#not necessarily the idea of the alteration itself imo

[profanetools]

something I'm thinking about which isn't necessarily canon *per se* is the idea of magic actually being something living and finite - magic coming from a certain life energy, magic never truly lasting without continuous output of that energy, soul gems having finite resources, etc. Which is just a game mechanic to make sure things aren't OP but it is interesting this idea that nothing permanent can really be erected or done with magic - you can alter things as long as you have enough resources for the spell, but it'll turn back in time, you can push rocks in position with your magic by expending energy but you can't will the earth itself to take a new shape that'll last, and so on.

which has interesting canon implications if explored. the permanent alterations offered by daedra, the permanent enchantments of legendary daedric and aedric artefacts, in this sense this everlasting quality makes them divine. this puts lichdom also in context - a pursuit of a cursed immortality stays at its core, a permanent altered state of being. imo, then, the dwemer disappearance is interesting because it is a permanent change to the world - and perhaps this is a line I'd like to draw, that tonal architecture and nord shouting involve learning the language used to make the universe and re-writing it, while magic is playing with a cycle of energy in this self-contained little bubble that follows the rules of the cycle of life and the rules that Magnus laid out.

and imo that temporary, finite nature needn't be necessarily limiting and is one that stops the world being upended by one malignant sorcerer. and it could tie into some interesting philosophies about what it means to be alive, what life is for, and what magic's role is in cultural and spiritual practice.

[crusherthedoctor]

If you had full creative freedom for a brand new Sonic cartoon, what would you do with it?

This is by no means a complete list of what I'd do, but it gives you a general idea all the same.

- Since Sonic X was long ago by this point, I think it'd be nice to have another attempt at an anime, particularly if it looked something like the OVA or the animated intro for Riders. The actual art direction would basically take the Modern designs, but place them in a world that combines the best visual elements of SA1 and the Classics/Advances/Mania.

- I don't care if the writers are Japanese or American. Treating one as better simply because they're Japanese/American is a tad too elitist and extremist IMO, especially since neither of them have perfect marks when it comes to writing for this franchise. Whoever the writers are, all that matters is that the writing is good.

- It would have a lot more in common with the game universe. Since there have been so many adaptations that practically make a point about doing their own wacky thing (even the ones that claim to be linked to the games...), I think a more genuinely faithful adaptation would be welcome. There would be minor differences of course, and I'm open to taking notes from the better aspects of certain adaptations, but the overall spirit and characterizations would be reasonably consistent with the games.

- Stories would be brand new. Callbacks and references to existing plots is fine, and I wouldn't necessarily mind a show to the side that tackles adaptations ala Pokemon Origins, but overall, I'd rather have new refreshing adventures rather than adapt SA1/SA2 for the millionth time.

- The tone would pretty much be like SA1. Funny and tense in equal measures, never goes too far in either direction. Whether it's a funny moment or a serious moment, it would be sincere. Self-aware enough to be able to acknowledge the weirdness and be willing to poke fun at itself, but not to the point of being overly self-deprecating and pandering to the franchise’s detractors.

- The lore would connect certain plotlines to each other on SOME occasions, and only if the logic was reasonable and kept to a minimum. It would not be all tied together in an overly contrived manner that ends up leaving no interesting questions. In other words, the S3&K/SA1 connection through Angel Island's lore would be fine, but there'd be no “Did you know the Black Arms worshipped Solaris, went to war with Chaos, were the offspring of Dark Gaia, and wrote the Arabian Nights???” bollocks.

- Sonic, Tails, Amy and Cream would make up the main quartet, with their personalities and bonds bouncing off each other. Other characters would appear and be of importance, but only when their involvement is justified. Said characters including - but not limited to - Knuckles, Team Dark, the Chaotix, Blaze, Big, G-Merl, and even Tikal and Chaos.

- Likewise, Eggman and his Badnik army would naturally be the main villains. Other villains who aren't affiliated with him are free to exist and get their own time in the spotlight (as long as they're not shit and don't need to upstage the doctor to look credible), but Eggman is a plague to the world in spite of his eccentric qualities, and is treated accordingly. He does what he wants, and unless you’re Sonic and/or his friends, there’s not a thing you can do about it.

- Since they appeared in Sonic Forces Mobile, I would MAYBE be willing to include Tangle and Whisper if they were allowed. Starline too, but only if he keeps his simp privilege this time, if ya know what I’m saying. The Hard-Boiled Heavies would definitely be there, because they're too good to be only used once.

Regarding certain characters in particular:

- Sonic is not dumb. Nor is he an asshole. He can be rough around the edges, he can make hasty decisions depending on whether he feels it’s the right thing to do, but at the end of the day, he’s still as good a guy as any good guy could be, and as long as you’re not a villain or a Penders-tier asshole, he’ll be friendly with you. You’d still have to deal with quips of course, but that’s just how he is, right?

- Tails maintains his independent streak from SA1, but he still thinks the world of Sonic and would drop everything in an instant if the hedgehog ever needed his help. Though his more cautious approach occasionally clashes with Sonic being a little more gung-ho (albeit not to the point of flanderization), he always has full faith in his big bro.

- The handling of Amy's crush would be perfectly balanced. Not too overwhelming to the point of acting irrational and chasing Sonic like a loony, but not too downplayed to the point where it might as well not be there at all. That said, more focus would be placed on her other traits and interests, such as her tarot cards and her bond with Cream.

- Knuckles would still be prone to gullible and less-than-flattering moments, because it's Knuckles, but more focus would be given to his admirable attributes, like his expertise in translating ancient texts, and occasionally making good points when in an clash of ideas with Sonic.

- Shadow's backstory would remain the same at its core (though maybe without the aliens), but it'd be altered to be less edgy. For example, rather than getting capped, Maria would succumb to her illness, and Gerald's anger would instead be the result of feeling betrayed by G.U.N. for denying him the means/funds to be able to cure her.

- Metal Sonic is fiercely loyal to Eggman, but his identity crisis would also be on full blast, and eventually he'd realise the oxymoron of believing himself to be Sonic while working for Eggman. Rather than turn traitor and wear elf shoes however, Metal would try to rationalize this to himself... with insane results. Eggman knows about this, and would humor it as long as it benefits him. He'd probably also bring out the other Mecha Sonics now and then for no other reason than to confuse Metal even more. Because he's a dick.

- The Sol Dimension now includes Soleanna, which would be the main kingdom. (It's already got Sol in the name anyway.) Since Blaze would be the ruler because of this, his sadly means that Elise would probably have to get cut, but ah well. Due to the change in context, Solaris would be built up as the Sol Dimension's equivalent to Chaos, with more focus on their contrasts (Chaos is water while Solaris is light, Chaos looks aquatic/reptilian while Solaris looks like a bird, Chaos' turn to evil was caused by an ancient event while Solaris' turn to evil was caused by scientists, etc).

- If Silver were in this show, he'd be no more of a casual acquaintance to Blaze than he would be to Sonic. Instead, her tagalong would be Marine. Though Blaze would still get annoyed by Marine's antics at first, she would come around to gaining more respect for her whenever the situation justified it.

- Trudy would-

[kinetic-elaboration]

December 10: Endings

The posts that have been going around about all these bad, nonsensical, random tv endings we’ve been seeing recently (GOT, T100, SPN), have made me think about what makes a good television ending in my opinion.

I admit that concluding a series is probably quite tricky because most shows, if they’re not miniseries, are conceived without a known end point in mind. A show runner can build an idea around a 5-season arc, but he might not actually get 5 seasons. He might only get 1. Or he might get 10, if the show is popular. So unlike a movie or a novel, the first episodes need to set up a general premise, a universe, a theme, but not necessarily a specific plot with X number of specific plot points leading to a pre-ordained conclusion. There has to be a flexibility to the narrative. But when the whole thing is completed, it should feel, ideally, as if it WAS pre-ordained, as if the show was always meant to have as many seasons as it got and was working toward its conclusion the whole time.

So, roughly, I think shows that stick the landing do so because the showrunner knows what the show is, at its core, about, and crafts a finale that relates to the central theme(s) and brings the main narrative to a logical and emotionally resonant conclusion. 

This is very rough and very general, and it’s a formula that applies more to some shows than others. TV is incredibly varied after all. I mean, first off, not all shows know their last season is their last season going in. You can’t judge the final episodes of, to use two examples of shows I liked that were unceremoniously axed recently, The Society or Altered Carbon as “finale episodes” because they were never meant to be finales. Then you have a show like My So-Called Life, which does have a Classic ending, despite ending all too soon--mostly because every episode of that show was classic, and it only had one season, so its season finale being a fitting ending to the season automatically means its series finale was a fitting ending to the series.

(It’s such an outlier that I can’t really compare it to anything but honestly--this is how to do an open-ended cliffhanger and still make it feel like a conclusion. But that’s a whole different post.)

My formula above also doesn’t apply well to sitcoms, because they aren’t really about anything, in terms of plot. Like the name says, they set up situations: a group of people who are family, co-workers, friends, and then lets those situations play out in a funny manner for as long as there are jokes to tell. Sitcoms to me end well if they don’t overstay their welcome, if they remain true to the characters (because it’s the characters, not the minimal narrative, that defines the show), and if they hit an appropriate ‘ending’ tone. But the biggest thing for me is if the sitcom went on for too many seasons. Even if the final episode isn’t the greatest, it’s fine. But if the last 2-4 seasons were lackluster, it tarnishes the whole legacy.

‘Procedural’ type shows are yet another category, and I’m not entirely sure how to characterize those, or what makes a strong ending for that sub-genre. I’m using ‘procedural’ broadly to include, like, Bad Guy of the Week type shows--for example, Charmed, which I thought should have ended after S7. Again, I think it’s about not letting the whole thing go on too long, and then staying true to characters and tone in the finale itself.

