#so i didn't want the differences to be super drastic necessarily

[northern-passage]

oho, air you say? perhaps being able to remove the air from peoples lungs? or air pressure manipulation? maybe air based projectiles that can pierce, or air blades that can slash? or more general use, being able to fling shit around with air! Mini tornadoes or blasts of air that can knock people/things back!

i've used all of these so far 🤧 except for air pressure! that's a good one, i didn't think of that :-)

i'm trying really hard to make each path different from the other, including within the specializations, i actually have an entire document specifically for writing down potential combat moves for each specialty so i will be adding air pressure to the list.

it's definitely been... challenging writing it this way. there's only so many ways you can do this or that. but i think i've managed to keep it interesting across all choices, so it's not necessarily a direct copy-pasting of the same moves over and over again. i'm definitely expecting feedback once the update is published regarding the combat, since that was something i got a lot of criticism/feedback on previously when i first published the demo. it's definitely different this time and i hope yall will like the "new" combat, i feel like i'm more comfortable with it and actually know what direction i want to take it in.

[idrellegames]

I have three questions! One, who was your favorite crime lord of Rona to come up with? Personally I’m partial to the Viridian Lady, but that just might be me. I know we didn’t exactly explore all of them in depth, but the idea is super interesting to me.

Two, what are Aeran’s thoughts on having kids? Whether it’s with the MC or not, would he want to become a father?

And three, if you could choose any side character (so not necessarily a LI or Aeran) to further develop and explore (like in their own spin-off) who would it be?

Oooo good questions!

1. I think it is a tie between the Lady and the Count since they are the focal crime lords and I've spent the most time with them. The Viridian Lady mostly resembles her initial concept, although many factors around her changed (Hera didn't originally exist and the MC was going to have the option to seduce her to get information, but that got rejected long before I even wrote the villa content). The Count was originally supposed to be a weasly little human lord who had gotten exiled to Rona from the Empire and hired a group of mercenaries to do his dirty work for him. That uh… changed? Rather drastically once I wrote the original fight branches in Episode 1 Route A. I don't know what compelled me to change him from human to melusine and re-write his entire history, but I got there and a whole different character emerged from the depths.

2. Aeran does not want children. Ever. He was born to a single mother and raised by a foster father, he has a lot of hang-ups surrounding this topic. He's very careful when it comes to sex as he doesn't want any accidental children he doesn't know about (given that's what happened to him with his own biological father).

3. Probably Rhodarth or Veyer? Both have a lot of interesting aspects to their history that would be fun to explore. Rhodarth has his whole history with the Corsida Brightblades, and Veyer travelled the world before getting assigned to Erenvor. But I also have to shout-out crime wives Anselma and Hera, they have dozens of stories between the two of them.

[ccuniculusmolestus]

OK insanely enough (from my readings on a03 and some here) I genuinely believe that the plot of the secret history would change drastically if Bunny had been a girl.

I saw a really interesting comment on Reddit where someone was asking "Hey what if Richard was a girl?" and someone replied to it and their comment said (and I'm paraphrasing) that the plot wouldn't change all that much because the characters driving the plot are Henry and Bunny. If Bunny hadn't existed, and the murder happened, everything would be fine because then there's no witness there's no drama. Richard might not even ever find out if they killed a farmer. Plot over! Does that make sense? Point being: No other relationship was as impactful in progressing the plot (aside from perhaps Julian and Henry but even that feels secondary). So only changes in their relationship would impact the plot significantly.

So you can swap all their genders and the story remains the same, but given the time context of that era, the behaviour towards girls and boys was very different.

Bunny was not very masculine so he didn't make for a good example of a typical man- he depended on others, he didn't work, he was highly emotional. If he was a girl (as sexist as this it would be) everyone would just be like "Yeah makes sense." And I genuinely believe Henry's relationship to fem Bunny would be different. It doesn't necessarily have to be outright romantic even.

