#that's completely missing the point of this particular poll

[lunarcloak]

Blue Lock Chapter 266: Visual Storytelling

I did a similar post for Chapter 262 and people seemed to like it, and the poll I put up for a 266 interest check was overwhelmingly positive. So I'm back here!

Let's go.

Kaiser Impact. Magnus-- yes, but at this point it looks like he's taking a shot in the dark. His eyes are completely white, it's in perfect contrast to the last times where his eyes go completely black, with white pupils.

He's truly evolved, in the full sense of the word. The fact that the lines are thicker, darker, usually used for weight of movement-- as you can see in the shot panel-- are also being used for the face. It signifies weighted emotion, like he's really in a do or die moment right now. This means so much to him, and the fact that the face is DARKER than the actual shot itself means it's less about the technicality and more about the evolution it took him to get here.

AND HERE IS THE MAGNUS. This is where it's about the technicality. You cannot see Kaiser's face anymore-- it's not as important in this frame. Here, your eyes are drawn to the impact of his shot. In fact, at first glance, you could quite literally miss the ball speeding past Rin. Why? Because after that impact frame, the ball is no longer in Kaiser's control. He can only control it until the point where he shoots.

Secondly, I draw your attention to the rose petals. We've already established that it is his aura, but not how they are, again, concentrated at the impact point. Not the ball. This is partly to emphasise the speed of movement itself, and partly to reinforce the previous point. And tertiary notes are of course, the expressions on Rin and Charles' face being of pure shock. They cannot react, not with the speed of this particular shot. Only Lorenzo has been able to stop it, anyway.

He did in fact, make the air also his ally, but this is also the beginnings of the vine motif that follows the ball for the rest of this chapter. Notice how the air is curling around the ball, not in a streamline motion, but in the pattern of what will be vines later. It's already telling you that, while the ball spin is no longer in Kaiser's control, he's already done it. He's given it the impact of his shot. It's going to move exactly as he wants it to. (after this is Ness willing the ball to bend, which doesn't have any particular visual significance, but the boy deserves all the love <3)

And here the vines are fully obvious. That ball is bending exactly as Kaiser willed it to. But this is the moment of truth for him-- he's not Michael Kaiser, the NG11 prodigy, as he's watching the ball. He's Michael, the little boy who had a worn out football, and a dream. (I will remind you here that the last chapter's final panel ended with him referring to the ball/himself as a "piece of shit" again-- as he continues to refer as such in this chapter. It's signifying how he's ripping himself back down to the bare, barren life of a small child with a will to get away from the terrible hand dealt to him.)

The petals are still there, of course. No roses without thorns, no vines without roses.

I'm very intrigued by the silhouette behind the ball here. I'm not able to place exactly what it is, but it looks exactly like a woman's silhouette. His mother, perhaps? I will admit I do not fully understand why that is there, it must be linked somehow, but if anyone has any ideas they'd like to add here then please feel free to do so!

That's why the last row of panels transitions into small Kaiser from the back of current Kaiser.

This sequence isn't just to remind you of the beginnings of Michael Kaiser. But it's symbolic in that, look at the actual sequence of events. He kicks the ball at the wall, but it rebounds and hurts him instead. He gets angry, and he kicks it away again. But he takes a moment. And then he runs back to get the ball, and hugs it.

In the end, the ball will always be everything. He will miss, and he will get mad when he misses. But he will always-- ALWAYS-- pause. And think. And then, in the end, he goes back to the ball. Because the ball is his everything.

If you compare this to the sequence of this match's events for Kaiser, you will realise that it is a direct parallel. Albeit on a bigger scale-- the higher you are, the harder you fall. But that's the point. The fact that in the end he's going back to his roots. The beginnings of Michael Kaiser.

The next panel is, of course, his disgusting father. It's not really supposed to signify much by itself, but moreso leads up to the next panel. We already knew his father is abusive, but what we didn't know was the root of his dream and his ambition.

Note how here the moon is full. The moon is used as a symbol for a lot of things in fiction, but here I interpret it as the peak of his ambition, partly because it reminded me of a football the first time I saw it. The heights of his dream. To reach it, would be to reach the moon.

Also note how he once again refers to the ball/himself as "piece of trash" here.

Ugh. UGH. THE THINGS I WANT TO SAY ABOUT THIS PART. But I shall refrain. This is a visual storytelling analysis, not a character analysis.

His eyes are bright. Brightest we've ever seen them, actually. Because he's looking up at the moon, reaching out to it, reaching out to his dream. He's envisioning a world where he can get exactly what he wants and be happy. (Money, food, humanity, and the core of it all, love.)

The text "I want to be loved" is placed in a similarly 'dreamy' dialogue box. The kind that's used in shoujo backgrounds for the sake of "imagination". Very interestingly, it's placed directly on top of the path of the ball towards the goal. Even more interestingly, the vines aren't there at the beginning of this page's trajectory. They only start once we return to present time. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

The flashbacks starts, and ends with the ball's trajectory. The vines, however, are solely for the present.

Also, remember how he's reaching out upwards in this panel? Yeah. Keep that in mind. You'll know why in two pages.

The goal page itself is not particularly filled with visual storytelling. Points which are mentioned there are already spread throughout this chapter: vines coating the ball as it finally lands in the goal. But I want to ask you to note that, the side of the page is dedicated to people who are watching Kaiser. Rooting for Kaiser. I doubt that is the kind of "love" he needs, but it's telling that part of the celebration of the goal comes from the numerous fans watching him around the world, waiting for him to show them Michael Kaiser the prodigal striker.

Ah yes, the Kaisagi panel (I'm kidding). No, while this feels like total Kaisagi bait, it's also just... symbolic of their rivalry in general. Isagi has always looked up to Kaiser's football prowess. He's always known that Kaiser is incredible at what he does. He's marvelling at the fact that after everything, after all those failures, he pulled himself back up and scored an absolutely stunning goal. Note the colour of his eyes vs the dialogue. When they're entirely white-- evolution dependent- it's the fact that Kaiser scored a goal Isagi didn't. It's the incredible technicality of it (As someone who understands the physics behind it, yes, it is magnificient. Magnus-ificient? Heh.)

On the super star dialogue, however, it's just Isagi and his black hole gaze. The football player who has never shit on those above him, only ever looked up to them. Admired them, used them as role models for his own growth. He's calling Kaiser a superstar, because he is, but it's inspiring. He's frustrated, but he's also in awe. Those are the eyes of when he's just found someone new to understand and integrate into himself to become better. Of someone who's just found a new ideal to look up to.

Mmm. The vines and rose petals wrapping around Isagi, though? That is EXTREMELY Interesting. there's a lot of ways to interpret it. The fact that at that moment everyone was watching Kaiser's shot, under his control. Or maybe the fact that Kiyora passed to Kaiser and not to Isagi. Or maybe the fact that, in the end, the Emperor is always the emperor, and sliding the throne out from underneath him is simply not possible. It's the one shot Isagi can never actually copy, because Kaiser Impact has always been, well, Kaiser's. And so is the Magnus version. It's the one thing that Isagi will always, always stay below Kaiser on.

Kaiser's screaming, his eyes are still white. But they still have the pupil outline. It's his moment of pure evolution. He's achieved something he hadn't achieved previously. He's done something incredible. He's taken back his dignity and his power, reclaimed his identity as a star striker.

And, finally, of course. We have to talk about this panel. NO vines. ONLY petals. He's not restricted by the thorns clasping onto him anymore, there's only the blue rose petals of the impossible feat. As @/bachibachis had pointed out on one of the chapter reblogs after it dropped. He's pulling his shirt down. To showcase his tattoo, yes. But it's the meaning BEHIND the tattoo. A blue rose. Impossible. But it's exactly what he's always aimed for, to achieve the impossible. This panel also showcases the crown on his hand, for similarly significant reasons.

His eyes are blank. Entirely. Now it's not about the evolution, but the emotion. The last time we saw them was when he was in a fit of anger at Isagi's goal. Now it's catharsis. At his achievement, at the goal, at the fact that he's living upto the tattoo on his neck, the name, everything he's built up for himself.

His hand is reaching upwards, to the sky. For the far away dream of money, food, humanity and love. He's achieved two of the three already. But now he's reclaiming his humanity. Maybe some day down the line, he'll reclaim his love too. Any of you yelling about Ness-- I get it, I do, but you have to understand that Kaiser doesn't see it that way. He's never seen it that way. It's complicated. We will simply have to wait and see.

As for the rest of this panel, well, it's framed as though there's quite literally light shining down from the heavens for this man. Kaiser has always had a lot of religious symbolism, and I'm not particularly qualified to talk about them just yet. But this ties in to all of that, and more. It's about the fact that stars really did align for all of this to happen here, now. The fact that this happened in the NEL, and not the World Cup. The fact that Kiyora passed to him, and not Isagi. The fact that he finally had Luck on his side, and it worked out. The fact that Rin and Charles weren't able to stop it, despite being star players themselves.

The stars aligned, the light shone down from the heavens, as the fallen Emperor rises up once again, reclaiming the throne that was always his. He screams up at the very heavens that had forsaken him, years ago, as they finally let him have the moment of increduilty he's wished to impose on the world. To achieve the impossible, is to be Michael Kaiser.

What a stunning, stunning chapter. Thank you, Yusuke Nomura. Thank you, Muneyuki Kaneshiro.

And thank you, for reading my take on this.

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence:💙Background + poll results💙

Hello hello and welcome new followers! :]

Firstly I just want to say a very big thank you to everyone that participated in the poll I did last week, I was really surprised but happy with the results and responses! This will help me a lot moving forward! :,] If you missed it and would like to say which route you preferred feel free to comment!

Anywho, this week mainly focused on art practicing again but I did work on the game and managed to get my bearings even more!

Here is the new background for the start of the game:

This took a long time to draw up since I sketched out the background instead of looking at references this time. Once I got a basic idea of how I wanted it to look it felt.. too empty and flat. At first I couldn't figure out why until I added more shrubbery and grass. After that I started adding the trees and then added a few more to give it depth and adjusted some of the coloring. So far the immersive symbolism I'm going for is slowly coming together! Since it just finished raining where you're located I tried to give the background the illusion of looking tolerably humid but slowly getting colder over time with a hint of decay in the distance. This is a better look of the dreary foreboding atmosphere compared to the "fairy-forest" from last week. >:,] It took a while but I also added a parallax effect here and optimized the images to save space. I kept getting an error when it came to the middle ground so I had to find and fix the problem which delayed things. I don't have a video to show it in action but maybe next time. I do want it to be known again that these automatically happen and don't follow the cursor. :,,]

Here's a sneak peek of the new choices you can do when you're in this area now. >;]

This part required a lot of brainstorming before I figured out how I wanted the explorative part to go. This was originally going to go a different way completely but a particular day caused me to just scrap it and start everything over. I have a very solid idea on how I want all of this to go better than ever so I can't wait to show some of the new areas! I didn't expect this background to take as long as it did to draw up but hopefully next week I'll have more done!

Progress doodle layout:

Since certain endings are being changed I thought it would be cool to animate a progress layout to visually show how everything is going! It shouldn't take too long to finish this section up since I already have a foundation laid out.

Noah's sprite sheet update:

As far as Noah sprite sheets goes, it's still in sketch mode and I haven't messed with them yet since I've been practicing. :,,]

There are some old drawing prompts I wrote down and sketches that I'm still doodling up behind the scenes so hopefully I can get to them at some point with some attached lore. :,]

Q&A / Ask box is still open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

Thank you to those who have sent in asks after everything got reset! I'll try to get to them when I can along with the ones that come to mind that got deleted. I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings as practice. :]

Overall that's everything I have to share so far, thank you guys for your continued encouragement and support through all of this, I wholeheartedly appreciate it! :,,]

[felassan]

Last week Mark Darrah did a Q&A video on his YouTube channel Mark Darrah on Games, called "15K Subs - Q&A". In case it's useful to anyone e.g. for accessibility reasons, here are some notes. The full video can be watched here [<- source link].

(Some of the questions answered were leftover from his previous Q&A video in this series from some time ago, during which time he had left BioWare and had not yet started his consultant work with BioWare.)

---

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, the DA:D development era at BioWare & related topics

"I'm still consulting with BioWare."

Q. Were there any plans to make Dragon Age games in other genres, like an MMO? A. "Not really. What actually happened was during Joplin development, as we were being squeezed and people were being stolen onto other projects like Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem, I actually put a Twitter poll up at one point, just sort've gauging the interest. There was never any people against it, it was really nothing more than that, just to see what the appetite was for something like that. But no development was ever done." Q. Are you looking forward to playing Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "I mean, I'm not really completely on the outside anymore. I'm working with BioWare as a consultant. So when this question was originally asked I was on the outside. Yeah, I mean, that was a pretty interesting thing to look forward to, I know a lot more now than I did then. So my answer I guess is not really relevant anymore, but at the time, yeah, I would say so."

Q. At this point would it be better for the Dragon Age IP to be sold off and taken by another studio such as Larian? A. "I don't think, first of all that's never gonna happen. EA doesn't really sell off IPs. I think that it's in a good place, it's got support from EA and it's moving towards its end." [meaning Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is nearing the end of its development cycle and moving towards ship]

Q. What happened internally at BioWare, [someone whose name was redacted by Mark for the video] started becoming more and more bigoted, and why does he have a beef with Mark? A. "So I'm not gonna talk about who this was, but I'll just answer the question. The reason why there's a specific beef with me is because I was the one tasked with responding to some of the drama that was spinning up, once it crossed the line where EA felt something needed to be done. I did a video about why it's sometimes the right answer to be quiet and not to respond to something, in this particular case EA decided that things had gotten sufficiently out of hand and something needed to be done. I was the one who had the very legally-approved language and was the one that was, as a result, responding to that."

Q. [a question regarding Dragon Age extended universe/secondary material, like the comics and novels] A. "At BioWare, there is a business development group who is responsible for looking for this kind of thing. Usually, well I guess always, there is a requirement of feedback, some sort of feedback loop. Depending on the exact property that might be everything from 'you will do exactly what we say and you're just work for hire' up to 'you have a lot of creative control and BioWare maintains some degree of veto power'. Typically, with BioWare, they're looking for deals where the cost is being carried by the people making the product, as opposed to by BioWare. This is not the case with all companies. The advantage of the studio paying for it is that you make more money, but you carry more risk, so BioWare goes with the more conservative way, where they're not spending as much, or anything usually, but they give away more profit on the back end."

Q. How has it been working on Dragon Age again? Did you miss it? A. "I don't know that I missed it when I wasn't working on it. It was interesting to be on the outside. It's very strange being back in the, on the inside again, because my role is very different. I'm not the Executive Producer, I don't have that direct managerial role, I don't have direct, I don't really have any hard power whatsoever on the project anymore, so that's definitely different."

Q. What's the best piece of advice you would give the Dragon Age/Dragon Age: Dreadwolf team if asked? A. "I guess this question, which was from before, isn't as relevant, I've given them all that advice at this point."

"Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be only on next gen consoles and PC, as far as I'm aware." [i.e., PS5 not PS4, Xbox Series X not XBone etc].

