#the irony etc. etc.

[gayemoji]

hellscape update: clearly AI generated websites not allowing you to copy or view the source code

[y-rhywbeth2]

Hey, other Durge players, I'm curious: what class/es did you give your Durge and how do they tie into their backstory?

[theworldinclines]

[exilecrown]

Casey and I are playing hide and seek, but you can't tell dad you saw us - or it'll ruin the game.

[secretsimpleness]

The disappointment.

Warden Surana, Morrigan / Dragon Age Origins (c) Bioware

[puppyeared]

i have an idea for a character design but what animals are usually associated with medicine??? the most common answer i got was snake, but i also thought of lab rats/mice, rabbits etc

[kradogsrats]

Running from your commitments You're running up on the price You better run, Little Hero Cuz you're running out of time

[carlyraejepsans]

Tragic! Gorgeous game with extremely moving premise deathly afflicted with 2011 dialogue writing

[thelaurenshippen]

this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?

this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).

the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.

and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.

not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!

back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.

but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.

I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!

anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.

[the-final-sif]

I'll be honest, having seen a lot of the boil over, I think the thing that keeps catching a particular subgroup up about the finale is that the finale unequivocally says two things:

c!Dream was not always this way, he was at one point, just a 20 something year old running around in fields with his friends.

c!Dream was, and still is, unmistakably and indisputably human.

I feel like these two facts, being presented in such a way that there's no way for it to be misunderstood, are sticking points for that group because it forces an understanding that they have been actively been working against.

c!Dream did horrible things, but he was still human. He was human the entire time. He wasn't born evil, he wasn't a one-dimensional purely malicious villain that existed only to fill a role. He was human. He was human, and he did horrible things, and those horrible things did not negate his humanity. c!Dream was a human, and he was hurt, and he handled that hurt poorly, and he hurt people as a result. He wasn't always this way, he ended up this way because of how he was hurt and the poor choices he made to handle that hurt.

It's vicious towards people who've been stuck on this idea that c!Dream is inhuman, that's he's a monster, that he was always selfish, evil, "the problem". Because they need that simplicity in a narrative and can't handle the implication that anyone can end up being horrible. That there isn't a neat little line between good people and bad people, and that anyone can both be hurt and hurt others.

c!Dream is an ugly, vicious reflection of what someone can become when they believe their goal is worthwhile and they don't care if what they're doing is wrong. He is though, above all else, a human. Just a person. Who was hurt, and made bad choices. Nothing more, nothing less. Familiar and terrifying.

I feel like there's a certain group out there that absolutely cannot stand this idea that anyone can do horrible, irreparable damage, for much the same reason that some people don't like mirrors.

[nostalgia-tblr]

Right I'm not saying Odin's not had a terrible amount of colonialism and war going on over his however-long-it's-been reign but when Thor wants to lay waste to Jotunheim and Odin tells him off for this it's not just hypocrisy at work, because the Odin of the timeframe of that movie seems sure that this would be Wrong not just politically bothersome and yet he also doesn't really explain to Thor why things are different now and putting that together what you have is this: Odin can't explain his own apparent change of heart without revealing that "oh yeah your brother's a Jotun," even though he must be fairly sure that this information would stop Thor's xenophobic bloodlust in its tracks as effectively as it did his own.

[grinchwrapsupreme]

alright given the coincidences around Celia in tmagp with the Celia in tma i'm throwing a prediction on the fire so the speak that tmagp celia will wind up being the burning ghost woman tma celia saw at night in her bedroom prior to the Change

[madame-helen]

[smallsies]

oh you like the grotto? well did you get in a car wreck while you were listening to taylor michaels and athan talk about matt's caving accident in episode 5? yeah. didn't think so.

[ilynpilled]

I feel like as the resident dishonor/honor guy enjoyer I have to speak on honor as a construct and how it seems to operate in asoiaf in my eyes. I will be stating the obvious here imo but: violence IS inherent to it. Be it directly or through the enablement of it. “Honor”, as a feudalistic moral construct, revolves around the reinforcement of a status quo. It is a moral construct that is embedded into a feudalistic structure, one that is inherently violent. It can be deeply flawed and destructive as a result of deeply rooted systemic issues. Being “honorable” is very complicated because, again, it does not exist based on a very sensible moral framework. It ends up contradicting itself because the way society is structured in Westeros.

Almost nothing embodies this more clearly than the KG. They are supposed to be the paragons of honor: an unsoiled white cloak.

