is it late enough at night that i can share my /hj headcanon that edwin is a secret chappell roan enjoyer?
bet he first hears chappell on one of crystal’s playlists and makes a big point of scoffing, but HOT TO GO! actually kind of gets him in his feelings. crystal catches him one day humming it and swaying along in his own elegant and dancerly way, sort of lost in his own world while reorganizing his bookshelves. only because charles happens to be out, of course
she startles him and he whirls around with his hand on his heart even though ghosts can’t actually have a heart attack
they share this staredown that worldlessly communicates “you are never living this down” “if you ever use this as blackmail material against me i will enchant all of your socks to never have a pair for the rest of time”
(a few days later edwin finds a copy of the rise and fall of a midwest princess vinyl leaning up against the victrola waiting for him. ‘cause crystal gets it, okay. she gets it)
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Hi Bel,
I keep seeing comments about people complaining about the quality of destiny’s writing and story in the last few weeks. I haven’t really engaged with destiny since season of defiance, what’s currently gotten everyone so riled up? I thought that people were enjoying Season of the Deep/Witch in terms of narrative, why is Season of the Wish causing people to deride the destiny writing staff again?
I don't know!
Deep and Witch have been absolute bangers in every aspect to me. I've been enjoying all interactions and lore tabs we've received. A lot of them are stuff that we've never had before, a lot of reunions and closures, a lot of development and interactions between characters who you wouldn't really think would have much in common.
Sloane's return and healing from what she's been through has been fantastic, Drifter opening up with her to help her because he also got help from others was fantastic, Sloane reuniting with Aisha and Shayura brought me to tears (Shayura's descent into madness was triggered by immense trauma of Sloane staying on Titan and Titan disappearing), everything with Sloane and Zavala...
Witch was just incredible in every single way; the focus on Eris, the amount of Eris and Ikora content!!!!! Everything about Xivu and Savathun and their interactions together!! Eris finally fulfilling her goal she promised Savathun YEARS ago, getting that closure.
Wish so far has been equally great to me. All the new stuff about Ahamkara is amazing, finally giving us proof for long-standing speculation about Ahamkara and how they aren't universally evil creatures and expanding on them as a species. I love all interactions we've had so far; finally we have Petra back, Mara's singleminded focus on figuring out how to defeat the Witness and her continuous work to improve as a person, ALL SJUR MENTIONS!!!!! I won't talk about the "leak" because we have no context for it so I will wait for the full story to be revealed before I can pass judgment; something that I think should be a lesson to learn from this entire year. Maybe wait for the story to finish before judging the story.
Literally everything this past year that involves Osiris, but especially this season now that he's back in his element with the Vex. And of course every little detail we get of him and Saint. Osiris honestly shaped this year for me with everything that he's done to uncover the biggest mysteries. I think a big reason is that a lot of people just don't like Osiris, which I consider a massive skill issue.
Other than that, I don't know what are the issues people have besides just not being interested in any of these storylines and attributing it to a nebulous "bad writing" claim. I also genuinely believe that way too many people get wrapped up too much in fandom, imagine storylines they want to see and then get disappointed when the actual story doesn't go there. Almost like people forget that this isn't their story and these aren't their characters. A lot of it is also fandom completely warping characters into not what they actually are and then feeling like the canon story is the one that's wrong.
Whatever is the reason, I guess everyone is entitled to their perspective of the story and everyone is free to explore the story in different ways through fanfics and AUs and whatever. I do that too!
But I would definitely ask people to be normal with how they engage in criticism, especially in the current state of affairs. Writers are developers; they experience a ton of harassment and negativity from the community and also from inside the company. And they are online: they can see what we're saying. It's been documented that community commentary has been used to harass writers:
Imprint this into your brain and never forget what these people had to go through. Let's not forget also the way people treated Seth Dickinson on social media when he was active with Destiny fans. "Fans" were actively arguing with him about his own work (telling him that HE is wrong) and were utterly disgusting towards him when he tried explaining what he wrote. His works are now hailed as the best writing in Destiny and people want him back. If I were him, I wouldn't want to come back ngl, not with how he was treated and not with how fans are still treating writers (and hey, Seth wrote LF Collector's Edition! So he was back, technically, this year!). Let's not forget that a lot of writers are members of various marginalised groups. And I'd definitely not want to go back with zero support from leadership.