Q. Is this [referring to Dragon Age: Dreadwolf] a new beginning for Dragon Age? A. "Dragon Age is a weird franchise. It has had to reinvent itself every single time because of internal corporate pressures. This, like Dragon Age: Inquisition, like Dragon Age II, will be different from the games that came before it. I think that's fine. It's kind of become part of the DNA of the franchise at this point."

Q. What made you want to reach out to BioWare to consult on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "So I feel like that's been somewhat over-reported. So I have been doing consulting work since, in 2022, was when I started doing it. I was reaching out to different people. I knew where BioWare was when I first reached out to them. At the time they said 'no', and then I was like 'alright, fine' and I started working with some other people, and then things changed at BioWare and then they came and reached out to me when their situation was a bit different. So, I guess the short answer is money. The long answer was, I mean I have contacts there, I knew I could help them out, and I'm certainly interested in Dragon Age being the best game that it can be."

Q. How long is alpha to beta to release in general terms? A. "Almost unanswerable. It is incredibly dependent upon - the time from alpha to beta, well first of all there's lots of different definitions of these different phases, but the time from alpha to beta is the time of getting the content finished, and then from beta to release is more about getting your bugs fixed. Some games have thousands of bugs, some games have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of bugs, so these times can be highly dependent upon the game and the genre. If you're making something that's a competitive game that really needs a lot of tuning, then you want a lot of time in that beta period, ideally to get the game in front of people who're gonna play it, to really dial those knobs in as best you can."

Q. Why does Frostbite struggle with animation? A. "I actually feel like it's actually doing fine with animation. I think it's a content problem, not an engine problem, when it comes to animation in Frostbite. I think what you're seeing is what is being built. Now, that being said, Frostbite now uses ANT, which is the animation system built for sports, so it is different."

"I did watch Dragon Age: Absolution. I actually really liked Absolution. I'm not sure how enjoyable it would be for a non-Dragon Age person, because I'm not a non-Dragon Age person, but as a Dragon Age person I really liked it, I thought it was well-made, I thought it did something interesting with the IP."

Q. Have you added any new gameplay mechanics that you can talk about? [unclear if question was regarding DA:D or the DA games in general] A. "Not anything that I really remember, exactly, because, you know, it's a collaborative, for a AAA game it's a collaborative exercise, at least the way that I ran the project, so I wouldn't consider that anything that was in the games that I led was introduced by me, they would have been introduced by the team, or pushed for, or advocated for by people other than me, for the most part."

"In one of my videos, I said that Dragon Age: Origins went through lots of shifts in development. Yeah, Dragon Age: Origins was multiplayer two different times before it actually ended up shipping. Also, it was originally being built on the Neverwinter Engine, it shifted engines in the middle, so it had some big shifts. The difference being that, you know, back in the early 2000s, there wasn't as much scrutiny on development, there wasn't as wide of a pipeline for rumors as there is now."

Q. Is there going to be any new external/secondary media about Dragon Age? A. "I actually don't know the answer to that, that's not a room that I am in anymore, so that would be a question to ask BioWare."

Q. Where was this filmed? [The next DRAGON AGE: Behind the scenes at BioWare] How does it hold up comparing to what was announced at The Game Awards? A. "I think this is the video, the Dragon Age video that was filmed at a park in Edmonton. I think it was Whitemud Park, if it's the video I am thinking of. How does it hold up? I mean, it doesn't show as much, it's showing a little bit of content, it holds up fine."

Q. How difficult or realistic is it to have previous protagonists in a sequel game? Like Hawke in Dragon Age: Inquisition or letters from the Warden?  A. "It can, for Dragon Age, or any game that has a, or any game that has character creation, it is extra work, because you have kinda two choices. You either have to move to sort've default marketing protagonist. Well I guess you have three choices. Default marketing protagonist, or you have to put character creation right in the middle of the game flow, to allow people to create their character, or you have to have some way to move your protagonist appearance from game to game to game. Which, it would be the ideal solution, but that requires that your character creation remains relatively constantly from game to game. Which typically isn't actually the case."

Q. Why did EA cut BioWare's budget? A. "I assume that's to do with the layoffs. I do not have an answer to that question, but I put it in here anyway, so, there you go."

Q. Have you acquired new knowledge you can use for yourself consulting at BioWare? A. "It's actually been really useful, for me, so as a story-shaper, someone who develops my storytelling through the interaction with people, it's been useful for a lot of my concepts and philosophy, to bounce it off of people, and to be able to come back to things that I've thought about and even written about, even made videos about, and re-examine some of that. So absolutely, working with people has, for my kind of storytelling, has been helpful for me understanding the things I already believe."

Q. Any idea what the Dragon Age: Dreadwolf Collector's Edition will entail, or how do you decide what goes in them? A. "I have no idea, I guess they'll announce it probably when they put pre-orders up. When you're doing a Collector's Edition, when you're doing a Digital Deluxe, any of those things, it's all about perceived value. So it's all about, how much more do we want to charge for this thing? How do we get that much stuff in the box so that it's worth it? Not worth it for everyone, because otherwise, that would just be the game, but worth it for some degree of people. Typically, for physical Collector's Editions, that comes with a bunch of little things and one big thing. Dragon Age: Inquisition went a different way and it gets its value through a ton of little things like a map, little things you put on the map, and a lockpicking set, and a whole bunch of little things, but it's all about getting over that threshold of this being worth it to some percentage of your audience."

Q. Do you have hope that Dragon Age: Dreadwolf will be good? A. "Absolutely, that's why I'm working with them."

Q. Do you think it's possible for EA to recover in the eyes of BioWare fans? A. "I'm not sure that it's possible for any multi-billion dollar publicly traded company to ever have a really great public perception. I think it's something that they should care about, but I think they would be better served by focusing on strengthening the perception of the individual studios. Let EA be the evil corporate overlord and then make the perception of the studios that they own as strong as possible. That would be the way that I would go."

Q. If you could go back and change Dragon Age lore, what would you change? A. "There was some stuff in the early Dragon Age: Origins [days] which was very much trying to address some of the tropey, problematic bits of magic from D&D, so teleportation, things that. I think we went a little too hard there, and I think leaving that door a little bit more open would be better. The other thing that I think that Dragon Age has been dealing with, but is sort've a problem is, the source of magic. So in typical vanilla D&D magic kind've comes from a million different places, so it kinda doesn't matter. In some other settings, magic comes from a single place, it comes from the astral plane or it comes from this crystal that people dig up and grind up and use to do magic. In Dragon Age you kind've have it coming from a couple of different places, but too few to be everywhere, and therefore it doesn't matter, but too many for it to be one. So you end up with this weird thing of like, are undead caused by the Blight, is lyrium a source of magic? Like, there's just a few too many. And so Dragon Age has been kind've collapsing that probability space down. If I had a time machine, I'd probably just collapse that probability space down in the first place, not necessarily put it in the games, but at least know where that space collapsed." Q. Aren't the only sources of magic Blight, blood or Fade? A. "It isn't, because you've got Blight, blood, Fade - well, okay, yes - lyrium is [Titan] blood now because that was Dragon Age collapsing the probability space. That's what I mean by Dragon Age is collapsing the probability space. It didn't used to be. I don't know if that was always the plan for lyrium or not. I don't think so, I think that was - yeah, no, I think there are Titans, Titans have always been in the plan, but I don't know that lyrium was always - I could be wrong, I could be misremembering."

Q. Are games taking longer to come out now, or is it just Dragon Age and Mass Effect that this has happened to? Why? A. "No, games are taking longer. The short answer actually has a lot to do with graphical fidelity, it's just the assets take longer to make. There are more things, like you didn't have as many steps in creating a piece of art in 1998 as you do now, you didn't have even the concept of materials or shaders or any of these things, so now you have all of these additional steps along the way. It will be interesting to see if, as, some of these techniques, you know, PBM and photogrammetry and these other things become more commonplace, if some of those costs come down. It hasn't happened yet, it actually just kept going up and up and up, you just changed the work that's being done, but that might be the end-state, where maybe costs actually start to go down again. I haven't seen it yet though."

Q. Can you tell us more about Sandal or do we have to wait until Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "No, Sandal is a character whose future will be decided by BioWare." Q. Can I assume that Sandal will be in Dragon Age: Dreadwolf? A. "I wouldn't make that assumption."

Q. What did you miss most about working in AAA and how does it feel being back in a different position? A. "Like I said before, it's weird, because I am, my desk, the desk, if I go into the office the desk I actually sit at is the same desk I had before, but my position is very different. I'm not doing salaries, I'm not doing people management, I'm not doing reviews, but also I don't have final say on anything, I have no hard power in my position, it's just a consulting position, so it's pretty different. I don't know that I miss anything in particular about AAA, I mean there's a power in the giant team that you just don't see in the indie space, but there's an agility that you just don't see in AAA in the indie space, so I think there's pros and cons for both sides."

Q. Any thoughts on the idea that Mass Effect and Dragon Age have become too similar? A. "I would, so I did a very sarcastic presentation back in, probably 2017. They've always been really similar. They are BioWare games with a party, they've always been incredibly similar, so I don't think it's a problem, I think that they have their own distinct characters, they stand apart from each other. In the same way that I wouldn't say that Fallout and Elder Scrolls are too similar, but they sure are both Bethesda games, so I don't think there's a problem there at all."

Q. ​Do you have an opinion to share on why there's been no marketing yet for Dreadwolf? A. "I assume that means 'why hasn't there been marketing yet for Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. I mean, there has, but nothing recently. The policy for much of AAA has become very much shorter, louder marketing campaigns. I think that there is a lot of power in that. I think that can be a very powerful way to go. Dragon Age obviously carries the fact that we did an announcement trailer back in 2018, but I think that's what's happening."

Q. Do you think it's possible for BioWare to split from EA? A. "No. EA doesn't let things go, so no. Could everyone leave and start their own studio? Sure, but BioWare will remain part of EA as far as I can tell. That's not how EA thinks."

Q. Should Dragon Age have more or fewer jump-scares in it? A. "I mean it doesn't have that many jump-scares, so... more!"

Q. Why did you decide to rejoin BioWare? A. "Like I said, I was consulting. I reached out to them, to look at the possibility of helping them out with some things. They said no, then some time went by and then they contacted me and said 'oh, actually yes', so, short answer is because it was what I was doing at the time. Longer answer is, I mean, definitely I am interested in Dragon Age being the best game it's capable of being."

Q. Do you feel BioWare could have done more to nurture the fanbase between releases, other than comics and novels? A. "Yeah, I do actually wish that there was an ecosystem to make little games, so, you know, you make the little, you make Final Fantasy Tactics, you make Dragon Age Tactics. You make mobile title - I mean there was the mobile game, the Dragon Age mobile game [Heroes of Dragon Age], that did really well, but yeah, I think there is an opportunity there. That is not the way that development works really at EA. It would've had to have been done by a different part of EA, and, so, yep. [shrug]"

Q. What do you feel about the comments that BioWare is becoming less writer-oriented? A. "I don't know that that is true. Definitely it went through a period of trying to focus more on different kinds of gameplay, like Anthem is definitely a game driven by its gameplay as opposed to by its story. I guess we'll see with Bowie what the actual truth is going to be, but I don't think that's what's happening."

Q. Is the next Mass Effect still in development? A. "Yep."

Q. Will Dragon Age go open-world again? A. "I don't know, I mean I guess that's always a possibility."

"I'm not going to comment on any things that have changed in BioWare's staffing, because, one, I found out at the same time as everybody else did, so I have no information, and two, I'm working with them, so I'm not going to give my opinion on that, so." "I'm not gonna comment on any layoff stuff."

Q. Would it be possible to give us the option to turn off the 'screen shake' effects after a critical or melee hit in Dragon Age games? A. "Yeah, I mean you do see that as an accessibility option in a lot of games now, so, hopefully."

Q. ​Mass Effect and Dragon Age have thousands of years in each of their respective lore/worlds, do you think there's a space for smaller and/or externally produced experiences that explore it more? A. "I do think there is an opportunity for that, I mean that's kind've where the comics and Dragon Age: Absolution and things like that have lived. You do have to figure out to control the IP somehow. Now you could go, like with KOTOR, where you just throw something back into the past far enough. Like go wayyy back and talk about 'where the Qunari came from' or something, but, I do think there's an opportunity there with some thinking. Now, will that happen? I don't expect so because that would require dev resources that don't really exist, or going to an external studio, which I don't think EA is gonna be particularly interested in doing."

"Yeah, I know. [the title] 'Dreadwolf' did ruin the whole vowel thing. Like, I'm also mad about that."

Q. Has there ever been discussion about adding more 'drama' to BioWare romances? I loved the conflict with Liara in Mass Effect 2 if you had romanced another character. A. "I'm sure that's a conversation that's happened somewhere. Often the characters are, each character is written by a different writer, so when they interact that can become a little bit more complicated, but yeah, there's certainly interesting things to be potentially done there."

Q. How involved are you as a Creative Lead on marketing titles? Do you have input into the creation of trailers? A. "Yes, usually there's some degree of input in trailers, but at EA they're usually done by a central group, so it's influence more than necessarily even veto. Probably the Executive Producer has veto power if necessary, but not direct creative control, they're done by a different group."

"I won't be working on [his game, High Tea on the High Seas] until my contract with BioWare is over, I expect."

"I love the modding community. We don't really support them very much, but I think there's a lot of power there for sure."

Q. Do you think BioWare should make non-linear games like Baldur's Gate 3 or stick with what they have always done before? A. "I think that there is, BioWare used to do more 'campfires in the dark', so more, like, 'I know you got here, but I don't know how', and I think that we should return to that more, at least for the side content. I think that the follower content is where BioWare's strength remains and will remain, and I think that deserves to be done in whatever way fits the storytelling that we're trying to do."

Q. Do you think the Dragon Age series should have more musical numbers in the game? A. "Yes I do."

Q. Is there any animosity between BioWare teams? A. "There has been, in the past. I don't think there is now, but there has been in the past, for sure."

Q. Do you regret allowing the player to kill certain characters? How much does that complicate future titles? A. "It makes future titles really complicated. In Dragon Age: Inquisition trying to find a Warden was like, basically they all could be dead, that's why you end up with mustache, Stroud, because literally everyone else could be dead. I don't regret it though, I think it's good to do that kind of thing when you can, it adds extra impact. You just have to live with the consequences of it."

Q. ​Is there room when AAA games are being developed for smaller projects to get made in the same studio? A. "It depends on the studio. Within BioWare, basically no, because the big AAA things just suck all the life out of it, but I've seen it work at some places where they have protection to keep the little things working and alive. So it's possible, but I don't think it could work at BioWare because I think they would just end up getting starved out by the bigger titles."

Q. ​Do you think BioWare is going to innovate, or are they trying to make something standard? A. "I mean all games contain innovation, so I'm not sure what your question is there, so yes."

Q. Was there any general reaction that BioWare had to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners?  A. "Nothing that I'm aware of. I'm sure that people watched it and had thoughts, but nothing that I've heard."

