#this is very much becoming a Project but i think the end result is gonna be the better for it

[antigonewinchester]

MoC Meta Annotated Bibliography

In being more thoughtful with how I’m referencing other people’s work in my thinking over the Mark of Cain arc, I’ve taken a step back to build out an annotated bibliography. The list below includes fandom meta / posts, along with other non-fandom sources, some of which I’ll be directly citing and some I wanted to include as just being generally influential for me & in the back of my mind as I’ve been thinking over all this. In my trying to grapple with the Mark of Cain and later seasons of the show, plus just as someone who’s inclined to gather as much info as she can & soak in a broad context of something when thinking about it, I’ve ended up reading thru a lot of great posts and insightful past & recent discussions. Since my intent is to expand on previous conversations in fandom, even coming to this topic a while after the fact, I need to then cite others’ work & thoughts as my jumping off points.

I’ve used MLA format and taken just a few creative liberties (hyperlinked urls, and added descriptions for posts without titles for context). The first section is fandom and canon-related sources. The second part is non-fandom posts, books, etc., some of which I’ve come to thru meta and others I’ve discovered thru my own research & websurfing. Included are my major points of take away & occasional questions / broad thoughts. I plan to keep updating both these lists as I go along. [ETA as of 9/3: added new sources.]

Also, if any OPs listed here want me to cite them differently or even not at all for whatever reason, just let me know. I’ve erred on the side of being more comprehensive about references here, treating everything like it’s a ‘formal source,’ from published books to longer form meta essays to one off tumblr posts, but I’m less sure abt fandom norms around meta vs shorter posts.

Fandom Meta / Posts / Resources

alaynestone. “Untitled” (Dean/John & incest subtext). Tumblr, 12th May 2020.

gifs that point out the incest subtext around Dean and John from Kripke era seasons.

allykat49-blog. “Untitled” (“There’s No Place Like Home” & the framing around Dean’s violence). Tumblr, 1st Feb 2015.

the ending of 10x11 suggesting that all of Dean’s actions, including his self-defense against Charlie, were unjustified

the narrative framing that condemns Dean for his reactionary violence without mentioning people being actively violent towards Dean first / at the same time

the show has somewhat romanticized moments of not fighting back against violence from loved ones

amonitrate, extremedeangirl. “Untitled” (contempt towards ppl who break under torture / stay with abusers). Tumblr, 29th June 2014.

mainstream / status quo ideas about abuse: that it’s heroic to fight against an abusive situations and conversely not heroic to submit to or obey an abuser; “good” vs “bad” victims

how this ties back into Sam rebelling against John vs. Dean complying with John; also related to “strong” vs. “weak” dichotomy; how that framing gets reflected in fandom conversations (and somewhat the show too?)

amonitrate. “Untitled” (Mark’s overkill violence & self-defense). Tumblr, 5th February 2015.

the Mark’s scary, overkill violence often being triggered by Dean’s defending himself, with this pattern not explicitly acknowledged within the show

Dean’s violence overemphasized while other characters’ violence is underemphasized or not mentioned

brother-benny. “Untitled” (Framing of Demon!Dean). Tumblr, 22 Oct 2014.

talking about how Demon!Dean is framed in 10x03, as “Dean prioritizing his own feelings is connoted as evil and not-Dean”

Cairns, Bryan. “Girl Next Door.” Supernatural Magazine, No. 33, Jul 2012, pp. 68 – 71.

“Amy tried to put her monster past behind her. In the end, why did Dean have to kill her? That’s Dean’s nature, too. He’s used to doing what’s needed to protect himself and his brother. For him, it was no different. He didn’t see Amy as a human being; he just saw her as a problem that was going to get worse. As a protector, Dean needed to get Amy out of the way. It was sad because I don’t think he wanted to do it, he just had to.”

castielcommunism. “Untitled” (SPN & biological determinism). Tumblr, 23rd Aug 2021.

later seasons being heavily steeped in biological determinism; “morality on supernatural [as] biologically encoded”

the shift in Lucifer’s rebellion wasn’t from Lucifer’s own choices but because of his corruption by the Mark of Cain

castielcommunism. “Untitled” (More examples of SPN & biological determinism). Tumblr, 10th Nov 2021.

more discussion of biological determinism: all monsters ending up in Purgatory; the only way to get into Heaven, the least shitty afterlife in SPN, is to be born human; the best way to become a powerful witch to be born powerful, training can’t make up for it; how all this intersects w/ the show’s racism & ableism

cor-ardens. “Untitled” (Quote from What Evil Means to Us). Tumblr, 17th Apr 2022.

“What distinguishes sadism from aggression is the sadist’s intense identification with his victim. Sadism is the form that aggression takes when it is fleeing its doom. […] Sadism is the joy of avoiding victimhood, though that puts it too passively. Sadism is the joy of having taken control of the experience of victimhood by inflicting it on another.” C. Fred Alford, What Evil Means to Us

cor-ardens. “Untitled” (Dean, Hell & sexual violence). Tumblr, 24th July 2022.

“#given how closely spn associates hell with sexual violence the implications are terrible”

Hell & sexual violence, undercurrents of Dean as both victim & perpetrator

deadendtracks. “Untitled” (The question of John physically abusing Dean). Tumblr, 7th Jul 2017.

making an argument for John physically abusing Dean based on a lot of subtext, although it’s not necessarily the only read one could have

related to the weirdness of framing around Dean’s violence during the MoC arc, where violence in self-defense was bad but violence to protect others, particularly Sam, was good?

deandelreys. “Untitled” (Dean playing bait in 1x20 as “normal”). Tumblr, 19th Aug 2021.

Dean playing bait as a regular, normalized situation based on everyone’s reactions: John’s “You know what to do” & Dean in fact knowing exactly what to do, Sam not pushing back against it, neither John nor Sam checking in on Dean after Kate assaults him

deandelreys. “Untitled” (Dean in 1x20, 14x14). Tumblr, 3rd Oct 2021.

comparison between 1x20 and then a deleted scene from14x14, where Dean says John had him play the “wide-eyed hitchhiker routine all the time on Hunts”

the writers as aware on some level of this subtext around sexual abuse, Dean playing sexualized bait

horrorshow. “Untitled” (comparison between John, Azazel, and Alastair). Tumblr, 4th Jan 2022.

frozen-delight. thejabberwock-blog1. “Untitled” (Sam & Cas’s reaction to Dean’s violence). Tumblr, 13 Jan 2017.

discussion of Dean’s violence in 10x09 versus 10x22, and how Sam and Cas reacted to it in those eps

in-universe, Sam & Cas reframing the not nice parts of Dean’s character (his fear, anger, violence) as related to the Mark, because it’s the “way that’s most comfortable for them,” that good, heroic Dean wouldn’t really act like that

howmanyangels. “Untitled” (comparing Azazel!John & Dean to Azazel!Samuel and Mary). Tumblr, 24th Feb 2021.

screenshots comparison between Azazel!John in 1x22 menacing Dean to Azazel!Samuel menacing Mary in 4x03

juppschmitz. “Untitled” (Sam’s line from 10x10). Tumblr, 2nd Feb 2014.

the weirdness of Sam’s line to Dean: “So yeah, the Mark is strong, but Dean maybe there’s a part of you that wants to give into it,” and how that doesn’t seem to reflect in how Dean has been shown reacting to the Mark

again, strong vs. weak dichotomy?

juppschmitz. “Untitled” (Mark / Blade DVD commentary). Tumblr, 12th July 2015.

Adam Glass talking about Dean on the DVD commentary for season 10 around the Mark / Blade: “Dean is always going to be a hero, you know, no matter what, he’s always gonna sacrifice everything, for his brother, or for the world, or for anything… I think that’s really […] who he is and who he’s always gonna be."

Dean as a “hero” framed as something innate / natural / admirable, not as a role he was forced into as a kid

juppschmitz. “Untitled” (Jensen on Dean and his Dad). Tumblr, 3rd June 2016.

“At an early age [Dean] was like, ‘This is way more interesting [than a normal life]. I’m on hunting trips with my father. I’m not going to recess!’ …it wasn’t until later in life when he started doubting that and thinking, like, ‘How dare he steal that from me? How DARE he steal my childhood from me?’ And I think that’s probably a conversation that he will have one day with his father. Which… I’d love to film that scene.”

litterae-ignotae, antigonewinchester. “Untitled (Mary & Bela parallels, incest in SPN). Tumblr, 5th May 2022.

discussion of hunting, particularly in the Kripke era, as an idea that evokes incest (isolation, secrecy, complicity) even if one doesn’t read those relationships as literally incestuous

Does this lens apply to / is it still useful for looking at later seasons? Hunting does somewhat shift thematically in s8 after the intro of the Men of Letters, but there still seem to be threads related to Dean here, like in 9x16 w/ Magnus, 9x19 w/ Alex. Also sort of with Crowley’s altar boy “joke” in 11x02?

lovedwinchesters. “Untitled” (Dean’s violence framed thru his DNA). Tumblr, 12th May 2022.

being critical of “Deancrit” that references Dean’s DNA & his “own destructive nature”

“Deancrit” with shades of bio-essentialism, quasi-eugenics ideas here (ppl’s violence is in their DNA).

martyrdeans, veneredirimmel, nottherealdean. “Untitled” (Similar violence judged differently between Sam, Cas & Dean). Tumblr, 4th May 2015.

gifs of Cas choking Dustin, Sam slamming a guy’s head down on a counter, and then Dean slamming a guy’s head on a table; in only Dean’s case, it’s framed as “he’s snapped & is getting worse”

microcomets. “Untitled” (Singer talking about the writing process). Tumblr, 2015.

“When Sera left us, she left Dean in Purgatory and we didn’t know where the hell we were gonna go. But that’s kinda the challenge of the show. We get asked a lot, “Well, how far ahead do you plan?” We’ve never planned — and Eric and Jeremy will tell you this as well — we don’t know what the hell we’re doing the next year.” -Robert Singer

Nelson, Jayne. “Growing Pains.” Supernatural Magazine, No. 33, Jul 2012, pp. 74 – 78.