So looking just at dramas that have a season’s warning before their finale--which, really, are the type of shows that are most likely to make people ANGRY with shitty endings, because they lure the viewer in with the idea that a singular, coherent story is being told. Maybe it’s convoluted. Maybe it’s winding. Maybe it’s hard to tell where they’re going with this. But if it all comes together in the end, none of that matters--and if it doesn’t come together, what was the point of all the seasons that came before? It becomes, retroactively, a betrayal.

The more plot-driven the show (if it has a mystery, a conspiracy theory, a quest), the greater the betrayal if all fizzles out. But I think the same feeling can arise from shoddy conclusions in dramas more generally. The L Word is one of my comfort shows but that last season is a MESS all the way down, the finale especially. There definitely wasn’t a point to anything, and it wasn’t even entertaining as, like, a dramatic soap.

But then I think about shows whose endings I really liked. For example, Six Feet Under had a great final season and one of the best finale episodes/ending sequences ever. The show up to that point had been about death, and that theme had always been centered most particularly on Nate: his fears of the family business, his previous brushes with death because of his AVM, etc. So of course the show had to end by killing one of its mains, coming full circle with the pilot, showing real grief hitting home--and of course Nate’s personal journey as the main character had to end with his death. Everything about the conclusion was fitting, not even counting the final montage.

I also really liked the conclusion of Big Love, for similar reasons: it was thoughtful, and it successfully teased out the main strands, both of plot and theme, that had run through the show up to that point. The most important thing had always been depicting this family, their problems but also their strength and their love for each other--so, as the showrunners said, it had to conclude by showing you that the family survives. They are strong, and their bonds endure. But the ending was, and had to be, bittersweet too, because anything less would seem to sweep under the rug the real tragedies of the last seasons. Not everyone gets happy endings. And the unhappy endings relate specifically to the toxic patriarchy that’s haunted all of the characters from the pilot. Alby has a chance to turn away from his father and the compound life--but the forces arrayed against him were too strong, so there was no deus ex machina for him, and he ultimately just became fully the evil villain. And Bill is taken out not by the state or by the compound but by an aggrieved man who feels he’s been emasculated, forgotten, who is raging against being so Unseen. What a way to make clear what the common denominator in all of the threats of the past 5 seasons has been.

I also give major points to shows whose finales feel like they’re trying, even if they’re imperfect, especially if the imperfections are because of factors outside the showrunner’s control. For example, I saw someone list Dollhouse as one of their ‘worst endings’ but I have to disagree. I like the ending of Dollhouse. It wasn’t supposed to be 2 seasons. That’s well known. But that’s how many seasons it got, and I think honestly they turned that into a plus rather than a minus. Dollhouse was its best when it was rushing to a conclusion, when it was fast-paced and exciting. Did it always make complete sense? No. Were there some pretty big holes in the plot? Yeah--S2′s Big Bad was absolutely and transparently a retcon instituted between S1 and S2 and I get that, and I forgive the show for that. I thought bifurcating the epilogue as two extra episodes after each of the two seasons was genius, and I liked that it allowed the show to have its cake and eat it too: a happy ending, with the main, immediate, singular Big Bad eliminated, at the end of S2, and a more bittersweet, more complicated, post-apoc ending in the bonus episode. Yeah, I can see the seams; I know there were a lot of constructed work arounds in there because the show was intended to be longer. I think the ending was presented in good faith.

I also, perhaps controversially, liked the ending of Veronica Mars (the original 3-season show; I didn’t see the reboot). The way the season aired was weird and didn’t do it any favors: having a long break before the last couple of episodes, which existed outside of the two Big Case arcs of S3, makes those final stories feel tacked on and random. Basically impossible to have a strong finish with that kind of structure. But the very end of the last ep had the bitter, dark feel of a noir, which is what the show was, a mash up of a noir and a high school drama. I liked that they leaned on the noir rather than the high school aspect, because it was the more creative way to go imo. Also, I appreciated that S3, in general, learned from S2′s mistakes. Yes, the college years are always going to be lackluster compared to high school, in any series that starts with its characters in high school. But VM recognized that no overarching mystery was going to compare to the Lilly Kane murder, so it split the Big Mystery into two Medium Sized mysteries, and I thought that was smart. All of which makes me inclined to think fondly of the conclusion. As with Dollhouse, its weakest points seem to be compromises it had to make, not really its fault but just an inevitable imperfection of the form.

It’s pretty easy to list aspects of a bad ending: a sense that events are arbitrary, a disrespect of characters, a rushed construction, a jarring tone, and most importantly a disconnect between the finale and what came before. If the show appeared to be a narrative (as opposed to a situation), but it doesn’t feel like a complete and coherent whole at the end, then the conclusion was bad.

I didn’t watch GOT or SPN and I stopped watching T100 at the end of S4 (though I do feel confident from tumblr that the ending was Bad), so I have somewhat of a hard time thinking of shows that I thought had really bad endings. I can think of dissatisfying endings that came from shows being cancelled without warning. I can think of shows that lasted too long in general or otherwise had fallen from their greatest heights by the time they limped to a conclusion (unpopular opinion: Friends fits in this category--that show should have been 4 seasons, maybe 5 tops; Boy Meets World and Dawson’s Creek are comfort show favorites of mine but they both should have ended with high school, like, pretty objectively speaking; iZombie started a slow downturn after S2 and by the end of S4 was kinda unwatchable. I literally stopped halfway through the finale.). I can even think of shows that lost me by the end even though objectively they probably had good endings (for example, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend--I couldn’t get through S4 and the finale sounded... technically well-constructed but like it would have driven me nuts).

But then I guess most shows with shitty finales technically had shitty last seasons in general. Truly notorious crash-and-burns don’t come out of nowhere. I mean I’m sure there are counter-examples to this (what’s that one with the kid and the snow globe lol?) but unless you try for a weird last-minute twist, or unless you’ve got your audience hoping against hope that an impossibly twisty story is actually very smart instead of very ill-planned, it’s generally clear before the last episode if a narrative has lost its way. I don’t tend to watch a lot of ‘twisty-turny conspiracy’ shows, and when I do I am supremely skeptical all the way through, so it’s hard for me to think of examples I’ve personally watched of a last minute “what the fuck was that” conclusion.

[noshirtnoblouse]

Idk if I understood your tags correctly but these iconic vines were memes in itself or not? And they reached other communities when they were used as reactions or they were slightly altered to fit the purpose but everyone knew the original one. And that's what tiktok is lacking imo there are the dancing and lip syncs which are rarely good imo and then original content often has vine energy but imo they drown in the others also ppl like to hate tiktok

yes! so vine videos became stand alone jokes and were funny based on being their own content outside of the vine platform. like being put on twitter or facebook and they were still funny without any other context surrounding that video. 

tiktok on the other hand has viral sounds that outside of knowing the origin isn’t as funny and doesn’t necessarily translate to being funny across entire populations. The lack of knowledge in understanding the original video is why there aren’t stand alone viral tiktok videos. like i quote the “AM I WRONG?! YOU’RE GONNA LOOK AT ME AND TELL ME THAT I’M WRONG?!” sound all the time because the SOUND is unrelated to the video being funny. you can take that sound and put it into any other scenario that relates to the individual making their own video based on the original sound in the original video. like the idea behind creating original content that is relatable to the creator and lip syncing that sound to create a meme of the original sound. 

for example the meme of the couple walking to create stock images that went viral is the same as an original sound being created on tiktok. 

this picture went viral after people started using it as template to create relatable content to them and their surrounding communities. 

the image now has new meaning but has a shared connection of understanding to the original content. 

but if i were to say “oh my god they were roommates!” that alone is a reference to a specific viral moment that is harder to separate from the original content. the roommates video was so funny because every aspect of that video came together so perfectly that you couldn’t recreate it in a meme format thus create a viral moment that could be shared across all social media and transcend platform bias. 

it’s the same reason we haven’t seen Doja Cat reach the same A-list celeb status as cardi or nicki. the sounds and clips from her songs have literally been the catalyst to her incredible success but she has yet to produce a top 40 radio hit and anyone outside of a very small corner on the internet has no idea who she is. doja cat is tiktok and billie eilish is vine. 

and people hated on vine before the content started to become viral 

honestly i love tiktok it’s algorithm is like no other i’ve ever seen in pushing content to it’s viewers. it’s not just lipsyncs and viral dances but at the end of the day can their content and content creators become icons? we’ll have to wait and see. 

[sansybones]

Deltarune Reaction!!!

I finished Deltarune!!! My reactions/initial thoughts are UNDER THE CUT :))

S P O I L E R S

L    O    N   G lol

So!!!! THIS WAS A SURPRISE haha I think this caught us all unprepared but it’s the kind of surprise that I’m thrilled to encounter. I have been having fun reading other people’s reactions and theories, but I wanted to record my own ideas before they get mixed in with the ideas of others. 

These are my INITIAL impressions and theories, I’m VERY open to changing my mind and probably will. I like to sit for a long time and think about things before forming conclusions :) I don’t intend to stick to any of it really rigidly. Hopefully you find it fun to read!

OVERALL: oh my GOODNESS I am SO impressed with this game?? First of all -- it’s a whole game??? Toby????? It’s like 5 hours that was just snap-released for FREE? With a MUCH more robust battle system and some REMARKABLE improvements (like running! character creator! party system!!!) I’m *so* impressed. It was fun and funny and I was engaged and loving every minute of it. 

I LOVE the new characters, which blows me away. I honestly didn’t think I had space in my heart to love new characters but... oh my goodness... I love all of them??? I ADORE Susie, Raslei was super cute and fun to play as, Lancer was hilarious, I love the new monsters and I love??? Roulxs??? hahaha I think Toby was REALLY SMART to focus this game on an (almost) entirely new cast.

Some specific ideas...

