on an ongoing quest to read more regularly and don't read as much as I'd like.

If you haven't heard about The Locked Tomb (Tamsyn Muir) somehow, I personally recommend it. It is queer, and there are necromancers and at least some of said necromancers are lesbian and sometimes in space but also it's about resentment, grief, failure, and impossible expectations. I also know the meme-y language in parts puts some people off but I don't mind it, and the later two books have far less of it. Anyway moving on the rest is literally just "stuff from my Goodreads (not sharing, it is under my real-ass name) with a brief note about it." Also I have read the first two books of Dungeon Meshi but getting them out one by one from the library as the series blew up proved tedious so I am stalled out at the moment, but I am aware it gets gay.

Also a couple not SF books that are queer and I still recommend: And Then the Gray Heaven by R. E. Katz is about the surviving half of a nb couple in Florida on a road trip to scatter the ashes of their deceased partner, who worked on museum dioramas. It's short and it's a great read for people like me, who love works about grief and the juxtaposition of humor and absurdity with it, everyone go read it. I also read Fried Green Tomatoes by Fannie Flagg for the first time last year, somehow? Go read that too. I did not try the recipes for myself but I do recommend you obtain fried green tomatoes the food in some form although probably wait until May or June when they're in season. Finally, I've read the first two books of the Amberlough Dossier by Lara Elena Donnelly which are alternate universe vaguely Weimar inspired but not explicitly fantasy; major gay characters; I need to read the third and it is on a long list of "I've read the first X books of this series and need to finish it bc I liked it." Amberlough especially was incredible imo if uh, a little real at the Present Political Moment.

Queer speculative fiction books:

Freya Marske's The Last Binding trilogy. Edwardian England where there are magic users; cool leyline stuff; each book follows a different interconnected queer couple (first and last books are M/M, middle book is F/F). These are properly romantasy and the sex is explicit, which I am okay with but if you're not be aware, but also there's a lot of plot going on. I had a great time with these and read all three back to back pretty quickly.

Godkiller by Hannah Kaner is book one of a series and I enjoyed it but haven't gotten to the next one (it is on my list); main character is a bisexual woman and hooks up with women, though the main romance is M/F, at least in this book. Also fun if you like books with interesting takes on divinity and killing god.

The Woods All Black by Lee Mandolo - Transmasc Appalachian gothic horror set in the 1920s.

The Daevabad Trilogy and The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi by S.A. Chakraborty have incidental but thoughtfully portrayed queer romance among some secondary characters but more crucially the clerk of an indie bookstore I love dearly shouted across the store for 5 minutes about how good the latter was and she was right; also, again, not primarily queer but yes primarily mythology of the SWANA region if you would like to shake up the very European/American skew of much of the rest of this.

Starless by Jacqueline Carey. Jacqueline Carey is better known for the Kushiel books, in which she is horny and into Divinely Inspired BDSM on main, and you know what they are super Of Their Time (2001) but they fucking rule and you should read those too. Starless is standalone, in a different world, with a transmasc protagonist and a thoughtful take on disability in fantasy and one of my favorite books I've read in the past few years. The three first books about Phèdre nó Delaunay (starting with Kushiel's Dart) are about a bisexual courtesan in vaguely renaissance alternate universe Europe and I enjoyed them and while the main romance is M/F, the protagonist is, again, a courtesan with partners of various genders.

Lina Rather's Our Lady of Endless Worlds books are novellas and have F/F romance in them; they are about nuns in space and are generally very thoughtful and subtle sci fi.

I've recommended A Memory Called Empire/A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine multiple times and I'll do it again, the first book especially; incredibly well done political science fiction with a focus on cultural exchange and a side of F/F romance; beautifully written.

Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer, also incredibly done political science fiction (this set on Earth a few centuries from now), some queer romance but also this series does absolutely incredible stuff re: discussion of gender, also wonderfully written, has stuck in my mind since I read it and I want to purchase the books (I am a library-goer due to Have A Lot of Books In A 1 BR Condo situation but I want to have these on hand).

Winter Tide and Deep Roots by Ruthanna Emrys; Lovecraft-inspired but with fascinating commentary on the Japanese internment camps of WWII; set in the late 40s/early 50s in the US, some queer side romances (both gay and lesbian).

Machineries of Empire trilogy by Yoon Ha Lee. It's been a couple years and I recall loving these but also they are DENSE and at times, confusing (positive). Military SF, does not hold your hand (I legit would have to look up the plot but I DID enjoy myself, I do remember that), many queer characters, author is a trans man.

Cannot recall if the Southern Reach Trilogy is textually queer? you should still read it, queer people love this book about the fucked up nature place. I haven't read Absolution yet so do not @ me.