Which is also an important aspect for all developers, including writers: sometimes they have orders they may not like, but can't argue against. They do the best they can with what they're given, the time they have and directions they receive. And with that in mind, I am enjoying everything we've gotten this year, obviously with some specific complaints about things I didn't particularly enjoy (like the universally mid reception of Defiance; I've spoken about my gripes with it before, a big one being the shafting of Suraya who should've at least been mentioned in a lore tab).
I can tell that there is passion in their work, even if maybe they would prefer to do more with it, but can't. Maybe even if they want to take different routes, but can't. But from what we got, I can feel that they care about this world and these characters. I can tell that someone lovingly wrote about Sloane and her friendships with two grieving women. I can tell that they deeply cared about Sloane's friendship with Zavala and that they loved showing us Saint and Drifter caring about a fellow trauma survivor.
I can tell that the writers are immensely careful and loving towards Eris; everything she went through was crafted with love and passion from both writers and her VA. Eris' story is such a fundamental aspect of Destiny and I can tell that this was important to the writing team and that they gave her everything they could to do justice to her character and her arc and her healing and her release from the cycle she was trapped in for so long.
I can tell that there are writers who care a lot about Osiris and Saint and their relationship. I can tell that someone cared a lot about expanding on Ahamkara and giving them more personalities. I can tell that someone cared DEEPLY about Sjur and Mara and that her repeated mentions are the passionate work of writers who want us to remember her.
I could go on. And I know that not everyone sees it this way, which is fine; we all have different ways of perceiving stories. I enjoy discussing things we in the fandom disagree on and I enjoy hearing different perspectives! Unfortunately, this has recently become rarer and rarer. And for the love of god, please try and treat writers with some respect, especially now, especially those who are still working and doing their best with the shitty situation they're in. None of the cries of "poor devs" ring true to me unless the same is given to writers, instead of treating them like punching bags.
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Mumbo/Etho/Joel would be so cute!!!
Think about it, Etho and Joel are walking around the shopping district holding hands and teasing each other, pretending they’re not holding hands because that would be silly and in comes Mumbo from stocking his shop. Now, Joel has just recently learned Mumbo has been a fan of his work for a long time. He also knows of course that Mumbo is a redstoner and every player ever knows who Etho is, redstoners especially. Etho and Joel aren’t blind, any person with eyes can tell Mumbo is attractive. Tall, dark, and anxious, to nice for his own good, and also so easy to fluster as Joel learned when he was a mounder. So they walk up to Mumbo and start talking to him and after a while, they start teasing and flirting. Mumbo is caught off guard, face bright red as he just… stands there and takes it making small noises of embarrassment. Eventually Mumbo lifts his hands to cover his face because he can’t take it anymore. Joel, sly and flirty as he is let’s go of Etho’s hand to take Mumbo’s off his face. Joel kisses one of the hands he’s holding and tells Mumbo to contact them sometime. Joel and Etho say their goodbyes. See, Hermitcraft is a huge web of polyamorous mess which works out in moments like these when Mumbo is a mess and one of his longest term partners has a new penchant for fishing. Mumbo flies to Grian’s base in an absolute gay panic and as soon as they lock eyes, Grian knows something is up. It doesn’t take Mumbo long to splutter out what happened and… in true Grian fashion he laughs in Mumbo’s face. He does console his poor boyfriend though. They eventually come to a plan and it’s not many weeks later that Joel, Etho, and Mumbo are together.
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so... exciting announcement... i was hired to work on Reality Resort as a storyboard artist!
for those of you who haven't heard, Reality Resort is a Total Drama-inspired show on YouTube, produced by Cove and animated by Odd Nation Cartoons. its pilot episode just dropped a few hours ago!
to be clear, i didn't contribute at all to the first episode-- i was only hired about a week ago to contribute on episode 2 and beyond. speaking of, it'll be a lot easier for us to make episode 2 and beyond with more support for the show, so please consider checking out the pilot if the show sounds up your ally. the team is super cool and welcoming, and i've had a ton of fun with what i've worked on so far.
as for this blog, given that i'm now part of the show's staff, i won't be making any sorts of speculative content about Reality Resort or any of the other planned shows in the Reality Gauntlet. this is obviously because i know things the average viewer doesn't, and because i wouldn't want anything i was genuinely blindly speculating on to be interpreted as fact/a hint. however, Disventure Camp content (as well as all of the usual stuff) will continue as normal! (other than that i now have a bit less free time :,) )
anyways, i hope any of you who do decide to check it out will enjoy! as Cove has said in the comments, the first episode isn't perfect, and there are still plenty of quirks to iron out in the future. but, i think that the future of the show is looking bright, and i and the rest of the team appreciate any support you're willing to give. :)
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Quark’s Dreamlike Defibrillation Drabble
You’re sleeping.