“It was an interesting quandary because she was Dean’s daughter and perhaps his DNA could have made her overcome her other DNA. She might have taken after her father! There was a sense of a push-pull inside her… at least until she tried to kill him. [Laughs.] ‘I’m gonna follow through with it. I don’t care how handsome you are, I’m gonna do it.’”  

nottherealdean. “Untitled” (weird ending of “There’s No Place Like Home”). Tumblr, 31st Jan 2015.

the focus on Dean hurting Charlie and glossing over how Charlie felt after merging her “dark” and “good” sides (after having killed and tortured ppl herself)

lazy / incomplete writing choices for Charlie’s arc; her character role was to be an expansion for Dean’s story, with her development sidelined

nottherealdean. “Untitled” (“About A Boy,” self-defensive violence versus protective violence). Tumblr, 5th Feb 2015.

Dean being in situations that triggered the Mark when he was trying to help someone (going to help Claire, stopping Dark!Charlie)

in “About a Boy,” Dean uses violence to directly save Sam and then isn’t overwhelmed by the Mark

nottherealdean, “Untitled” (Fandom framings of WTLB/PONR vs. SS/GS). Tumblr, 3rd April 2014.

fandom trends of criticizing Dean for his anger in When the Levee Breaks, Point of No Return in his fights with Sam, Cas and then romanticizing his forgiveness / being there for Sam & Cas in Swan Song, Goodbye Stranger

Is this framing still as much of a fandom pattern in 2022? But perhaps relevant to the writing of the show at the time in 2014/2015. Also how this plays with Colette: a beautiful unconditionally loving wife who’s always forgiving including uhhh *checks notes* after being fatally stabbed by her husband Cain.

nottherealdean. “Untitled” (Gifs compared 10x03, 8x17, 5x18 to 10x22). Tumblr, 22nd Jun 2015.

Dean and Cas’s fight at the end of 10x22 directly mirrors several other ‘fights’ that have happened between them: Cas grabbing Demon!Dean, Cas breaking Dean’s wrist, Cas throwing Dean into the fence

orangemoonchild. “Untitled” (Whitewashing of Sam & Cas’s actions). Tumblr, 24th Apr 2014.

fandom trend of whitewashing Sam and Cas’s actions as compared to Dean; “how they are seen as innately good, and how dean is seen as innately monstrous/vicious/bad”

Fandom framings around innate / natural badness or goodness, character double standards. When / where / why exactly did this theme develop? Say, did ppl talk abt Dean as innately a killer in Kripke’s era too?

pussyhoundspock, ilarual. “Untitled” (Sam reinforcing Dean’s role as hunter). Tumblr, 28 Sept 2021.

Sam in season 2 reinforcing Dean’s role as a hunter when Dean starts to push back against it

“#this is the shit I'm talking about when I say that Sam took over the job of policing Dean's identity after John died #he doesn't have a clue he's doing it and there's no malicious intent from Sam of course #but it's crazy to watch in real time”

riversdark. “Untitled” (Sam, Cas and Colette parallels). Tumblr, 30 Sept 2021.

the Cas = Colette parallel can work but ultimately it’s because of Sam that Dean is able overcome the Mark, not Cas

Sam is one who pulls Dean back from violence several times over seasons 9 & 10, while Cas doesn’t, including in 10x22 when Cas tells Dean to “stop” ala Colette and Dean just beats him up more because of it

swayingwires. “You’re Gonna Have to Let Me Grow Up: the campaign to rescue Sam’s image in five easy steps.” A03. 8th Oct – 10th Dec, 2016.

the parentified dynamic between Sam & Dean, esp around Sam viewing Dean’s mistrust as him being bossy or controlling instead of having valid issues

the narrative pattern of blame shifting, where Sam’s actions & their consequences will get framed as partially Dean’s fault because he reacted badly / didn’t trust Sam / didn’t do X right

Dean’s narrative role being to “preserve the Family” and either being cheered or condemned for doing so

Imo the dynamics laid out in this essay explain A Lot about the writing in season 5 & beyond, and feel particularly relevant to how season 10 plays out. Also once you see it, you can find ppl in fandom uncritically replicating this framing (Dean & his reactions as responsible for Sam’s behavior) all the time 🤔 

swayingwires. “This is What You’re Gonna Become: season 9 as the culmination of Dean Winchester’s thematic roles of identity in SPN,” A03. July 14th, 2017.

Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain & Judith Harmon’s Trauma and Recovery as 2 lenses through which to look at Dean’s traumas

connections between Dean’s childhood, raised as a child solider > Dean’s time in Hell > then onto the MoC

veneredirimmel. “The Wounds That Never Heal.” Tumblr, 24th Nov 2014.

speaking to Dean’s moral wounds in early season 10 in the context of his conversation with Cole at the end of 10x07

zudillo, moishecampbell. “Untitled” (how hunting shifts thematically over the show’s run). Tumblr, Nov 2021.

hunting in the early seasons as something explicitly negative, from trauma, taking one’s trauma out on others (“compared directly to serial murder by the text”)

hunting changing to be something less negative after the intro of the Men of Letters; Charlie, Donna, Claire becoming hunters, ““hunting” is almost like a special boys and girls club that anybody can be a part of”

Non-Fandom Resources

Alford, C. Fred. What Evil Means to Us. Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1997. (to read?)

“C. Fred Alford interviewed working people, prisoners, and college students in order to discover how people experience evil―in themselves, in others, and in the world. What people meant by evil, he found, was a profound, inchoate feeling of dread so overwhelming that they tried to inflict it on others to be rid of it themselves.”

Black, Edwin. War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. Expanded edition, Washington, DC, Dialogue Press, 2012. (to read)

history and development of bio-essentialism, the American eugenics movement

Foo, Stephanie. What My Bones Knew: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma. New York, Ballantine Books, 2022. (to read)

personal look at PTSD/cPTSD, trauma from familial abuse, the author speaks to scientists, psychologists as well as exploring her own traumatic childhood

gatheringbones. “Untitled” (American culture & double think). Tumblr, 2021.

American writing (“#morrison vonnegut obrien etc”) as reflecting trauma, the forced forgetting of that trauma as an essential part of American culture

gatheringbones. “Untitled” (Freud & dysfunctional families). Tumblr, 2021.

children / families fighting amongst themselves instead of looking at the dysfunctional family system as a whole

gatheringbones. “Untitled” (Hanya Yanagihara & status quo attitudes around abuse). Tumblr, 2022.

Mainstream stories about abuse, recovery being from an outsider “gothic horror aesthetic of there-but-for-the-grace-of-god-go-I...” perspective, “top down, disinterested, uncurious”

I’ve also read differing opinions on Yanagihara; this is only one pov on her books. Also haven’t read A Little Life myself, which I’d need to do to form my own opinion on it. However, I do wonder abt this attitude around abuse / trauma as something from the SPN writers, in terms of writing ‘what they know,’ as well as a certain tone that can creep into fandom discussions around Dean. But maybe I’m being too cynical here?

Harmon, Judith. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. K. 3rd edition, New York, Basic Books, 2015.

in depth and compassionate look at trauma as related to child abuse, captivity, intersecting with PTSD

Norman, Sonya B. and Maguen, Shira. “Moral Injury.” U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 26 July 2021.

defining moral injuries, particularly its connection to combat / soldiers

Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1985.

discussion of torture, its logic & justifications, particularly around confession / ppl who break under torture

people as represented by the body and God by voice in the Hebrew Bible; pain, work & material making / creation as deeply connected (“we’ve got work for you”)

Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character. New York, Scribner, 1994. (reading.)

speaks to the psychological wounding of war by comparing characters from the Iliad to real-life experiences of Vietnam veterans with PTSD

Shay originated the idea / term of “moral injury” through his work with Vietnam veterans, the beginnings of it present in this book

A “berserker” state Shay talks abt (fearless, frenzied violence; described by vets as becoming “an animal”) connected to both the MoC arc (for ex, the end of 10x09) and potentially to Dean in Hell (“I carved you into a new animal, Dean. There is no going back.”)

Shay, Jonathan. Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming. New York, Scribner, 2002. (To read?)

“In this ambitious follow-up to Achilles in Vietnam, Dr. Jonathan Shay uses the Odyssey, the story of a soldier's homecoming, to illuminate the pitfalls that trap many veterans on the road back to civilian life.”

Zehr, Howard. “Good and Bad Victims?” Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice, 29 Nov 2011.

“It is tempting for restorative justice advocates, consciously or not, to differentiate between “good” and “bad victims.” Good victims are those who are ready to forgive and reconcile; bad victims are those who are angry, punitive and unforgiving.”

[sxcret-garden]

oohoo could you do a mtl of ateez members to have a sex playlist and fuck you to the rhythm of the songs <3 (please no cbat LMAOJSSKSIS)

OMG this is such a good question!! (And way easier to answer than the other one i got so imma start with this one nxbznxnxnx)

most

Mingi

Wooyoung

Hongjoong

Yunho

San

Jongho

Seonghwa

Yeosang

least

Okay so Mingi and Wooyoung are clear winners for me here. Like they're just so the type to do this, actually sitting down with the intention of creating you a sex playlist, and they'd be SO GOOD at making it too??? They're both gonna throw the most sensual, explicit songs on there, but the playlist is still gonna have style and not be cringy or too much. Though I wouldn't put it past Wooyoung to sneak an atz song on there for the heck of it (it's you???) and then be very upset in case you complain and very proud of himself if you cum during one of his parts 👀

Hongjoong would go about this systematically, sneakily asking what you think about some of the songs he's considering putting on the list but without letting you know about his intentions, and then building a playlist around that. He wants it to match your taste exactly, so you would enjoy yourself as much as possible once he turns it on and goes down on you to the music. Lots of sensual slow songs on there to leave you with an amazing experience

Yunho is a bit similar to Hongjoong, just that he'd be more relaxed about it. He'd definitely cater the playlist more to your tastes than to his own, but he'll never plan to surprise you with it. Quite the opposite actually, it soon becomes a fun little project for the two of you, and you're having way too much fun tweaking it and changing things up to make THE perfect sex playlist for you two. Needless to say, it'll get used quite a lot, even before it's been perfected

San too will one day have the idea of making you a sex playlist (most likely when he misses you and somewhat sadly jerks off to a song that reminds him of you jdhdjdjd). But it will probably end up in chaos cause he'll just throw random songs on there that make him think of you, and somewhere halfway through it isn't even a sex playlist anymore jdhdjdjd you'll be thankful if you never get to hear the first version during sex, but he will at some point reveal the original idea to you, so you can make a playlist that'll satisfy the both of you together!