I don’t exactly know what to make of Darkners and their world. The whole cave experience felt un-real. I mean to say that it never really felt very real to me playing as Kris. It always felt a bit through-the-looking-glass... like this isn’t a real thing that is happening and I was never very scared that “I will die”. I don’t think that’s a bad thing, it’s just a thing I noticed that I’ve been thinking about a lot. My impression of the experience was that it was something Asriel conjured. Like he wanted to take Kris through this DnD-like experience because he... missed them? Needed to teach them something?? That’s very unclear to me right now. I want to believe that Lancer and the Darkner crew are “real”. But in a meta-context... they’ll never be more or less “real” than Asriel or Sans and maybe that’s the point.

ASRIEL was SUCH a mindblowing twist!! I’m so excited that FINALLY Asriel gets the narrative exploration he deserves :)) But what is he doing here??  Is the Darkner world... college....? hahaha

Susie’s comments on use of force really struck me. I don’t necessarily agree with them, but it’s something that I have been thinking a lot about and will need to think a whole lot more about. I think that discussion was a “gap” in the framework of Undertale and it’ll be interesting to see how it’s explored. (That being said I think Undertale is complete in its thesis, it’s just an element that left me wondering after that game.)

“Your choices don’t matter” was a pretty strong message in the early part of the game, but it’s one that I don’t think actually proves out throughout the game itself. There is already evidence of multiple endings (@withtheworms and I got slightly different endings, even though early evidence seems to point to the fact that a no-mercy run isn’t possible.) The Amalgamates in the graveyard and the existence(?) of Happsta -- due to Alphys never becoming royal scientist -- is a pretty strong signal to the contrary. It’s almost like “It’s a Wonderful Life” in its sentiment.

Seeing UT Characters in the overworld made me SO SAD. Asgore... you’re a mess... The soul-coloured flowers REALLY freaked me out. Echoes of the other world... you see a flower portrait in Asriel’s bedroom too. But, I’m happy because it fits with my idea of ToriGori ;) I was bummed out that Undyne and Alphys aren’t together and Bratti and Catty are enemies :(( I think the person in the curved house is Hapstablook (!!!) AND SANS??? W-...WHY DO YOU HAVE GRILLBY’S??? WHAT HAPPENED TO GRILLBY!? W-... WHAT??? (I will dedicate a LOT of thought to wtf is up with Sans in this hahaha)

Toby has confirmed that this is an AU and I consider that settled, but just because it’s an AU doesn’t mean it’s not a *connected* AU, and I’m really interested in exactly HOW it’s connected to Undertale. The big reason I think it must be a connected AU is ... well “why use UT chars at all, otherwise”? 

There’s so much space to make a “spiritual sequel” or a completely different game. If Toby really wanted a fresh start, he wouldn’t have kept so much from UT. 

This isn’t a “shared universe” kind of AU, because the existing characters/history is very different. The UT characters seem like much more than just cameos.  

This doesn’t seem to be a “Tenchi Muyo” style AU where they just use the same cast of characters and put them in a different context. The context isn’t that different! The characters do seem to be very deeply affected by some material change in the timeline.

This obviously isn’t a “reboot” type of AU like the Star Trek movies... the same story with some slight changes/updates. (Thank goodness for that)

I think it’s a “split timeline” AU. The rules of the world are similar, but some significant change in the timeline altered the course of history and the people within it.  

As for that change... did the monster war never happen? Did Kris fall instead of Chara? We’ll need to hunt for the evidence and think about that one.

That all being said, I LOVE that it’s an AU... that ties in very well with how fandom has chosen to interpret the game and expand on its universe.

Plus... A lot of our UT fanon (including Gasters) lives on ;;)))

I think, ultimately, Deltarune is exploring a similar “self-aware NPC in a game” idea that Undertale was exploring. I’m so excited to see more of it.

The ENDING - was CREEPY. I didn’t realize on my playthrough that you could MOVE the soul in the cage, which has some specific implications imo. The ending had me thinking a lot more about the very beginning (with the “character creator”.) Who is running THAT part of the game? How does that connect to DeltaRune? To Undertale? If it’s an “experiment”, what is the experiment trying to determine? 

In closing... I LOVED it. I can’t wait to think more about it and play with these new ideas. I hope Toby doesn’t stress out too much /:) I know he’s literally never going to read this but I still want to send positive vibes his way. Toby!! Don’t worry so much!! We love you!! I trust and believe in his ability to hire managers, programmers and artists to build the thing that speaks his vision as clearly as he desires. Follow your dreams, Toby, we support you!! Take as long as it takes just don’t get hurt <3 <3 <3

[storytellingandtea-blog]

“It was an accident!” - Grindelnewt

How did you know I love this pairing oh my god :’D I don’t recall posting/reblogging much FBAWTTF content on here. The lack of quality Grindelnewt content, at least, last time I went to check, is a royal shame.

This probably isn’t what you had in mind, but have some kind of vague fluffy crack (taken seriously?) plotting. AU with Newt being born earlier, so that this can all realistically take place before Gellert is too deep into his plans. 

This was born of a mix of my desire to write fluff, and my thoughts on how Grindelwald would honestly find Newt fascinating, as well as the fact that Newt wouldn’t actually wholly disagree with Gellert’s goals, imo. 

Anyway, content below the break, thank you for the ask :D

“M-Mister Grindelwald! I—I do apologise, it was an accident. My creatures always seem to get restless in the case when y-you’re in the vicinity. I suppose they might feel at peace around your magic… Perhaps it connects to them, as mine does…” Newt trailed off, anxiety forgotten as his brain pursued the trail of thought, momentarily forgetting the dark wizard’s presence near him. Niffler started to wiggle out of his loosened hold, trying to inch back to Gellert, and, presumably, the ‘shiny trinket’ the man had just gotten back. “Niff, honey, that’s enough. Behave yourself for Mr. Grindelwald.”

“That is quite all right, Mister Scamander. In fact, this is quite fortuitous, I was hoping to speak with you. We might not have noticed each other in the street had Niffler not… indulged. In any case, if you’re free, shall we?” Grindelwald questioned, his features almost soft. If near anyone else who knew the man had seen him in that moment, they’d have to take a moment to consider if he’d been Polyjuiced, as fondness wasn’t an emotion he showed openly, especially after his… split… with Albus.

“Of—Of course, Mister Grindelwald, I would love to! In fact, I came across this creature last week, in Brazil, that I think you might find of interest.”

It started like this, long before some other Gellert in some other world impersonated one Percival Graves. A young, recently graduated Newton Scamander was working on the expansion charms of his case in what he thought to be a section of forest deep enough in the wilderness to avoid notice. For all that he’d yet to attain many creatures that even your average wizard would consider a danger, many of them were lucrative to poachers, or simply shy. As such, he preferred to let his creatures out of the case in safe areas where they wouldn’t come into danger, especially his painfully young and injured Nundu cub that he was helping rehabilitate that he wasn’t strictly allowed to have. Legally. Realistically, the little female was too young to bite and break skin, much less poison someone. She was carefully settled onto Newt’s person in a sling, so that he could keep her warm, and keep up with her feedings as he worked.

In the future, he’d anchor his charms to a warding stone within the case itself, allowing him to safely work on alterations without risking those inside, but that wouldn’t happen for another year and gift from Gellert later.

Gellert had returned to Britain seeking information, and a certain tome. The only reason he was in that forest in that time of night was to gather some potions ingredients he needed fresh, and then, well, serendipity took over. He could feel Newt working his magic from over a kilometre away, and of course, curious man that he is, he had to go and explore, and figure out what, exactly, was going on.

The first thing Gellert saw upon approaching the source of the magic was a pair of unicorns, their pelts shimmering in the twilight, that seemed to be standing guard. They were carefully bandaged, around the legs, and one of them around the neck, a faint trace of silvery blood lingering. The next was the rather miraculous young man who he’d inadvertently startled.

Newt and Gellert meet up all over the world for the next 2, 3 years, sometimes as often as several times a week, commonly discussing Newt’s creatures, magical theory, anything and everything, really. Towards the fourth year, Newt’s creatures, most especially those with him on a permanent basis, thought of Gellert as a sort-of-father, the same way they considered Newt their mother, so, of course, they always tried to push the two of them together. For all the both of them were smart people, for all they had a good understanding of creatures, they couldn’t seem to grasp what the creatures were trying to tell them. They would not for another few years, yet.

Until that time, however, one more important thing happened. Newt finally openly confided to Gellert quite how despicable he found the attitude of the majority of the ruling wizarding nations towards creatures, rather openly implying he’d be willing to do likely questionable things to improve the situation. After all, for all that he wasn’t a violent person by nature, he was protective of what he considered his. As it happened, however, his magic, it, well, bonded him, for lack of better terms, to magical creatures, on innate levels, allowing them a natural affinity uncommon in the WIzarding World.

Gellert, at that revelation, was more straightforward about his ambitions and plans. While Newt didn’t necessarily like all his intentions, he was almost surprised to find that he agreed with a lot more this man believed and strived for than he disagreed with. He had, of course, known of Gellert even before they had met, as his mentor, Albus, had spoken of him, and not in the most positive light. Newt found it difficult to believe that someone who genuinely loved magical creatures in the same way he did could be inherently bad.

For his part, Gellert grew increasingly fascinated with this young man, his natural affinity and bond with creatures of magic, his understated, unacknowledged genius and skill.

They grew closer, now commonly exchanging letters, sometimes even firecalling. Newt never completely opposed any of Gellert’s goals and intended methods, instead playing Devil’s advocate or providing ideas for alternative routes. It wasn’t long before they came up with a compromise they were both happy with, neither of them consciously realising that Newt was swiftly becoming Gellert’s right hand.