Finally, a couple books I didn't super care for but I know have some degree of following that maybe you will like, idk your life:

Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. Main character is a trans woman violin prodigy; there are aliens and a pact with the devil involved; the problem is the plot is kind of eh and a lot of characters are very one note Good or Evil in a way I found not very interesting.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson. This book has an incredible premise, and the writing style is so goddamn dry and cold and fails to give any characters any interiority such that I felt like I was reading the phone book. I literally wish someone who was good at writing had come up with the same idea; I am mad at how poorly this awesome concept (girl ripped from her queer family by homophobic colonists, decides to rise to prominence politically particularly through economics in order to eventually overthrow the government) was executed. anyway Baru is a lesbian and again I want to be clear I have a HIGH tolerance for fantasy/sf with mid prose, but this is uniquely dead on arrival in terms of writing style.

[goqmir]

as someone casually into spider-man peter parker being a bant character is like jumpscare level territory for me. he's .... obviously centered in izzet right? a major focal point of his character is his cleverness, which is definitely represented by blue, but he also cares little for convention or laws and often makes his plans on the fly with his quick thinking, which is not only very red traits but also like,, the all-time most izzet trait ever?

you couldd say the fact that he famously operates on instinct is a green trait, but i think the fact that he relies on that so much in a pinch makes it almost more of a red concept to me-- he puts himself in dangerous and risky situations constantly, using his instinct to bail himself out. even if the spider sense itself could be characterized as a green enchantment, the way peter uses the spider sense is red as shit right?

i agree that spider-man can be white, but in my opinion it should be as a secondary color compared to blue and red as primary ones. i mean, he's the menace! he's a vigilante that chooses so often to operate outside of the law and is constantly punished for it! so peter definitely doesn't tend to embody white's respect for order or authority, which imo means white should definitely not be a main color for him. he does believe in white's classic "be a protector of the meek" mentality absolutely though!

so like,, is he green because his creature type is fucking spider. because he's gonna have reach. that kinda pisses me off lol. maybe spiderheads could chime in about it because im no expert on the character but dropping red for green on peter parker seems like a next-level L to me. he seems like he's only bant because he's the main hero of the big spider-man set frankly. and i dont like that!

[muffinrecord]

Saw the ask about magical boys and your wish for magical trans kids: may I introduce you to Zoe from Sleepless Domain webcomic? She is one of the main secondary characters and she's super sweet and tries her best! (If you haven't read Sleepless Domain, try it out! It has a ton of fun concepts, pain and suffering, world cold girlfriends soft, parents know what is going on but are powerless to step in and have to let their kids fight, three mysterious gals, wholesome team(s) and survivor's guilt~

I love Sleepless Domain! I've actually backed both of its kickstarters. It's easily one of my favorite post-Madoka magical girl stories out there and I'd also highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good story in general.

Also imo CubeWatermelon is REALLY good at compositions. Seriously, if you like comics and can appreciate a good set of panels, check out her work (note that the first two chapters had their art made by a different artist, but Cube has done the art for the rest of the comic). I reread the comic once every few months just to study her pages. Like, take note how often she doesn't chicken out and will just make sure that excellent establishing shots and good backgrounds are included-- you never feel lost reading her work and always know where everyone is. The flow and movement are really good too. Fight scenes can be really hard to portray but you can easily tell what folks are doing.

I know that sounds like the bare minimum but you'd be surprised by how many comics out there really struggle with making sure that the reader, like. actually knows what's going on. Finding an artist that prioritizes clarity is a nice treat. I'm also always impressed at how much character and personality she can pack into a page. Off the top of my head, stuff like Tessa's room being full of her own merchandise:

Anyways yeah, Sleepless Domain is amazing and anyone who likes magical girl stuff should read it.

Edit: All that and I forgot to link the comic. Derp.

[orpheusilver]

i think the common issue that creates boring dnd player characters is like. the fixation on backstory over character conflict. like if you think abt the typical "heres my super cool guy with a super cool design and a dark tragic backstory they dont want to talk about theyre so tortured and mysterious" its like. sure that might be an interesting secondary character for an animated series but thats not what this is.

like 1. nobody is going to see that cool design unless you painted a mini so youre just gonna be that guy who spends 5 minutes of session 1 describing your outfit; 2. none of the other players want to spend ages trying to interrogate backstory out of someone who seems like they dont want to share, they want to find a fight and flex their awesome build, so unless your dm pulls your 15 page backstory document into the main quest its all gonna be irrelevant anyway; and 3. trauma does not an interesting character make! not unless you can roleplay the effects of that trauma in a compelling manner!