Jongho strikes me as the type to get hooked on the idea of making you two a sex playlist after reading about it online or hearing about one of his friends having made one. And he's going to spend sooooo much time considering what to put on it, to the point he's still not finished after months, and refuses to even explain what that playlist with the weird emojis on his phone is when you catch a glimpse of it and ask him about it. And it's not that the playlist is bad, not at all, he's just so nervous about what you would think that he simply ends up never using it, rip xjbxnxnx (that's until you finally manage to convince him to at least let you listen to it, and once you tell him it's pretty nice actually that'll give him the confidence to turn it on during sex)

Seonghwa and Yeosang aren't at the bottom cause I wouldn't ever see them making a sex playlist, but because I think it isn't as likely. For Seonghwa I do see him getting the idea, but I think he'd struggle with figuring out what you'd like and what would fit and he'd definitely ask one of the others for advice. As for Yeosang I do think he'd be willing to make one if it's something that comes up in a conversation with you, he just wouldn't get the idea on his own. Might also prefer making it together with you, so you can make sure both of you will like the end result without him having to be anxious about whether you'd like his song choices or not when first letting you listen to the playlist!

[sincerely-sofie]

Chapter 9 of Sofie Plays "Slay the Princess": The Hero and the Princess (Round 4) + The Prisoner (Part 1)

Listen. I may be stupid. But I'm also dumb.

[ Beginning ] - [ Previous Part ] - [ Next Part ]

EYYYYYYYYYY this is personally relevant in a very darkly humorous way, right down to the wording! Loving the player character and how much I can project experiences with psychosis onto the guy.

Okay hear me out HEAR ME OUT, this is me stretching this quote SO FAR to mean what I want it to mean BUT. As far as we know, the player character is the only person the Princess has ever met. Is this the Ultra Princess commenting on the fact that she doesn't know anyone but the player character? Long Quiet Personification PC confirmed????

PC'S PERCEPTIONS OF THE PRINCESS INFLUENCE WHAT THEY BECOME!!! I WAS RIGHT!!! LET'S GOOOOOOOO

I'VE BEEN ITCHING TO TELL THE ULTRA PRINCESS ABOUT THE NARRATOR. FINALLY.

Oh shoot. Um. We appear to be closer to the ending than I thought...

YOU FRICKIN' FRICK I WANTED TO GO THROUGH THIS WHOLE GAME WITHOUT PICKING UP THE KNIFE EVEN ONCE. DANGNABBIT.

Nope don't like the fact that the music cut out the second I picked up the knife! Don't like that!

Princess I don't think you quite realize that there are more awkward starts to a relationship and I speak from a painful degree of experience.

Asked her how I can get her out of here and the flashbacks are returning TTnTT

VERY deliberately avoiding the bait that is that upper dialogue option.

Why is dismemberment always the answer with these two?

Was this an option last time??? Was this an option the whole time and I missed it because I took ages to realize I could scroll through the options menu??? FRICK.

"I'll make this quick" she says. I don't like the confidence in her tone or the ramifications of how that will affect my perception of her and the way she manifests next time.

Welp. It really was quick this time. At least there's that.

WHOA WHOA WHOA HOLD ON. The Princess has been a prisoner this whole time. That's been one of her most defining, fundamental character traits. Is this chapter title implying that she wasn't as much of a prisoner as I thought?

New party member! Mr. The Narrator you should understand the struggles of being a disembodied voice. Improvise, adapt, overcome.

First thought on the Skeptic was that I didn't like him. He is now one of my absolute faves.

MIRROR TIME! MIRROR TIME! MIRROR TIME!

I'LL GET YOU ONE DAY YOU REFLECTIVE MANIAC.

I refused to take the blade and the Skeptic is digging in his heels about it. I don't like the revelation with Skeptic picking up the blade that Voices other than the Narrator are able to control my body.

I don't want to choose violence. I want to choose happy endings and love stories ;w; Guys. Guys please.

... Why is that one manacle empty?

The Hero is sweating bullets and wondering if the Princess is going to behead herself to get out of here and I'm dying laughing despite my nerves.

The Skeptic just called the Narrator pathetic, to which the Narrator basically said "WELL IT'S NOT LIKE I EVER SAID I WASN'T." At least he's self-aware.

PC: Hey, who's that other chain for? Princess: Wouldn't you like to know, feather boy. Narrator: *deep, deep sigh*

Did a lot of beating around the bush talking about who has more reason to distrust the other. Pretty sure the only way out of this is to behead her, and I'm really curious about the empty shackle. Gonna check that out first and then cut her out myself.

Narrator's huffy about me examining the shackle. Buddy it's an inanimate object, and I'm pretty sure you're not very motivated to trap me using it like you always get with locking the door to the basement.

Skeptic just asked "And what? Is it going to lock the second we put our wrist into it?" and I have done a 180. That thing is definitely locking onto us if we put it on. Still gonna put it on because that's what the Contrarian would say to do if he was with us and I miss him.

Either way, even if my bad decisions result in us being chained up, we still have the blade. Beheading is still an option.

Oh goodie, the music cut out! That's a good sign!

NOOOOO IT'S THE CONSEQUENCES OF MY OWN ACTIONS

Dying at how the Princess's expression changes to one of mild disappointment.

Beheading is no longer an option :(

The Skeptic just pointed out that the chain is clearly special, and I'm hearing Kill Bill sirens and remembering that one time the Narrator said I was special during the Beast chapter.

*pops confetti popper* iiiiiit's DISMEMBERMENT TIIIIIME!

(Ran out of images to include in this. See y'all in the next one!)

[liminal-lesbian]

In regards to marcy finding her niche…well forgive me for being cynical, but I don’t think she has one. Both Anne and Sasha found their niches in Amphibia, but Marcy couldn’t. And it wasn’t a lack of trying either, as seen with new wartwood and the journal. If she couldn’t make friends in Amphibia, I don’t think could on earth.

You're also gonna have to forgive me for being an obnoxious optimist (it's a result of hitting rock bottom multiple times and somehow still gettin thru things), but I like to imagine things get better for Marcy after Amphibia!

I know her story wasn't well executed in the show, but I really do feel the idea of Amphibia's end being the true start of her journey makes sense to me. Marcy's biggest struggle was finding security in her identity outside of other people, hence her deep fear of being alone (if I have no one, who am I?) and her need to gain approval (if I'm useful people will stay).

The problem with this is by doing this she created a structure of self-identification that relied on her eschewing her sense of self in favour of, in essence, making herself lesser for others. She flattened herself to be the smart one, the mediator, Master Marcy of Newtopia, etc. All are identities inherently created to be someone for someone else. Needless to say the loss of these relationships, perceived or in reality, is a world shattering event because she loses not just the relationship but herself.

In Marcy's mind, for good reason mind you, people don't want her for HER. They want her for what she gives them, thus she moulds and contorts herself to be who THEY want, losing herself in the process, becoming less a person and more thing for them to use.

I think this is the message her experiences in the Core were MEANT to convey; Marcy's feelings toward Anne and Sasha were absolutely founded in reality—they neglected her when she tried to express her true self—but she also needed to learn that people will love her for her, as the holistic, flawed, true Marcy that she is. In the end Marcy needed to value herself as much in order for that relationship to ever succeed.

Obviously this could've been executed MUCH better, maybe with more emphasis on people expressing that they loved Marcy for who she was rather than what she did, but I guess that's what fanfics for, eh?

With all this in mind though, this is why I think post-Amphibia Marcy would've found a niche for herself. She's learned that she's loved beyond her acts of service for others. She doesn't need to earn people's love, she is valued and loved because she's Marcy Wu, plain and simple, proven by Anne and Sasha coming back for her (altho this could've been done better as well, ie an earlier attempt to rescue Marcy, but I do think the overall intention was there story wise). Taking this to heart I think she'd find people who share her interests and be able to interact with them in a healthy manner, meeting them as equals and not as a tool to be used. This self-respect, understanding her value and viewing herself as an equal in her relationships, is the door to finding and thriving in new friend groups outside of Anne and Sasha.

I think this is where her guarded nature would develop. She understands her self-worth, and therefore would protect herself from people who might want to exploit her again (ANDRI-ASS looking at u), but I do think she'd get to a point where she'd know when to open up.

I understand a more cynical take for sure! Looking at how she was treated in the show that's absolutely an interpretation that could come from it. Personally, as a big sap at heart, I like to imagine a future where she's happy.

Source: I spent 23+ years viewing myself in a very similar manner and project onto Marcy perhaps a bit more than is healthy

[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]

[anisette-blackwirth]

SAGAU: Meeting Kazuha

summary: You started playing after Kazuha's release and have been waiting almost a year for his rerun (based on a true story lmao)

spoiler warning: inazuma archon quest spoilers

content warning: not exactly a cult AU but close enough. Chosen Traveler is Aether.

notes: I intend to eventually do one of these introspectives for each of my main team (and other characters, as applicable), but... Kazuha's banner is coming out in a few hours, so I had to write this quickly before summoning.

May all Kazuha wanters become Kazuha havers!