Another year passed before Newt full heartedly dedicated himself to their now-shared cause, while still continuing to travel. It was around this time that Gellert and Newt finally realised Oh, that’s what’s been going on, I do believe I’m fond of him in a way different to the one I thought. Newt’s creatures finally breathe a collective sigh of relief after they share their first kiss, and take it as umbrella permission to include the dark lord in their cuddle piles, finally.

For just then, Gellert, Newt, and the rest of their group were lying low as they set up their plans, just barely under the surface. When they were ready, to set them into motion, however, nobody would know what hit them, lest of all Albus.

[roxannepolice]

I’m curious on what you think balancing would actually mean. I always get get caught up on the light = good and dark = evil dichotomy. George Lucas has said you need both for the Force, but that kinda rubs me wrong way if Light and Dark are good and evil. I don’t know it’s like saying evil is necessary. I guess that why I think the Dark isn’t necessarily evil, but of darker feelings/emotions that those with evil intent like to use. -Wanderingspacedragon

Alright, so this grew into a longish meta that ended up exceeding the confines of GFFA and touching upon real world philosophy. But, I guess this is what Lucas asked for when he first came up with the force. So here goes nothin'.

Master Carl-Gus Jungobi's wisdoms

First of all, reaching to LF themselves, Brian Young defines light as the suppression of ego and dark as its amplification. So far so good. However, from jungist perspective (and a nice intruduction to how C. G. Jung fits into GFFA as well as mythology in general done by crash course can be found here) any juxtaposition like day-night, sun-moon, angel-demon, heaven-hell also quicksilver and sulphur but that's a different level of symbolism are all metaphors of conscious and unconscious. Conscious mind is a socialized, clear and immersed in the norms of the community while the unconscious is individual, animalistic and shapeless - and imo, that's rather simple to reconcile with what Young wrote on twitter. Existing only on the level of consciousness always puts the community before the individual whereas being guided only by our unconscious reduces the outside world to the level of tools to satisfy our needs. Because of that, Jung points out that unconscious has been throughout the ages identified as evil (this is why those needs had to be repressed in the first place, hence producing the shadow archetype in the unconscious), which leads us to some really intriguing topics.

Because the question of nature, cause, purpose and possible necessity of evil is nothing short of one of the most important questions of any religion and moral philosophy - and it seems well into 8th millennium we're nowhere closer to a definite answer. The statement good and evil are abstract concepts tends to cause very negative reactions, because it appears like denial of their reality, but I think it's misunderstanding of what an abstraction is. When I say numbers are abstract concepts, the matter seems clear - there is no independently existing number two, yet it exists in the sense of quantity - but no one seems to protest that I don't believe in maths or sth. There's an anecdote about Einstein's student years where he compared good and evil not to binary opposites, but rather to temperature. We simplify the issue to the point of warm and cold, but is there some absolute border between them? What is the polar opposite of -1°C, +1° or +30°? There exists an absolute zero, at which all atom movement ceases, but is there an absolute plus? But even though there is no physical impossibility of life in too hot surroundings, like there is in the case of absolute zero, yet we earthlings feel extreme warmth isn't that good either, don't we? And then there's a matter of subjective experience - someone living in Siberia has different ideas of warm and cold than someone living in the rainforest - but it doesn't change the fact that objectively speaking 20°C is warmer than 9°C and both of these people will recognize it. So regardless of whether it was Einstein who made this comparison, I think it's a pretty good metaphor.

Leaving philosophy and coming back to psychology, the basic point that Jung makes about conscious and unconscious is that individualized, integrated self needs them both in order to lead a creative, meaningful life. Either of them alone limits the person, the unconscious to the purely biological life, fulfillment of one's wants, but conscious to the self repeating sustenance. Arguably, life on the purely conscious level (in pure light, so to speak) is a safer, better choice - but it results in changelessness, in mindless recreation. Yes, it's not as selfishly destructive as that of pure unconscious, but it's an unproductive as life of Adam and Eve in Eden, arid like Tatooine and Jakku and, at worst, dogmatic like the prequel jedi. Both conscious and unconscious are infertile when kept strictly separated, hence the ever present symbols of female and male - and marriage as a metaphor of integration. Now, the important point is that the integration has to be on conditions, so to speak, of the conscious - but unconscious has to be accepted for what it is, it can't be forced to become overall conscious, only this way the shapeless mass of our imagination can keep its vital powers.

Mircea Eliade, an intellectual: holy marriage and coniunctio oppositorum; me, a fangirl: smut hut and thigh grab

Using the jungist metaphor, the general story we hitherto got in SW presents itself as follows: we start off in strict consciousness repressing the unconscious (jedi fighting siths in every form) - and so it finally got itself a psychotic flooding of the psyche with the unconscious content (a nigredo, blackening, using alchemical terminology Jung studied) in form of Anakin’s fall into his shadow persona of Darth Vader and republic becoming the empire. Jung would venture as far as to say that a psychotic episode is necessary to the growth, though I would argue that's mostly because he lived in very repressive times. Regardless, the first flooding of the unconscious is almost always depicted as violent and terrifying, with one of the most visual metaphors being a total eclipse when the moon blanks out the sun completely.

Thus, the originals are basically the painstaking process of the psyche overcoming the psychotic episode and consciousness regaining control. One might argue that the individuation process is actually completed on the individual level - Luke appears to have accepted Darth Anakin for what he is, and thus integrated his own shadow as well - which is why old EU would have Leia accept her father too, eventually, and for some the sequels are straight up redundant rehash of the originals. Far from thinking the bottom line wasn't that DLF want to make money, the apparent narration fits pretty well with the idea of re-repression: the shadow isn't integrated, ex-imperials are banished and the Skywalkers accept Anakin only by rejecting Vader - and so nigredo repeats itself, and will continue to repeat until the shadow is integrated. Additionally, it can be argued that Luke committed a mistake of thinking the individuation is a static goal and as such refused to reenter the spontaneous life (refusal to rebuild the jedi until it was really necessary). This is a frequent temptation and if it rings a bell with a difference between a buddha and a bodhisattva, bingo - buddha was considered by Jung one of the metaphors of the integrated self.

Which brings us to our current holy marriage and where they left off at the end of tlj. Viewing Rey and Ben as avatars of light (conscious, communitarian, idealistic) and dark (unconscious, individual, emotional) makes much more sense than when we view them as plain good vs. evil. Now, while no one seems to have any problems grasping the problem with Ben's actions (integration on unconsciousness’ condition is simply another nigredo), from a psychoanalytic viewpoint Rey isn't that much more in the right. She isn't willing to integrate the shadowy unconscious, only wants the unconscious to become conscious, if not downright negates the existence of the shadow (yeah, she’ll cross the galaxy to help Ben turn - only she never asked if he even wants to turn). So while most reylos want to see her as determined to wait for Ben and an/is as having given up on him completely, I would say her current state is closest to Luke's then my father is truly dead in RotJ. She isn't determined to save him in as much as do the right thing and it's likelier to mean sparing him. That being said, she needs to undergo her own violent nigredo if she is to accept him the way Luke accepted Vader by the time he threw away the ls.

*Aggressively hums Hans Zimmer's 503*

An interesting side reflection occured to me while writing this answer and thinking of how abstract ideas of good and evil get framed by different moral philosophies and religions (to get something straight: I analyze religions from a purely social/cultural sciences pov, so I'm not evaluating them in any way - and regardless, Jung saw all religions are basically metaphors of individuation. I'm also not arguing what is Lucas's preferred interpretation of the force - I'm just discussing the discourse within the trilogies). So I think the force has always had strong vibes of some form of divinity ever since it was first discussed by Obi-Wan and then by Yoda. However, it appears to me the conceptualization of it, as well as its two sides, has altered throughout the subsequent trilogies, counting OT, PT, ST.

In the originals the vibes are definitely closest to East Asia’s religions/moral philosophies, with main connotations being dao and yin-yang. There isn't much talk of force having a will of its own but rather being a general flow of reality that one can be attuned to or not - Luke's compassion for Vader isn't shown as qualitatively more correct, more of what the force wants, than Yoda's and Obi-Wan's condemnation. The prequels are much more Mediterranean/Middle East in tone, with Anakin's fall being framed as a greek tragedy but also force being shown as having a much more concrete will, definite plan for the galaxy and directly interfering in the history. This constitutes what Mircea Eliade considers the crucial feature of judeo-christian-islamic tradition: God has a will similar to human and a linear plan for humanity. And because of that I'd say the prequels are very First Testament in tone. There's absolutely no way to prove that destruction of the jedi, including the youngling massacre, wasn't a part of Anakin's purpose in bringing balance to the force - and when we look at the First Testament then we get passages like the flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, egyptian plagues (including death of the first borns!) or the Book of Job. None of this disproves God's benevolence, but destruction is a frequent part of God's plan.

In contrast the sequels (and Disney era in general) got very close to the New Testament and christian theology. Light and dark are no longer equal elements of the universe, just as God and satan aren't equal opponents, there would be no evil if Lucifer hasn't rebelled, force is its light side and dark an aberration, so to speak. Rey and Kylo Ben are framed as equally powerful, but the force prefers her because of her allegiance to the light. The downsides are that trusting the force and keeping up hope (faith and hope being two of the three theological virtues) are themes brought up ad nauseam and the public plot is infuriatingly predictable - angels are going to win no matter how numerous and technologically advanced the halls of hell get. There is no Battle of Evermore in christianity, there's only the Last Judgment, so the only interesting battlefield is each individual soul. The upside is Prodigal Sons, Lost Sheep and Adulterous Women galore - as well as despair understood as loss of faith in God's mercy and possibility of one's salvation as one of the sins capable of forfeiting the soul.

But anyway, the bottom line of this prolonged rambling (what can I say, I could deliberate on the dichotomies of the force for ages) is that light and dark side symbolise conscious and unconscious and the balance means integration of the self. It definitely fits into the jungist reading and would give this trilogy a narrative value.

Though obviously, this topic wouldn't be so interesting if there was a definite answer.