This ask made me so happy because I agree with all these pojnts they're atitucalted very well :D!

plus ur right i hadnt eeven thiught abt it like that loke,,, if u want to know a character's level of importance in a story OBJECTIVELY then take them out of the plot. How does it change the CLIMAX (bunnys murder and then henrys suicide)? Take Richard out. The murder of farmer and bunny still happens but bunny probs gets killed in a diff way. It doesn't change one key element of a climac tho like bunny was dying either way I'm afraid 😔😔😔😔😔😔

Take francis out. Nothing. 😔

Take Judy out. Nothing.😔

Take Charles out- well, maybe no apabama and also perrrhaps no Henry succide:(

Take camilla out, almost the s ame outcome

Take bunny out? World peace. (😔) secret over go home. So that's why the reddiotr's comment makes sense to me too that maybe Richard might have boned Charles if he was a girl or maybe he'd be super gay into camila and deny the allegations like hendoes usually.

I'm not saying character relationships wouldn't change at all of they were swapped in those things but they wouldn't be impactful enough to chang e the course of where they were headed (train wrekc) u feel me? 🐇 🎀 ur so Zreal anon I lov kiss u cheek :3

[irresistiibles]

@wvsteria asked: for shang qinghua

𝟏𝟎. 𝐏𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐎 ! ( 𝗌𝗒𝗆𝖻𝗈𝗅𝗂𝗓𝖾𝗌 : transformation, power, death, rebirth, evolution. )

what does ‘ power ‘ mean to your muse ? and how important is it to them ? is death something that frightens them ? how do they handle death ? do they believe in reincarnation ? rebirth doesn’t necessarily mean dying and being reborn as another person or thing, it can also mean something as simple as changing something drastic about themselves, so do they believe a person can truly change ? transform their flaws and be reborn as a better person ?

qinghua most likely associates power with the more physical direct form of power. it's the ability to make people do things or make them listen to you directly. physical capabilities mean power. he may be someone who's able to manipulate from the background to get what he wants, but he would never consider himself powerful. ultimately while he likes a sense of control he doesn't consider it super important to be a person in power, though he would absolutely enjoy both the sense of stability, and just the power trip. qinghua has already died once but death still frightens him nonetheless and he'd like to avoid it at all costs possible. he'd rather not wind up in another messed up harem book when it took him so long to work his life out in the current one. with that said he does absolutely believe in reincarnation, considering he died and came back as a book character he wrote i think it would be silly if he didn't believe in those sorts of things. as for people changing he's more of a pessimist in that respect. he does not assume the best of people and i doubt he'd ever get to such a place. he believes people can behave better than they used to, though he typically believes it happens because they want something or are trying to get something out of behaving kindly. some people are genuinely kind, but they're sort of losers in his eyes, and the people who aren't will not make the shift to suddenly be massively different. maybe with like a big trauma or something, but even then it's doubtful. then again, he doesn't massively judge people for their flaws, or even necessarily think becoming a better person is a goal worth striving for, so it wouldn't make sense to him for anyone to just cut their bullshit and attempt to improve.

[taylormcampbell246]

Week 10 Blog Post

Chapter 9 - Typography in Time and Motion: Before I was interested in graphic design, I never realized how significant the placement of typography could drastically impact the overall mood or feeling of a piece of work. I tend to always work with traditional compositions and straightforward arranged types. I thought the image of the Interventionist Demonstration was an intriguing visual of how arranging the type in dynamic ways can create a sense of motion or guide your eyes around the composition. This inspired me to try to step outside the box and try working with more fun and funky compositions. Maybe even play with the placement of type to create more of a flow through my future works. I actually use this sense of motion within my national park poster! You'll see...