Q. Do you believe marketing campaigns that are started too early, with features that don't make it into the final product are deceptive and counter-productive because they create false expectations? A. "So I do believe in shorter, louder marketing campaigns in general. There are cases where ya gotta go out and ya gotta start building expectations for your title, but when you're out there for a long time, and you're showing gameplay, you're going to show things that end up getting cut. And I don't think, so, are they counterproductive? No, I don't think they are, because most people don't remember, they just remember they were excited, the thing they saw two years ago. They don't remember that it showed something that ended up getting cut. Do they cause a little bit of internet drama? Sure. But I don't think that they're counterproductive. I think in the cases where you have to do them, where you're repairing a relationship or you need to build up a new IP or whatever, they can be useful. Are you gonna get yourself into trouble? For sure, but, still worth doing."

"Shorter marketing campaigns are super effective, but there are cases where you need a longer conversation with your potential fans."

Q. Do you see Dragon Age as a franchises headed towards a linear end, or more of a world for stories that expand in different directions? A. "I don't know that we'll ever see Dragon Age kind've branch into a bunch of different things. So, like, will there be a main title that continues to basically be the line of canon, that's, probably, yes. That's probably what will happen. It is a franchise that is much more about its world than Mass Effect, and much less about its characters, so I get your point, but I don't think we'll ever see, like, several different parallel storylines going at once."

Q. Without a remake or remaster [of previous Dragon Age games] what would you pitch to onboard people in the Dragon Age franchise? A. "I mean hopefully Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is a perfectly reasonable on-boarding point. The games are designed to be able to be consumed starting with any of them, so hopefully that remains the case."

Q. Why did you not teach anyone at BioWare the true art of Twitter teasing and trolling before you left, because your skills was legendary, and it has not been the same since? A. "So I think, I only got to be on Twitter the way I was on Twitter because I was the Executive Producer, because I was basically the one who decided what information was public. Which is why you haven't seen me do that again."

Q. Does BioWare face any recruitment problems due to its primary location in Canada? A. "Primarily in Canada isn't a huge problem, primarily in Edmonton definitely is. We still live in this weird world of hybrid development so people are getting hired from all over the place right now, but yeah, Edmonton was always a problem for recruiting."

Q. When are you planning to talk about Anthem? [in YouTube videos] A. "Yeah, so we're like two years late on this. It is going to be after I finish working with BioWare at this point, to be perfectly honest. It's gonna be a while, but we'll get there, we will definitely talk about it."

Q. There was talk about a "five game plan" for Dragon Age at some point. Was that ever a thing? If so, is it still a thing? A. "There have been lots of plans, so, sure."

Q. Will you continue your career in development after Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, or was it just a one-time return? A. "Yeah, I'm working with another studio right now as well, this is not my only contract, for sure."

Q. Will you be involved with the next Mass Effect as a consultant? A. "That's not my decision to make."

Q. What is the main thing you would change about how management works in AAA studios? A. "I think that question is unanswerable because management at AAA studios is different everywhere. BioWare uses a matrix structure, so they have departments, but they also have individual leaders. I would like to see more project-driven, like, I've talked about [his] 'hourglass' [concept] in a video before, where driven more through the product, but that being said, I'm not sure long-term how that would be for the people, so I guess, short answer is depends on the studio."

"Dragon Age has had the misfortune of always being seen as being inaccessible to the average gamer, so there's been a lot of corporate pressure for it to become more mainstream. And so it's been kinda questing for a fantasy RPG that is very accessible. Hence why, and then, you know, hence that's Dragon Age II, and then you know Dragon Age II's reception pushed Dragon Age: Inquisition to change some more. Dragon Age has never really been allowed to be constant. And I think it would actually be very good for the franchise to be allowed to be constant for a while, get some 'true sequels' [true sequels here refers to a specific thing Mark has previously discussed on his channel] under the belt. So, yes, true sequels are awesome, I wish that there were more of them and I wish that Dragon Age was one of them."

Q. Are Dragon Age and Mass Effect regarded as big IPs by EA? A. "Sometimes. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. There was a time when EA had the, I think it was called like, 'The Big 12', Mass Effect was on that list, Dragon Age was not, so, sometimes."

Q. Do you feel EA has historically had unrealistic profit expectations for the Dragon Age series? A. "I can't really get into the way that EA does its financials. I think that there are, sometimes, EA wishes everything was FIFA and obviously that's unrealistic."

Q. Will the critical success of Baldur's Gate 3 influence Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and other future projects? A. "It's a bit late to influence Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. Will it affect other future projects? I suspect so. I think it's gonna have a big impact on the RPG space, in some ways, for sure."

Q. Oh, is 'Bowie' the actual codename? Neat! A. "Yeah, Bowie is the actual codename. Did I just leak that? Well it is."

"The hardest part of a project for most people, myself included, is when you can't see the start anymore, and you can't yet see the finish, so with games with really long [development] cycles they can have a lot of trouble in the middle because you don't have the excitement of the beginning anymore and you can't see that it's finishing. So that can be hard. I think that is honestly one of the reasons why I think completion urgency has been on my mind so much, because this has always been kind of the case with BioWare with games, where you do a middle march in the dark, and so hopefully we find some solutions to that."

Q. When are you planning to talk about Anthem? A. "Yeah, so we're like two years late on this. It is going to be after I finish working with BioWare at this point, to be perfectly honest. It's gonna be a while, but we'll get there, we will definitely talk about it."

Q. ​Is it more accurate to think of the development cycle of Dragon Age: Dreadwolf as one game, or several? A. "Kind've something in-between. Definitely there have been moments where the game has pivoted to a large degree that it effectively has started over, but it hasn't always actually started over, and maybe that would've been better, so it's a little bit of both."

Q. BioWare office tour when? A. "I don't think that I can do that, but maybe BioWare will, you should ask them."

Q. Do you think the 'Frostbite is bad' narrative has been blown out of proportion? A. "Yes I do. I mean, yes it is not a perfect engine, no engine is. It definitely doesn't have the support levels that Unreal has, but it is a capable engine if you treat it with respect. The problem is, is that I think a lot of developers have not treated it with respect."

Q. Has BioWare ever thought about character DLC, for example the story DLC in Dragon Age: Inquisition was wonderful but much of what people enjoyed about the story DLC like Trespasser was reuniting with the companions. A. "Yeah, there actually, a bunch of stuff got discussed in earlier incarnations of Joplin and Morrison about doing, like, date packs, or very, very focused bits of DLC. I don't think that's still in the plan, but that was the plan at one point."

Q. What would you say to fans of Dragon Age that are worried about Dreadwolf right now? A. "I'd say keep paying attention, and hopefully BioWare give you confidence."

Q. ​Do Dragon Age: Dreadwolf leaks hurt any team morale? A. "It can, depends on the leak, it can, for sure."

[source and full video link]

Other notes from the video are collected under the cut due to length:

Q. What's something from Baldur's Gate 3 that may not be obvious to players that you've seen and said 'wow, Larian really figured something out that I wish we, BioWare, had been able to do'? A. "The big thing that Larian is doing that is missing from most other modern games is they are, Failbetter Games calls it 'campfires in the dark', which is, a lot of their plot scripting is based upon reacting to where you are in the moment as opposed to the path you use to get there. What that means is you can do almost anything, because the game doesn't really care how you did it. If you're Matt Mercer and you pile up a bunch of boxes and then teleport into a keep, and bypass the entire plot of getting in there, once you're in the keep, the keep is like, 'okay, you're here, I don't know how you did it, but whatever, we'll just go from here'. And, two things. One, it makes for incredibly robust scripting. The game is able to not fall apart as you do things that it wasn't expecting, because to some degree it's not really expecting things as much. Two, it's just letting you do much more as a result. Now you are giving up a certain degree of reactivity for that, but it's a very powerful tool that I think has been largely set aside by most other developers."

"I think there's definitely some interesting avenues to be taken with your party members having relationships with each other and interacting with each other. It gives them more life. It makes them more believable, that they're not just there waiting for you to come and talk to them and otherwise they're completely static. I think having them interact with each other definitely helps make them more believable."

"One of the, I would say, biggest mistakes of Dragon Age II is the fact that you always have to fight both final antagonists, regardless of which path you decided to do, and that's a decision coming from 'we don't want to waste our content. We want people to see this stuff we spent all this time on'. So some of it is about just being willing to commit to the concept of, there is content that people won't see. It helps, at least it helps me a little bit to remember that most people aren't gonna even finish your game, so arguably the end is a branch that most people won't see." "Honestly, to a large degree, let the creatives guide the way. If they're excited about writing it, if they're excited about scripting it, let them do it. Maybe you do a much simpler version [of the hypothetical cutscene being discussed, re: branching content and zots/resources], but you can still do it."

"I've never played a game of the Dragon Age TTRPG. How much was the Dragon Age team involved in the creation of the rules? Not at all. That was created entirely by Green Ronin. That was their system entirely and I think they've used it for other things since then. I like that it exists. I like that there is a, something that signals that Dragon Age is an RPG. Now I think I would be pushing to make a 5th edition supplement for Dragon Age, rather than a standalone RPG, but at the time, it was the right call, I'd say."

Q. As a producer, how have you mitigated decision fatigue for you or your team throughout closing a project? A. "So one of the reasons why I actually advocate so strongly for triage is that triage is a forum through which you can answer a lot of questions, especially at the end of a project, the closing parts of a project. You're not going to avoid making decisions. Finaling a project is making thousands of decisions in rapid succession, but you can take a little bit of the burden off individual team members by helping them with that decision-making, or when necessary making decisions yourself. Triage also lets you get a group of people together. Making decisions as a group, if you've worked together for a while, can be faster, can be less draining as well."

"I really believe in some degree of developing out loud. I don't know how practical Larian's style of, 'go into Early Access for three years and develop it with the community' is, for most studios, especially the publicly traded ones, but I do think some form of discourse with the community is incredibly valuable. Are we gonna see it? I hope so, but I do think that a lot of studios have developed a very secretive, private kind of stance. For good reason. It's a lot of work to keep this discourse running, to keep it from turning toxic, to keep the conversation going. I think it's worth it, but there's work there, for sure." [I think BioWare are a publicly traded company]

"I could be wrong, but I feel like we're starting to see DLC in singleplayer games be a thing of the past. It seems like it's fading away. I think we may not see very much [of this] three years from now. Will it then circle back around, come back around? I suspect it will, but that's what I'm noticing."

[on the game industry in general] "We've had a lot of layoffs this year, so definitely there's been volatility this year, but we have, as the industry has grown up, it has become more risk-averse, at least in the AAA space, it's become more expensive, things have taken longer, but you do see less, sort've pulsing - you see less AAA games shipping and then the entire studio being shut down. It does still happen, but I do think you are seeing less of it. I think it's partly just, becoming more and more a business."

"I do not think Mass Effect 3 will ever be open-sourced."

"If I was given a large budget and asked to create a 'Dragon Age Legendary Edition', I think if I was given that task, the big thing would be, I think for Dragon Age: Origins, you have only two choices. Once you start going in there, you gotta go so deep, that I would go remaster, and just pretty it up, and let all its warts be its warts. Maybe take another crack at the console controls, and like getting tactical camera on the consoles, if I could, but largely just prettying it up. Dragon Age II, I'd be really tempted to see if you could make Orsino an optional fight, otherwise, probably it's fine. Dragon Age: Inquisition, Hinterlands, actively pushing you out of the Hinterlands much more quickly, not cutting anything from it, but definitely making it more clear that there is a critical path, because the pacing is kind've off there. Reducing the amount of Influence you need to unlock things so you can get through it a little more quickly."

"Dragon Age: Origins was originally planned as one game with no sequels. That was the original plan, which is why the end of Dragon Age: Origins has weird branching epilogue structure, is because it was never intended to be a game with sequels. You're always going to, that's a lesson for the world, always assume that you're going to potentially have sequels. So, it's not that you should leave a bunch of threads, but don't make sequels incredibly difficult to have."

"Dragon Age: Inquisition basically only had eight spells because of console convenience, yeah, basically, it's designed around its console controls for sure."

Q. Was there ever a significance to the Amell [blood]line? Like the Warden and Champion being related? A. "I don't know the answer to that question. I mean, there are often things that are planned and then executed, but also things where convenient plot hooks are picked up and taken in different ways. So sometimes things are planned years in advance and sometimes they just look that way."

"As far as I can remember, Leliana's lyrium ghost was just a quantum thing. It's just because we wanted Leliana in Dragon Age: Inquisition and Leliana could be dead. I mean it kinda makes sense, because the only place that Leliana could die in Dragon Age: Origins was at the Urn, so, sure, the Urn did it."

Q. If Dragon Age: Origins ever gets a remake, would a lot more of the problematic elements be removed? A. "So that's, ultimately what it comes down to, I think if you did a Dragon Age: Origins remaster, you wouldn't, you would just put a fresh coat of paint on it and that would be what you would do. But if you start to do a remake, I think it becomes necessary to start to open up some of those conversations, and that could be a lot, which is honestly one of the things that probably is causing hesitation on doing a remaster, or a remake in that case."

Q. If a fan writes an incredibly good idea on a forum or social media, is BioWare banned from implementing their idea? A. "It depends. If it's just like, 'I put an idea out on a Twitter post', no, you're basically releasing that idea to the public by that kind of post, but we don't, but BioWare doesn't, so I guess no, I guess, short answer no, because in that case it's like, well you just gave that to everybody. If it's a bit of fan literature, nobody's reading it, it's just going in the garbage, so no, so in that case nobody knows what's in that piece of literature, so, no."

"Will Dragon Age: II and Dragon Age: Origins ever come to PS5? I don't know. I mean that would basically require a remaster of some sort."

Q. If you had free reign what's the coolest, most ridiculous thing you would put into a physical Collector's Edition of the game? A. "So, I did, on Anthem, I did push for this, and I wish we'd done it, I did push for doing, because we had the studio that made the physical versions of the Javelin suits for that one EA Play. I did push for a $55,000 Collector's Edition, where you got one of those suits. Obviously we didn't do that."

Q. Would you say it’s harder to import decisions in a series like Dragon Age or Mass Effect? I bet it’s harder when each game has a different protagonist. A. "Actually, so, Dragon Age is a little bit more self-healing because when you are playing a Mass Effect, so Mass Effect 1, 2, 3, a lot of what you care about is the interpersonal stuff. When you're moving from Dragon Age: Origins to Dragon Age II, you don't really care about any of that interpersonal stuff, because it's a different character. I mean, you care, but it doesn't, the game doesn't need to reflect it. So Mass Effect has to deal with a lot more minutiae than Dragon Age does. Dragon Age just needs to deal with the big stuff."

Q. Would the Eclipse Engine have been better for Dragon Age: Inquisition even if it had meant the scope of the game would have to be smaller? A. "No, the Eclipse Engine was about ready to die of old age."

Q. ​Do you remember what the major aesthetic influences on Anthem were? A. "So, this is what I remember. Cigarette butts and coffee cups, so like, the abyss. No wheels. I actually think Anthem has a pretty strong identity. It looks like something."

Q. Who's decision was it to start using Frostbite? A. "I mean, the short answer is, it was the only politically-viable answer for Dragon Age: Inquisition, so, so I guess EA."

Q. Did you feel there was a large culture change when Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka left BioWare? A. "Not really, like a lot of it was basically already happening, as part, as EA basically started to impose its culture on, and also just the culture infiltrated over time. I would say that the cultural shift at BioWare happened slowly, not all at once when they left."