Nothing else makes sense.
“Clear.”
Yeah, why else would you feel your heartbeat so clearly? So strong that it’s a little bit painful, beating so heavily that it leaves achey little aftershocks in your chest after every pulse. Thundering and powerful, like you’ve received a shock of lightning from the king of gods himself.
But you only just learned of gods, of Zeus, of Olympus. It was a brand new story from a brand new book—not a super old book from Before, but something totally new. Something made just for you.
It was better than that one book that con artist tried to trick you with—that thing was super old and super thick, yeah, and normally you like that kinda stuff, but only ‘cause you like stories, and people have only barely started writing good stories again, just like people have only started having kids again.
The guy said that it was like a thousand stories in one book, that the book was only falling apart since it was so long and so old, and obviously it was worth a whole bunch just because it was a… it was… an ant-fall-chief…?
“Anthology?”
It was a stupid word, you just started calling it a book-book, ‘cause it was a book full of books, Grandpa said it had full stories instead of chapters!
Grandpa is dead.
…No, he isn’t…
“…”
Yeah… he just got you the best Christmas present ever, just last month. That con artist jerk wanted to sell you the book-book for half of that day’s scavenge, and it was a really really good day of scavenging too! He didn’t even do any work himself, and there wasn’t anything wrong with him either, ‘cause he had to run to catch up with you, and he wasn’t even puffing afterwards, and he had to carry that stupid book with both arms ‘cause that’s how bad it was falling apart.
He just wanted a bunch of your stuff for nothing, nothing but a stupid book that maybe you were a little bit interested in, sure, but you’re not stupid like he musta been, and you told him so and you walked away, pulling your smaller part of the haul while Grandpa pushed his heavier cart behind you.
Grandpa is dead.
It jolts you like a second thunderbolt, it must have gone from your chest up to your brain, because your lungs catch and your nose hurts and your face feels wet. It feels like you’re crying, which reinforces the idea that you’re dreaming, because you were crying on that day too, after you told that con artist off, because you really really did want that book, but you needed supplies more, and your scavenge was so big that Grandpa had to make three trips to trade it all.
You have to be dreaming because he can’t be dead like your brain is trying to tell you, because he wouldn’t leave you alone. Even when you thought you were alone and you it was safe to cry because you really wanted the book full of books, he must have still been there because he knew, and the very next month on Christmas Day he gave you your own story book.
Your book was brand new, made just for you. Every chapter was for a different group of gods from different religions that didn’t worship Brother and Radical-6, and every page had a different god, with their own description and summary and a few fun facts and a list of ‘Myths’, which were all super awesome stories that could be told verbally, so they didn’t take up space and make the book super huge so it would never fall apart.
Every night before bed, you could pick out a new Myth, like how Zeus saved the Olympians and became the King of the Gods, and Grandpa would tell you the story, and it would be the last thing you heard before you fell asleep, which was way better than just reading them.
Grandpa is dead.
The thought thunders through your head, another shock to your system, another bolt from the divide… No…? The defied? Delight? Dim light…?
“Divine...”
Divine. Dih v-eye nn. Godly, or of godlike quality. A new word that you just learned from your new book that you just got for Christmas just last week. Why would you use a new word you only just heard, or think about a king you only just read about, or feel your heart beat way too strong in the wrong part of your chest, direct center of your chest, the middle of your body, perfectly aligned to receive and deliver blood everywhere evenly, except every diagram ever says that it should be somewhere off to the left, between your lung and your ribs.
Painful heartbeat, impossibly centered, painful thoughts, impossibly overpowering.
But anything is possible in a dream.
So you let the distressing thought wash away, dream that it gets pushed down your bloodstream with every beat of your thundering heart, and watch it get smaller and smaller as it slowly disappears, along with the last of your divine tingles.
…You wonder if there are any gods of sleep.
Probably, right?
After you wake up, you’ll look in your book and ask grandpa—
Grandpa is dead.
—when the nightmare is finally gone.
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