imo its a wayyyy better method to come up with a Fucked Up Kinda Guy, complete with quirks and flaws and affectations and sure maybe a voice if thats your vibe, they dont need to be special or unique just fucking engaging to play beside, and THEN reverse engineer the backstory based on what would make someone be like that and usually its something fucked up and traumatic anyway bc thats how existing works. like dont get me wrong theres definitely merit to establishing your place in the setting but like. in taz balance absolutely no part of their written backstories did as much for the early group dynamic as "magnus rushes in" and "taako is good out here"

^ actually new different point based on that. if you show up with a blank slate guy then play off against the other characters! if you have a whole guy do it anyway! if someone is playing it safe then play impulsive or vice versa, if someone else has the same highest stat as you then get weirdly competitive, if someone plays dubious morals then be the ethical voice calling them out on it, there is no reason for your party to always be in agreement and if they are then disagree! be a dick about it! stories thrive on conflict so fucking make some, just please for the love of god do Anything that makes them behave differently than you with an ability

[randomness-is-my-order]

i was watching the founder of diabolism animation with my cousin (for the first time!) today and it just made me extremely emotional about this story once again. i’ve already talked about alot of motifs in mdzs which are close to my heart but one thing the animation reiterates so well is this whole seeming dichotomy between wei wuxian and lan zhan.

now, i have my gripes with the show, as is the case for all adaptations of canon but the way the colours, effects and even the opening lyrics are used to maximise the differences between wwx and lwj is very fascinating. i’m not one to really buy into the “oh they’re not black and white, but they’re grey” when it comes to the wwx-black and lwj-white representation because morally speaking, i don’t find that the “greyness” tracks.

the dichotomy is moreso appealing to me for what the story inevitably delivers: appearances are deceptive, rumours are deceptive, the surface hides the true depth underneath. you go into this animated show with your protagonist surrounded by a clear narrative of some kind of fall from grace, while the deuteragonist is painted in a virtuous light from the get-go. you don’t know how it’s going to happen but the narrative so far wants you to perceive the characters a certain way while still giving you just enough to make you doubt yourself. but here’s the thing: you do doubt yourself but not to the extent that you should. wei wuxian does become some sort of heretic path cultivator, apparently, but you know he’s a nice, chirpy teen and helpful in the future but surely, he embraces the darkness when his hand is forced. and surely, lan zhan only goes against him because his morals and rules demand it. surely, lan zhan’s hand is forced as well.

and while there is some truth to it, you don’t realise that morally, very objectively, and very harshly speaking, the fall from grace doesn’t happen from wei wuxian’s end but lan wangji’s and here the whole white/black, good/evil motifs become completely secondary because who exactly is devolving here? it never was wei wuxian and realising that in it of itself is a major part of mdzs’s storytelling.

i mostly bring this up because my cousin noticed something that i, as a novel reader & cql watcher can’t pick up–that during the punishment scene in cloud recesses, wwx internally muses about how he couldn’t have lwj’s resolve during his silence endurance of punishment and later he tells jc that he won’t try to dabble into demonic cultivation ever again. setting aside the fact that this doesn’t clarify the misnomer and that these are scenes which are slightly altered or completely new when compared to canonical material, it still maintains the essence of the earlier chapters, imo. in that, my cousin remarked that wwx himself says he doesn’t have the resolve and so he might end up practicing demonic cultivation anyway. (i was sorely tempted to reply with a thesis on why that is... wrong but what’s the fun in spoiling this journey for her?)

it’s just masterful how certain story beats paint this dilemma across the two characters, where you would think wwx is likely to have acted in a certain morally questionable way while putting more faith into lan zhan but as the past unfolds and you see beneath the surface of this young guy called wei wuxian, you realise just how much of his inner strength you have glossed over and that lan zhan’s resolve was always rooted in conflict with his rules vs his morals.

and i don’t mean this to be a way of propping wwx above lwj in some arbitrary moral olympics. it’s to simply to show how falsifying paragons and making the audience doubt wei wuxian is fundamental to experiencing mdzs in ANY format. the thoughts you have when you read/watch the first few chapters will have inevitably done a one-eighty after reading/seeing the conclusion. infact, the true black/white, good/evil, wrong/right debates aren’t even centred around wei wuxian and lan zhan but wei wuxian and the cultivation society as a whole.

and if i had to give an analogy for wei wuxian’s moral representation, then it wouldn’t be grey but––and all gay puns aside––it would be a ‘rainbow’ wherein the ‘white’ morality is very much a spectrum and leaves room for more questionable methods to ultimately reach an unequivocally good goal, without defaulting to the ‘grey’ area that is more often than not used as a backhanded way of representing wei wuxian’s moral complexity.

[offtorivendell]

Sorry again to my non ACOTAR mutuals, please feel free to ignore this.

@nikethestatue made some salient points in a recent post, and part of it really hit home, because I'd said something very similar to someone else this morning.