Q. I was really hoping for that Dragon Age tactical game. Any chance of seeing something like that in the future? A. "Probably not, I mean, it was a tweet, there wasn't anything behind that."

Q. ​If only there was a Mass Effect toolset. A. "Yeah, so I don't think you're gonna get, so a toolset with a game that is using Unreal like Mass Effect, that's much less likely, because you're gonna have to get a deal with Epic to do that. They might go for it, but yeah, that would be harder."

Q. I recently found out that The Last Court was made by an outside studio, and BioWare has brought in outside writers to work on Dragon Age before. Is that a common occurrence? A. "Yeah, it happens, for sure."

"Dragon Age II is pushing the Eclipse engine to the limit, it's basically the upper limits."

Q. Was there ever any discussion on showing Hawke and their companions visibly age over Dragon Age II? A. "There was, there was absolutely, that conversation did happen. We didn't really have any way to do it easily, but it was talked about."

Q. Dragon Age seems to have a much larger female fanbase than most gaming franchises, is this something EA has been cognizant of/interested in? A. "Cognizant of, yes, interested in, yes as well, though The Sims is actually even better. Understanding what to do about? No."

Q. What were your lessons learned from Mass Effect: Andromeda and why it went that bad? A. "I don't actually think it went that bad. It had a rough launch, so it kind've escaped a little early. That's probably its biggest problem. If it had released in the state that it was at within a month, it would've been a lot better received. Now it did also launch up against Zelda and Horizon, so, the number one lesson there is - when Dragon Age: Inquisition shipped and the Inquisition team was talking to the other team, one of the biggest things we said was 'don't use Inquisition as your baseline, it should be your worst-case', and a lot of the planning on Mass Effect: Andromeda was done using Dragon Age: Inquisition as the best case, so, what happened, basically its end got squeezed out of existence."

Q. What do you think about a Mass Effect: Andromeda remake? A. "Seems early, but maybe, some day. I mean it's kind've healed its perception to a large degree, kind've like Dragon Age II but for different reasons, it's not seen as as bad as it was seen at launch, so, I think there's a market there."

Q. Have there ever been discussions within BioWare of visual novels as a possible format for their franchises? A. "Yeah, it's come up, it's even been pitched. Hard for EA to do little things."

[source and full video link]

[worldburnrp]

MARCH 2ND, 2024

A POLITICAL RENDEZVOUS at THE CLOISTERS

FINAL PART

The auction is over. The winners are announced. Guests leave the venue either celebrating, or cursing the Cloisters for all they're worth.

The protest outside the venue caused some disturbance — including making it hard for Abel Rousseau (@abelrousseau) and Alan Dietrich (@alandietrich) to leave the premises, getting trapped by its chaos —, and it ended with a few pairs of wrists in tight handcuffs. In the list of names you can find Sebastian Sideris (@sebastiansideris) and Vanja Janko-Pagonis (@vanjajanko-pagonis), who were arrested by Rowan Halliday (@chiefhalliday) and Flynn Halliday (@flynnxhalliday).

The Democrats rounded out the event with a whopping $171,600 worth of donations through the auction, despite the mysterious disappearance of the garland style diamond necklace — which had been been purchased for $30,000... but ultimately stolen by Zane Saxena (@zanexsaxena) before it could be to its new owner. Across the isle, Republicans ended the auction at $91,650 worth of donations.

Coincidence or not, the same results were reflected on the cover of the New York Times the very next day — with the Democrats leading the polling numbers by 5%.

EVENT WRAP-UP INFO

The roles assigned above are a reflection of the 'BY THE END OF PART 3...' prompt provided in the previous part. Please do read back in case you missed it! Points* were tallied by the admins and the characters with most/least bucks were given the plot points above — which they can do anything with from that! While those pointers must happen, everything else in plotting is up to you.

*The points which were taken into consideration were: Replies posted + challenges completed, excluding only auction wins as we wanted to avoid wealthier characters to have an advantage over the rest. Worry not, those auction points will still be added to your burnie bucks bank — they just weren't included in this particular in-character round up.

The hijacking of an auction item was purchased in the burnie bucks store by Zane Saxena.

In addition, Mathias Malkovich is the character who acquired the most amount of points overall during the event, with a total of 1720 points. As a result, the player will get to choose a reward as offered by the admins. Those options being:

Promotion to Senior Hitman — A level above the one Mathias currently holds, where he would then earn higher income, and be assigned to higher profile targets. (Alternatively, a different position within the Hitman realm, which can be suggested by the player.)

Get Out of Jail Free Card — What it says on the tin. Mathias may do one thing of his choice, be it a crime or otherwise, and get away with it with no consequences.

Always-Available Blame Key — One Blame Key which Mathias may use for anything, whenever he wants to; free of charge and that can be used without constraints of any events, plots, etc.

OOC INFO

PART FOUR out of FOUR. The event is now over.

Members don't need to drop event threads if they don't wish to, but we recommend trying to wrap them in a timely manner. <3

Members are also free to use the plot points featured on this post as talking points for future threads or interactions, if they wish to.

If you believe we made any mistakes or missed anything in tallying up points, please shoot us an IM and we'll work with you to make sure you get the rewards you worked hard for!

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED <3

[pokemonunderdogtournament]

can I request cinderace for the butch flag for the pokemon that looks like a pride flag polls?

Ah, so nominations are closed for that particular subtournament at this point. Once any tournament starts posting, it's a bit too late to add to the pool. In order to get the proper matchups, I'd basically just have to start it over completely with the modified pool.

I was accepting nominations for pretty much all of December and a bit of January, but I can understand how someone might miss it. I'll try to make future nominations forms easier to notice, though I don't think we'll have a lot of them overall.

[thelostgirl21]

Definitely missed that poll too!

Yeah, I'm kind of really sad about it, because I'm the one that had asked for a version of the poll specifying if it was for the TV show or the videogame character, back in September.

Since then, I had periodically been checking on the @foundfamilyadoptionagency blog to see when submissions would reopen, so I could submit Radovid with a picture and description of the character, specifically from the TV show this time, and was planning to rally other fans (especially those that I know have a large number of Radovid/Radskier fans followers) of the character to reblog the poll so fans of the TV show and the character would hopefully see it.

I'm thinking of one person, in particular, that tends to make the notes on my own Radovid posts soar whenever she reblogs them.

But Destiny apparently had other plans, I completely missed it (therefore didn't vote, nor did I get the chance to increase its visibility among fans of the TV show and the TV show character) and, at some point, it would be ridiculous to just keep insisting for it to be reposted again and again, expecting a different result.

That being said, I was extremely surprised and very touched that they'd remembered it, though!

I was not expecting they'd be doing a second version without a reminder, or someone giving a proper submission, so a part of me went "OMFG! They're so sweet!", while at the same time face-palming that most fans I know seemed to have missed it.

I have a feeling that a lot of Radovid (show version) fans tend to check out the Radskier (Jaskier/Radovid ship) tag more often, too, since that allows us to avoid posts about the videogame character (and most Radovid posts are also connected to Jaskier and their relationship anyway).

Or they simply follow the few main blogs that keep creating and reblogging content about Radovid and Radskier directly to get their fix.

But yeah, given said main blogs did not appear to notice or repost the poll, I'm actually not at all surprised by the results.

Because "The Witcher" 's fandom is a bit of an eclectic mess of clashing ideologies, values, and extremes.

Including hardcore videogame fans that were expecting the TV show to religiously follow the narrative of the games, rather than create their own adaptation of the books.

So, while you will get people disliking Radovid for the usual (and perfectly valid, BTW) fandom reasons, such as:

They simply fail to emotionally connect or relate to him,

They feel like the show had been building a romance between Geralt and Jaskier for the first 2 seasons, only to instead pair him up with another newly introduced character in season 3.

You also have some videogame fans that are having a hard time treating these two characters as two completely different persons, and will even readily admit that they have an irrational dislike of Radovid based on his videogame counterpart.

Again, a fairly reasonable thing to happen that does affect the character's overall popularity, but usually those fans are pretty laid back about it and don't mind that people that only read the books and never played the games, or have only been watching the TV show, fell in love with the show's version of the character.

Videogame Radovid and TV show Radovid, are essentially two very different original characters that were created to serve very different purposes, that were vaguely inspired by a few lines from the books.

One is a villain people love to hate.

The other basically Netflix's version of a Disney Prince.

But then, you also have a very passionate and extremely vocal group of gamers (type "The Witcher" on YouTube, and get ready to enter incel territory!), that will be losing their shit over the fact that they made Radovid a super gentle and sensitive gay prince that admits to being scared, huddles and weeps in a corner when he finds out his guards have all been slaughtered, has a romance with Jaskier on the show, and is ready to leave his life at court behind to go chase after love; instead of the cruel, paranoid badass hypermasculine dictator king that was written for the 3rd videogame.

And then, there's also the argument that: "Jaskier is straight in the books and videogames! How dare they make Jaskier queer by having Radovid be written as Vizimir's adult younger brother instead of being his 12 y.o. son? They aged up a character just to make the show more woke and gay! It's so wrong! " we keep getting from queerphobic audiences.

Basically, TV show Radovid has been getting a large amount of hate from toxic subgroups of the gaming community ever since Jaskier was announced as being in a M/M relationship with him.

It's not even an issue they have with Radovid specifically, but the show in general.

There are entire YouTube channels devoted to hating on the show, it's creators, and everything they deem to be wrong with it, such as the way it focuses too much on Yennefer and Ciri when it's supposed to be called "The Witcher" (not "The Sorceress" or "The Child of Surprise"), having chosen to cast women with healthy and diverse body types (and ethnicities) to portray sorceresses that are described as the most beautiful women on the Continent in the books (when the videogames gave them more "conventionally attractive looking", and often white, in animated form), etc.

And that sort of general resentment towards the show for wishing to explore its own themes, being more inclusive, and taking their adaptation in a different direction than the games (and the books, at times, like most TV show and movie adaptations will do), means they'll take any opportunity they have to express their discontent.

I remember a poll, at some point where the "Radovid's character was screwed over on the Netflix show" option was winning, until the fan I'm talking about earlier reblogged it, and then the "He was treated just fine!" option won (I think the "he was screwed over" ended up with only 15% votes after it was reblogged by fans of the TV show).

So, you have gamers that hate everything about the show and the way it's different from the games... that are sharing the same space/tags as people that love the show, and either have no interest in the games, or are able to appreciate each as two very different takes on the same shared source material.

Of course they positively hate the way the TV show ignored the King Radovid from the 3rd game and created their own character. So they'll wish to "ditch" that version.

And, of course they hate videogame King Radovid, given he's meant to be hated on! He's an awful human being!

Radovid might stand a chance in a context where the fans of the TV show and of the new romance with Jaskier are given a chance to mobilize on their voting.

Otherwise, the fact that he got close to half the votes without help from any Radovid/Radskier centric blogs is actually... rather impressive!

He's actually more popular and beloved than I thought! 😆

So, don't worry too much about it. It's already extremely nice and considerate that you (the poll creator) were willing to give his TV show version a chance, so that it was clearer which one of the two characters we were voting on.

But yeah, "The Witcher" 's fandom itself is a very strange and sometimes scary place to navigate.

[toxic-ship-tournament]

ROUND 2 / SIDE B / POLL 2

Matejka x Darling Nikki (@outpost-31 & @rhaaclaws) vs Ludovica Rossi x Pier Lombardi (@raybotonline)

who makes up your ship?:

Matejka (he/him) [by @outpost-31] and Darling Nikki (she/they) [by @rhaaclaws]

why does your ship deserve to be considered the most toxic?:

Darling Nikki and Matejka met in 1524, after Nikki's mother's death, and got into a duel- proposed by Matejka- at the price of Nikki's soul. She ended up winning the fight, and was turned into a vampire. They stayed together afterwards due to both being immortal, and have known each other closely since then. The reason why we think they deserve to win is their extreme codependence: Matejka is extremely attached to Nikki, because she looks like his dead wife Esmé, whom he's still in love with. Nikki takes advantage of him and roleplays as Esmé during sex. This unhealthy attachment to Nikki began consuming his life, so they got into a fight and split up for nearly 100 years. This caused the both of them to become incredibly suicidal, as they'd known each other for 4 centuries at this point, and they barely knew how to live without each other. Even missing each other so dearly, their relationship has the tendency to be very unhealthy. Once, Nikki insulted Matejka's dead wife as a joke, and he almost dragged them out to the sun in an attempt to kill them. Another time, she tried to eat Matejka (due to being a cannibal), but thought his black blood was disgusting. They know each other like no one else does, but still have layer of distrust. Nikki doesn't even know Esmé's name. Altogether, their bond is an incredibly complex one due to the nature of their immortality, but their unhealthy overreliance on each other has nearly ruined both their lives.

ship tags/playlists/pinterest boards?:

Ship name: Red Flags And Long Nights Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4GJDQdhpDITspMvp9c99m9?si=29599a8e944946a3

****

who makes up your ship?:

Ludovica Rossi / Pier Lombardi

why does your ship deserve to be considered the most toxic?:

Well. Ludovica met Pier when the two of them were in college and they both hit it off quite well, but once they graduated and got married immediately after things started to go a bit downhill. You see, Ludovica, being an aspiring business owner, was never really in it for the love-- she was in it to make herself look good, and what looks better to the public than a woman in STEM who is still married and has a child while being the ever so responsible CEO of a robotics company? Over the 10 or so years they were together (6 of which they were married for) Ludovica grew to resent Pier and all of his shortcomings, but was at least happy he was easy to manipulate into doing whatever she wanted. After a while, she divorced Pier, but one condition set Pier off the deep end; he wasn't allowed to see his daughter Chiara ever again. This condition made Pier, for lack of better words, completely *snap*, and he ended up completely reprogramming one of HINTCORP's (the robotics company Ludovica owns and that Pier worked for) prototype assistance robots to be a killing machine, and attempted to murder Ludovica with it. He didn't succeed at all, and dissappeared completely after the murder attempt, leading everyone around him to assume he died-- in particular, Ludovica claimed to the press and the court that he had committed suicide after the fact. Pier is, of course, still alive, lurking the halls of the abandoned HINTCORP building like a ghost. For more information, here's their separate toyhouse pages-- Ludovica: https://toyhou.se/9741346.ludovica-rossi Pier: https://toyhou.se/9728723.pier-lombardi The image submitted is the two of them in their college years :-)

ship tags/playlists/pinterest boards?:

spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1StZkXat6iCSVwpp1OLhAi?si=e69524c2cb65406b

[idesofrevolution]

Welp as you can guess, Biker TF won the poll. So here we go kids.

It’d been weeks since I had... become who I am today. I’m still learning how to wield the power that Miss Marie had given me- and there were a few mistakes made along the way. But at the end of the day, I’d grown into a much more competent practitioner, so I decided one drunken evening to treat myself. After a delicious evening with a hunky biker bear, I’d convinced him to let me have his spare set of wheels. Riding came naturally to me- the open road and the wind rushing against me gives such a sense of freedom. It’s hard to explain. We still ride down the backroads outside of town just about once a week, although I’m sure the cruising spot in the bayou clearing does certainly help instigate such rides.