[octerminal]

how do you think ramona's class/background influences her relationship with kaidan?

Oh, anon…you have NO idea the monster you have just unleashed, lmao. I’m so sorry in advance.

I have thought a lot about this! It’s one of my favorite things to think about! Because I think it influences a lot! My Shepard is Earthborn/Sole Survivor/Infiltrator.

Let me start with the one that I’m still puzzling out myself, which is Sole Survivor. On the one hand, I do like Sole Survivor. On the other hand, I think BW dropped the ball with them. And to a degree I understand why, because there’s only so many variances they can account for without getting the story sidetracked. But, like, here’s the thing: Akuze was orchestrated by Cerberus. That’s a thing you find out in ME1. So ME2 for SoSu Shep in particular has to be fairly…upsetting, to say the least. This is both a strength and a weakness. A strength because it makes ME2 that much more interesting, but a weakness because the game only acknowledges this, like, twice. First with Tela Vasir in LotSB, and then in ME3 during the Cronos mission. Every other time is swept under the rug, and Shepard’s made to defend Cerberus or, at best, softly condemn them. A lot of “They used to do good work, but…” or “I never saw this coming because they used to do good work, but…” and it’s just frankly sloppy because there’s no believable reason for me to think SoSu Shep would ever think that way. Cerberus is personal for her in a way it isn’t for War Hero or Ruthless.

So now add in Horizon and its aftermath. Horizon is by far one of my favorite parts of the trilogy. But…if Cerberus is personal for SoSu Shep in a way it isn’t for War Hero or Ruthless, so is Horizon. Shepard is alone in ME2 in a way she never is in the other games; she might have people by the end of the game, but it doesn’t start out that way. She’s trapped and she knows it. Yeah, she gets Garrus early on (the only one in the beginning that she can immediately trust to not be in Cerberus’ pocket since she has prior dealings with him), but Garrus has his own demons in ME2, and anyway, he’s only one person versus an entire ship full of Cerberus. Even the ship itself is Cerberus. So enter Kaidan on Horizon, and mix in a Shepard who’s feeling cornered and wants out of Cerberus’ grip but who’s been alienated from every other available avenue that could help her fight the Collectors, and you get…well, You Know.

My Shepard in particular is not very emotionally open or honest - like, for example, the first time she finally tells Kaidan she loves him is at the beam run, despite knowing she’s felt that way since Horizon. (This, and the fact she’s renegade leaning in general, have to do with her Earthborn background but I’ll get to that part later.) The idea of being vulnerable in that capacity with someone is terrifying to her, but on Horizon? I have her specifically ask Kaidan to join her. She’s desperate and she needs someone like him, and so she extends herself in a way she never would normally…and Kaidan rejects her in no uncertain terms, lol. He questions her alliance with Cerberus, pokes holes in all the defenses she tells herself to make herself feel better. (“I’m not working for them, they’re just giving me resources!”) He tells her that she’s changed (a sore spot, given her own insecurity over Lazarus)* and then…leaves. Like, ouch. I’m of the opinion that Horizon - including the confrontation with the VS - was orchestrated and intentional, and TIM’s desired outcome** so that Shepard would be pushed further into Cerberus and further alienated from the Alliance (because the VS would be their closest ties to it at this point in the series), and I think that’s something my Shepard recognizes, too. But that doesn’t mean it hurts any less, particularly when you consider that again: she’s alone, she’s desperate, and she made herself vulnerable in a way she never would normally.

But at the same time, if Kaidan had agreed to join her…she would have been extremely suspicious, lol. Like, that’s not the Kaidan she knows! A dude willing to abandon his post and work for a terrorist organization just because she’s supposedly leading this particular cell? Nah. If Shepard had been in Kaidan’s shoes, she’d have reacted the exact same way. She knows that too. But it’s still a complicated situation and I don’t think it’s sufficiently addressed in canon because the SoSu element makes everything so much messier. For comparison, while Horizon hurts my War Hero (Shiara) and Ruthless (femShepley) Shepards because they care about the VS (particularly my Ruthless one, obviously), it’s not the same. They have no prior trauma because of Cerberus; the extent of their interactions with them would just be the ME1 missions. In those cases, Cerberus is just another enemy to tackle. It’s not personal. Political, maybe. But not personal.

So yes, I absolutely think that Sole Survivor and Kaidan would have to handle Horizon and its aftermath in a different way than what’s presented in canon. Not, like, dramatically so or anything…I just think it’d take different words or more talks or something, but I just don’t know what yet and that’s the problem. It’s enough to where I’ve considered dumping the Sole Survivor background because it’s frustrating trying to think of solutions, but altering that would change a lot about my Shepard that I’m not willing to part with. Like, Sha'ira’s gift of words sum up how I view her perfectly:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong. That strength is what kept you alive when everyone else around you was dying. You alone survived. You will continue to survive.”

But if I changed that to Ruthless (the BG I’ve considered switching her to), it would instead be:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong. You never hid your strength, either. It serves you well. Terrifies your foes. Few will dare to stand against you.”

And…that’s just not her. And yeah, I could disregard this - it’s such a tiny part of the series that’s never touched upon again - but the EB/SoSu combo validated every image I had of my Shepard when I created her, so I’m very attached to it and determined to make it work, lol. Like I said, it’s the part about her and her relationship with Kaidan I’m still figuring out the most. 

So what about the other parts of her background? Let me do the Earthborn portion next because I already know that’s going to be very long. I have put a lot of thought into Kaidan’s family, his parents, and his upbringing…not all of it is to relevant to your question though, so I’ll try to restrain myself lol.

So it’s never outright stated as much in canon, but I’m under the (very fair, imo) impression Kaidan’s family is fucking loaded. Here’s what we know about them:

They have an apartment in English Bay (ME3)

They own an orchard that makes wine in the B.C. Interior (ME1, ME3)

Kaidan owns a strip of land on the Sunshine Coast (ME3) (it’s unclear to me though whether this is either of the above, or something different)

Kaidan has a cousin who owns an agriculture business (ME1) (This one doesn’t necessarily point to Kaidan’s family being wealthy, although it does seem to imply they have ties to agriculture?)

Kaidan’s father is former military and he retired before the First Contact War (ME1, ME3) (Again, doesn’t necessarily point to wealth)

I’m not Canadian, let alone a Vancouverite, but I do have a friend from that area (and also, like, Google exists) and it’s my understanding that…English Bay is a very ritzy area. Like, I looked up real estate and a lot of the price results were in the millions. Considering that Mass Effect takes place in the future and Vancouver has only become even more of a metropolis (I believe it’s canon that it’s merged with Seattle to form a mega-city?)…I find it hard to believe that those prices haven’t risen even more than they already are now.

So if Kaidan’s family can afford an apartment in an area that expensive, uh, they can’t be hurting for money. Then factor in the other stuff I listed. Making wine? Owning an orchard to make said wine? To be honest, just the fact they’re able to afford at least two different properties*** is enough for me to think they’re fairly well off, especially when there’s this from the codex:

“While every human enjoys longer and better life than ever, the gap between rich and poor widens daily.”

Like, this isn’t some utopian age for humanity. Poverty still exists, and it’s clearly just as bad if not worse than it is currently. So that’s to say: it’s kinda two extremes with an exceedingly rare middle ground. Kaidan’s family very clearly does not fall on the less fortunate side if they have an apartment with an ocean view and make wine in their spare time.

Okay, I promise there was a point to all that. The point being that Earthborn Shepard comes from the exact opposite spectrum. She grew up in extreme poverty with…nothing, not even a family. She’s seen the worst humanity has to offer long before Cerberus shows up in her life. She’s seen - lived - the ugly parts about Earth the Alliance doesn’t like to broadcast. She’s had to do things that would frankly offend Kaidan’s “sometimes the way a thing goes down does matter” ideal, because things like integrity have no place in your life when you have nothing and no one and you’re fighting just to survive to the next day when no one but yourself cares about you seeing it. And that’s a way she had to live her life for eighteen years - it’s not something she can just shut off, particularly not when the skills she learned living that way are what helped her survive Akuze. (Remember Sha'ira’s words?)

These are things Kaidan can’t truly relate to, not even in his capacity as a biotic who’s apart of a society who doesn’t understand him at best and hates him at worst. Because there’s a difference between Kaidan’s situation, and being so much of a faceless nobody that it wouldn’t even be news if you went missing. Kaidan has a family, and one that presumably loves him. He has money. He’s never had to fight to survive in the way Earthborn Shepard has, not even if you HC that his time between BAaT and joining the Alliance took him away from his parents and their wealth (which I do). These are also things that shape a person so completely, to ignore them would be to ignore what made this person into who they are today. 

(I do, however, think Kaidan can sympathize because of his unique position in society and because he regularly puts himself in another’s shoes, anyway.)

Earthborn Shepard isn’t still living in poverty by the time the trilogy comes around. She’s actually made a name for herself - which in and of itself has to be very confusing for her, because I envision Earthborn Shepard as someone who suffers constantly from imposter syndrome - and she has funding. A lot of it. Like, an exorbitant amount. Shepard has to spend so much money throughout the trilogy if she wants better equipment for herself and her crew (and even for her ship) which is kind of a necessity if you want to, you know, survive and be competent and stuff.

I think she reconciles all of this with the fact that yeah, this is necessary, she’s not being frivolous - but there’s always going to be a part of herself that feels guilty, because that’s just something that’s beaten into you when you grow up that way. Spending money feels bad.**** There might be moments she doesn’t care. There might be times where, in the moment, it feels good. But at some point, however fleeting, there’s always going to be that guilt. These aren’t feelings that are easy to get over, even if you objectively know they’re irrational.