Like Nike, I've been part of a few fandoms before thanks to my similar tendency to hyperfixate on the media I like, but never as heavily as I've been involved in the ACOTAR fandom; that being said, quite a few of the authors I read and loved have put out multiple series set within the one universe, like Tamora Pierce and Robin Hobb, so maybe that's why the structure of ACOTAR having an original trilogy followed by a "spin off" series is normal* to me.

I don't know, I'm not sure. But the following aspect of this fandom has really shocked me (please skip now if you don't want to read my thoughts).

*I say this not to shame people who wanted more Feyre, I was the same after finishing ACOFAS and realising the next book was in Nesta's POV; I wasn't ready to move on from Feyre at the time, her journey took me on the wildest of rides, but the author and the story undeniably were (to a point, obviously, as everything major is still happening within her orbit). So just before ACOSF came out, I reread the series and then read a lot of Nesta centric fic to get into her character. It worked, btw, I was excited for ACOSF to be published and to learn more about Nesta.

I have never seen it normalised for fans of the secondary characters of the original series/universe as a whole - or the new main characters of each subsequent series - to be shamed for liking, preferring, or focusing on those characters. Some of the best fan made content I've seen (imo) set in the Tortall universe, for instance, focuses on the mother of the best friend of the third quartet's protagonist, or Raoul and [Redacted], or even fics that play fast and loose with canon.

It genuinely blows my mind that the ACOTAR fandom doesn't permit people to like or prefer characters other than Feyre or Rhys (who, btw, I still enjoy even if I don't seek out their content at this time!), or apparently we aren't paying enough respect to the original FMC/couple; especially as one of the secondary characters - Elain - is confirmed to be getting her own book at some point. It is just so wild to me that, apparently, some people reached adulthood without learning to share (fandom space, in this instance). I cannot imagine telling someone who is heavily into the The Immortals Quartet, or the Rain Wild Chronicles, that every post must qualify its existence with explicit gratitude to Alanna or Fitz for existing first.

So what if people are more excited about the next book in the series than meeting some imaginary bar of respect to Feysand on ACOTAR's 10th anniversary. Of course it's FINE to want to celebrate Feyre and Rhys, that will happen, and nobody is stopping you. We wish you joy! Just, please let the people who are interested in the next book be. We are not doing fandom wrong by showing excitement for the future of the series, especially after a four year wait.

[gyrovagi]

a/b/o anon here, we aren't moots but i'm shy and a little bit boring i fear lol. omega solas/alpha inquisitor is so interesting to me because it adds an extra dimension to the already insaaaane dual sided power imbalance those two have going on, esp with the backdrop of the history of alpha Mythal/omega solas hanging around solas' neck. and caden already has sooo many deranged hangups about masculinity he should be allowed some more as a treat i think <3. plz give us your thots on afab alpha logistics? look i'll even close my eyes so you can keep your air of ironic detachment. whenever i think of it myself my brain keeps moving towards a left hand of darkness type scenario, or like a situation where alpas and omegas are hermaphroditic and the extra bits are vestigial or something. do you think a/b/o bonus gender hrt exists? idk.

if you are ever unshy enough to come off anon i promise i am friendly and will not bite. your commitment to omega solas informs me that your character is not only interesting but also admirably forthright. solas should've been able to pull an 'i'm pregnant and it's yours' on mythal just so we could see what happens. Anyway.

don't click on this read more if you're not emotionally prepared for omegaverse discussion. keep on scrollin'

like, insofar as omegaverse fanfiction originated so people could write about (cis) men fucking nasty and getting knocked up, it's a porn premise fundamentally uninterested in anyone who isn't a cis man. which of course has not stopped enterprising femslash writers, or intellectual perverts who need airtight worldbuilding before they can jack off. 'okay, but what exactly is the situation for cis female alphas?' is something you have to ask in any serious endeavor to make omegaverse Make Sense, but coming up with a satisfactory answer to that, imo, requires confronting the trope's implications of bio/gender essentialism in a way that most people aren't actually interested in. and/or they are afraid of cis girl dick, like cowards.

(i know there's a growing genre of omegaverse original fiction that features more m/f couples. but from what i gather it seems like these novels are usually not that interested in The AFAB Alpha Problem, and are more inclined to feature cis female omegas in the first place/state cis female alphas are physically equivalent to irl cis women with gender roles shifted slightly to the left. i can't be bothered to actively look for published omegaverse fiction where a female alpha gets her omega boywife pregnant but if there isn't ANY then there's simply no hope for society. like what's the fucking point of it all.)