It was one summer afternoon after one such ride and rendezvous, wafting with the stench of sweat and sex, that I came across a young hitchhiker. He was young, maybe 21 or so with gorgeous ebony skin and a lean slender frame. I pulled over, and he quickly ran over to me.

“Hey, are you going as far as town?” His voice was frail and weak. A timbre of defeat echoed from the back of his throat, he’d clearly been through a lot. 

“Sure am. Here, hop on and take the spare helmet.” I smiled at him, and he coyly avoided my glance. He awkwardly mounted the bike, nearly tipping us over. “Never ridden before? Aight, put your arms here, and keep your feet up.” I gently guided his wrists around my waist and he tightly held on, nearly knocking the wind out of me. As we took off, he clutched me even tighter. Riding down the road, I could sense he was a broken kid. The air of sadness permeated his energy, and shaded every ounce of his body language. I don’t think he ever realized just how beautiful a soul he had.

About ten minutes of riding, I noticed we were nearly running on fumes. Luckily, an exit sign harked a little good fortune with a Shell station off the road. We pulled over at the nearest gas pump, and dismounted. 

“I’m gonna fill up, take this and get yourself something to eat man, you’re skin and bones!” I handed him a $20, and he looked at me as if I had three horns and purple skin. He blushed and walked toward the convenience store, but turned back to ask if I needed anything.

I looked at him, standing there against the cinderblock building and decided that he would get the help he deserved. If from nobody else, he would get it from me. I shook my head no, and he entered the store. Filling the tank took all of five minutes before it had topped off. I slid my card in, paid my dues and started to put my gloves back on before I noticed he had not come back out. To my left was another bike, sitting vacant and alone. Alarm bells went off and I rushed into the convenience store. 

I opened the door and could immediately hear the shouting. Behind the counter some teenage dumbass was fuckin around on his phone, not thinking a thing of the brazen diatribe that was filling the room. There, behind the wall of Doritos, Pretzels, and Slim Jims was the young kid, and a big hulking stag of a man shouting with his chest all puffed up like a blowfish. The foul, revolting shit that spewed from that mans mouth was beyond anything that I’d care to repeat in any way here, but when I say it was in reference to his ancestry I’m sure you can fill in the blanks. Grabbing his shoulder like a vice grip, I was about to teach this man what’s what.

“I think it’s time for you pipe the fuck down.” The man turned to me, covered in grease and stinking from days of riding in the summer heat. You know the type, ripped up and stained wife beater with tight, patched jeans; topped off with big beat up harness boots that were clearly two sizes too big. He sneered, sizing me up to see where his chances were in this fight. 

“Ahh, so you’re gonna be this little fuck’s hero, huh? You’re gonna be his WHITE knight, huh? See, I’m just letting him know that in these parts, it’d be best if he just fucked right off.” I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I have a bit of a temper issue which can get the best of me.. In the particular instance, however, I’d say I’m proud as all hell that I held that white trash by the throat about a sold foot above the ground. Tossing him aside, he landed against the aisle shelves like a ragdoll. I smirked, and figured out just how I would help this young man.

“Come on over, kid.” I waved him over, and he sheepishly plodded over to us. The racist tried in vain to pull himself up off the ground, but my size 13 Vans against his big burly chest had him pinned like a mouse in a trap. “I think this man needs a bit of an education, don’t you?” The kid smiled, looking down. I gently held his chin up. “And you need a confidence boost.” 

“Ah, your fuckin’ queers too! I shoulda gue...” I shoved my foot into his stupid maw, silencing him for the last time. I turned to my soon to be apprentice and smiled. I pushed a bit harder, watching my shoe sink further and further into that piece of shit’s mouth, before my entire foot was engulfed by his stretched head. The kid looked in awe as our prey squirmed and fought, and I think it was at this point that the situation clicked in his mind.

“Yeah, hows my foot taste, bitch? They sure stink to high hell, they’re my favorite pair. Kinda jealous of you to be honest.” I wriggled my foot inside his head, watching the outline of my high tops slide around under his skin. I’d played around with him long enough. I turned to the kid, who I’d noticed was tenting ever so slightly and winked. “Might wanna get rid of your threads, bud, you’re not gonna need ‘em.” With a quick jerk of my knee, my foot slipped out of his mouth, his head returning to normal. 

“You stupid fucks, I’m gonna fuckin kill you!” He would never get the chance. In fact, he was about to learn first hand what it’s like to have a healthy amount of melanin. With his clothes chucked aside, and his manhood at full mast, the kid walked toward the writing man. He gingerly put a single toe into his mouth, and pushed. His foot slipped effortlessly into the man’s throat, and quickly tugging at the corners of his mouth, he slipped foot number two in. The man was wriggling like a worm, I’m sure desperately trying to spew empty threats to ward us off. The sight of the kid’s lowering ass onto his stretched face caused a little bit of a muffled shriek to escape his cords. Now, musky, sweaty hitchhiker ass would be a treat to me on even the worst of days, but evidently some just can’t appreciate it’s mouthwatering flavor and scent. With his crack nuzzled right down on the good old boy’s nose, he began to pull on the man’s legs.

I watched proudly as his feet slipped downward, distorting his muscles under the tight confines of his jeans, before a sharp pop landed them inside the destroyed boots. They fit perfectly now, and I could just begin to smell the strong funk of greasy, funky socks and feet. The kid kept sliding into his body, his midsection growing and seemingly inflating with strong muscles. The old tank began to tear and rip, before it was shredded by the sheer mass of the inked, mocha colored abs and pecs that prominently burst forward. 

The kid’s face was in full elation, as he squeezed his arms down the throat, pulling the skin above his shoulders with a loud snap. His arms slipped into place; thick biceps and forearms bubbling outward from the man’s already impressive musculature. His tatted hands flexed, the new sensation of calloused fingertips and meaty palms seemingly fascinated him as he began to rub his new body.

I removed my foot from my new friend’s chest, and helped him up. This man was a beast! Towering to a massive 6′5, he was bigger, broader, and stronger than me- and I’ll admit... it was hot seeing this hulking, musky hunk standing before me with the youthful, boyish face of an early twenty-something. I eagerly awaited the final stretch as he pawed the whimpering final mask of the former racist’s face. Grabbing it by the nose, he pulled ever so slowly, savoring every second the slimy flesh slipped over his head until it snapped loudly into place. He adjusted his new face as the dark complexion flowed up his neck and across his scalp and jaw. He opened his dark brown eyes and smiled a million dollar smile at me.

“Now this is what I’m talkin’ about man!” The only word that came to my mind was stunning. His exterior finally matched his interior: sexy, proud, and strong. “Oh shit...” He looked downward, and within seconds I knew exactly what the issue was. Speaking from experience, not all the adjustments are as easy, so I decided my assistance was required. Getting down onto my knees, I unzipped his jeans, pulling them down. It revealed the yellowed, reeking jockstrap beneath which nearly concealed the problem area. 

Glued down behind his skin was the outline of his cock and balls. Just as I thought. Pulling down the jockstrap, I grabbed the hollow shaft and sac, tugging it up and down. Little by little his cock slid toward the chasm before it fully slipped in with a loud schlorp! When I tell you that cock grew into a footlong dong in seconds... with two sweat-dripping golf balls hanging low to garnish... I couldn’t restrain myself. I took it in my mouth, licking up every droplet of salty sweet sweat, pumping the precum out of it like a faucet. He grabbed the back of my head, thrusting his horse cock down my throat, fucking it like a fleshlight. His smelly balls slapped against my chin, and I could feel them engorging, getting ready to blow. 

And blow they did. Rope after rope. Straight down my throat. Every cup of it was whatever sadness, whatever insecurities, whatever weights held him down; now completely purged. He pulled out and I pulled my apprentice into deep kiss. This is who he truly was, and it was a fitting circumstance for it to happen. We turned to the slackjawed cashier, who evidently witnessed everything. I tossed him a $100, and we left. Hopping on our bikes, we headed back to town. The things I was going to teach dear Antoine here were going to blow his mind, and potentially his load too.

Okay kids. So there you have it. This was a long motherfucker and I’m sure it’s the longest I’ve ever written. If you haven’t guessed by now, each installment of Sebastian’s stories will be focused on punishing hate. This is what’s brought me out of retirement, and this is what I love writing now. I’ll of course listen to the feedback that y’all have provided me- I will do one-offs still. In fact, I’ll probably do a one-off next. Let me know what y’all think in my askbox. Thank you guys so much for all the support you’ve shown me.

[troped-fanfic-challenge]

JATP ROUND TWO FICS!

We received seventeen (17!!!!!) Fics for the Second Round of the JATP TROPED Event! These fics were fluff-filled and super fun, and we loved to see how you all challenged yourselves with the theme, tropes, and pairings!

Please try to read as many fics as you can! Take some notes, leave some kudos/comments for the authors, and help us vote on the winners!

Voting will be open until May 14th at 11:59pm EST! Vote here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/BZ3W5FT

Please rank ALL the fics in each question based on the USE of each trope, the theme, the fics overall, and the two bonus polls (best setting + most unique pairing)! Your #1 spot should be the best answer and your last spot the least likely answer for the question. The Best Overall Poll will determine who will be writing in the Final Round! We ask that you please rank EVERY fic, so we can avoid technical difficulties! A reminder that you must include a Tumblr or AO3 username/URL, and you may only vote once, we will NOT count multiple votes by the same person.

————

Okay, Campers, Rise and Shine! (Rated T) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: When Reggie launches a particularly ill-advised prank war at HGC Ranch, Luke's fully prepared to take it in stride.

When the days start looping, though, he begins to suspect that this might all be a little bit above his head.

In other words, he's at least 78% sure that the time loop isn't a direct result of Reggie's pranks.

Maybe 77%.

Oh, well.

At least he's not in it alone.

(The Groundhog Day meets Gravity Falls meets Summer Camp meets The Author's Own Distaste For Prank Wars AU that no one asked for. Ever. At all.)

Starting To Forget (Just What Summer Ever Meant To You) (Not Rated) [Flynn x Carrie]

Summary: Last summer didn't end on a positive note for Carrie Wilson - she and her girlfriend broke up on the last night of camp, and she's been miserable since. But it seems that the universe is intent on having her fix that this summer. Even if that means she has to live through the same day over and over and over again until she does.

Creative B.S. Was No More, Was No Less (Look Around, You're Gonna Miss What You Found) (Rated T) [Alex x Luke, Flynn x Reggie]

Summary: The midnight men move again

Don't know when

Best friends forever

In trouble again

Here's to you, here's to me

Over the rafters and we're free

--- Over the Rafters, Rick Schiffman

***

Alex and Luke go undercover on a mission to a summer camp in order to find a talisman that could endanger the camp and all the kids. While there, they bond with the kids and make peace with the fact that they broke up.

While Alex and Luke are away, Flynn accidentally fucks with time.

bitch but like romantically (Rated T) [Flynn x Carrie]

Summary: The dining hall’s exactly the same as it has been for two mornings now, and Flynn doesn’t hesitate to poke Willie twice on the nose and whisper “pancake” on her way past their seat.

His eyes widen and he whips his head around to follow them, excitement glimmering in their eyes.

“Really?” they blurt. Flynn rolls her eyes and nods.

~

or: flynn gets stuck in a time loop. {for troped jatp round 2}

down by the bay (Rated T) [Alex x Willie]

Summary: Over time, Camp Phantom has simply become known as a selective summer camp: one that took only the kids that Caleb saw promise in. And Caleb wasn’t exactly lying. He really did take only the ones he saw promise in, he simply looked for different traits than others might.

For example, say, hypothetically, a boy who could see the future. Or, hypothetically, a girl who could interact with ghosts. Or, hypothetically, a boy who could summon objects to him with a simple thought. Or, and this is completely hypothetical mind you, a boy who could manipulate time.

Those might be some traits that Caleb saw promise in. Just, like, as examples.

Time will tell (But only if you do it right) (Rated T) [Flynn x Carrie]

Summary: Carrie had been acting a little off for a week or so, but Flynn was pretty much known for seeing something in nothing, and that was probably what they were doing then. If something was going on, Carrie would tell her eventually.

OR

Who knew all it took was a little bit of miscommunication to mess up time itself?

and so it begins (Rated T) [Bobby x Reggie]

Summary: It’s the first day of their second week at Camp Carolling (they’re spending an entire month, and they’re getting paid to be there!) when Reggie gets a little lost in the woods. During this misadventure into the woods, he finds an egg shaped rock, an inhabited cabin that may or may not be riddled with signs, and something that might be magic. He probably doesn't get paid enough to discover magic.

or, when they were thirteen years old, four boys met at camp carolling and eventually became a band that almost became something legendary. now, all four boys are coming back as counselors, three boys in one band and one boy in his own solo act.

so begins the reunion, though it doesn't go how any of them imagine.

Porcupine Day (Rated T) [Bobby x Ray x Rose]

Summary: It’s been fifteen years since Trevor broke up with Ray and Rose and they’re... not fine, but managing. But when Trevor to adds insult to injury and buys the camp across the lake from the one they once owned together, the two camps become locked in a bitter rivalry. With neither side willing to set aside their pride and work out their issues, the universe decides to settle their fates itself.

Day After Day (After Day After Day) (Rated T) [Alex x Willie]

Summary: When Alex met Willie just after their senior year of high school, they spent a wonderful three months dating before their relationship ended in a blaze of glory. Now, four years later, they meet again as counselors at a summer camp. The only problem? Alex keeps reliving their first day together. The day that Luke had declared "Prank Day."

This is not how Alex pictured his summer going.

clocks move faster (it's all we're after) (Rated G) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: Julie likes it when her friends are happy, so when she realizes she's stuck in a time loop, she uses her knowledge to make sure everything works out for everyone... except she conveniently forgets to factor herself (and Luke) into the mix.

Touch of Magic (Not Rated) [Alex x Luke]

Summary: When everything stands in Luke and Alex’s way of getting to be with the people they love, they have to repeat the day over and over until they can get the happily ever after that they want.

The play's the thing (that goes wrong) (Rated T) [Alex x Willie]

Summary: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day for Macbeth, but not so for Alex and the production of Hamlet that he is directing and starring in. And while he's stuck repeating the day of the performance over and over, mishaps of all kinds befall the cast.

anything, anything (for another run with you) (Rated T) [Alex x Willie]

Summary: The moment Alex steps foot in Camp Greenwood, he knows that this summer is a bad idea.

He knows it as soon as he sees tan skin, long hair, and a tie-dyed crop top at the check-in table.

Willie.

-

the camp counselor/exes/prank war/time loop fic of your dreams (unless you read all of the other troped round 2 fics lmao)

there’s a glorious sunrise, dappled with the flickers of light (Rated T) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: What comes next happens in slow motion. Luke’s foot catches on the last rung of the ladder. Julie watches as he stumbles a step forward, barely catching himself before falling on his face. The ladder clatters to the floor below. The trapdoor, no longer propped open by it, falls closed with a loud thunk, the lock clicking into place. They’re stuck.

“Luke!” she exclaims loudly. “Look what you did!” Julie drops to her knees in front of the trap door, desperately trying to fit her fingers between the wood and the stone to pry it open again. Of course it doesn’t work.