“You two give off not only the essence of wind and earth, but also of… yes… the stars…” 

The first time Kazuha felt your presence was when he met the Traveler and Paimon. He assumed the little flying child was somehow projecting her emotions to others. He expected Captain Beidou would be the one to ask. Beidou was outspoken and blunt, but that served her well as the captain of her crew. While they hadn't known each other for very long, Kazuha could already tell when she was about to say something, and refrained from making his own comments as he waited for her to speak up.

The feeling that she was ‘about to say something’ persisted up until the Traveler and Paimon left to prepare for the Crux Clash, when she finally let it out in a rush. 

"Did you feel that? That weird sorta energy around those two."

"I did. It seemed to ebb and flow with the little flying one's emotions."

"You know, I tried to ask about it? But I couldn't say the words."

"Truly?" Kazuha hummed in thought. "And yet we are having no trouble discussing it now."

"Yeah. I don't like this. Why couldn't I say anything? Do you think there’s some weird magic around them? This could be bad," Beidou said. "I'm gonna ask the crew if they felt anything."

"It certainly could be," Kazuha agreed mildly as Beidou descended to the lower deck, choosing not to voice his own suspicions just yet. But when he pulled the Traveler aside to have a word with him before the final match, he found quite quickly that he disagreed with Beidou. 

The more he spoke with the Traveler and Paimon, the more Kazuha felt that the presence was neither of theirs. It reacted pleasantly and kindly to his words. 

"...And, not to mention your incredibly complex scent. Like that of some mysterious being," Kazuha said. He tried to elaborate - Like the mist that rises off hot pavement in the first flash of summer rains - but couldn't. He frowned, struggling with his own words internally, before he gave up and continued on. The words felt right, but he hadn’t been able to voice them. Just like Beidou. 

Later that evening, something about the aura encouraged him to share his story - or maybe it was just the delayed result of Beidou pushing him to talk about his pain with others. As he spoke of Tomo's fate, keeping his voice deliberately light… he became certain that the presence was a third, separate entity. Paimon was saddened and the Traveler's expression displayed grief - but he seemed unsurprised, as if loss were an old, familiar friend and he had known what was coming the moment Kazuha began speaking.  

The presence he felt hovering around them was both sad and angry. Angry on his behalf, much like Beidou had been when she took him onboard. He could feel its desire to wrap around and protect him… but it didn't. And as he felt it leave sadly with the Traveler that evening… he wondered if maybe it couldn't. 

-------------

The Traveler, as it turned out, was not unaware of the presence hovering around him and his friend, because he re-introduced himself as Aether during the voyage to Inazuma. 

"I saw you both struggling to say something earlier. I'm sorry I couldn't explain things then. I have someone guiding me who we can't talk about. But they've been helping me for months now - well, all of us," Aether said, gesturing at the companions he'd brought on-board.

"Uh… huh." Beidou was unimpressed. And rightly so, since she had been intending to smuggle one person across and ended up with four. "You know Thoma isn't expecting these extra people, right?" she asked. 

"It'll be fine. I think? Whoever's helping us out seems to be able to hide extra people when they need to,” Aether said.

"So those emotions we felt when you were around were theirs? How does that work?" Beidou asks. Paimon made a very unimpressed looking shrug to mirror Aether’s.

"We're not sure," Aether said. "They only seem to be able to directly interact with certain vision users, but apparently everyone can feel them around. It's just, people with visions can feel them the clearest." 

"You introduced yourself as [username], and yet you now say your name is Aether. Is that their name?" Kazuha asks. 

"As far as we can tell," Aether says. 

As they continued explaining the situation, with Paimon remaining suspiciously silent, Kazuha was glad to get the chance to talk to Aether on his own. But he also found that he missed that summer-scented mist, just a little.

------------

Kazuha felt the presence watching over him a few more times in Inazuma after that, always in association with Aether. He felt its - their - utter joy at seeing him again when the Crux crew joined the battle at Nazuchi Beach, their enthusiasm almost matching Gorou's. Aether lingered to speak with him and Beidou after the skirmish, grinning sheepishly as the conversation stretched on. 

He felt them most strongly during the assault on Tenshukaku, their fear turning to such a fierce, victorious pride as he saves Aether that it left him shaking just as much as the Shogun's return strike did. Then the presence disappeared into the void with Aether, and did not come back out. 

He felt them briefly as he visited Tomo's grave after all was said and done, and found he was grateful to know they were still alive. Having someone to witness his prayers at his friend's resting place - even an unknown, mysterious, otherworldly aura - helped ease his heart. 

-----------

Kazuha did not feel them again until he decided on a whim to answer a commission in Liyue,  three months later. They were subtly in the background as he accepted Aether's invitation to team up, and he was disappointed when he thought that would be all he'd feel of them this time. But Aether gave him a thumbs up and a wink and warned him to brace himself. 

As soon as the party entered the domain, Kazuha felt their presence sweep over him. It was so much stronger than ever before that he had to stop and take a moment to breathe, though both the presence and his three companions seemed content to wait for him.

He felt the presence - felt you examining him joyfully. He got the sense that you were peering at him from every angle, and then your attention turned inward to the artifacts he'd chosen to take with him for this fight. You express vague interest and approval - had he chosen well? They were the best he had for that set - and then you were guiding the four of them forward to experience combat at your hands. 

It was different from normal combat. Alien. Kazuha found that your presence came and went in flashes, directing him to use certain skills and then flitting away to one of the others. He dodged strikes he couldn't see or hear properly through the echoing fog of the domain, kept safe from blows that might have felled him by a third eye from above. But he was also hit by other attacks he could clearly see approaching in slow motion, also found himself unwilling to use Chihayaburu when he normally would.

He sensed your frustration and shame whenever this happened, and he wondered whether you were learning this as you went, too. 

------------

Now, seven months later, he’s met you personally, face-fo-face. Your guidance of him as a “trial character” through two more events improved greatly since your first fumbling attempts to understand his “playstyle”, and he feels - perhaps arrogantly - that the two of you work well together. You had stuttered out something similar when you first asked for his consent to be “summoned” and used as your vessel all those months ago, and Kazuha smiles now as he recalls it.

Beidou joins him at the railing as he watches the approaching islands of the Golden Apple Archipelago and slings an arm around his shoulders companionably. 

“Ya ready, kid?” she asks. “Last chance to back out. I’m sure [Y/N] wouldn’t mind.” 

Beidou has been one of your vessels for a long time as well, and though she’s not the most often chosen, Kazuha has heard nothing but good from her about the experience. So he takes her words as teasing. 

“I find I must disagree. [Y/N] has been quite enthusiastic about my ‘return’ these past weeks,” Kazuha says with a smile. He knows from Beidou that you’ve had the necessary materials to empower him saved for quite some time, and while you apparently aren’t yet happy with the Viridescent Venerer’s artifact set you plan to gift to him, Kazuha is certain it will be worlds better than what he was able to collect on his own. 

“I haven’t the heart to disappoint. Besides, I have no other obligations. I merely wish to wander and experience the world. I can think of no better way to spend my time than to explore this world alongside someone who so clearly cares for me.” 

Beidou ruffles his hair and he ducks out of her hold. “Sap. Alright, well, we’re almost there! Fix your hair before you meet [Y/N]. Can’t have you looking like you just rolled outta bed!”

Kazuha grumbles and redoes his ponytail, which Beidou was the one to ruin in the first place - but finds that he can’t maintain even a fake frown for long. He’s excited to feel your presence in his life permanently. And as he prepares to step ashore and surprise you before you “wish” for him, he hopes you are too. 

[darth-sonny]

do you have any lore or more information on venus from your weary and wild au?

OH BOY DO I!!!!!!

i have a lot. but i'll tell you about two specific bits that are really important to her arc

HER MUTATION

i wasn't kidding when i said that Venus was the first mutated. i think Yoshi was in Draxum's clutches for longer than what was seen in goyles, goyles, goyles, probably a day or two. in that time, Draxum took some of Yoshi's blood samples and mixed it with his mutagen, which was still in development and not perfected at all. still very unstable

Venus was the turtle baby he chose to mutate first to see what kind of kinks and bugs he needed to work out. tl;dr., she was basically the test subject for the test subjects. if her mutation went well? then great! more soldiers for Draxum's army. if it didn't go so well and something bad happened? oh well, at least Draxum will know what to work on

(this, naturally, gave her some personal issues when she grew up. Draxum unfortunately never hid that tidbit from her)

so, by the time Draxum decided to mutate the boys, Venus was already mutated and toddling around somewhere

as stated before, the mutagen used to mutate her was in beta stage and unstable, which meant Venus wasn't fully humanoid as the boys ended up being. since she's a leatherback sea turtle, she was an aquatic mutant, and thus Draxum had to keep her in a tank full of water for the first few months. after he mutated her again with his perfected ooze, she ended up having the humanoid soldier form her brothers have

as a result of being mutated twice, Venus is much more bloodthristy and sadistic than her brothers. however, unlike her brothers, she has better control of those urges and can choose whether or not she falls into them. a direct result of her upbringing. she could kick Raph, Donnie, and Mikey's asses if she wanted to, but when it comes to Four, he will beat her in a fight

to put it simply; girlie has a beast mode

HER RELATIONSHIP WITH THE HAMATOS & DRAXUM

hoo boy. this is gonna be a mess, so strap in

while, yes, Draxum is redeemed and becoming a better person, the guy did start out as a villain whose main goal was to wipe out humanity. he raised Venus as a soldier, running her ragged with training meant for five instead of one. she was well aware that there were meant to be more of her, but she's the only one Draxum has now

Venus... does not like the Hamatos. her reasons aren't because of the family in particular, but because she's projecting her (rather justified) hatred of Draxum onto them

Draxum was. just the absolute worst for Venus during those times. he's changed now, but back then, the goat-man was – for a lack of a better term – abusive. he wasn't satisfied with her and used to take out his anger at having lost four of his soldiers out on her

and then, of course, came the day when he sold her to Big Mama. or, as the spider puts it, "gifted" Venus to her

whatever sort of hope that Venus had that maybe Draxum could one day turn around and start treating her better got destroyed on that day

she hates Draxum. plain and simple

however, she can't hate Four. he's her little brother, her baby brother. she doesn't like the others, but she 1000% likes Four

when she found out that Draxum suddenly became a good guy because of he had nothing else going on and because of the Hamatos, she... well. she immediately began hating that family, too. doesn't matter that they're her family by blood. she hates them

(her ninpō, as a result, is basically buried under D E E P rubble. not that she knows about it anyhow)

she'll call the other three her brothers (because that's what they are), but she doesn't consider them to be her brothers. they're as brothers to her the same way a stranger on fifth avenue is her friend. Four is the only one she actually considers family

it's the same to Splinter. she knows he's her biological father, the donor that made her mutation possible, but she doesn't really think of him as a father. a fatherly man, yes, but as her actual father? no, not really

and she'd rather die than call Draxum her father

all in all, my girl has a lot of personal issues to work out, and i am excited to get to them

(she does consider Big Mama to be her mother, but the girl's way too emotionally constipated to let that title spring out)

[fictionkinfessions]

Once again, been a while since I commented here but I did wanna share some things with the blog since a few things have happened kin wise.