Vows are social contracts this society is built on. This is why Jaime is very restricted in a lot of ways in his world by his label. Breaking one of the most important contracts (one that happens to be key in reinforcing a feudalistic structure: it places the king’s will above every single other moral or ethical code) makes it so he is not believed or trusted and he is unable to operate properly within their society in a lot of circumstances, as we witness in his chapters. It is honorable to protect the weak and the innocent, but it is honorable to protect your king in all circumstances and reinforce a status quo. To obey your family and play your societal role. To obey laws, even if they are unjust. To keep your word, to be honest. Loyalty to a tyrant has to be inherently more honorable (especially in certain positions) to maintain this status quo, even though it contradicts other oaths and we know it is inherently immoral. Balancing values is the most interesting aspect of characters dealing with ‘honor’ and morality. Feudalism is what makes the honor system collapse. Honor itself can be a more vague concept, “the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right”, but the way it is defined and how it operates within this society is so fucked. The KG appear in the weirwood dream (mirroring the imagery of The Others, conflating the honorable white cloak with snow and cold and death.) “You swore to keep your king safe” “and the children as well.” Yeah, the innocent children of kingslanding as well, that would have burned to ash. It is honorable to save your king, to protect the weak, to save the children, to save the innocents of KG, to obey your father. He tells this to them in the dream, he explains his reasoning for killing Aerys, but they do not budge. That is what Jaime fears the most, the complete collapse of everything that holds meaning to him, heroism becoming undefinable with these conflicting moral codes, which is likely another huge part of him keeping it a secret. It is something he feels powerless against. The way things are prioritized is wrong. Morality becomes skewed. In Jaime’s mind the enemy and primary source of doom is this nonsensical moral construct that contradicts itself represented by institutions that make no sense. It is what makes his symbolic fire go out. His moral code conflicts with this society’s code of ethics, which eventually leads him to cynically accept amorality. It is disillusionment that tears the idea of heroism and being “honorable” apart and leads to moral nihilism.

Another aspect of the honor code and its violence is the fact that it places more value to individuals based on class. It is dependent on class and a flawed social structure. This is despite the fact that vows of knighthood call for the protection of those that are too weak to protect themselves: the underprivileged. Jaime keeps having this epiphany of an inherent equality in death that seems to contradict the way society is structured. Aerys’ life is worth inherently more according to the honor code than Rhaella’s, than the lives of thousands of innocents, than Jaime’s. Yet, a lowborn hand, no one, seems to die harder than Aerys does (and nobody cares). A crown is worth nothing when crows feast on victors and vanquished alike, and the rightful heir himself. We are all equal in death, so the text is indicating that something is not right here.

When it comes to characters and their relationship with honor the important through-line is examining whether they are being “honorable” in the abstract sense, if they base their actions around empathy and a sense of actual justice, or if they are abiding by made up flawed constructs. Being viewed as honorable by this society does not make you a good person. In fact, in order for you to abide by the honor code you would likely have to turn into an amoral individual. For example, if you try to keep the cloak pure white you will metaphorically soil it. Like every one of Aerys’s kingsguard did. To keep their oath to the king, they broke vows to protect innocents and protect women. They should lose their honor by a lot of definitions, but that would mean the status quo collapses. Jaime’s knighting for this reason is very much like a boy being sacrificed at an altar. It is not just about drawing a parallel between young girls and boys being sentenced to bloody doom by violent constructs created for their gender.

“Blood is the seal of our devotion.” He bleeds on his plain white tunic. It was never “pure white”, it was always all tainted in blood. It is inherently violent. You can argue that is when “the boy died.”

Very rigid and hypocritical honor codes built for feudalism lack nuance and lead to amorality. I think George aims to address, interrogate, deconstruct, and then reconstruct honor, as with most other key concepts present in fantasy. Honor can be redefined. Examples like “No chance, and no choice”, among many others, are at the root of that reconstruction. Even then, the reconstruction does not conflate it with pacifism necessarily. For example, Chelsted did the ‘honorable’ thing, in the abstract moral sense, of quitting his job and not supporting a tyrant anymore, but that act achieved nothing in preventing the wildfire plot. Same with essentially everyone important at court abandoning the situation that is Aerys, turning away from a gaping wound and not addressing it before it was too late. Jaime had to soil the ‘white cloak’ and disrupt the status quo and lose his “honor” within those terms by murdering his king and his pyromancers as a kingsguard and actually save half a million lives. It was not glorious, nor was it anything like the songs, and the city is still doomed because there is no way to get that festering corruption out of there at this point, metaphorical of the greater problem with KG, but it was heroism, a choice with meaning, and a form of triumph, even if the consequences break Jaime down the line. He gets no answer to the question of what it means to be a knight and a man of honor if society’s version of it is so skewed. Then, Jaime and the readers get an answer in the form of Brienne: “I dreamed of you.”

[the-valiant-valkyrie]

anyways. some ieytd character opinion headcanons bc i've been thinking about doing it for a little while. its read left to right (character in question is the column, character who they're reacting to is the row)

also made a separate version beneath the cut with ieytd3 spoilers, but the first one is spoiler free tee hee 💕sorry it's so small its because i have too much to say smh