“What?” he snaps back. “I wouldn’t be up here in the first place if it weren’t for you trying to fuck us over.”

or: ex-best friends Luke and Julie, working as camp counselors at rivaling camps, find themselves stuck in a time loop

the daughter of apollo (Rated T) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: (the JATP x Camp Half Blood AU that nobody asked for)

maybe the world isn't ending (maybe it's been postponed) (Rated G) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: Alex runs his fingers through Willie’s hair. “I think it’s best to just leave them to their own prank war at this point. Let’s not forget that time Julie put hot sauce in the coffee pot and my mouth was on fire for an entire hour.”

“You’re exaggerating, Alex-”

“I most certainly am not,” Alex cuts Reggie off.

“Or how about the time Luke tried to put glitter in Julie’s bed,” Carrie joins in, “but got my bed instead? I can appreciate some glitter, but even I know when enough is enough.”

“Suffice it to say,” Willie finishes after they’ve passed around a dozen or so more memories of pranks from the summer, “we’re all done being your collateral damage. Whatever Julie has planned for you tomorrow, Luke, you’re on your own.”

-

It's the last day of camp and Julie has one more prank planned for Luke. He just doesn't know what it is.

Here We Go Again (Rated T) [Julie x Luke]

Summary: Julie blinked as she stared at the place Euterpe had disappeared. What did that even mean? What journey? Old places and lost faces? What was she talking about? But before she could dwell on the questions swirling around in her mind, the sky full of stars began to move, shifting in place and descending until they were all around her. Julie felt her feet leave the ground as she rose up and up. One star in particular was burning brighter than the others, growing bigger in front of her.

It grew and grew, until the light was blinding and Julie had to throw a hand up against the harsh light. She closed her eyes as the light surrounded her and then she was falling. Falling down, down, down.

[onenightbreak]

....so that was a whole deal am i right? excuse any weirdness with this cos i’m kinda shaky rn, but here’s a recap for today’s (24th jan) tales from the smp: The Lost City of Mizu! under the cut smile :] my own interpretations/ things that aren’t explicitly told to be canon/ left to be inferred i’ve marked with italics.

Why show all the skins again when I can let someone else gather them? /j Here’s a post with the skins of all the characters. The cast is Karl, Quackity, BBH, Ranboo, and Dream; playing characters Isaac, Cletus, Benjamin, Charles, and Ranbob, respectively.

The episode starts with the fishermen - Isaac, Cletus, Benjamin, and Charles - setting out on a fishing expedition, before discovering a book that, among other exposition, tells the fishermen the coords of the Lost City of Mizu. Also of note is the fact that the author tells the fishermen that “I [the author] know you [the fishermen] but you don’t know me” and it’s signed with the letter ‘K’, suggesting that c!Karl left the book for them to find. 

Once they arrive at the city, they find a book that calls Mizu “an underwater city of beauty” and that they can “get up close and personal with all your favorite characters from the Disc Wars”. They enter the city and meet a person who identifies themself as Ranbob, who later adds that he is a descendent of Ranboo. Despite being a descendent of Ranboo, Ranbob’s appearance  differs from his ancestor’s. While Ranbob has both the black enderman skin and the white other-half skin, the arrangement is different, and he has yellow and purple eyes instead of Ranboo’s green and red ones. Endermen used to have green eyes before they were purple, so perhaps it’s related to that? Ranbob tells the fisherman that Mizu has been “abandoned for so long, other than me”, but that he wasn’t around when it was built. During most of the episode, he acts as a tour guide of sorts, showing around the fishermen. 

The rooms they visit are themed around the different people involved in the current day DSMP storyline, however many things are incorrect suggesting things got misremembered or changed over time. According to Mizu’s history:

George was the longest lasting king of the SMP and worshipped by his followers. However, Eret killed him, as they were a tyrant who tried to take over. 

Ranboo and his bloodline were bookkeepers and scholars. Ranboo in particular, was one of the greatest scholars, due to his supreme memory and writing everything down. He is also said to have chosen the side of a traitor due to his not choosing a side.

Sapnap was a fierce warrior on the Dream SMP. He had a large love for pets, and started the Pet War over defending them. He was also said to be so strong he could bench press mountains. Sapnap has a larger than usual bed due to his many women. (and historians said that him Karl and quackity were just very close friends /j)

Mizu is uncertain if Fundy was a person or a pet, with some people seeing him as a great warrior and some seeing him as Tommy’s pet (i hate it here i hate it here i hate-).

Quackity is very “happy-go-lucky even though there are so many bad things happening around him”. He was a well known bard, a “prolific nudist”, pulled many pranks, and idolised Skeppy. Quackity was also known for being “hyper optimistic”, apparently because he was so dumb he didn’t realise the bad things happening around him.

Skeppy had some kind of diamond poisoning that made him blue, but he sometimes changed colors to red or yellow. He was also known to be best friends with BBH, “if a little obsessed with him”.

BBH was known for prolific cursing and casting spells on people, including the enchantment “lan-gu-age” which prevented the target from speaking. He also apparently had excessive amounts of porn on his hard drive, but I think this is just a(n unfunny) joke from Dream and so I will simply Pretend I Do Not See.

Attached to BBH’s room is a secret room with green and purple carpets and beds, lots of books, and a picture of the cartoon Kids Next Door. Mizu’s scholars don’t know who this character is but it seems likely to be Karl, with confusion about him due to his time travelling.

Tubbo and Tommy share a room, with Tubbo known to be the leader and strongest of the Manberg warriors and Tommy his most loyal ally and follower. Tubbo is also known to like nature and particularly bees (which Mizu thinks you eat?). Tommy is known to “have a problem worshipping discs”, but the discs shown are Cat on the ceiling and 13 above the bed.

During their exploration, they also find several books with hints pointing to how Mizu’s residents met their downfall, including poisoned soil, decreasing food supplies, air filtration and oxygen problems, lacking energy production, and “strange sightings around the east wing”. Additionally, one of the walls is broken and Ranbob patches it up with TNT, as that’s “the only block he had to clog it”.

The last place Ranbob leads the group to is the Tree Dome, which contains a large custom tree, swings, and a bench with jukebox. Ranbob disappears, and the fishermen find a secret room key. The also spot a chest at the very top of the tree, and cc!Karl opens an audience poll to decide who climbs the tree, the result of which is Cletus. He climbs the tree to the the chest before Ranbob reappears and sets the tree on fire, saying that “no one lives after coming [to the city]”, and blows up the tree, killing Cletus. The other 3 fishermen make it out and hide in Skeppy’s room to read the book dropped by Cletus. The book says that the secret room key lock(?) is hidden in the main hall, and confirms Ranbob’s message that “once in the City of Mizu, there is no escape”.

They find the secret room, which contains a lava parkour leading to a key to unlock another door on the other side of the room. The audience votes again, deciding that Benjamin should attempt the parkour, which of course he falls off of and dies. Isaac successfully completes the parkour and brings back the final room key. (if you aren’t afraid of that wording, you really should be)

The final room is Dream’s room, with several sets of diamond armor, a diorama of Dream, and a ellipse pattern on the wall that resembles Blocks. Ranbob reappears and tells the Isaac and Charles that everyone in Mizu had an idol that they worshipped, and that his was Dream. Isaac asks if Dream was a good man, to which Ranbob says that he was. Ranbob tells them a final time that “nobody leaves” Mizu, before killing them both.

The stream cuts to black and plays a remix of Dearly Beloved while cc!Karl changes his skin and changes the set. When the stream shows again, the stream is focused on c!Karl. He walks through a cave to a room decorated with a purple and green carpet, and books and posters for the Tales episodes of Legends of Gogtopia and The Village that Went Mad, however is missing the poster from the Beach Episode. c!Karl writes a book that recaps in blurb form the events of The Lost City of Mizu, labels it as such and places it under the relevant poster. He also writes a diary entry which is labeled “Diary entry #1”, which mentions that he remembers less every time he time travels, however that he “has to keep doing [his] part” to “right some wrongs”. He ends it with “dont forget who you are” and signs it “Diary #1”. c!Karl then goes outside and goes into F5, showing that the colors on the front of his hoodie are reversed; a purple spiral on green background, rather than the reverse that is it normally. cc!Karl cuts to black again, lets the music finish, then ends stream.

(then i spend the next 10 minutes freaking out abt it, cos wtf was that that was so good-)

[yessoupy]

I'm going to add my completely unnecessary two cents here. scroll on past if you like.

I'm on Twitter for news/politics and a little bit of baseball. An important refrain when dealing with "what does America think?" is "Twitter is not real life." Twitter is much more left-leaning than the American public, and much more politically active.

With no formal polling to back me up, I'm going to make the same statement regarding Tumblr. Tumblr is not "real life" and by that I mean, we do not accurately represent the majority of fans of Harry Styles. We are Very Online and the first to know basically anything. We care most deeply, but we are but a small chunk of the fanbase.

For SURE, we as a whole are frustrated, angry, upset about how this tour is being handled. (I say we to represent the piece of fanbase I'm talking about, not saying I'm necessarily frustrated personally.) From our perspective, it's absurd that any communication would wait this long.

For the average fan, however, they're likely going to their local show. They might need to ask off work for one shift, but maybe not. They don't need a flight, they don't need a hotel, etc. It's annoying, if they've thought it could be rescheduled again, but it's COVID and these things happen.

I cannot say that I personally am upset about this. Should I be? Maybe. Do I blame anyone for being mad? Nope! I see your point. Maybe it's my medication leveling out my anxiety, or maybe I've just grown accustomed to events I look forward to being rescheduled, and have factored in the monetary costs or made these decisions eyes wide open each time.

There's another thing I always keep in mind, something I learned from having my heart broken by baseball trades: baseball is a business, ultimately. So, too, is the music industry and Harry in particular. Yes, it behooves the front office to put a team on the field that the fans want to pay to see, but there's the money side they have to deal with as well. Harry can afford to lose diehards because he has such broad appeal and can expect more diehards will take their place. SHITTY THING TO THINK but it's a business.

Does keeping this bit of distance from the artist/team mean that I'm missing out on some good ~feelings? For sure. I'll never feel the highs as some of y'all get to feel.

now feel free to destroy me.

[regrettablewritings]

Modern!Jaskier x Reader Ship Meme

Prompts taken from this ship meme

Which one texts like a straight white boy?: Of course it would have to be our resident white boy. It isn’t even that he necessarily means to, there’s just an embarrassing amount of overlap between the messages a straight white boy tends to text, and those of your rising star boyfriend. You’d look more into it if it weren’t for the fact that you know there’s no actual malice in it, and because it’s just so sad that it’s funny. If one were to go into the photos saved on your phone, they would’ve surely come upon an entire album of screenshots you’d taken over the years, from when Jaskier would be on tour without you to when he’d just be resting at home while you were out at work. Things like: “Wat r u up to 2nit, cutie? ;)” “I’m probably just gonna play whatever’s on my Watch Later backlog on youtube until I conk out.” “Wild!!! anyway wat would u do if i was there rn~?” Or “Do u miss me? :(” “Of course I do ya dingus!” “Ok....Can we do a quickie over videochat?” “Jas i’m at the store.” “The point still stands.” Or “Watcha thinkin bout? ;)” “About how The Great Gatsby becoming public domain means there’s nothing stopping anyone from making a drag show interpretation called The Gay Dragsby.” “Aaww w/o me? ;)” “...” “WAIT NO I THOUGT YOU’D SAY YOU WERE THINKING ABOUT ME SHIT NO.” “BUT ACTUALLY DO GO ON IM KINDA INTERESTD.” If it were anybody else, you would’ve blocked them. But this wasn’t anybody else. It was your Jaskier: Your foolhardy, constantly horny, but never-short-of-loving Jaskier. And besides, not for nothing, at least they were something you could get a laugh out of.

Which one cried during a fucking Disney movie?: Once again, Jaskier is the guilty party. It’s no secret that he’s the more emotional of the two of you -- he wore his investment in Titanic with pride, after all. But it is a secret that the particular Disney movie to make him cry was Hercules of all things! Not Bambi, not The Lion King, not even Beauty and the Beast, but goddamn Hercules! (On another note, he also cried to Coco. But that barely counts: Literally everyone and their mother has cried during Coco. The only difference here was that Jaskier could relate to being a young man so in love with music while coming from a family that discouraged the pursuit of it.) This isn’t a knock on anyone who enjoys the movie, mind you, but let’s be honest: Out of the Disney animated canon, Hercules isn’t exactly the most . . . emotionally cathartic or heart-string-plucking of the bunch. But just because it didn’t go out of its way to create a crying frenzy doesn’t mean that it’s lacking in some humanity. It is, after all, still a Disney film. The problem is, Jaskier can’t even quite express why it made him cry the night you both decided to watch it. Maybe it had something to do with a young man most people took as a joke trying to achieve greatness? And to be fair, “Go the Distance (Reprise)” and “A Star is Born” differently when you’ve done some growing . . .

Who put a goddamned fork in the microwave?: It only happened once, but you’d never let him live it down. You like to joke that you’d left him to his own devices for just fifteen minutes so that you could take a shower -- of which was completely true -- and that was all he needed for things to go downhill. Nobody wants to think they’d be in the wrong for trusting a 20-something year-old to not be his usually somewhat distractable self. But that particular day, said 20-something year-old decided to occupy that little spot of time to himself with TV and a plate of leftovers. And normally this would’ve been fine and dandy. But normally, Jaskier would’ve just waited for the food to heat before searching for something to watch. It shouldn’t have been too big of an issue that it went the other way around that day, but apparently it was. As much as he wanted to (which honestly wasn’t by much), Jaskier just couldn’t tear his eyes away from the images flashing on the TV. The baby blues were set on the screen the entire while -- up until he heard a faint popping. Followed by a sound he normally only heard in a cheesy sci-fi movie. The problem was, he wasn’t watching anything even remotely science-fiction-y . . . All you were doing when you exited the bathroom was going to grab your lotion. That was literally all you had any expectations for. What you hadn’t expected to come upon was your boyfriend, hollering and diving over the sofa in order to scramble into the kitchen and stop that strange, not-good-sounding sound. Suffice to say, you had to put your shower on hold; it simply had to wait for you to finish fussing, then again for you to finish laughing your ass off. And again because if you entered the shower still laughing, you’d probably slip and break your head open and then Jaskier would have to deal with another possible emergency caused by himself.