I'm not gonna go tooooo deep into personal history (the things I'll be confessing here are just the tip of the very deep iceberg) but like. if my friends or people who know me don't already know that this is my tag, it'll be a dead giveaway H

This will be a bit of a ramble but maybe it'll give someone some sort of insight maybe???

A while ago, I kinfirmed Josuke Higashikata from JJBA. Doesn't sound like a big deal at all. Just another, "woohoo! Another to add to the list of lives I've cycled through, I suppose." But in this life it was... rough to accept at first. Lemme explain.

For years it was hard to accept that I may be that flamboyant zesty 90s kid (which is REALLY funny said out of context) due to some bad experience with someone I used to be friends with. We were in a JJBA roleplay together that me and another friend (that I'm still friends with) ran. I played Josuke, they played Kira. Said roleplay fucked me up bad, to say the least.

From that point on after the whole ordeal, I didn't even want to think about kinning Josuke. I think it's because in my mind at the time, that roleplay Josuke that I played was the one I was gonna be, and I didn't want that as my canon. Oh, god, I wanted nothing to do with it. I was so scared of becoming the woobified version of me that this 14 year old roleplayed as that I was essentially blinded by my own bias against me.

Mainly, I was scared of it because what I saw and felt was accurate to things I didn't know were details from my canon were projected onto the characterization. This further pushed the idea that if I somehow kinfirmed Higashikata, then I must be the one I roleplayed as (not true at all).

Some of the things included: I was a lot more caring than canon is, I remember I got a job as a hair stylist, etc etc. It's only natural when you end up a character you roleplayed as has the shit you headcanoned revealing itself to be parts of what you used to be. It's projection. Again, I was so blinded and scared that I was gonna be that woobified uwu pastel one that I played as 14 and didn't even stop to think that maybe, just maybe, I could think about the feelings I had about certain people and events and realize.... whatever angst shitstorm that happened in that roleplay was purely fictional, and that my canon is my own and not what me and some other people made up on the spot as an angst fest.

I harbored this distain for years because I couldn't NOT associate JJBA with that roleplay until one of my friends started to get into it. It was at first to me, "Oh, okay, cool. People can like what they like :] /gen"

And then one of my other friends kinfirmed YOSHIKAGE KIRA. shit was absolutely shocking because one of the main reasons I was so turned away from part 4 was because in aforementioned roleplay, the person who played Kira and was absolutely toxic to me. The weird ass interactions between rp Josuke and rp Kira had like fucked me up pretty bad and as a result I couldn't see Kira the same way for years.

Again, all up until my friend kinfirmed the man and, while not of my canon (unsure what they did in theirs) it clicked that. I NEED to let go of that and see things in a different light. That's my actual friend, a real person, and not some weirdo that another 14 year old roleplayed as and essentially woobified the shit out of. Real ass person, not the same. I needed to drop the grudges.

This is what also made me start to accept--not realize, I'm pretty sure I knew for a long time--that I was Josuke, specifically part 4 Josuke. Everything clicked so hard, for years all the complaints and headcanons I had made so much sense because it WAS me. That abhorred rat episode? Didn't react like that at all. I tried to help those people (and failed). The fact I was so turned away from the 'Josuke becomes a cop' headcanon that I used to see all the time back in like 2019/2020 or something? It was because I didn't become a cop at all! Josuke was like, in essence, my first kin before I even knew what kinning was.

It feels more at peace to leave the trauma behind and instead holding onto it and despising a media that didn't really wrong me itself, but instead the people I used to know back in the day. Leaving it behind and accepting it leads me to new discoveries on all ends, like the fact that the memories I have as Josuke are as vivid as the ones I have as Klavier Gavin. Or, the fact that Josuke feels like a super close kin...

Maybe because for some reason I like to kin really zesty motherfuckers such as Mettaton, Klavier Gavin, and Josuke Higashikata... Fits right in with my kintype flawlessly.

Anyways, I share this all not only to kinfess but to say that, hey if you read it all the way down here... Hi :] I genuinely hope that, if something similar has happened, you're turned away from a character or a media you used to enjoy because of someone... It's okay. Let yourself recover, and don't be afraid if you feel it may be you. It probably is. And if so, whatever headcanons or complete characterization you used to have isn't what your canon's going to 'turn into' when you kinfirm. You are complex and you are your own person. You can't get it all right, especially when you didn't know it was you. Give it another shot, and like I said, take your time to recover. Have a great day!!

(sorry for any bad grammar or misspellings I may not have caught)

-#🕹️👾🎸

🐸

[toranekooo]

hai :3 ambrose directed me to you so. please tell me about lip/hiyo i love drama and discourse so much (non forcing btw)

みなさん、おはこんばんちわ !! my name is ess but u can call me vyn, maiko or secchan~ and i will be your announcer for today <3 ! today we will be discussing why i dislike lip/hiyo ! this is gonna contain a lot of buffers so i dont get caught up in the tags or the search results so um. im sorry if its a pain to read. please be warned these are MOSTLY personal opinions and i don't intend on infringing on ppl who do ship it. i do not care. simply DONT tag my shit as it and we're good ^_^ except ppl dont listen and i find it fucking annoying so. here's a full blown explanation i guess

first ! lip.hiyo is a ship between hi.yori su.zumi and the members of lipx.lip ai.zo and yu.jiro . hiyo/ri is their manager and she's a girl from the countryside who moved to tokyo to study and work on becoming a track and field athelete . lipx/lip are themselves. their relationship in canon is. friends at best. something else at worst. being the little shits they are, lip/lip are nothing short of assholes to hiyo.ri for the majority of their earlier canon interactions. she states multiple times in her stories that they make her feel stupid. while i do think they respect and care for each other as coworkers, i still dislike how they treat her as a person, especially how they put down her feelings. before and after her.oiku where hiyo.ri undergoes a transformation courtesy of lx.l dressing her up so she can confess to another member of the idol series, asu.ka kai.do (discontinued due to the collaborative project ending) — they continue to tell her that had it not been for the pretty dress or the makeup, she wouldn't be worthy of being called a heroine. she wouldn't be a "girl" in their eyes. which is where a lot of the ships stem from.

but wait! you're probably asking yourself, or well, me: "secchan-sensei! lipx.lip bully each other a whole damn lot too! they bicker and they insult each other! wouldn't this put shipping them in the same category as lp/hy?" excellent question! while i understand why people can perceive it similarly, there is one big difference. the idols and hiyori exist in an unbalanced power dynamic. no i do not mean that in a literal sense, but in a social, emotional sense. you said it yourself, lip/lip bully each other! theyre mean and rude and crass and jerks to EACH OTHER. there is a back and forth movement. they bite and bite back, so to speak. while with hiy.ori as you're aware, she swallows her pain and bottles up that sadness and holds back those tears, she never responds or insults them back because she's not that kind of person. above all things, hiyori remains kind to ai and yu but the fact that they hurt her in ways they don't even acknowledge are not mutually exclusive.

if you're familiar with hone.yworks lore, as well as lx.l themselves, you probably know at least an adequate bit of their trauma. to put it simply, a.izo struggles with interacting with women, to the point where he finds them difficult to be with. this is often translated to him hating women, so as an idol with a predominantly female fanbase, this is a big problem. this trauma stems from his mother, who for the greater part of his childhood, was an abusive drunk. not only that, his older brother, whom he looked to for support and comfort when their home life was at their worst, is a playboy who toyed around with women and relationships with hopes of avoiding the loneliness at home. while ken grew out of his issues and ultimately became a better person, his actions growing up had a significant negative effect on ai.zo . he isnt jUst a miSoGyniSt dear fuck

yujiro, on the other hand, is the stepson of national treasure, tamagoro someya, a master of kabuki. his mother, tae, married into the family and he has a younger stepbrother, koichiro. tamagoro very explicitly tells him that he will not inherit the kabuki legacy, stating that he "lacks beauty" and is half-hearted. this is despite the fact that yujiro pushed himself beyond his own strength, to the point of starvation and isolation, all for the sake of pleasing his father — who never intended to acknowledge him in the first place. yujiro remained inadequate, lacking, some part of him, despite his best efforts, would never fit into the beauty of the roles his father had crafted for the stage.