anyway ultimately omegaverse is a dealer's choice situation. gun to my head, i am generally inclined towards the typical(?) 'the majority of the population are betas, and betas are essentially indistinguishable from people irl' situation, where binary sex is assigned at birth and being an alpha/omega only becomes evident during puberty. largely because i think if you're working with a LHOD scenario/a world where everyone is intersex, the system of misogyny to the left ends up making much less sense. <- although i do think this is probably the most overall 'logical' and coherent omegaverse approach, at that point you're kind of just doing spec bio. the system of misogyny to the left AND the over-the-top eroticized ridiculousness of it is kind of the essence of omegaverse, which is interesting to me to analyze in the same way that it's interesting to analyze the eroticized misogynistic tropes within female-targeted hetromance. Also getting cis men pregnant makes my dick hard.

which does require committing to the infamous 'omegaverse ass baby'/amab omega cloaca(?), and also to afab alpha penises. (most people who fully commit to this i think go with internal testes and (retractable?) penises that develop from the clitoris during puberty. spec bio!) certainly in a serious modern setting, secondary gender hrt/gender-affirming care should exist, although by and large i don't think the idea of alpha/omega gender dysphoria is something people are interested in exploring. For now. i'm sure there's some smut writer out there fighting battles i know nothing about. godspeed soldier.

anyway. dragon age. the manic_intent fic i mentioned in the tags in my last reply was working with a setup where the alpha/omega dynamics are Fade Stuff, mages are alphas and templars have to be omegas for lyrium to give them the ability to suppress mages. which is an interesting direction to take it in, imo, with alphas dealing with more social stigma. it intrigued me enough and i like her fics in general enough to read c*llrian LMFAO.

my thedas omegaverse vision i think also attributes alpha/omega dynamics to Fade Stuff. so dwarves are just going Damn that sounds crazy good luck, and it's more common for mages to be alphas/omegas (though non-mages can still be alphas/omegas), which correlates to both alphas and omegas being subject to social stigma/stereotyping in andrastian-influenced society. lyrium basically acts as a suppressant for templars, as does the rite for seekers.

hm. do we think andraste gets portrayed as not only the ideal woman but the ideal omega in thedosian omegaverse. okay now i'm for sure dedicating too much brainspace to this. ancient arlathan couldn't have been operating with the exact same gender + alpha/omega dynamics of current thedas. anyway

re:soladen. omega solas alpha caden IS for sure the move i fear. caden's fascination with solas as someone completely unlike any other mage/elf/omega he's ever known and conflicted admiration of him👍 i am also interested by the Shrimplications of being an alpha making it easier for caden to pass as a cis man while to a certain extent further isolating him. and of course i want him fucked up and tormented with guilt over succumbing to Base Urges, particularly when he tries to stop taking lyrium and has to deal with getting boners again. he got hard at least once while remembering punching solas and absolutely refused to acknowledge any correlation. (i gotta heavily elaborate on his relationship with using lyrium at some point but it simply CANNOT be in an omegaverse post.) and then due to solas' actions he ends up back on lyrium which sparks all kinds of conflicting emotions.

like this is technically all canon stuff but it does get crazier in an omegaverse situation. where it would be unremarkable/arguably expected for an alpha and omega to have sex in the eyes of society but both of them are insane and weird about each other and also have a lot of personal hangups. and so this in fact makes it even more impossible for them to ever fuck while increasing their weird tension. YIPPEE!!!!!! I HATE SEX I ❤️ DOOMED RELATIONSHIP

[markantonys]

a few more tidbits this morning!

first, new synopsis:

nothing surprising here, but that it again confirms moiraine-egwene interactions which imo reaffirms egwene actually physically reaching the waste at some point

next, prime's official list of major s3 cast:

shohreh confirmed! but we already knew that. and her being listed here among the Major Secondary Characters makes me think elaida will have a good-sized role in s3, not that that's a surprise.

could sophie being listed right after liandrin and lanfear on the list of secondaries be an indication of the size of siuan's role in the season? of course, it could also simply be that she's a big star and thus gets higher billing, so might not be worth reading into.

finally, alanna and maksim are listed among the major cast, but ihvon is not. could this mean ihvon is the warder who dies in the opening sequence? not a great look colorism-wise, especially since it is ihvon who survives and the other warder who dies in the books, but on the other hand, they had to recast ihvon for s3 (wotseries had been speculating that for a while and in the brief glimpse we saw of him in the trailer i think it does look like a different actor), so it could be that they were planning to kill maksim (i feel like his convo with alanna in s2 where he admits he's afraid of what's to come could have been setup for his death), but then ihvon's actor couldn't return for s3 so they had to recast him and thus changed plans to kill ihvon instead in order to keep the guy the audience is more familiar with.

finally, screenrant description of the portion of the opening scene that was shown at the con:

my big question here is, what the hell are rand and moiraine doing in tar valon??? after what went down in 2x07? they are the tower's most wanted criminals at this point! i have a couple vague theories off the top of my head.