Who does the silly hands-over-the-eyes “Guess who?” thing?: You can both be guilty of it, but Jaskier without a doubt does it more. Sometimes he’ll emerge from “his cave” (aka the little nook in the apartment where he likes to mess around and write lyrics or arrangements) on a break and catch an unsuspecting you sitting on the couch or at the dinner table. Other times, it could just be when he comes back from running some errands or doing a quick interview at the local radio station. You don’t mind it much . . . Especially since you can get a rise out of him by purposefully guessing the wrong person. (“Hmmm . . . Could it be . . . my mail-order husband? Boy, that was quick. And all the way from Russia, too . . .” “Uh, no.” “The milkman, finally accepting my invitation to commence a torrid love affair?” “Okay, you know damn well -- ” “Or better yet: My hopes and dreams have manifested, oh, Waluigi, could it really and truly be you!?” “What in the absolute fuck --”)

Who puts their cold hands/feet on their partner?: Because it’s usually himself who presents as being the more mischievous of the two, and because he tends to run the warmest, it always shocks Jaskier when you decide to play dirty and put your cold limbs all over him. Is it childish? Yes. But are his reactions to the sudden feeling of icy flesh hilarious? Also yes. You love to creep up on him when he’s tuning his guitar or scribbling down lyrics, or just minding his own damn business by trying to actually turn in relatively early for once. You love even more to watch him jolt and release the most high-pitched yip a man of his build could ever even joke about making. You’ll still be laughing about it as he scowls at you, cursing your “ghoul hands” and demanding to know if he’s dating a corpse at this point. Of course, no matter how peeved he might be, you can always count on one other thing from his dramatic reactions: Him huffily grabbing your hands into his own and rubbing them warm, or him forcing a park of fuzzy socks on your feet. And just for extra measure, you can be sure that he’ll spend the rest of the night holding you close or cuddling you -- “For exchanging bodily heat purposes,” he will always reason.

Who had that embarrassing reality TV marathon?: You both are guilty of it, actually. The question should really be, who is the least shameful about it. As with most things regarding a lack of shame, it was, of course, our dear Jaskier. Being a musician with a growing following, the little attention whore just can’t miss out on an opportunity to show himself off to his awaiting public. A rising star with relatability and a taste for trash? People eat that shit up! So you’ve learned to be less surprised every time he decides to liveblog himself watching things like Love Island or any of the 90-Day Fiancee spin-offs. In fact, in more recent times, you’ve come to join in with him, adding your own corresponding Tweets and commentary. Though don’t be too shocked once he starts holding polls and letting the public decide what show the two of you should watch next.

Who laughs more during sex?: You do, completely through Jaskier’s own efforts. Jaskier’s always had a pretty lax view of sex. This didn’t change when he met you, of course, but how he specifically portrayed that laxness did undergo some metamorphosis. Before, the entertainer was much more intent on his bedroom experiences being a display of power and an ability to please. Something dramatic and to be taken seriously. He still sees the importance of satisfaction in the bedroom, mind you, but with you, he can’t help but feel more . . . comfortable. With you, it’s a little more okay if he accidentally makes a dumb noise that in no way can be salvaged as sexy. With you, it’s a little more okay if he struggles to get his or your pants off, or if he struggles with removing your bra. And with you, he’s come to find that he’s a lot more okay with sharing a giggle or being a little more loose about things. It’s fine if your fingers tickle him or if he struggles to think of something proper dirty. But it’s even more fine if you think something he says or does makes you laugh, but not in a way that discredits his efforts. When you laugh, it shows that you’re comfortable with him. Comfortable enough to be with him, and be truly vulnerable. So do forgive him if he can’t help but run his fingers up your sides in a tickling fashion, or sloppily string together an innuendo. He simply loves how golden your laughter sounds, even in the throes of passion, intermingled with sweet whimpers and pleas of his name. How the heave of your chest and rippling of your tummy bumpily sync in with the rhythm of his thrusts . . . He just wants to see your smile, your genuine mirth, and bask in it with you. Besides, it serves as excellent song inspiration for him . . .

Who is the little spoon?: It depends on the sway of the day, really. As a whole, you both take turns without much thought simply because you tend to just fall into your positions. Some days, you just happen to lay into him in a way that makes you the little spoon. Other days, he conks out next to you in a manner that most could consider would make you the big spoon (or jet pack). Neither side really fights how it plays out unless one or the other may feel small and vulnerable, or just plain tired and in need of comfort. You often find yourself playing the role of the more dominating position during those first few days after Jaskier returning home from either a quick tour, or after finishing a long week of hours upon hours in the studio, or whatever kind of press-related nonsense his management team told him he needed to do. For as much as your boyfriend loved the spotlight, the truth was he was still quite capable of burning out and needing time to himself. Or, at the very least, just time with you. Even if that means he’s asleep for most of it, with you clinging to his back as he drifts off into a much-needed sleep. He makes sure to return it tenfold when you need just the same. Sure, your occupation may not be of the same nature as his own, but that didn’t mean you were in any less need of his cuddling. In fact, with him being gone as often as he was, Jaskier couldn’t help but feel almost guilty for not always being able to provide you with the basic comforts of being a constantly present boyfriend. Hence why the moment he would see your fatigued body crossing the threshold of your apartment, he would be all over you, ushering you into a quick shower, followed by a quick and simple dinner or snack, and capped off with him cuddling about you from behind. It didn’t matter if you’d come home right in the middle of a writing frenzy, or even if he’d been in the middle of searching for a breakthrough with an arrangement -- for as vain and bullheaded as Jaskier could be, he knew he owed you at least this much. You already put up with so much of his nonsense; this was quite literally the least he could do, both for you and for himself. Besides, he who was he to fight against the feeling of you wiggling closer into his hold, to deny himself the sound of your soft breathing as you lay yourself vulnerable to him? The fact of the matter is that he simply isn’t. He couldn’t be. Maybe in the beginning when things were still so unsteady and uncertain, but never now, when things had become so . . . well, what he could only describe as being “the both of you”. The both of you, molded and entwined, never wanting to let go. Never planning on it, either.

[life-observed]

Interview: Anthony Bourdain’s Ideal TV Audience Is Anthony Bourdain (SKIFT)

Anthony Bourdain, now in his 14th year as a chef-turned-author-turned television host makes television for Anthony Bourdain.

His desire, along with that of his long-term production team at Zero Point Zero, is to make travel shows that don’t appeal to a well scrutinized demographic. But appeal they somehow manage to do, despite a decidedly contrarian approach to the modern grand tour. In his shows we see poverty, political conflict, development run amok, violence, and how people really live like locals. Even the scenic cathedrals have a complicated backstory.

And it is succeeding. Bourdain is on his third network and regularly wins his time slot: At CNN Bourdain has turned his Sunday evening segments into some of the channel’s most-watched non-election related programming, regularly doubling the audiences of Fox News and MSNBC combined.

“I don’t make television for an audience really,” Bourdain told Skift. “I make it for the same reasons when I cook. You don’t see the customers when you’re cooking in a kitchen. You put the plates up to the window and the highest and the best thing that could happen is the cooks on either side of you look at it in an approving way. You put it up fast, you put it up good.”

You would think that a profane ex-chef with outspoken views on everything would not play well with a mass audience. But Bourdain brings in more then the urban foodie set each week. His deep dives into a list of destinations that are as frequently found in Bradt guides as they are in Fodor’s manage to tell a story through food, engagement with local issues, and avoidance of popular tourist sites.

The latest season of Parts Unknown on CNN begins this Sunday night with a visit to Manila, the Philippines during a natural disaster and holiday celebrations. We spoke with Bourdain twice earlier this month. Those conversations have been edited and combined, below.

Skift: Someone at Travel Channel once told me that it was the channel people ended up on when the show they wanted to watch wasn’t on. Why isn’t travel TV more compelling?

Bourdain: It shouldn’t be hard. It should be easy. It’s the best job in the world. I have a ridiculous and very unusual amount of freedom to go where I want, do what I want, and tell stories the way I want. It’s something I wonder about when I watch other shows. Why don’t people just talk like normal people? Why do they use TV voice? That’s a question that I’m always struck by. Why do they have to stick with a format? You’ll notice at the end of every segment they always sum up what we just saw, then they tease out what we’re about to see after the commercial.

Television in general is an environment where most of people who work in television live in a state of perpetual terror that they’re going to wake up and not be on television anymore. They’ll do anything to not risk not being on television anymore. That means talking down to the audience, using TV voice, sticking with certain conventions to avoid brand erosion or confusion just in case you missed it. “You just saw the world’s best hamburger. Next we’re going to be eating a hamburger with avocado!” I don’t really understand that.

I guess I know that I could get another job if this one falls through.

It seems to me if you just talk like a normal person that would be a huge improvement on a lot of otherwise promising or good shows. I think there are exceptions. I think what Eddie Huang and Action Bronson [on Viceland] are doing is really refreshing for exactly that reason. They talk like they do in real life instead of “When we come back it’s not just burger … it’s a burger with bacon!”

Skift: How is your audience different now than when you were at Food Network or Travel Channel and how does that influence how you do your show?

Bourdain: Not at all. I don’t think about who my audience might be. That is the road to madness when you start thinking about “who’s watching,” “why do they like me,” “who are they,” “what is my demographic?”

That’s evil shit to start thinking like that.

I don’t make television for an audience really. I make it for the same reason when I cook. You don’t see the customers when you’re cooking in a kitchen. You put the plates up to the window and the highest and the best thing that could happen is the cooks on either side of you look at it in an approving way. You put it up fast, you put it up good.

I make television the way I do to please myself and the people I work with. We push each other to be creatively satisfied and have a good time and be different than what we did last week. I really, really don’t ever and never have thought about who might like me or not like me and what might they expect. Networks — thank God not this one — but my previous networks are all too happy to provide good hard data on what audiences like and who’s watching. That’s in my experience the beginning of a really ugly phase.

What audiences want is barbecue shows. I don’t want to do barbecue shows. Maybe one every five years. I like barbecue just fine. I don’t want to be standing there eating fucking corn dogs. I’m not running for president, thank God. I don’t have to eat corn dogs.

Skift: You’ve been doing television and traveling for about 14 years then. What do you think are the biggest changes over that period in how Americans both eat and travel?

Bourdain: If you do a poll of what motivates people to travel to a particular place, the food is now the number one reason. I’m sure that that’s a significant change. I think people are less interested, or at least I hope, scouting online to go up the Eiffel Tower, look around and then come down again. I think they’re looking to have a more, for lack of a better word, real experience.

Skift: You’ve used food as the way to get into sticky situations and get a conversation. Is there any other way to get into those conversations, or do you think that food is the essential way to connect with people?

Bourdain: As I said, it’s not the answer to world peace, but it’s a start. It’s the beginning of a conversation, and if you don’t eat what’s offered, if you’re unwilling to try people’s food, if you’re unwilling to eat out of your comfort zone in order to be a good guest, that’s the end of a conversation. It’s the end of any possible relationship, so all it is is a start. It’s a good start. The willingness to sit down and experience a little slice of life outside of and different than your own. Usually, that’s a very rewarding experience. Obviously, I love it, but, as I’ve found over the years, it’s opened up the world for me in really unexpected ways. I think it’s just a beginning of a conversation.

Skift: Chris Collins, one of your producing partners, spoke at our conference last fall. He said the spirit at the start of your show was creativity and utter confusion, which is good TV. You’re more than a decade in now. How do you keep this gonzo or independent spirit alive when you’re one of the top rated shows in your time slot?

Bourdain: If you talk about confusion, if the network is confused or they’re uncomfortable then we’re doing God’s work. It’s that simple. If our most loyal fans turn on the show and for the first five minutes already unsure that they’re watching the right show that’s a good day, too.

Skift: Food tourism seems to be a low-cost, high-return way for destinations to really differentiate themselves, and get people to come. It’s easier to have a great hot dog joint than to build an Eiffel Tower. What destinations out there do you think have leveraged their food scene to best push tourism.

Bourdain: I’d say probably Singapore. First of all, they’ve been very smart about understanding that their food culture is interesting and worth travelling for, and I think they’ve managed to preserve and protect, as best they can, other traditional food culture, while changing and taking into account modern requirements for health and safety, and traffic control, and that sort of thing. I think Singapore is probably the best example of a national push to promote their food.

Canada, particularly Quebec, could do a hell of a lot better. They have such amazing, amazing, food, and really great chefs and I think the interest’s there. I just don’t know that they’ve promoted it as well as they could.

Skift: Since you’ve been doing this for so long, you’ve gone back to some destinations. When do you know is the time to go back and take a second look, or a third look.

Bourdain: That’s sort of a personal challenge that we, me and the crew, ask ourselves all the time. Can we go back to Los Angeles and do another show in this most photographed of locations, but find a new perspective? A completely different look at it?

As soon as we can think of a different angle, a unique one, a creative one, that’s satisfying to me and my creative partners, we’re going. Especially if it’s a place that I love spending time in. We’re always looking for any excuse to go shoot in Vietnam. Rome, I’d love to keep going back to. Creatively, it’s satisfying to be able to figure out a way to go to a place that’s as over-photographed as L.A., and yet tell the story differently, from a unique point of view.

Skift: Right. You started at CNN when they were cutting back on bureaus, when most of the shows are Wolf Blitzer arguing with people in a room. How do you get to do things on CNN that in a way they don’t let their traditional journalists do anymore? The hour long deep dive into a destination?

Bourdain: When they first reached out we were shocked and sort disbelieving and skeptical. The first thing me and Chris and Lydia [Tenaglia, of Zero Point Zero] did was we picked up the three most difficult — the shows the Travel Channel hated the most, really, really hated and were most uncomfortable with. The most fucked up sort that didn’t even fit on Travel Channel much less ever on CNN. We sent them in and said “Are you sure? Could you watch these on a video then ask yourself are you sure you’re calling the right person?” They said “Yes, we know who we’re talking to. We like what you do. We’d like to help you be even better.” They’ve honored that initial commitment religiously since that first conversation.

I’ve never had a stupid conversation with CNN, ever. They’ve never called and started a conversation with “Wouldn’t it be a good idea if?” They’ve never called and said, never has a conversation started how about, never, nothing. There’s been almost no push back. We’ve sent them some really difficult stuff. I don’t know the answer to your question. I just know that they said they were going to be really cool to work with, that they would help me in any way that I wanted to be helped. They would give me unparalleled freedom to go anywhere. They would not restrain me from telling the stories I wanted to tell. They have honored that commitment. It can’t have been easy at times.

That Tokyo show with …

Skift: The bondage?

Bourdain: Rope bondage and tentacle porn, we knew were setting them up. Something that was really unlike anything they’d ever put on to be sure and was in a vulnerable time. Jeff Zucker had just come on board. People were very skeptical of what the fuck is CNN doing with some celebrity chef? It took real balls to put that up without a peep and they did. They have lived up to their initial commitment. Again, I’ve never had a stupid conversation. I’ve never had a conversation like that on the phone, wincing, wanting to pound my head into a wall — never.

Skift: You’ve kind of gone everywhere, eaten everything. I would imagine you get jaded at some times, but what still excites you about travel and food?

Bourdain: Places where I’m very aware that, no matter how many times I’ve been there. I know nothing. Japan is always going to be exciting to me because I will never know Japan. As often as I’ve been there, and as passionate as I am about the culture and the food, I understand that I will never know enough. I will never be comfortable with how much I know about the place.

Same with China. There’s just not enough time in this life, or any life to really know those subjects if you didn’t grow up in them. So that’s endlessly interesting, endlessly challenging, and endlessly gratifying to me. I like looking up a very steep learning curve, and struggling to at least feel less ignorant.

Skift: Speaking of Japan, your collaboration with Roads & Kingdoms. You put out that great book last fall [Rice Noodle Fish]. What’s next for you with your collaboration with them?