“Father is father, and there’s nothing I can do about that. I think he didn’t have a choice in telling me to give up…” “…Were you never allowed to stand on the kabuki stage?” “There’s no way he would have let me. It was only my brother who could have…” (That’s really messed up…) If he had no intention of letting him perform on stage, why did he let him practice? It was cruel to put so many expectations on a child, only to rip his hope away from him. (LOVE&KISS novel, Chapter 7) [1]

how is this relevant to hiyori?

then, we talk about the infamous hero.taru anime. now, honeyw.orks anime have this curse where they're either bound to flop incredibly or butcher the characters enough it appeals to a general audience and completely destroys their characters. the hero.taru anime was made to promote lip.x.lip and profit off their popularity in the idol genre showcase hiyo.ri's heroine story. the story spans multiple mvs, from h.eroine iku.sei keikak.u -> her.oine wa hei.kin ika -> her.oine tarum.ono . there's a general difference with as.uka being cut out and replaced with nagisa after he's finally released from the honeyw.orks basement. aaand i'm getting sidetracked. as someone who watched every single anime hnw has put out, i can confidently say...

her.otaru fucking sucks.

despite being an anime centered on hiy.ori's development as a heroine, it overuses fanservice and became a cookie cutter shoujo mixed with a little idol for the views. fuck, the main conflict was literally between lip.xlip's manager and their biggest fan who had a crush on aiz.o . DO YOU SEE MY ISSUE. ok that aside. the anime completely butchers hiyo's character by making her overly dependent on lx.l. not to mention the bathroom scene. ick. the anime also completely butchers lxl by erasing their issues and making them into "just backup male leads if nag.isa doesnt sell well" and he didnt bc he was there for one fucking episode . back to my point, the anime has a particular scene pertaining to their trauma, which i have elaborately expanded above, and dumbs it down to: [2]

bad, right? not the worst butchering of it yet. you see, SOMEHOW, the herota.ru anime made the already fucked hani.wa timeline WORSE by turning yum.e fanf.are into a song about hiyori. i'm going to start tearing and biting bc this frustrated me SO MUCH . yume.fan is a song of aizo and yujiro about their struggles as stated above, and yet it was percieved as a song made to make hiyo.ri fall in love with them.

god ok this is. incredibly long at this point but i have only pierced the surface. lets just get it down to brass tacks. i hate lip.hiyo.

a lot of people came out of hero.taru shipping lip.hiyo after seeing their relationship and interactions in the anime. people tend to ship them with hiyor.i because "sHe's nOt LiKe oThER giRls" . of all the things i hate abt lip.hiyo and the hero.taru anime in general, i hate how it ruins hiyo.ri's character. i hate how they refuse to acknowledge that she enjoys feeling beautiful, she likes being a feminine, she wants to be a heroine — her issues don't lie in her not being beautiful enough to fit in the heroine mold, but the fact that she can be heroine, regardless of how she perceives herself!

well, introspective reasons aside, i hate the ship on a personal basis bc i've recently found out most ppl who ship it are pushing to make people believe it's canon ? like who the fuck does that. ONE, hiyori does have a canon love interest, nag.isa shiran.ami. TWO, they have never even remotely shown any romantic interest to her ??? well fuck i mean if you count calling her derogatory names, telling her she'll never be a girl if she doesn't dress up, or saying she'll never get a romeo if she rejects nagisa counts as flirting then sure i believe you. THREE, you can literally ship it even if it isn't canon. there is nothing stopping you??? it's giving hypocrisy bc a long loooong time ago they were mad at ai.yuu shippers for continuously mentioning their parallels and the possibility of them becoming canon and they called them [BEEEEEP] . you get the point.

negativity aside, at this point i've probably put you through a horror. sorry about that. all in all, i prefer ai.yuu and nagi.hiyo over lp/hy. i dislike het.lip in general because why would you want to inflict this upon any girl. come on. they can do better. im kidding but you get it. ai and yu trust each other more than anyone, they are canonically each other's most important person, and they are equals in persevering to achieve their dreams. THAT is what yume.fan meant [3] . and i like n.ghy bc nagi.sa has had feelings for hiyori for years, even before she dolled herself up, even before she was a manager, he fell in love with hiyori, and no one else — because in his eyes, she's always been a heroine!! "zutto heroine da" - nagi.sa in heroine wa heikin ika [4]

in case for SOME reason this isn't enough, please feel free to peruse the following posts that expand on some particular parts of this: differences between the mvs and anime | the Trauma scene | yume fan.fare's meaning | personal thoughts 1 | personal thoughts 2

CITATIONS:

[1] LOVE&KISS Chapter 7 — translation

[2] He.roine Taru.mono! Kiraware H.eroine to Naisho Os.higoto Anime Episode 4

[3] Yu.me Fan.fare by LIP.×LIP

[4] Her.oine wa Hei.kin Ika by Su.zumi Hiyo.ri (CV: Ino.ri Mi.nase)

[kscribbs]

Welp! Here it be. My own interpretation of the Jacqueline Dies AU. I did say I was gonna throw Lucy at it and... that's exactly what happened. 😂😅

I’ve been somewhat undecided about posting this wee beastie, for a variety of reasons. Foremost being that I found it really difficult to reconcile the whole Jacquie Being Dead Thing with my own personal stipulations for writing fanfic in this universe, which essentially boil down to “Jacqueline needs to be included”. I love Jacquie too much, man. Her being dead hurts my heart! As does the Twins not existing! If not for the lovely and talented SafyreSky giving me a gentle nudge/bit of encouragement, I may not have shared this at all. 

There are certain elements, however, of which I’m rather fond, I’ll admit. Therapist!Lucy was a lot of fun to write, despite my undying love for doctor!Lucy. The whole psychoanalysing element provided fertile ground for in-depth character exploration. Of Jack, namely. This is a particularly dark Jack. Perhaps the darkest I have ever and will ever write; that much will be plain from his first appearance. He’s very cold and closed off and quite frankly a real asshole at points, but that, too, was a treat to sink my teeth into.

We get some nice fluff between him and Luce, after he’s thawed, which was healing for my soul. I'm really pleased with the way their friendship develops, over the course of the story. It mirrors ML to a fairly large extent -- the two of them consistently coming through for one another; their dynamic being based on mutual respect and admiration, in spite of all the bantering/bickering.

We also get a sweet sibling-y moment between Charlie and Luce, and some fun Mel and Ozzy content. Bernard even makes a cameo! I adored every nod to Jacquie I was able to include (the piano scene in particular). And the ending, which I amended fairly recently and, as a result, now vastly prefer (owing predominantly to the revelation about Convergences, as featured in Saf’s beautiful one shot) warms my heart. For reasons that will likely become clear if/when you read it!

I worried that, because a good proportion of the fic is just Jack and older!Lucy in a room trying to one up each other, it wouldn’t be interesting to anyone but myself. But hopefully that’s not the case! It does have a fairly even balance of all the characters, over all. 

Needless to say, this thing got entirely out of hand and is so much longer than it should’ve been! I think bc I ended up fitting ideas and concepts into it that I haven’t and likely won’t be able to feature in ML. Hence me making it a proper one shot on Ao3!

(Side note: Whenever I write a one shot I do so in present tense for some reason? No idea why. But there we have it).

[omegamoo]

As far as Whittled Pantheon goes.. a few questions. 1) It was originally a MC RP.. how has it being made into a group writing project affected certain liberties you have been able to take?

2) How has the loss of the original group of character creators affected the direction the story has gone and what difficulties have presented themselves as a result of this?

3) What aspects of the story have changed since its conception? (I.e., the Catalyst, characters' personalities and actions, etc., etc.)

Love this stuff (:

omg hi.. hiii... HI... long time no see hope you've been doing really well aaaahhhhh ahhh ahhh!!! also this set of questions is so freaking cool to answer... aAHHHHH HHH! AHHH!! also your smiley face is still the wrong way i guess some things never change :)

i will warn you that asking me about the whittled pantheon is like walking into a minefield and i think i got really incomprehensible here so i'm sticking this all under the cut. thanks so much for the ask

also i seriously think a lot about how this all happened w the og group :) and i for sure did not manage to properly say everything i wanted to within this ask haha

wanna start by saying i feel like since the beginning the whittled pantheon was always going to grow out of minecraft. like as soon as we said lets make them gods in survival minecraft there was so much like. worldbuilding and context and stuff that was automatically just so much bigger and complex than minecraft was able to provide and i honestly think that was very charming. like we - and by we i mean literally all of the original group of creators - put so much love and thought into this that of course it was going to grow further than we expected. and i think that's really beautiful.

1) moving it away from minecraft absolutely EXPLODED the possibilities which i think you ended up seeing the first part of? especially within the context of the old world which before really functioned as like... another server. since moving it away the worldbuilding has gotten really unique - specifically in regards to things like language and culture, which i feel like minecraft lays out within its own game lore? yk? so moving it outside of that really changed a lot. and things like... we're not tied to minecraft mechanics in terms of the nether and the overworld and the mobs and stuff, like that's not really a factor? anyways we were able to take a lot more liberties in terms of godly powers and abilities and creations, and worldmaps and timelines and just so much specific city culture and building. but as i'm writing this it's occuring to me - and i don't know if like, twig or tgm would say this as well - but it's a bit funny because even now picturing the new world/post catalyst i... still imagine it in the format and layout of our minecraft server. like in terms of where houses are, the paths, aides' tree and the warren... like when i picture that i'm still picturing the server. maybe that's just because your ask got me thinking about it i'm not sure but it's kinda funny!

2) i mean it changed a lot. i think this is the answer that is gonna vary the most if you were to ask it to tgm or twig because i think our individual relationships to the group and such are different but i will say that the main difficulty for me has always been like. wanting to include people in the process and getting nervous that people will feel excluded or that we've taken too many liberties with it and people will be angry that we didn't consult them, but also... it's hard to manage consistency and communication for as large and complex of a project as what the whittled pantheon was becoming especially within the context of the group at the time. and i think that bit kinda speaks for itself, haha. the main change i think was again the worldbuilding and a bit the arc of the characters - we never changed really personalities, exactly, i think the main cast stayed relatively true to original concept in many ways, but there's a bit of archetyping of characters in terms of their roles within the larger story that were impossible to predict when we started. the story itself for sure also became a lot more of a commentary on society which i don't think outside of tgm's stuff with agathodaemon it was beforehand - because largely that wasn't what the whole group was into, from what i remember.

the other thing in terms of all of that is, especially on my end, the attempt to stay true to the original concepts without like. being able to know for sure where y'all were going with it all. there were some parts of lore that either never got fleshed out or i personally never fully understood or never fit within the worldbuilding that the majority had set up, and so it was like. hard to make sure that that was close to what it had been while still making sense. thinking about maey forever. and idk like i'd talk to people and they'd be like "hey what's up with my character and can i write stuff" a year later and it was tough to be like "yeah here's kinda... how its changed. please don't b mad and also you can write stuff but its so much more complex now" idk it is kinda scary.