Assignment 4 - TypeHike Cont: As we continue on with the TypeHike, I have made a lot of progress with this poster. In my last post, I showed the animals making the shape of a Joshua Tree. I then colored it in using the color palette that was provided. We were given a list of typefaces to use within our poster but then I found out that I don't necessarily use the typeface list to say "Joshua Tree". I wanted to create my own font so I hand drew this really fun and funky typeface but when I placed it with the colored in tree, something was off. I felt as if the typeface didn't pair well with the drawing due to it being bold along with the thin lines of the tree. I wanted to make this typeface work by adding some features in the tree to the typeface, and it did look better but something was still missing. During our in-class critiques, I was told the typeface is fighting the drawing and they are both so interesting to look at that it doesn't balance well. I knew that I needed to sacrifice either the drawing of the tree and do something interesting with the font I created, or use the tree and use a different typeface. I decided to use a simple typeface that was from the list to pair with the tree and I will say, it looks absolutely amazing. The colors look super good together and I wanted to have the tree kind of intertwine with the tree and I feel I portrayed that very well. We will wait and see if this poster is better in our next critique so I can start working on the type specimen!

This was my first sketch/idea of my poster:

This is my new poster idea that I love:

[galvanizedfriend]

Sorry for the ramble. Just have some thoughts I want to share and ask your opinion on.

I’ve been thinking of Chapter 5 a lot. Mainly because I’ve read maybe two other fics that address Elijah compelling Aurora and the fallout. I can see why Klaus was angry at Elijah. I don’t exactly remember what she said (been a bit since I saw that episode) but I imagine it did have an effect on Klaus. Mainly bc at the time, they were still newly turned and from what I remember of the flashbacks, he seemed to be insecure at times. What do you think?

The details of Elijah's compulsion and what Aurora's rejection did to Klaus will be addressed! 😬 I did a slight change and moved all of those flashbacks to a different moment in the story where they made more sense and will actually cause more damage. 😂 So that will all be addressed in TW as well.

Personally, I don't like to think of Aurora as Klaus' villain origin story because it's so simplistic and actually cheapens his character a lot. But I do think it's understandable that would've had a big effect on him, especially at the time. Klaus was a different person back in then, in the sense that they were still learning how to navigate what they were, were not aware of just how powerful and virtually unkillable they actually were, still felt a lot of guilt and had spent close to 100 years on the run. They kept quiet and were almost ashamed of revealing themselves because they were always in hiding. And what they show is that up until the moment they joined the De Martel's court, they had been basically living like peasants.

Klaus' whole relationship with Aurora, the way it was shown, was super silly for me, but he came to like her a lot, he became comfortable with her, she was probably the first person outside of the family he ever truly came to trust. So he opened himself up to him in a way he hadn't before since they were turned, which probably made him obsessed with her. He was also very ashamed of having killed his mother back then, knew that Mikael had been chasing them to avenge Esther's death while he basically lied to his siblings about the whole shebang and they could have been free and safe if not for his life, so the fact he trusted that secret to Aurora and she didn't immediately turn on him also quenched some of his fear of abandonment.

And then she betrayed him in a very cruel way. It was as if she had used his family to become immortal, and then couldn't be with him anymore because she was disgusted by him. She threw his secret back at him. So not only she broke his heart, she also crushed him with all the complexes he carried with him.

It made Klaus a lot wearier of strangers, shut off, and, over time, that made him completely turned off by the idea of love. He came to see it as a weakeness precisely because of how vulnerable Aurora made him feel. I know there's like these TO books allegedly written by Julie Plec where Klaus was married at some point??? But I ignore that and don't consider it canon lol So my version of things is that he didn't fall in love again. Whenever he felt himself slipping into it, he'd do something drastic in order to stop it from happening. Marcel was the exception, but it was also a different kind of love, something that was rooted in his parental issues, and not romantic. But when he also "lost" Marcel, I think that only made it all worse.

That's my interpretation of canon btw, not necessarily what I wish would have been the case with the whole Aurora deal. While TW will follow canon in a lot of ways, that whole thing will have a slightly different twist that will hopefully make more sense to Klaus' character and still match the story that is shown.