Bourdain: We’re looking forward to another book, this one on Spain, and we’re looking to expand what the site does. We’ll continue to do great journalism, telling stories that other people aren’t telling, and telling them better. We’re looking at going in a number of directions with the partnership and hoping that gives some overlap between Roads & Kingdoms and a lot of the other things that I’m doing.

I’m not looking to rule the world. I’m just very happy with the work at Roads, and very proud of the work that Roads & Kingdoms is doing, and I just want to bask in the reflected glory.

Skift: You can’t travel to destination, come back and tell hundreds of thousands of people about it without there being an effect on the place like Southeast Asia’s Lonely Planet Banana Pancake Trail. How do you think about your impact on a place once you’ve gone away and told everybody about it?

Bourdain: I think about it more and more. We try to do no harm. We try to do as little harm as possible. I am aware of the fact that I’m in the business of pointing a camera at cool little off-road places in the hope that the people from that neighborhood will be pleased and surprised.

If I go to a little dive bar in Manila, I’d like Philippinos that I bump into years later to say, “How did you find that place? Only neighborhood people know about that.”

On one hand that’s success because that’s exactly the type of place I like and exactly the kind of television we like to make. I also understand that by doing that oftentimes if I were to go back to that bar it would be filled with tourists. We changed the basic character of the place. There have been a few times where we just found a place that was so pristine and awesome that I just didn’t give the name or the location. We just said we shall call this Bar X. I’m not going to tell you where it is because you’ll fuck it up.

It’s something that we wrestle with and we try to be really careful about. We’ve really tried to not do harm. More often than not, most of the time a place gets busy. The owner’s perfectly happy to expand their business and maybe open up another store. That’s happened many times, particularly in Southeast Asia. The customers who loves it the way it was are less happy about things. I try to find a balance. Television can be a destructive force. However, much we may not want it to be, it’s something we think about.

More importantly, when we’re in a place like China or Cuba or Vietnam where the government pays attention, shall we say, to what people say as far as being critical of the government, we think very much about the fact that I could come back to New York and say whatever I want. I’m free to have an opinion. If I come back and shoot my mouth off I have to consider the people who were good to me when I was in the country. What the effect be on them? People have said how could you go to China and not talk about Tibet? A lot of people in China were really, really good to me and took a chance on me.

Iran is a better example. A lot of people took real risks to be welcoming in their home, to be honest with me in the hope that I would not go back and say something that would blow back on them. That’s something, those kinds of consequences are things that I think about. I’m not Dan Rather. The story doesn’t come first. You know what I mean?

Skift: Right.

Bourdain: I am willing to edit stuff out to not hurt people.

[noxtms]

1. WHISPERS OVER A GLASS OF FIREWHISKY, FERVANT CONVERSATION WITH A GROWING GROUP ON COBBLESTONES. it’s the only topic of conversation even among ordinary people who are living their ORDINARY lives. even those that weren’t in attendance of the memorial have seen the photo, front page of the daily prophet every day until the sybill trelawney story breaks and takes over. it doesn’t matter who you are, or how WILLING you’ve been, to engage. chances are, whether it comes from your visiting sister or the shopkeep on diagon alley you only see once weekly, you’ve been asked : what do you think is happening?

2. A DULL ACHE BENEATH YOUR SLEEVE. it’ll be an isolated incident, that first time, and it’ll be easy for some of you to ignore. you’ll chalk it up to nerves or simply the time, and you might scratch at your arm absentmindedly, but it won’t be all too concerning. if any FEARFUL thought pushes it’s way through, you’ll try your best to push that aside, too, and carry on your daily affairs as normal. it’ll be almost a week later, to the day, when you’ll awake at witching hour - your arm PAINFULLY BURNING like a brand has been put to it. you’ll lift it in absract horror, not even bothering with the lamp, and gaze upon the skull & snake that had almost faded in the six odd years since it had last come to life as it writhes in place, once again, as it will forevermore when she calls for you.

3. IT MIGHT BEGIN WITH A SMELL OF SMOKE. you’ll crinkle your nose and you’ll search all around, first glancing to your kitchen, as if there lies the obvious source. when it yields no answers you’ll look around and notice the rising grey smoke from a drawer you never really look into, and this’ll strike you as STRANGE, as it should, because there really is no reason for it. you’ll stride forward and pull it open with intent, wand ready to put out whatever fire has begun. and there, in the middle of a neatly charred hole, will lie a galleon. nothing special, really, except that it’s still red at the edges from how it burned red hot like a fire poker, and when you lift it with cautious fingers you’ll find a new message arranged around the edge : 20.05.2020, 21.00, 44° 42' 7.9596". 

4. THE PULSING BLUE LIGHT WILL APPEAR LIKE AN EXPLOSION. you might even jump. it will explode in front of you regardless of where you stand, be it home, or the office, or somewhere in between. it will appear, and before your very eyes what starts as nothing but a shining beacon will morph into the figure of a lynx, of a goat, of a falcon, of a cat, and the messengers will bring you the news that you were dreading. the news you knew would come someday as surely as daybreak, but that you’d crossed your fingers and hoped would not. tomorrow, six pm, the burrow. 

OUT OF CHARACTER :

civilians. the death eaters. dumbledore’s army. the order of the phoenix. they’re WITHOUT a doubt the four main spokes of the wheel that’s turning, following recent in game events : and now, it really begins. this is not a traditional plot drop in the sense that it isn’t kicking off any particular in game event, and acts more as an addition to the previous one - but it’s still IMPORTANT ! 

at your leisure, please send the MAIN an ask or im with your characters and their affiliation. as i receive names, i’ll be adding you to the appropriate channel to be set up on the main discord - if your characters alignment changes as we go, then a quick message to the main will have you moved to the then appropriate one ! 

the affiliations you may choose from ( complete with further explanation ), so far, are as follows:

civilians. if your character does not exactly align with a group, then this would be the section to list. they are JUST as important as all other groupings and will have just as much to do in terms of plot, as we go, but if you choose this grouping at first you are not STUCK to it, in future. if your character becomes swayed by a side, that’s not only a welcomed plot point, but absolutely okay by me and just means you’ll need to be moved to a different channel ! 

death eaters. now the foot soldiers of BELLATRIX LESTRANGE. this group may consist of those who have received the dark mark, previously ( and thus chose to apparate to bellatrix when she called for them ) or more recent recruits. 

baby death eaters / conflicted souls / etc. if your character was previously aligned bad but isn’t vibing with miss bellatrix, then this is absolutely the grouping you should choose, since it’ll put you in with likeminded people for plotting. this group has the most openness in terms of where it goes - i’m happy for you all to work things out plotting wise, yourselves, and if it breaks up into smaller factions, that’s fine ! 

dumbledore’s army. not just those who were canonically a part of it - if you have a character within age range who you have headcanoned was a member, this is the group for you. many might not have kept the coin enchanted to show meetings, but those that did received a message from HERMIONE GRANGER to meet for the first time in years on the 20th of may, 2020 at 9 pm, coordinates leading them to number 12, grimmauld place. 

the order of the phoenix. led by kingsley shacklebolt, minerva mcgonagall, aberforth dumbledore and a whole host of other individuals. your character might feel they have aged out of a previous ( looking at the DA, with this one ) faction, or they might always have been a member, or might only now be joining - whatever the story, if they align most strongly with the order, then this is the place you should put down ! 

the side channels are just a way to make group plotting more EASY, and are a place where characters thoughts and feelings and opinions should be shared. it might be, sometimes, that a question will be posed to you as a group for character developing purposes ( such as opinions on certain events happening around the rp ), or it might be that an upcoming event will involve them and that’ll be the first place you guys hear of it ! a poll will be put into the discord to decide whether there should also be IN CHARACTER versions of those channels for group meetings, but for now, it’s all out of character and for the purpose of discussions ! 

as always, if you have ANY questions or comments or concerns, please let me know ! 

[dwellordream]

This is kind of two unrelated questions but: if you're still doing the director's cuts, could you do chapter 3 of grass crown? (Or whichever chapter of whichever fic you want) and what your favorite fanfics are (regardless of fandom)?

I’ll rec some fics first because that’s going to be shorter than a director cut haha: in terms of what is currently updating that I’m following: An Unexpected Journey is a great The Mandalorian fic involving one of the most well-written and well-rounded, human OCs I have ever read in any fic, ever. His Highness Steven Universe is a very funny Steven Universe AU which does a great job of portraying fledgling teen romance as being so excruciating and mortifying yet giddily fun. Little Swan Lost is a very interesting modern Hobbit AU involving female Bilbo and an arranged marriage? sounds a little far-fetched but it’s both quite angsty and quite sweet. Our Blades Are Sharp is a great ASOIAF AU series revolving around a still-kicking Domeric Bolton and Sansa Stark; it offers a really interesting take on House Bolton. War in a time of “peace” is an awesome HP AU about a daughter of Sirius Black and a French Veela and her struggles through Hogwarts in Slytherin. Chapter 3 aka Lydia’s Dramatic Entrance aka “In the garden of Eden”: I actually had a great time writing this chapter and considered it a nice breath of fresh air into the fic in general (despite it literally being Chapter 3). Lydia was one of the first ‘wholly original characters’ I thought of when developing Grass Crown, and she sort of just sashayed onto the page with a martini in hand, dressed to the nines. We literally open with Lydia staring at her reflection- or trying to- much like the fish in the Rosiers’ gaudy ornamental tank, Lydia lives in a glass house and is always under inspection and observation.  Then we pretty quickly break down the Rosier family tree- mother Cordelia, father Gilbert, big brother Lyle, and pregnant sister-in-law Cecily. Cecily’s pregnancy is a big deal for the Rosiers, and a point of pride- with pureblood birth rates dwindling, a viable pregnancy is truly seen as something to celebrate and brag about. This chapter goes into detail about Lydia’s observant nature right off the bat, as well as how perceptive she thinks she is, pretty much dissecting everyone with one look alone. Projection, much? The big ‘problem’ of the hour is, of course, the floral arrangements- this is the sort of stuff that makes up Lydia’s extremely constrained life. Floral arrangements and caterers and decorations- party planning and social hours and gossip and fashion is pretty much what she’s expected to limit herself to. While it’s not immediately clear if the Rosiers have actively dissuaded Lydia from having a career or not, it’s obvious that she’s not really encouraged to be interested in that sort of thing- she’s got a big future on the horizon, but that future is someone else’s, with her sort of tacked on as part of the decor.  We also see that Lydia is far from hesitant or shy; she teases and jokes and rolls her eyes, but is careful to never actually show (or even feel) any real anger or upset at the world around her. basically it’s like she’s on thin ice all the time, as toothless as the Rosiers might seem at first glance, aside from just being snobs. The scene of her under the rose trellis and by the fountain talking to her brother was the first real image I ever had of Lydia and what she’d be like in this fic. The roses are beautiful- but also completely artificial- they aren’t natural growth, they were forcibly created to bloom so wonderfully with magic and potions. We also get the first hint of Lydia’s metamorphmagus abilities here.

Lyle stands in contrast- the prodigal son to Lydia’s seemingly perfect daughter. Whereas she is always gracious and polite, he’s sullen and rude, acting more like he’s still a teenager than a 30 year old man.  Lydia says “They wouldn’t even know me” in reference to guests showing up early- suggesting that the face she was just speaking to Lyle with is not necessarily the same one she’s about to put on for the party. The one real concern Lyle seems to show is that Lydia might forget to wear her engagement ring- she doesn’t seem to go around wearing it at home, which already tells us a lot about her relationship with Tom, and it is odd that in this one regard Lyle seems actually concerned- does he worry about Lydia’s interactions with Tom for her sake or his own? The ring is very much a product of the time period- it’s not an antique or heirloom like many pureblooded engagement rings might be, it’s brand spanking new, something Lydia is not at all bothered by- she clearly doesn’t mind that Tom isn’t like the other supposedly pureblood men she knows, and she is spiteful about the fact that others are jealous of her luck in becoming engaged to someone slated to become the Minister for Magic. We then find out she is just 23- very young compared to many of the other adult characters. On the other hand, we also get the sense that Lydia is looking forward to this marriage to Tom- she may not have had a say in the matter, but she certainly doesn’t view it with much trepidation or disgust, whether she actually likes spending time with him or not. She is also very aware that their engagement is part of the political machine- it looks better for Tom to marry into one of the Sacred 28 families, so that’s exactly what he’s doing, and she happens to be the lucky young lady. She acknowledges that her parents have put their faith in him to help bring back an era of grandeur and power, but expresses little interest in that herself, having more focus on the future and what it holds for her personally. Lydia then literally does up her face, which is pretty much suited to the ideal beauty standards for the time period- peaches and cream complexion, thick, light hair, small nose, thin eyebrows, dark lashes and pink lips. It’s not about what she likes, it’s about what other people expect and want to see, and, as she notes, what Tom in particular seems to like- she’s already picked up on some of that. We then get a brief flashback to their first meeting when Lydia was just nineteen and Tom twenty-six; how easily he charmed her parents and how interesting she found him, mostly because he wasn’t all over her or condescending to her.  Tom is very particular about who he accepts drinks from, we see. And barely a few hours after being introduced to this man, Lydia is pretty certain she’s going to end up married to him- not because she’s falling in love, but because she knows her parents will be in favor of the match due to Tom’s political connections and rising star in the Ministry- plus the wealth it promises to bring to the family. Lydia’s reaction to this, we see, wasn’t anger or fear but general apathy. ‘Oh well,’ she seems to think. ‘Better him than someone worse.’ This doesn’t seem to be a very normal reaction for a young woman, even from a pureblood family- Lydia comes across as deeply pragmatic to her very core right from the start. We then see that Lydia has, in fact, heard of Amy, surprise surprise, but any mention of Tom and Amy’s very peculiar relationship in school has been reduced to the assumption that it was a hormonal fling.  Then we finally get the party started; “No one picks a wallflower” Lydia’s mother warns her, but Cordelia has nothing to worry about- Lydia knows how to command a room and has zero issues flattering and chatting with whoever comes her way. We see more of what she finds appealing about Tom- he’s not lusting after her or forcing awkward conversations about their future, he mostly leaves her alone unless he needs her for something, which Lydia seems to prefer. For all her social graces, she seems to be a deeply solitary person who’s used to confiding in no one but herself.  Tom shows up with the Princes here, and Lydia greets him like the perfect 50s housewife with a drink in hand and a kiss on the cheek. Together they put on a very cute show of young love for the Princes, and then later reunite to talk business. They discuss how things are looking good for Tom in the polls, and then Lydia does seem to express a genuine interest in something for the first time all night, and asks if they can dance. As it turns out, she really does like to dance. She also likes to needle Tom a little- she takes a risk in bringing up Amy at all, mostly so she can judge his reaction. Tom could have headed the whole thing off had he been able to shrug and go ‘who?’. Instead he reacts as if electrocuted, which really tells Lydia all she needs to know. Whoever this Amy Benson is, she and Tom have some unfinished business.  Lydia quickly changes the topic, sensing Tom’s not happy to have been asked about Amy, and tells him she’s missed him. Is this true? Tom seems doubtful, but they agree that love often revolves around people entering and leaving each other’s lives, only to pop back up again. Wow, what could that be foreshadowing?