Contrast this with Kaidan. I see Kaidan as someone who is considerate and not particularly wasteful. (That doesn’t stop me from making jokes, though.) I also see him as someone who is not interested in spending his parents’ money and would rather depend on himself alone, so if he’s spending money it’s out of his own paychecks that he gets as an Alliance marine. (This scene from Crazy Rich Asians is pretty much exactly how I envision Kaidan on this subject.) All of this is to say that I don’t see him dropping thousands of credits on every new toy he wants with no second thoughts (and I do think he’d pause at big price tags, particularly because I feel like living extravagantly is something the Alliance would discourage)…but the fact remains is that he does have that safety net and he always has. He’s never truly had to worry about being homeless, and if he’s had to worry about starving it’s because he’s a biotic, not because he doesn’t have the money to support himself.

There are also other behaviors that would be borne from growing up in poverty, like Earthborn Shepard being unwilling to part with old equipment until she absolutely has to (the Alliance makes being a hoarder rather difficult) because what if she needs it later? What if she can get some more use out of it somehow? Yeah it’s broken but it’s hers, she still needs it, go away. Kaidan would hang onto certain things (omni-tools, amps, weapon mods) longer than most people would too, but it’s because he’s a tinkerer and likes tech stuff.***** My Shepard is too, but it’s more than that and it’s that “more” that’s different.

When it comes to this difference in their socieo-economic class, I don’t think it’s something that’s particularly noticed or brought up during the trilogy. The only times I can think of where Shepard might get the realization Kaidan is different from her in this regard is in the Pinnacle Station DLC if Shepard win’s Ahern’s bet and gets his apartment on Intai'sei, or during the Citadel DLC. But even then, I feel it would a very brief realization she pushes to the side because it’s frankly not important right now and they have more important things to worry about. Like, you know, Reapers. So I think this is something that would only come to a head post-war, but it is definitely a source of tension on her end that they would need to tackle at some point.

Otherwise…remember how I said the reason my Shepard is renegade leaning and emotionally closed off is because she’s Earthborn? Let me bring back Sha'ira’s words:

“I see your skin, tough as the scales of any turian. Unyielding. A wall between you and everyone else. But it protects you, makes you strong.”

This is what she says specifically to Earthborn Shepards. Colonists and Spacers get something different. And really, this is how I see Earthborn Shepard. She’s someone who’s had to survive things - not a singular great tragedy, but a lifetime of hardship - and she’s someone who’s never had a support network. She’s the way she is because she’s never known any different. She’s not renegade leaning and emotionally closed off because she thinks it’s badass; she’s renegade leaning and emotionally closed off because being any different would have gotten her killed before now. I think this is a very, very important distinction Kaidan has to realize to make their relationship work, because otherwise I do think Kaidan would have a hard time being in a (successful and long-term, anyway) relationship with renegade leaning Shepards. Integrity and stuff like that is too important to him; if he feels like Shepard follows no moral code and is unabashedly selfish, why would he want to associate with them more than he has to? I can’t see him wanting to.

It is a very hard and long process for my Shepard to learn that it’s okay for her to be vulnerable sometimes. This is the greatest source of conflict within how I play Kaidan’s romance. Shepard is unyielding and only gives Kaidan’s scraps - remember how I said she doesn’t tell him she loves him until the beam run? Yeah, Kaidan doesn’t deserve that. No one deserves to be strung along in a relationship where they’re the only ones putting themselves out there, but that’s what Kaidan does for a lot of the trilogy. I don’t play it that way because I think it’s romantic or because I think Shepard is in the right; I play it that way because I like the idea of someone learning that it’s okay to be loved and to love in return, particularly when they don’t feel like they are lovable. But like I said, it’s a long process, and the only reason her and Kaidan’s relationship doesn’t burn out and die is because Kaidan consistently puts himself out there so that she doesn’t have to. This is why it’s important to me that Shepard’s the one to propose post-war, because I feel like it’s only fair she put herself out there that way for a change.

(For the record, I don’t think Kaidan takes all of this lying down. I know he has no way out when it comes to Shepard, and it’s for that reason I think he’s willing to put up with a lot more than he knows he should, but he still knows that…well, no, he doesn’t deserve this and that Shepard has to do better. He has to become really adept in Shepard-speak by the end of the game, and I think that helps a lot - he knows Shepard is trying and that she loves him even if she doesn’t say it, it’s just…messy. But it’s definitely something they talk about post-war, along with the socio-economic stuff.)

So now how do their game classes interact? Well, because so much of Shepard’s experiences are a mystery to Kaidan, I wanted Shepard to be on that end for once. Yeah, Shepard’s lived through things Kaidan has never had to - but likewise, Kaidan has lived through things Shepard has never had to. She’ll never understand what it’s like to be a biotic and just what, exactly, that means. I feel like Earthborn Shepards in particular would be exposed to a lot of anti-biotic sentiment growing up since they’re, well, Earthborn, and I think a lot of negative post-spaceflight sentiments (alien xenophobia, biotic discrimination, etc) would be concentrated on Earth because it’s the homeworld and they’re the least exposed to the rest of the galaxy.

But anyway, to get back on topic. L2 biotics build up static electricity. That means that it’s likely that if you touch them, you’ll get an electric shock. Imagine having to be conscious of that fact, and having to be constantly aware of your surroundings so you can unload that built up static electricity into something inanimate so you don’t accidentally shock someone. Little things like that are something someone who’s nonbiotic would never think about. Then there would be Kaidan’s post-mission regimen. He literally has a port on the back of his scalp that’s connected to his brain, or at least near it. He has to keep that clean, and you fight some really gross things throughout the trilogy. Thorian creepers? All that gunk? He has to be careful that his port never gets contaminated in a way nonbiotic Shepard never has to, because like…your omni-tool getting gunked up is way different than a port that’s literally inside of your head getting gunked up. (I also imagine this area in general is a sensitive area for biotics, like, not the kind of place they like anyone casually touching.) These are all things that would be frankly alien to someone who’s not a biotic. As an N7, I think Shepard would’ve worked with more biotics than the average marine like pre-Normandy Ashley and pre-Fehl Prime James, but she’s still not a biotic herself and has a lot of learning to do.

(I have several moments I consider landmarks in their relationship, and I think one of them is in ME3 when Kaidan is completely fine - comfortable, even - with Shepard touching anywhere near his port, when he wasn’t in ME1. It’s a massive sign of trust for him that’s not lost on her.)

None of this is even getting into the social treatment of biotics, either. This is something Shepard has to figure out for herself, which I think she does in ME1 with the Rahna story and stuff. Kaidan’s the way he is because he’s a biotic; you can’t separate that fact from him. You take away Kaidan’s biotics and you take away a lot of who he is as a person and why he’s that way. (…She probably can relate to that sentiment, though.)

They do have to have some things in common though. I don’t like the idea of them only bothering to talk to each other because they think the other is attractive and then it forms into something deeper, lmao. So that’s (part of) why my Shepard is an infiltrator******. Both she and Kaidan are unabashed tech geeks. You know how in ME3 if you bring Kaidan along to Tali’s mission, they have that argument about omni-tools? Yeah, my Shep and Kaidan have talks like that all the time about, like, everything tech related. They’ve also had the omni-tool talk because her preferred one is Savant, which he thinks is pretentious because I love the idea of Savant tech being seen as The Snob Tech of the industry because it’s so expensive and its users frequently insufferable. But I HC it’s the only omni-tool that can handle an infiltrator’s needs without overheating, including running the tactical cloak.

So that’s the common thread that gets them started between all the differences and the bad first impressions (she is renegade leaning, after all). I don’t think the way I play Kaidan’s romance is particularly popular, but that’s fine with me. I like a little conflict. I like the idea of two people not being inherently or instantly compatible, and having to work to form an understanding of one another. I like the idea of their relationship being something that they have to work for and keep working for, because while they love each other, sometimes love isn’t enough. You need communication, too. And that’s what I like, so that’s how I play them. (And also because I like angst - to a degree - and mutual pining, of which I think there would be A LOT of when you play Kaidan’s romance this way.) Obviously after a certain point things do become easier simply because they’ve been around each other long enough to develop a banter (”I’ve been thinking…” / “Oh, no. Okay. Hit me with it.”) and a better understanding of how the other person thinks. But you still need communication and I’m not interested in things ever being “easy” just because they’re so in love and that magically cures everything.

This was very, very long, and I know I apologized in the beginning but I’d like to do so again. You just managed to ask the exact question that I have put a lot of thought into and it was very hard for me to resist going full word vomit, lmao. Thank you very much for the ask!

(Also addendum, it’s so weird hearing her referred to as “Ramona”…I know that’s what I have down on my character page but I actually haven’t settled on a name for her yet despite her existing for like, almost 3 years at this point. Naming Shepard is singularly one of the hardest parts of Shepard-building for me, I don’t know why?! So for reference, Ramona and my “ch: nadia shepard” tag are the same character. Who knows if I end up sticking with either, but they are what they are for now lol. Also, you had absolutely no way of knowing this, I know. I actually assume no one reads my character pages, ever, so this ask is a welcome surprise!)

*This is another big thing with my Shepard, but it’s only tangentially related to Kaidan so I didn’t bother bringing it up in the main post. But particularly since she has the renegade scars? Oh, yeah. “Maybe I’m just an advanced VI that thinks it’s Commander Shepard” is putting how she feels about herself post-Lazarus mildly.

**I have a giant meta post that’s been sitting in my drafts since April about exactly this. Like, about Horizon and its aftermath and how it was allowed to happen to start with, and how the VS is uniquely and repeatedly manipulated against Shepard as a means to hurt them. I should really finish that post, because damn, I love Horizon.