3) changes time EEE. lets see. im gonna make you a little list :]

the worldbuilding at its very basic essentials changed SO much. how the planet systems and how the Carver came to be are much more solid. i kinda dont know how to explain it because the effects of it are still the same but its just more detailed? if you want more the tag on my pinned post "whittled pantheon explanations" has a lot of it

other big change was the Failsafes - Melior, Palaemon, and Aides. failsafe is a type of god essentially and there are two per each world (the Carver isn't supposed to carve any other gods just set the two failsafes down and move on) and they are like the protectors and caretakers of the world. there's usually an earth one and a water one - for the old world, Melior is the earth and Palaemon is the water. this is why things get SO BAD when Palaemon dies, because he's fundamentally a part of the world. And Aides is the earth failsafe for the new world, and is awakened by Agathodaemon when he goes back to get Iota. failsafes can create passages (like. melior goddess of paths yk) between worlds (melior creates the one to the new world originally and aides then creates the warren back to the old world). so you can prolly see a lot of the similarities in terms of plot function, just we've kinda slotted it all into worldbuilding better.

uhm the Catalyst. no longer about turning into glass haha, that just stopped making as much sense. it's still the end of the world, but there's a lot more... politics? in it? it's more centered around the loss of water, so there's a lot of faction-action surrounding like... the last standing sources of water. the fortuna and iota stuff is still pretty much the same though.

a lot of character actions still stay the same at their core, i think. like there's been modification for sure but a lot of the story concepts that were fully written out stayed the same. maey's stuff with kappa has been slotted into worldbuilding but still remains at its core the same, the relationship between morrighan and ludo in all its godly toxicity still remains a lot of what it was. the whittled pantheon started out as a story driven by the characters. there's not some big bad guy out there to destroy them, it's entirely the actions of the characters and so in a lot of ways there was absolutely no way for us to ever lose sight of that bc that would fundamentally change the project.

final thing because this is so ungodly long. i think you will be maybe pleased toknow that to my knowledge the stuff in the new world with morrighan. that arc. + her convos with agathodaemon. are still pretty much the same.

anyways if you got to the end of this hey. hi. i kinda lost my mind answering this but i hope it meant something. the whittled pantheon means the world to me and what we created with the original server really i think fundamentally changed my life. and you had a lot to do with that, so thanks.

and uhm you are always welcome to pop into my dms or whatever.. i know we havent really talked in a while but i hope youre doing so good <3

[chayscribbles]

chayscribbles’ monthly writing update ☆ november 2022

☆ STATISTICS.

words written: 9835 drafting; 17606 redrafting/editing

projects worked on: Andromeda Rogue, Andromeda Rising

proudest accomplishment: i published my first art zine! oh and finishing the first draft of AR3 is also a thing that happened

books read: Memoria by Kristyn Merbeth; Cinder by Marissa Meyer, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

☆ GENERAL COMMENTS.

(book comments first: Memoria (the sequel to Fortuna, which i read a few weeks ago) was MUCH better imo than the first, 4.5 stars. Cinder was very enjoyable but i do feel like i am simply getting too old for YA and would have liked it better if i had read it a few years ago, 4 stars. A Memory certainly wasn't bad, but in the end it fell a bit flat for me, 3 stars.)

this month has been Very Weird. within the span of like 3 days a lot of things happened, including finishing AR3 and other Personal Stuff that resulted in me suddenly having a lot of free time on my hands that i did not know what to do with. but everything ended up working out! and a lot of that free time went to working on my wip.

i had thought that after finishing AR3 i'd work on one of my lower-effort sidewips, or work on other hobbies like drawing, but the motivation for those things just... didn't manifest itself? (also the Secret Space WIP, has become bigger than i thought it would, and i felt it would require more commitment than i am currently willing to give it)

anyways i just ended up going right back to AR kjdfgkjfds whoops

more specific wip-related comments + featured excerpt below.

☆ COMMENTS: ANDROMEDA RISING (finishing the draft)

did i really finish this draft this month? it feels like forever ago jkfdjk

so my unofficial NaNo goal was to finish AR3. i had originally estimated it would take 15k, and then adjusted it to 10k. i didn't quite make the 10k either but i DID finish the draft, so that's still a win. to me.

this draft turned out way shorter than i had hoped... and there's a LOT that needs to be fixed, and i'm not completely satisfied with how it turned out. but i really was at the point where i had to just get through it to call it done otherwise i never would, so thank fuck that's over with.

(trying not to think about how much needs to be fixed yet. gritting my teeth.)

☆ COMMENTS: ANDROMEDA ROGUE (draft... 2!!!!)

so i had this whole plan of letting the entire series rest, then rereading, reoutlining, reworking some plot, character and worldbuilding stuff, and only starting draft 2 in 2023... and then i got impatient lmao.

i was somewhere in the reoutlining stage about a week after finishing AR3 when i realized it felt like i was wasting my time. not much of the main structure of this book is gonna change, so i was pretty much just rewriting the exact same outline i already had. (i plantsed through draft 1 but made a reverse outline as i was writing.) most of the changes are adding or changing certain details to scenes and no amount of planning was gonna help any more than just writing out the changes. so, on the 18th, i started draft 2.

(besides, it's not like i didn't let AR1 rest. i finished it in june 2021 after all.)

i also had a bunch of editing notes from when i was drafting, + stuff i thought about later while writing the sequels on how to better set things up, + notes taken during my reread. so i ended up just annotating the hell out of my first draft to show where i would add or change things, and then i put the old draft on one side of the screen and a new doc on the other side and started rewriting it to include the changes.

i've gone through about 5 chapters and added an epilogue so far! it's going pretty fast haha. i've already added over 2000 words just by fleshing things out a bit more, now that i know my characters and the world much better than when i started. it's SO much easier now that i have the entire series in front of me.

chapter 5 is where i've been slowed down as there is a considerable amount of stuff that needed to be rewritten completely-- it's quite exposition-heavy (it's the scene where Petra gets a rundown of her xenobotany mission), and when i first wrote it, i wasn't exactly sure where i was going with the story. and even though i now have a fuller picture in front of me, it's always hard to write an exposition-heavy chapter and include everything that needs to be said without making it drag. not to mention, foreshadowing and setting things up appropriately.

right now, i'm taking a quick break from redrafting to iron out some of the political backdrop of the story. not only did i need to rest after wrestling with chapter 5, but i was disappointed reading A Memory Called Empire, which was supposed to be a political intrigue, and it was one heck of a motivator to try to make the politics in my book better haha.

☆ FEATURED EXCERPT.

very short passage i added to AR1 to further demonstrate how much of a nerd Petra really is.

“Petra,” Dr. Derosy said, “you did your thesis on vitaplants. Would you mind giving us a brief definition?” Petra coughed and sat up straighter in her chair. “Vitaplants are a category of plants that boost the growth and health of other living organisms around them, specifically through the emission of vitawaves," she said. "Vitaplants have been found to have evolved independently on multiple planets around the sector and are not confined to a single genus, which has confounded taxonomists—"

“Thank you, Petra. I did say brief.”

☆ TAGLISTS. let me know if you want to be added/removed to either.

general taglist:

@nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @stormharbors @quilloftheclouds @ashen-crest @writeblrfantasy @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @extra-magichours @avi-why @lefttigerobservation @chazzawrites @bardolatrycore

andromeda trilogy taglist:

@bebewrites @nicola-writes @dgwriteblr @the-orangeauthor @stormharbors @akindofmagictoo @quilloftheclouds @nora-theteawriter @ashen-crest @corpsepng @writeblrfantasy @toboldlywrite @celestepens @stardustspiral @pepperdee @cheerfulmelancholies @extra-magichours @writeouswriter @cilly-the-writer @lefttigerobservation @rose-bookblood @drowsy-quill @chazzawrites @cynic-and-chief @enchanted-lightning-aes @aesa

[storyspinner91]

Chapter 1: Through the Fire and Wind

Summary: On the planet of Tir Asleen, on the outskirts of Union's hegemonic benevolence, best friends Kit Tanthalos and Jade Claymore are staring down an uncertain future - and a decision that will change their lives forever.

[This is an old chapter, I'm reposting it here for archival purposes!]

I wanted to repost links to my old chapters as I keep working on the next one, partly as a break/distraction and partly because if I'm going to keep a tumblr for this project I feel I should be complete about it. So here's a link for the first chapter! In an attempt to give these a little more purpose I'm also gonna talk a tiny bit about the process of writing it.

As I think I said elsewhere, I basically started this fic like I was possessed; I outlined the broad strokes and then wrote this chapter in (I'm pretty sure) one fell swoop of like 4 hours far too late at night. It was fairly easy to write because it's mostly a rework of ep. 1 of Willow; this is an adaptation that departs eventually from its source material, not a 100% original fic, and at the start I was playing with how closely I could stick to the original plot beats and dialogue of the show as I found my feet.

Also, I just love that we meet Kit and Jade swordfighting, and making them have a mech practice/paintball fight felt like a great way to establish the world and some of the fantasy-analogues very, very quickly. It also helps me point up one of the fun things about this kind of mech fiction for people who might not be as familiar: in Lancer, pilots (players) modify their mechs extensively, so each giant robot becomes a sort of expression of their personality/approach to fighting or life. So we have Kit's mech, Freedom, which is fast, agile, and expends huge amounts of power in flashy ways, and Jade's, Duty, which is slower, more heavily armored, carefully managed. I hope it helps set expectations for what readers will see in the future!