i will also add in this trailer screenshot:

this appears to be tar valon (architectural style match, and greenery growing on the buildings). there IS an off-chance that this is actually a different city, perhaps caemlyn which is also ogier-built and might look similar, and that the cut described above is misleading and it's actually heading over to catch up with moiraine and rand in a different city. but it feels more likely that this shot of moiraine is her in tar valon (i also remember a report of a rain machine being used on the tar valon set), although whether it's the same as the shot described above or is from a totally different scene, who knows.

also interesting to note that i THINK she's wearing her falme outfit here - that white shirt underneath looks the same:

so that supports the idea that this shot of her in the rain is from the opening sequence. my theory would thus be that she took the gang through the falme waygate to the tar valon hilltop waygate pretty promptly after the battle, without even time to change clothes.

but why would she do that? a couple theories:

after getting the wondergirls' intel, she says "fuck it if it's a huge risk, i HAVE to go back to tar valon asap to warn siuan about liandrin, this info can't wait and is too sensitive to risk giving to someone else to deliver" (this feels absolutely logical, but idk why she would risk bringing rand into the city with her, unless he stubbornly insisted on coming for whatever reason)

moiraine and rand are planning to sneakily break into the city unnoticed by the tower in order to get their hands on some prophecy books. hmmm, maybe rand remembers finding the karaetheon cycle at that inn and wants to go back for it? (window architectural analysis weigh-in: the windows in the s1 inn do not match the window where rand's having his possible bubble of evil moment in the trailer)

now that rand is officially declared dragon, moiraine's plan for the next move is to make another attempt to get siuan on their side, so she takes him to tar valon in hopes of brokering a more positive meeting. feels insanely risky, but hey, moiraine might be enough at her wits' end to give it a go since idk if she's ever had any plan besides "find the dragon and make sure the tower supports him"

moiraine and siuan's big fight was indeed all for show and they're still in cahoots (i never really bought this theory because i don't see why siuan would've continued putting on a front even at the waygate when the only witnesses are moiraine, lan, and rand, but i suppose you never know)

now, if *tar valon* is the Full Gang Starting Location, then that at least means the girls and mat are where they need to be straightaway. but it doesn't explain WHY they go to the white tower instead of accompanying their crew to the waste/two rivers; mat's traumatized by the white tower, and nynaeve and egwene both seem very set up to feel that the tower has failed at teaching them and offers them nothing of value anymore. why go back? maybe moiraine wants them to keep an eye on things in the tower? maybe moiraine and siuan manage to meet and reconcile in ep1 and siuan takes the girls back with her? maybe siuan or some other aes sedai or elayne's brothers happen to run into the girls (with mat) on the street and forcibly escort them back to the tower? much to wonder about!

[tv-opinion]

in a tv show, if the main character was just walking around alone, looting, and sporadically killing people to get to her destination, that would not make good television. having secondary characters mindlessly following our main character and agreeing with everything she does and having no gripes with her mission, while she does it all on her own with minimal help would not make good television either. they had to give these side characters more depth, skills + more screentime in this format. they fleshed out the side characters like jesse to give them clearer backstories, and make their motivations make sense. imo, in the game the entire purpose of jesse’s character is to give ellie a personal loss in seattle and for someone to briefly challenge her. in the show, he represents a clear moral stance opposing ellie, showing us her irrationality at this point. they expanded dina’s character to give ellie someone to play off of. if the game was copied onto the show, ellie would be doing 90% of the work, dina would just be following her maybe killing a couple infected along the way. it seems like this is how a lot of fans want it to be but its just not realistic. ellie and dina are supposed to be a team, and this is presented way better in the show imo. also ellie is allowed to be goofy in fleeting moments of happiness, my girl has suffered enough.

very that. do i think the show has a tendency to use characters like dina and jesse as a vehicle to guide the audience’s feelings a little too explicitly? yeah but i also don’t think them making jesse push back against ellie rather than the “my friends problems are my problems” from the game means that the hbo version of their friendship ruins the game version.

i’ve said this before but i love that ellie and jesse scene from the finale because they are both justified in their feelings. and dina and ellie’s different skill sets complementing each other and being equal participants in seattle is far more interesting to watch than whatever these people complaining about how bad the writing is all the time wanted to watch imo.

[faggotmox]

I've seen the light, I'm absolutely obsessed with the pitt and I'm feral for Noah Wyle. Explain him to me. I need to know more.