***Specifically on Earth; owning land on colony worlds probably isn’t as much of an indicator of wealth

****To be fair, I think in ME2 this is alleviated somewhat because it’s TIM’s dime and spending his money on useless shit is one of the only way she can rebel without showing all her cards

*****I read a HC once that said because Kaidan’s an L2, it’s probably a lot harder for him to find L2-compatible biotic amps, so I can see him being very protective and hoard-y when it comes to his amps

******Also, sniper rifles. It’s offensive to me as a lesbian that femShep has twig arms when those sniper rifles weigh A TON; there is no way her biceps wouldn’t be out of this world. It’s doubly offensive when you consider the fact Kaidan’s buffer than she is despite being a Sentinel. (I ignore this and pretend it doesn’t exist, much like a lot of Kaidan’s ME3 appearance.) 

[him-e]

In the interview in wich grrm talks about the unkiss , he says it is to prepare the stage for a more important memory gap what was he refering to ?

The relevant quotes: 

“Well, not every inconsistency is a mistake, actually. Some are quite intentional. File this one under “unreliable narrator” and feel free to ponder its meaning…” (The Citadel, So Spake Martin, Sansa’s memory)

“The Lion’s Paw / Lion’s Tooth business, on the other hand, is intentional. A small touch of the unreliable narrator. I was trying to establish that the memories of my viewpoint characters are not infallible. Sansa is simply remembering it wrong. A very minor thing (you are the only one to catch it to date), but it was meant to set the stage for a much more important lapse in memory. You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom… but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it’s a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on. (The Citadel, So Spake Martin, SF, Targaryens, Valyria, Sansa, Martells, and more)

Note that George has Sansa mixed up with Arya in the second quote, because it’s Arya, and not Sansa, who misemembers the name of Joffrey’s sword. So George, too, is an unreliable narrator!

All joking aside, it’s clear that with the Unkiss and with other instances (such as Sansa not remembering correctly the events of the Trident), Martin is trying to establish Sansa as a particularly unreliable narrator: her mind tends to rewrite reality to make it fit into familiar patterns, the ones she learned from the songs, where knights steal kisses from their ladies rather than threatening them with a dagger, pretty princes generally tend to be good and villains are always easy to identify. And if there’s something that deeply unsettles her, and that she isn’t ready to deal with yet, it gets swept under the rug… until either she is ready, or reality hits her like a ton of bricks (which happened with Joffrey and Cersei). 

This rewriting/erasure is not a conscious choice on Sansa’s part—in other words, she isn’t aware at all that her brain does this. The Unkiss is the most evident example of this mechanism: there’s no real reason for Sansa to fabricate (not just fantasize about) a false memory of a kiss that never happened, other than the fact that she has no idea how to cope with Sandor’s simultaneously assaulting her and pleading to let him rescue her AND she can’t deal with her own feelings for him, so she rewrites the whole incident into something in which the implied (Sandor’s fixation on her, his instinct to both scare and protect her) becomes explicit, but normalized into a more chaste narrative (a “romantic” kiss).

Now, the big blind spot in Sansa’s narrative—the one that could potentially have huge repercussions on the overall plot—is Littlefinger. Sansa, VERY deep inside, knows something really important about him:

“Tears, tears, tears,” she sobbed hysterically. “No need for tears… but that’s not what you said in King’s Landing. You told me to put the tears in Jon’s wine, and I did. For Robert, and for us! And I wrote Catelyn and told her the Lannisters had killed my lord husband, just as you said. That was so clever… you were always clever, I told Father that, I said Petyr’s so clever, he’ll rise high, he will, he will, and he’s sweet and gentle and I have his little baby in my belly… Why did you kiss her? Why? We’re together now, we’re together after so long, so very long, why would you want to kiss herrrrrr?”

Sansa’s heard Lysa’s last words which revealed Littlefinger as the mastermind behind Jon Arryn’s murder and the Stark/Lannister conflict… yet, her pov shows no traces that she’s aware of this. It’s like she never registered what she heard, and imo the problem isn’t that she didn’t “understand”—I think Sansa is very intelligent and perfectly capable of putting 2 and 2 together and realize what kind of “tears” Lysa put in Jon’s wine and why did LF ask Lysa to lie to Catelyn—but that that information was too overwhelming for her in that specific moment, so she put it aside; and now that she’s completely reliant on Littlefinger, that knowledge is like the skeleton in the closet that her brain is too terrified to revisit. So she just ignores it and keeps going. It’s the only way she knows how to function. And this isn’t the first time that Sansa acquires and immediately shelves away vital information about Littlefinger:

Queen Cersei looked at each of the councillors in turn. “I won’t have Sansa fretting needlessly. What shall we do with this little friend of hers, my lords?” Lord Petyr leaned forward. “I’ll find a place for her.” “Not in the city,” said the queen. “Do you take me for a fool?” The queen ignored that. “Ser Boros, escort this girl to Lord Petyr’s apartments and instruct his people to keep her there until he comes for her. Tell her that Littlefinger will be taking her to see her father, that ought to calm her down. I want her gone before Sansa returns to her chamber.”

This is shortly after Ned’s arrest (AGOT, Sansa IV). Under Sansa’s eyes, Cersei tasks Littlefinger with disposing of Jeyne Poole, Sansa’s best friend. Who we know was put in LF’s brothel where she was raped and abused horrifically only to be sold to the Boltons as Ramsay’s token “Stark” wife. Yet it never occurs to Sansa to investigate on this, and she doesn’t even seem to remember the fact that Littlefinger is probably the person to ask in the first place (we learn later that Sansa did not know what had happened to Jeyne, who had disappeared from her rooms afterward, never to be mentioned again). Another buried/rewritten memory waiting to resurface?

Oh yeah and there’s also this:

As he led her below, he said, “Tell me of the feast. The queen took such pains. The singers, the jugglers, the dancing bear… did your little lord husband enjoy my jousting dwarfs?” “Yours?” “I had to send to Braavos for them and hide them away in a brothel until the wedding. The expense was exceeded only by the bother. It is surprisingly difficult to hide a dwarf, and Joffrey… you can lead a king to water, but with Joff one had to splash it about before he realized he could drink it. When I told him about my little surprise, His Grace said, ‘Why would I want some ugly dwarfs at my feast? I hate dwarfs.’ I had to take him by the shoulder and whisper, ‘Not as much as your uncle will.’ ” The deck rocked beneath her feet, and Sansa felt as if the world itself had grown unsteady. “They think Tyrion poisoned Joffrey. Ser Dontos said they seized him.” Littlefinger smiled. “Widowhood will become you, Sansa.”

The above (ASOS, Sansa V) proves that Littlefinger manipulated both Joffrey and Tyrion—he brought jousting dwarves so that Joffrey could publicly humiliate Tyrion, and give him a “reason” to “murder” him that everyone could see, so to seal Tyrion’s culpability in Joffrey’s assassination. If Sansa considered this through, she’d probably realize that it wasn’t the first time Littlefinger manipulated Joffrey… that maybe he also whispered in the little king’s ear to convince him to behead Ned. But she doesn’t. Yet.

And of course, there is her inability to see/acknowledge/admit that Littlefinger is slowly poisoning Sweetrobin to death. Though she doesn’t have enough knowledge of poisons to understand that a slightly higher dose of sweetsleep can be fatal, she saw Maester Colemon’s anxiety and reluctance to give it to Sweetrobin too often, but, again, she doesn’t seem to register it as a red flag. 

It’s possible that Sweetrobin’s death (or finding out what happened to Jeyne) is the eye opener, the triggering event that unlocks Sansa’s ability to remember correctly what she’s always known, connect the dots between the hairnet, Sweetrobin’s poisoning, Littlefinger’s behind the scenes manipulation of the Purple wedding and Jon Arryn’s death via Lysa’s “tears”, and finally see the bigger picture in Littlefinger’s modus operandi and uncover his role in causing the war of the five kings and her own house’s downfall. (yes, I totally think that Sansa will be LF’s undoing in the books like she was in the show, and that she will ~finish what her father started~ and I mean her REAL father, who died investigating on Jon Arryn’s murder, but could never get as physically close to the truth as Sansa eventually got).

The other instance in which I can see Sansa’s altered memories come into play in a big way is her recollection of the events leading to Ned’s arrest and death, specifically the fact that she mindlessly revealed critical information to Cersei which resulted in her father eventually losing his head. It’s interesting that Sansa rarely ruminates about this in her pov. I think this is one of the memories that cause her the most excruciating pain, so her brain keeps it on a leash, and might have rewritten the entire sequence of events to make her subconscious guilt less unbearable. It’s possible that at some point in her future narrative someone (likely Arya, sort of like what happened in the show) discovers what she did and questions her about that, causing a major crisis in Sansa’s psychological balance (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing).

There might be something even bigger than that coming up (and it’s also possible that Sansa’s memory lapses are preparing the reader for another character’s memory lapse, even), but these are my top guesses at the moment.

[tlbodine]

20 Character Design Questions

A blend of RP & writing/story characters, as requested (and as applicable). 

-----

🕸 1. Who’s the oldest character of yours that you still use?

Davin & Co. from the House of Lazarus books are like 13 years old now, which is mind-boggling. A lot of things about them have changed (like making them zombies), but at their core the Davin/Randy/Zoe dynamic hasn’t changed much at all since the first time I ever tried to write a story about them. 

But here’s a fun fact: Davin actually pre-dates that by a couple of years. He was ORIGINALLY designed for a very short-lived RP circa ~2000-ish. When I got a novel idea in college, I snagged the first available semi-fleshed-out-character I had in order to test it, and he just kind of stuck around and grew from there. 

⭐️ 2. Who’s the oldest character of yours, defunct or not?

Does my imaginary friend from childhood count? Because I wrote a (terrible) book about her when I was 9, so I feel like that should count ;) Her name was Tinky and she was a ‘tigercat’ and family members can confirm that I was talking about her (and blaming things on her) by the age of 2. 

💡 3. Has creating a character ever made you realize something about yourself?