Sorry about the rambly reply, I don't know if I'm making much sense here. 😂😂😂

[hellsbellschime]

Why Jaime Lannister's GoT Ending Was Actually Bad

Nearly every aspect of the end of Game of Thrones earned ire from the majority of the show and book fandom, but one aspect of the show's conclusion that seems to have frustrated fans across the board was the ending for Jaime Lannister. More specifically, that after a seemingly solid and nearly complete redemption arc, he returned to Cersei and King's Landing to die in a manner that somewhat works as a metaphor but didn't resonate well with the audience at all. And, while Jaime's ending was a flop, it didn't fail for the reasons that many viewers seem to think that it did.

The Lannisters are obviously some of the most complex and important characters in A Song of Ice and Fire, but one of the most interesting aspects of their family dynamic is that it was established far before the contemporary storyline actually began. And, while Game of Thrones seemed to paint it as if Cersei was a source of toxicity that Tyrion and Jaime couldn't get out from under the thumb of, the truth is that the bad apple that spoiled the bunch was never Cersei, it was always Tywin.

One of the most meaningful and important themes of George RR Martin's work is the long-term effects that abuse has on children, and there isn't really any example that is more present and potent than the horrific effects that Tywin's abuse had on all of his children, and how it affected them in different ways.

Jaime, Cersei, and Tyrion all have some of the most intriguing points of view in the entire story. And one aspect that all of their POVs seem to share in common is that while nearly everyone in their world perceives them as a villain, they all see themselves as victims. And the truth is, both sides of this coin are correct.

Yes, the Lannister children have done many horrific, irredeemable things in their lives, but they have also been the victims of extremely traumatic abuse that understandably altered their outlook on the world and on themselves in general. There is a balance between victim and perpetrator that needs to be struck with their characters, but one of Game of Thrones' bigger flaws was its inability to do that.

Unsurprisingly, nearly every character's book point of view grants themselves more sympathy than they should. Almost everyone sees themselves as a better person than they are or is capable of rationalizing away their bad deeds and focusing on their more positive decisions and personality traits. But this is of course one of the many ways in which George RR Martin utilizes his POV traps.

Translating a story that is told through the eyes of the characters themselves and filming it from a more objective third-person perspective means that plenty of important information is going to be lost in that translation. But one of the fatal flaws when it comes to the Lannisters is that, while Game of Thrones does still present Cersei as pretty forthrightly villainous, the narrative pretty drastically whitewashes Tyrion and Jaime. Essentially, it seems to take Tyrion and Jaime at their point-of-view word and treats them like they're much better people than they truly are. Thus, Jaime's ignominious end with the supposed biggest baddie of them all feels like a betrayal of his character development when it really shouldn't be.

Every character needs to be held responsible for their own choices, but the downfall of House Lannister really does rest in the hands of Tywin, and Game of Thrones ignoring that fact did a disservice to every one of the Lannister children in one way or another.

Yes, out of all of the Lannisters, Jaime was as close as Tywin could get to the golden child of his dreams, but it's easy to overlook that while Jaime may have been the favorite on the surface, every single one of Tywin's children was disgustingly mistreated, and the effects of his abuse all showed themselves in different malignant ways.

While Jaime may have gotten preferential treatment over his siblings, Tywin was never anything other than a terrible parent, and more importantly, Jaime's superior treatment only told him exactly how he could expect to be treated if he ever failed to live up to his father's high ideals. And of course, in many big and small ways, he did ultimately fail to live up to Tywin Lannister's exacting standards.

Tywin was a terrible parent because he was an abuser, but he also raised his children with his own values of pride, entitlement, and superiority. Obviously, the notion that they were simultaneously failures who had earned their own mistreatment but were also Lannisters who deserved to be above everyone else is opposing perspectives that are in constant conflict with one another, but it also seems to be how Cersei, Jaime, and Tyrion see themselves as constant victims while still perennially victimizing others.