(oh my god this got so long im sorry slap my hand slipped)

noah, my boy my babe my little whump whump, got his break out role in er as john carter. carter ended up being the focus of the first 11 seasons out of 15, returning to finish the series in season 15. i know after er noah got a main role in falling skies, & the librarian franchise. sadly his career never got much bigger BUT he is a really good actor & the roles he does choose he really crushes.

now...john carter :) if you enjoyed him in the pitt i urge you to run a train on er. carter is a great character, he starts out as a surgical intern in season one before realizing he isn't cut out (pun!) for surgery & his real love is in the emergency department. its so fun going over everything that happened to carter in my head. he's such a dynamic character that changes a lot, even just episode to episode.

like how to summarize john carter? the song africa by toto is actually his theme song lmao. like season 9-12 carter storyline is like verse for verse africa by toto which sounds like an indictment but isn't. the sad little rich white boy goes through a personal tragedy & then flies to the fucking congo with tv brand doctors without boarders to figure out his priorities & then decides to use his families INSANE (theyre the richest family in chicago from like exploiting coal or something in the early 1990s & he feels white guilty abt it) fortune to cure aids in africa. which sounds like it'd be terrible but...but i promise isn't.

also he's kinda bisexual king if im honest. like fr fr he & peter (his mentor in season one, & friend after) have wild sexual chemistry & when carter becomes addicted to narcotics (he got stabbed in the er by a patient with a giant cake cutting knife! bc he must suffer) peter is the only person he trusts & takes him to a treatment center. then when luka (a croatian er doc that convinces him to go to africa) is thought to be dead in africa carter goes back & is determined to find his body. like carter, is it gay to fly across the world to recover your ex girlfriend's ex boyfriend???? i think it is. he, luka, & abby have the most dysfunctional chemistry in er history im sorry.

like carter is just some rich guy who lost his brother to cancer & wanted to become a doctor to help people. he's also super cute when he cries or flips out :)

is this what you wanted to know slap? lmao also if you've seen the pitt watching er would be fun imo bc you will clearly be able to draw lines between the two shows & characters. to be robby is clearly a current day carter that has finally grown into mark greene's shoes as mark always thought he would. i think doctor robby is a nice nod to a more modernized version of mark's character while still being carter too. also if you like the political side of the pitt then er was the show that set the tone for that. its not a medical romance. er makes a point to highlight how the healthcare system fails & the systemic issues within medicine (which is personified in the 'big bad' of the first 10 seasons, dr. robert romano).

my only criticism of er thats popping out on my current rewatch is that somewhere in like maybe season 9, but i think season 10 & on, is that sometimes they kinda write medical problems/illness as a moral failing & that aways rubs me the wrong way a bit. maybe im just rose colored goggles over the first 8 or so seasons, but i really feel like they dont often fall into that.

but i'll point out something that i think is a really good thing about er. it's an ensemble cast that gets fully developed (for the most part, minus a few) & storylines are allowed to arc over seasons. you get good slow burn, well-developed stories that weave in & out over large chunks of episodes. most characters get a decent amount of screen time, even secondary/background characters (shout out nurses chuny & helah & yosh). i dont think a lot of shows achieve that. also so many of the characters are multifaceted, theres things you like or dont like about them, things they do that are upsetting or bad but also good.

OH! also there's a character named dr. weaver. she's a disabled lesbian who kicks ass & is a great doctor, but she's also a hard ass. kerry is such an interesting character, i adore her. plus they actually write over many season kerry realizing she's a lesbian to becoming comfortable to living a gay little life & it's pretty good.

thanks for coming to my ted talk--

hey this gif works perfect for my case!

[ramshacklefey]

No but serious. Dungeons & Dragons is one of the least flexible systems out there. So whenever I hear someone asking, "Why can't I do X in DnD?" or "How would I do (thing that the system is totally ill-suited for)?" my first response is just "GURPS."

For those of you who aren't familiar, GURPS stands for "Generic Universal Role Playing System." I always say it's like the Linux of ttrpgs, in the sense that it's less a system and more a framework that you can use to do whatever you want with.

And I really do mean whatever you want. You want high fantasy? Done. You want gritty realism in a dystopian world? Got it. You want superheroes? Good to go. Super tech space opera? Oh boy we got you there. You want magic systems that aren't based on spell lists? Go for it. Horror games where character death is a constant and very real threat? Sure thing.

You can set up your game to be anything from a complex data driven grinder to a cinematic rules basically optional flight of fancy.

You can play characters who are anywhere from realistically squishy humans to god-like super beings.

Characters personal flaws and strengths can have a direct impact on mechanics. Character species can have a direct and serious impact on mechanics.

The existence of so many options can make GURPS seem overwhelming at first glance, but if you are willing to put in a bit of effort, it's actually a very simple system to play. Most of the hard work is front-loaded into setting and character creation. Once play starts it runs as smooth as can be.

It's totally possible to play it with just the two core books, BUT there are dozens of books that are nothing but tips and advice for how to build a particular type of world or a particular flavor of campaign.

And the books, while not nearly as pretty as DnD books, are laid out in a way that makes it incredibly easy to find exactly the information you want.