Not exactly. It’s more like, sometimes a character will help me understand something that I never thought I would sympathize with - like where certain types of people are coming from, why they do certain things. Character creation has become in some ways an act of empathy. 

🦋 4. Any minor characters that have either taken over or branched off into their own stories?

Frequently. Most memorably, Jetak (from Nezumi’s Children) demands a sequel. There’s a tie-in planned for his story, although it may be a bit delayed because the market for more Nezumi books just isn’t that huge (although the handful of fans I have are rabid, and I love them <3) but it’s definitely going to happen. 

🐲 5. Do you prefer to make human, animal, monster, or _____ characters? Why?

My RP roots are all animal characters (sparkle dogs ftw!) and they come to me pretty naturally. That was another thing that was fun about Nezumi’s Children, it was such a lovely guilty pleasure writing these rat characters - such a callback to my younger years. 

But for purposes of my serious writing, I pretty much have to stick to humans, or at least humanoid variations. 

🎨 6. When creating a character, do you come up with the visual concept or the written concept first?

A little of both, to be honest. Usually I’ll have a vague idea of a concept in mind, and will play around with a dollmaker or look at stock photos or something similar until the idea “clicks” in my head. Until I put some kind of visual to them, they’re not quite real. 

📌 7. Do you have characters that you know you’ll never use, but can’t bear to get rid of/recycle?

Whole stacks of them ;) Mostly they just roam around in the back of my mind, and sometimes I’ll think “Oh man, what if so-and-so did this?” and daydream about it for a bit before getting on with my day. A lot of books-I-probably-will-never-write percolate back there, too, so every so often I’ll get flashes of an idea and it just sort of makes me smile before I go back to doing whatever I need to do with my day. 

💖 8. Is there a character that embodies your good traits, or traits you wish you had?

I like to think that Ulryk, my wolf-guardian, is all the best parts of myself: loyal, patient, self-assured, calm, logical, doesn’t take himself too seriously. He’s an old, old character too. I think I’ve had him around since I was 11, and maybe one day I’ll actually have a story I can properly use him in. 

💔9. Is there a character that embodies your bad traits? Several characters? Which ones and what traits?

I have a tendency to create a certain type of villain - a string-pulling mastermind who works in the shadows and gently manipulates stronger people into doing his bidding. It’s probably my favorite villain trope, and I have several characters who fit the bill. And it is absolutely a personification of many of my, uh, less than savory INTJ mastermind traits. 

♨️ 10. Is there a character that explores your interests or fetishes (orrrr is that just all of you characters)?

In an RP setting, once I’m comfortable with the world and have made the “obvious” characters for the community, I will invariably start making characters because I want to explore something about a particular type of person or situation. I find something to be interesting, and I want to play with it and tease out its themes and explore it. 

✒️ 11. If you have characters that embody certain traits of yours—good or bad—has writing them changed how you view those traits? Has it affected you in any way?

I think I’ve grown more accepting of many parts of myself, by falling in love with characters who reflect some of those things. I think I’ve always felt a little bit of pressure to be a certain way, to do certain things, and having characters who go against that - but who are still lovable, still interesting - has helped make me more comfortable in my skin. That’s kind of a weirdly “feel good” answer from someone who writes seriously dark shit a lot of the time, but it’s the truth. 

💭 12.  Do you fantasize about being any of your characters, or are you more detached?

Nah. I wouldn’t want to be any of these people, especially if some asshole like me were pulling the strings. Bad things happen to my characters. And most of them are pretty broken or dysfunctional or damaged. Which is true, I guess, of most people too. 

🎵 13. Do you create playlists for your characters?

I make playlists for writing projects - specific books/stories will have playlists that represent whole plotlines and aesthetics. Individual characters usually only get one real theme song, sometimes a couple. 

The House of Lazarus playlist can be found here. Davin’s theme song has always been “Walking In My Shoes” by Depeche Mode. 

🎇 14. When writing for specific characters, is there anything you have to do to get into the right mindset?

Not usually. If they’re characters I’m familiar with, I can generally slip into them pretty easily. If I’m writing, I usually have the appropriate playlist up, which helps bring me back to the story. If I haven’t touched a project in a while, reading over old work will help get me back into it. 

Certain characters I have to avoid playing at certain times, though, because they’re emotionally difficult to deal with. Curiously, it’s never that my darker characters bring me into dark places; it’s always that, if I’m in a bad headspace, I just can’t play some of my more happy-go-lucky characters properly. 

🌻 15. Which character is your guilty pleasure?

I don’t think I necessarily feel ‘guilty’ about any of my characters (the entire notion of “guilty pleasure” is kind of weird, imo) but I have a few characters I probably enjoy playing more than I should. Lately my changeling Sluagh Charlotte has been that for me. She is just such a mess, and so psychologically screwed up, in such utterly fascinating and terrible ways. 

🌩 16. Is there a character of yours who’s a real struggle to write/draw? Why do you think that is?

I actually have two RP characters who I have an incredibly hard time writing, which is funny because 1.) they’re favorites of the friends I play them with and 2.) they’re really not particularly complex or psychologically difficult characters. 

One of them is Bee, who is part of a sibling group I play with @leapinghart. Bee is self-confident, utterly lacking in self-awareness, and optimistic to the point of self-delusion. She’s also not that bright. 

The other is Jadin, who I play with @comicreliefmorlock in her World of Darkness-inspired city, Brandenburg. He’s kind of the universe’s butt-monkey, the kind of guy who just keeps landing in shit, and he suffers from a lot of foot-in-mouth disease from saying exactly the wrong thing. 

In both cases, I always struggle with keeping the characters true to themselves without letting them stray too far into joke territory. 

🔑 17. Which character is the easiest to draw/write?

Any of my ‘evil mastermind’ guys, but only if I’m in a position where I actually get to pull strings - a piece of my own fiction, or a pre-plotted RP. They’re incredibly stressful to play in an open-world RP type scenario because you can never count on other players to acknowledge your character’s intelligence, insight, or charisma. 

For an individual character, my girl Lungaia - in any of her myriad forms - is super easy to slip into. We have a lot in common, and I’ve been playing her (a LOT, she’s a “favorite toy”) for like 15 years, so in a lot of ways she’s really kind of my murderous, psychic, tight-lipped alter-ego. It also helps that she has a very easy design, so she’s easy to doodle and commission artwork of as well. 

💎 18. Is there anything you really wish you could do, character-design-wise, that you feel is outside your current skillset? A concept that you wish you could pull off but are uncertain about?

As stupid as it sounds, I’m really jealous of people who can pull off the happy-go-lucky characters. That’s never been my wheel-house. 

🏆 19. What’s more important to you: visual design, unique personality, a trendy character aesthetic, etc? If you’re not sure, then what’s the first thing you usually nail down in a character?

Story arc. Whether I’m RPing or writing a book, if I create a character what I am MOST interested about is understanding who these people are, and where they might end up, and how they could get from A to B. I’m interested in characters who embody natural conflict, whose design is itself conflicted, because of the story potential. 

For example, Lungaia: She’s female, but a physically powerful warrior. She’s literally compelled to violence by the demon that lives inside of her, but also has a tendency to take in strays - she’s surrounded by weak, broken, damaged people whom she cares about deeply. She can read minds but still always says the wrong thing. She’s a mess. and that makes her interesting and full of story potential. 

🎬 20. Do you ever plan to do anything (comic, animation, etc) with your characters? Or are you just happy to have them?

All of my characters pretty much exist either as part of a story idea that will get written (one of these days), or as a creation for a specific RP scenario. Sometimes the forgotten, abandoned RP characters luck out and get dusted off to shine in the novels (*coughs and points at Davin*). 

[scintillyyy]

actually though, to me (and this might sound a bit meaner than i intend, truly, i'm not trying to mean here, just spitballing some thoughts), sometimes with fanon concepts it's not necessarily the transformation or alteration of characters into something they're not that bothers me so much as. hm. the general unawareness that something is a transformed concept. if that makes sense.

so like. overtly and excessively abusive and terrible drakes for example. i, clearly, am not a fan of it. but that doesn't mean it's not a concept that couldn't potentially be interesting so long as there is a general understanding that the person is aware of some of the actual canon behind the character & understand how they're specifically twisting and altering for the explicit purpose of transformation & exploring non canon things. so not like 'never touched an actual full issue of a comic at all & are only going based on what i think they are in my head' or genuinely thinking that the character or event is actually like that and are completely unaware it's going against canon & canon intentions (and this is not a 'there's only one true read thing' this is like 'the basis of how things work in canon would mean that this is probably what was meant'). if that makes sense.

like for example. a jack who is much more malicious than he is in canon & a tim that is trying to navigate being severely abused by his dad could be interesting. how does this tim handle it? does he struggle with being a victim yet having the power to stop his dad and yet also can't. is he having issues with tim drake is being abused, but robin is not (the tim/robin dichotomy). is he hiding things from his friends, like ives. is he flittering around dick, wanting to confide in dick but not wanting dick to think less of him? (does this take place during canon events, like prodigal?) are things like that happening? if so, then it's an interesting angle to me.

hell, you could even take dana and completely transform her into something she's not--rather than just a nice woman who's doing her best, is she a gold digger who preyed on her rich patient? is her niceness towards tim a facade? is trying to kill tim & jack & take the money. this clearly isn't true of her at all, but it could be a potentially interesting transformation if you have jack & tim at least acting like their canon selves around this. when does it take place? right after the wedding? when jack loses his money, does she take out a life insurance policy on him? (should she have lbr) does dana push for tim to go to brentwood to get him out of the way? does this end in bruce/jack endgame after batman saves jack? does it have references to nightwing annual 1 & the black widow story there for dick? the world may never know. (knowing dana even exists is a sign that there's some awareness of the canon that's being altered.). this wouldn't offend me as much so long as it was clear that it was an intentional alteration of canon dynamics and a clear what-if exploration.

just my thoughts.