This is (I think) about the only chapter where I do the fanfic thing of "We've all seen Willow, right? I don't have to totally rewrite that scene in the banquet? Cool." :P

One thing that did surprise me about this chapter - and emerged organically as I wrote - was how much more high-intensity the confrontation between Kit and Jade became at the end. I'm not sure where that came from, exactly, though I think part of it is the idea that in a far-future world with very advanced surveillance technology, Kit's plan is way less likely to actually work for her. So Jade's not only in conflict with her over ideas (should she do this) but because she's concerned for Kit's actual safety.

The Oh Hellos song that corresponds with this chapter is On the Mountain Tall. At the start of this project I was pulling on the songs more for lyric inspiration than anything else, but the song does touch on things that are relevant to the chapter: the intertwining of love and fear, and the sense that something unstoppable has been set in motion. It's the start of the cycle, after all... In hindsight, I'm also very happy that the song hints that some of the drama/violence/oppression happening now is a result of the past:

Still the wild wind blows Up out of the grave of an angry ghost Firing bricks from broken canon and prose To build a wall so high it reaches the heavens in the sky

(Though fun fact: I realized only later that I'd 100% misheard the lyric in the title, and it should be "Though the fire and wind." Oh well.)

Anyway! Too long a ramble for a chapter I posted in March, but it's the first one. Will keep posting backup chapters as I take breaks. Feel free to ignore them!

[babblish]

🕯️💘?

Thanks for the ask 🥝!

🕯️was there a fic that was really hard on you to write, or took you to a place you didn't think it would take you?

Oh Uhl fic on both accounts, hands down, this is gonna be long as I struggle to communicate how hard it was for me to write and how truly baffled I was to be writing that genre in the first place.

I literally started the project as medicine as prescribed by my doctor at the time because medically I was going Through It and he was convinced that literally all my problems were in my end/a result of "de-conditioning." Spoilers: He was very very wrong.

So the first few months of that was ROUGH and I had no intentions of sharing it publicly. But then my partner at the time convinced me to publish it which was a great call and I made some very dear friends of mine as a result of this.

And then I got the great idea to write a Part Two section with a different PoV which was going great to begin with, but I was getting basically no reader engagement at all and had zero idea what was going to resonate with people.

Uhl fic started out essentially a very silly slice of life oneshot which was good because it meant I wasn't trying to be Good I was just trying to have fun, but it also meant I was reinventing the wheel because I had never written in that genre before. (If you've read Under the Sun, Under the Sun, Primordial Awakenings, and Web of Starlight you have a pretty good idea of where my comfort zone is with prose, tone, and setting.)

Eventually the project dragged on enough and I just wanted it to be DONE and so I resolved to throw my everything into finishing it using NaNoWriMo 2019. But as I continued tying up all the loose ends new chapters sprung out of nowhere like mitosis and I was full on having a crisis over how I should end the fic because I didn't want what was right for the characters to be right for the characters and I wasn't ready to let the narrative be what I built the damn thing, intentionally or not, To Be.

I was writing every day despite being very very ill and the project had become a copying mechanism to avoid Being in My Body but I was also very miserable and alone and I don't think I've ever enjoyed writing less (outside of answering Key Selection Criteria, which is sort of like re-writing your resume AND cover letter a third time by answering a bunch of questions using as legalese as physically possible.)

By this time I had started keeping data on my writing habits so I can confidently tell you I didn't quite make NaNoWriMo but I did write 33558 words that month (not including the conlang and German translations) and NEVER AGAIN.

I learned so many value lessons with Uhl fic but the most important one is that writing is so much easier when you're not fighting yourself to do it.

💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write?

To this day I have not finished translating the dialogue into changeling lang in The White Rabbit and it's my constant undying shame. The lang itself is mostly finished, it's just a matter of sitting down and doing it, but well you see... The Arcane Order happened since I set that goal for myself, and also... I have many other projects and I am still chronically ill... 👉👈 one day... one day... 😔

[jinmalos]

id love to hear your thoughts on the teaser for wave 4

OK OK OK OK. I MEANT TO GET TO THIS SOONER BUT THEN I GOT CARRIED AWAY WITH SOME ZINES AND SOME OTHER PROJECTS. BUT, I just finished speedrunning the game for my sibling to catch them up, Future Redeemed comes out tomorrow, I am Not A Normal Person About This Game.

Spoilers below, not particularly thought out bc i've given myself a headache from finishing the game and sobbing my eyes out again as of 3 hours ago

I. Genuinely have a lot of thoughts and they've changed a bit since it was announced and the subsequent trailers we've had, as well as refreshing myself on XBC1 and XBC2 lore since then. I will start with my joke theory, For the longest time I had a joke that boiled down to "Alvis is Riku and he's really enjoying larping as a nopon rn." Why the fuck would that nopon know so much. NOW, I'm more in the "give me the name of your god you nopon piece of shit." who is this fucker loyal to. IS IT MELIA? IM P SURE ITS MELIA. BUT LIKE. STILL WHO TF IS HE. WHY DOES HE KNOW SO MUCH. WHAT HAS HE BEEN UP TO.

Also! I'm not actually sure how I'm feeling on this game being a prequel! I'm not fully convinced it is yet even though thats EXACTLY what it looks like. Part of me really wants an epilogue to the base game's story or at MOST something that is running concurrently. It's not that I dislike prequels, I LOVED torna i've genuinely played torna all the way through upwards of 6 times by now. It's just really enjoyable. I just kinda wanna know what happens...AFTER the plot. But I'm not gonna be DISAPPOINTED if it genuinely turns out to be a prequel.

Madly in love with A's design, I think someone may have transed their gender =w=

Jokes/wishful thinkin aside, I wonder if Ontos will be playing a role in this. Alvis claims to be from a long line of seers, I wondered if maybe the Processor that is Ontos has just been spitting out random entities and A + the mystery White Alvis are just consequences. I wanna know how Z ties into that. I also wanna know where everyone..IS. Like, where is Fiora or Reyn, or Pyra and Mythra, or even fucking Morag or Tora. No mention of them, so i'm curious to know...why. Shulk is clearly Shulk here, and Rex is clearly Rex, If they aren't part of the cycle there HAS to be an explanation as to how they're in Aionios and what happened to everyone else, right?

I'm excited to see what's up on that front though. I refuse to believe that Alvis has become evil, not because I think it's implausible, but just because i dont want that evil Alvis to be Alvis because his concept art is WHITE. My opinions on Alvis being DIRECTLY Ontos have shifted to being a bit more..flexible on the concept because of A and the revealed mystery character, but in my heart he's still directly Ontos and I hope the Shalvis Divorce Arc ends happily.

Wishful thinking, of course, is that i'd like to see the Trinity Processors reunited in some way, shape, or form. I love joking about Aegis Sibling Family Reunions/Learning Where tf Ontos is, but I'll admit the ending of xbc2 is a bit ambiguous on what exactly happens with Logos and Pneuma and how that relates to Ontos OR the continued existence of Pyra and Mythra. I'll actually be really sad if there's no way they can be reunited/bummed if something's happened to Pyra and Mythra as of a result of the ending of xbc2. I just kinda want Malos to get a minor redemption arc or st least know if the Logos and Pneuma cores of the Trinity Processor was relevant at all.

BUT YEAH. IM SO EXCITED. VERY, VERY EXCITED. I'm sad this is the end of the Klaus arc of Xenoblade/the Xeno series, but I'm excited to see where we go next! If this wave 4 dlc is even remotely as good as base xbc3, it'll be an excellent ending to such a good series!

[lookwhatilost]

probably just a coincidence that extremely online and probably mentally ill people online share a tremendous sense of in-group exceptioned misanthropy. definitely no selection bias at work in the anecdotes one gets in twitter threads.

just happened to notice an enormous number of categorically distinct threads of people of x or y group talking about how awful everyone who isn't x or y is – except the specific ones they like. i think this shit is bad for our brains. any group online is gonna self-select and self-filter, so you'll get shared views and experiences – being immersed in that feedback causes a distorted sense of reality/universality – it's like psychic inbreeding, a perceptual habsburg jaw. of course when you've got a lot of extremely wounded and bitter people all crowded together behind that big in-group hugbox/out-group hatefest, you just know it's insane amounts of harsh judgement, backstabbing, and intrigue. the in-group is never quite in enough until it's just you.

like if I spent all my adolescence/teens/20s almost exclusively with other people that are slight variations of me, all psychically hotboxing each other with our shared fears and loathings and projections, you just know the end result would be horrifying. anyway the point is, people take anecdotal experiences, opinions, issues, neurosis, and filter into groups exclusively of very similar sensibilities. locked in like that, like with inbreeding, you get an exaggeration of shared traits, a feedback loop, which distorts the mind.

it's not just "bubble theory" which is merely ignorance of things outside your social world, but an extended folie-a-deaux, folie-a-hundreds. the kind of distorted mentality created by cults, but without the centralization. broken people digging in each other's alike wounds. look at any alike/insular group long enough. incels are a good example but it occurs essentially in any (real or self perceived) outsider grouping, as a product of the shared experience and injury of social rejection and alienation. online makes this much easier to do.

i suspect this tendency explains many waves of hysteria, exaggerated responses to real horrors as well as purely invented delusions. people in these isolated clusters amp each other's fears and hatreds up in an environment that is built on not having much variety of perspective. this is also why, to use a precise example: "depression vent channels" in discord servers almost always turn out terrible. it becomes a black hole for shared and mutually reenforcing misery and cognitive distortion, not a place of support or healing.

i don't have a great answer or grand theory to conclude on, but it's worth considering, as we all have a consciousness that is shaped socially, how much your perception and feeling might be distorted by you social scene. if The World is like that or if it's just your crew.