Some more mechanical things that I particularly like about it (under the cut):

Characters are created on a point-buy system, but you don't just buy your basic stats, you also buy your skills, advantages, and secondary stats. And you can gain points back by dropping stats below average or taking disadvantages.

The advantage/disadvantage system. This is sorta the core of the character building, and it is *so* much fun. See, rather than pick out a class or species, you have a list (selected by your GM from a much larger list) of things you can buy that will have mechanical impacts on you in the game. Basically, an advantage is anything that opens up more possibilities for you in-game, and a disadvantage is anything that closes off possibilities. They can be superpowers, species traits, cinematic plot armor, personality traits, or things like chronic illness, bad temper, physical or mental disabilities, or being doomed by the narrative.

Simple dice system. To play a GURPS campaign you need three d6. That's it. All checks and saves are done by rolling 3d6 (low rolls are better than high). This has an additional advantage over the d20 system in that there is a probability curve. You're more likely to roll numbers in the mid-range, which makes both critical successes and critical failures rarer, and therefore more satisfying.

Your target roll is adjusted, rather than adding/subtracting from the roll itself. Say you're trying to, idk, hack a computer. Your skill level doesn't affect your dice roll, it affects the number you need to roll in order to succeed. This makes things a lot simpler on the player's end, imo, because there's less they need to keep track of. (You're trying to roll under the skill check, so whatever the base difficulty is, the GM just adds or subtracts your skill level from that).

The basic stats are on a much tighter scale, and they make a lot more sense. Human average is a 10 in everything. When you make your character you can buy higher stats or take lower ones and get more points to spend on other things. All stats cap out at 18, because that's the highest number you can roll. At a 10 strength you are a normal person. At 18 you're basically Superman. You'd have to roll a critical failure not to succeed in a strength check, and remember: critical failures are far less common than in a d20 system.

I could keep going ad infitum here, but instead I'll just close with:

Come with me boy, play my games! We'll have cowboy times in space!

[ouidamforeman]

R.e. discussions abt the new Good Omens season being polarizing on whether it’s good or bad writing, I think just saying it’s bad writing is weird and dismissive of what actual problems someone would have with it, and is just dismissing what it’s trying to do because it wasn’t to your taste. I think it more or less succeeded in doing what it wanted to do, which is an entirely different metric of judgment than whether or not you LIKED the effect of what it was doing. Regardless of what issues I personally have with it, I still think overall it effectively did what it set out to.

The thing is, it reads less like a traditional season of television and more like half of a novel. It’s weird. It’s directionless and meandering not because it’s poor storytelling but because I genuinely think it’s doing those things on purpose for other reasons. This is a single chunk of a larger story and I believe the overall purpose of season 2 isn’t to like, actually have a big plot or complete character arcs? If I look at it solely from where it is and what it’s presenting to me and let go of my preconceptions and expectations it appears that this season is just trying to put a few plot set pieces in place for the continuing story, and to nestle those plot pieces in a nonlinear narrative solely focused not on character Development but on character exploration and revelation. I feel like that’s why the actual moving plot this season was a very basic mystery, because it isn’t really the point? The actual story events are just backdrop for revelatory character vignettes, and I think that if this piece of storytelling was part of a novel that included whatever season 3/the actual story conclusion is going to be then people wouldn’t have nearly as many criticisms about the writing as they do when it’s presented as a season of tv. That’s also why it reads so fanfiction-y imo. My honest opinion is that s2’s biggest flaw that isn’t something incredibly subjective is that it’s let down by the fact that it got trapped in needing to present itself as a television season with all the baggage that medium has and not something more unconventional that would be kinder to its weird beginning-of-a-novel-ish meandering. Is this something a season of tv SHOULD do? I don’t know. Is this a fucking weird piece of television story wise? Yeah. Is it now officially a different story from the original novel? Absolutely. Does it have flaws, maybe even flaws that amplify the issues already present in season 1? Yeah. Does it accomplish what it sets out to do though? More or less yeah, I genuinely think so. Now if any of that translates into “badness” for you that’s fine. I think it was an immense risk to do this kind of thing for a tv season and it’s not going to click for everyone. But that’s fine. This is a bizarre and novel-y piece of tv media that’s just sort of doing its own thing, and whether you think that’s bad or not is secondary to how interesting that is I think. I just wish the criticism was more engaging with it instead of judging it, because I think what’s happening here is both much more simple and much more complex than most people are implying with their critiques. It’s much more interesting to meet it where it is imho, even though I do strongly wish it didn’t have to be released in this technically incomplete form.

TLDR I think ppl pointing at this season and calling it bad writing are partially not actually engaging with it on its level and partly confusing objective badness with personal taste. Regardless of whether you LIKED what it tried to do or not it was at least trying to do something, something that it mostly succeeded at, and that’s all i can really comfortably judge a piece of art on