George RR Martin has repeatedly discussed that one of the strongest themes of his work is the idea of the human heart in conflict with itself. Game of Thrones lost the plot with this in nearly every character adaptation, but Jaime's was one of the worst, largely because he is a character who has done some of the most monstrous and most heroic things in the story. He is both the man who doesn't hesitate to murder a child and the man who stopped a king from slaughtering thousands, and therefore his inner conflict is extremely vital.

Jaime's character arc in Game of Thrones follows a classic redemption arc almost perfectly, but that clearly doesn't seem to be the intent behind the character in the books. Yes, there is a part of Jaime that wants to be redeemed, but he does often revert back to his more brutal and nihilistic side, and his desire for so-called redemption seems to be driven more by how he wants the world to see him rather than how he wants to be.

And in that sense, the show did him a great disservice. Because there are many ways in which Jaime hasn't healed from Tywin's abuse, but the fact that he still seeks the approval of others in a rather superficial manner rather than developing a deeper understanding of true honor and justice is one of the clearest indications that, while Jaime does want to get out of the path that his father laid out for him, he is still crippled by what Tywin told him being a Lannister meant. And ironically, Tywin's belief about what being a Lannister means has essentially trapped all of his children into trying and failing to live up to that example simply because they can't survive unless they do.

Because ultimately, it's not necessarily just about what Jaime, or Cersei, or Tyrion wants. At some point, every single one of them has made obvious indications that they don't want to be a part of the legacy that Tywin Lannister laid out for them. But, when Game of Thrones presented Tywin as a super-intelligent master strategist instead of a completely unnecessarily violent and aggressive asshole, it made all of the Lannister children's choices harder to understand.

Both in the A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones fandoms, Tywin is typically put up on a pedestal, and that's completely baffling. Many viewers and readers perceive him to be brilliant and badass, but everything that Tywin is famous for actually makes him seem like a complete moron upon further contemplation. Winning battles by absolutely obliterating your enemies is a terrible precedent to set for many reasons, but one of the biggest is that it essentially requires all of the Lannister children to maintain this scorched earth policy because Tywin's hyper-aggressive superiority complex has put them in a position where they almost always have to choose to kill or be killed.

And, his cruel and dishonorable behavior as well as Jaime's reputation as the Kingslayer essentially guarantees that even if Jaime completely changes as a person and becomes the hero he wants to be, he really can't ever become that in the society that he lives in simply because the stigma around the Lannisters is something he can't escape.

That is one of the great tragedies that Game of Thrones failed to articulate, and that is one of the biggest reasons why Jaime's character conclusion was so off-putting to the audience. Because the audience saw the result of where this character arc would naturally go, but the story never actually took the steps to get there. In fact, the show went out of its way to erase a lot of the obvious building blocks that are leading up to both Cersei and Jaime's demise that makes it clear that, while they're obviously responsible for their own choices and actions, the groundwork that Tywin's abuse and cruelty laid and set in stone was something that they couldn't control, prevent, or undo.

Game of Thrones largely presented Jaime's characterization with the implication that if he could only escape Cersei, he would be a good man. But the reality was, if only Tywin hadn't been his father, then all of his siblings would have been better people. They may not have been good, but they almost certainly wouldn't be the kingdom-destroying villains that they became.

I also think the TV series likely bungled his character in that his story is meant to be a subversion of the classic redemption arc rather than the straightforward bad guy to good guy story that Game of Thrones told. George RR Martin obviously doesn't like flawless characters, and nearly every person in A Song of Ice and Fire does good things and bad things all the time, they never go in a straight line from point A to point B. So, of course it was going to be incredibly jarring when the show did move Jaime in a straight line from point A to point B and then abruptly gave him an ending that is probably somewhat similar to his end in the books.

But with that in mind, for all of the faults in Game of Thrones and the way they handled Jaime's character arc, I don't really understand the idea that his character was ruined by his ending either. These characters are clearly designed to never be just one thing, and if Jaime killing King Aerys or trying to kill Bran doesn't singularly define his character, then going back to Cersei in the very end shouldn't either.