#this isn't plot-relevant btw

[blind-alchemists]

is ... is Therinfal Redoubt in the Brecilian Forest.

because that would be kind of funny.

[lovenpeace-pkmn]

Does the guy have a weird Floette with him?

He has a floaty little partner Pokémon. I do not know it. It hates him sometimes, I think

[ace-malarky]

Happy STS! Some of the Mist World worlds are not human-based, how does that affect the way world interractions go? Are there humans breaking and entering, or is it magically and hermetically sealed off for them?

Happy STS!

So for the most part, there's only three of the worlds that are unreachable but they also have humans as a base species so they're not counting for the current topic lmao

The others - provided you have a guide through The Mist or are following an approved route - are. fairly come and go? there's paperwork to fill out kinda passport-and-visa style which absolutely gets harder based on whomst you are and where you're trying to go

For Ekkimund - our entirely-underground-the-surface-is-poisonous world - it's tricky largely for like. health and wellbeing reasons because hardly any of the buildings/tunnels etc are built to human scales. There's some around where the Gates are, but it's still not standard practice. Not really brought up as a destination to go, but this is from both sides! there's an understanding here!

sometimes you have to be wary of the ones that are incredibly lax, because they tend to be the ones where humans haven't really settled so like. yeah it's easy to get to but also there's like no amenities etc here. Also possibly way more danger.

Mesharion is entirely naga and siren and the like, and unless you're a weather witch you stand very little chance of being on good terms with them

Kevyar is fine because technically there are humans here but actually they're werecreatures that were animals first and that's how they think of themselves

Guilene is the world I used for my not-technically-dnd-campaign and humans very definitely were not a homegrown species but moved in and set up shop and oh boy it might have been Some Years but there's still a lot of feelings. Unfortunately I may have explained this badly ingame and my players somehow got the "so elves are racist" telling of it ^^;

(but also, yes, there are absolutely groups that slip-n-slide between the gates to make their way smuggling tech and the like, to varying degrees of success)

the time period I normally write in of this set is far enough along that the sealed worlds are either unknown, a fairy tale, or the holy grail of explorers everywhere, and when they open back up there are. varying degrees of uhhhh success there.

Shekonys, used to literally just having humans and flyers (and only just out of the "what the fuck do you mean this is a parallel world scenario and they're slamming back into each other) has the culture shock of its life when magic users and other nonhumans start arriving for visits

Leritheyar is a bit more chill, all the Gates are in the island where Mal and Kaithr stay and know about them, so they can like. dripfeed back to the rest of the world which is only just getting used to having magic again

and Kukipia? well, they've got wyverns and the Bran Rhi has been feeding them stories for years, so arguably they're used to this and the other worlds don't know what's about to hit them

[lieutenantselnia]

This is super random, but I've recently been watching more German movies (I really enjoyed the performances of some Downfall actors and wanted to see some of their other works), and like what the hell is it with 2000s German movies that there's way too often one entirely random scene with someone having their bare ass out😭😂

Of course it doesn't happen in every movie but still often enough that it's somehow noticeable? I'm not sure if it's more of a time or a country dependent thing, but at least in my perception I just don't feel like this occurs as often in more recent movies and series especially in those from the US (like, I feel I'd have noticed if it did because I'd probably be lowkey annoyed by it😂)

[queenerdloser]

okay a personal pet peeve of mine is when people mark down their rating of a book because the book didn't end up being what they thought it would be from the blurb. that's a you problem, friend. that's a marketing problem. whether or not the book matches what you imagined it would be in your head before you read it has little to no bearing on if the book is good or not. rate it on that not on whether or not it matched what you pictured it would be when you picked it up.

[eff-plays]

Ok fine you guys twisted my arm (I say to a completely empty room) here's why I think Mass Effect 2 worked and Veilguard tried to copy it and failed.

First up is the complexity of the goal/plot. In ME2, the end goal was simple: Stop the Collectors from harvesting humans. Blast off through the Omega 4 Relay and probably die. Take down as many Collectors as possible before you die. Basically, shoot stuff until it explodes. It made sense that half of the squadmates were just "legendary badass", "legendary badass (green skin version)" and "legendary badass (huge tits version)." You need to kill dudes, so you pick people who are good at killing. There are a few who are better at tech or science, but they use tech and science to, you guessed it, kill dudes. Then you have a few who join due to aligning goals (Legion) or loyalty to Shepard (Tali, Garrus) or humanity/Cerberus (Jacob, Miranda), or they're literally getting paid to be there (Kasumi and Zaeed). But all of them have reasons to stick around, of various importance.

The specificity of the main plot is also relevant here, because everybody in the galaxy is like "oh humans are getting kidnapped? sucks to suck dude rip in piss ://" so it makes sense to recruit whoever you can get. You need help for an issue that (according to everyone who would otherwise help) only concerns you. So you're like "hey are you good at killing? and do you mind dying?" and most of those freaks go "yeah lmao whatever." They're self-selecting, because the cause is so specific and explicitly suicidal.

The suicidal thing also helps explain the loyalty missions, btw. They're not presented as "hey can you umm help? or I'm gonna be distwacted 👉👈" but as "hey man, these people are willing to die on your command, you should probably help them with their unfinished business at the very least." And yeah, the mechanic of "if you don't help they'll fucking perish" remains the same, but the framing is different. In ME2, you're basically helping a bunch of professionals to do this final thing before they die for your cause. It's both a sign of respect and of consideration for them as people, and strengthens your bond with them and their loyalty to you. The way it's framed means that you don't have to do this in order for them to do their job, but doing it helps strengthen their belief in you.

And because the stakes are relatively low (as far as everyone knows), of course the squadmates will respect and appreciate a Shepard who takes care of them more. Of course it builds loyalty. This person isn't just using you as a meat shield for their pet crusade, they're genuinely trying to do what's right and don't want you to die for nothing.

In Veilguard, you're literally told multiple times that you have to do their dumbfuck busywork or else they're gonna throw in the towel. Hey man can you do this thing? Or else I'm not saving the world :3c The stakes being SO HIGH while their issues are SO NOTHING makes most of them look really immature and incompetent, which clashes against the whole "gang of experts" thing. You're telling me this couldn't wait? I have to go into Lucanis' mind and figure out his traumas or else he won't ... hold a knife good? And that will doom the world because he's the only guy who can hold a knife? Okay???

ME2 presents everybody as professionals and experts in their field, but at the end of the day, they're just there to kill stuff. Remove one, and another will be found. The mission is (as far as everyone in power knows) not galaxy-threatening yet, so finding new guys to help would be easy. That's why Shep taking the time to solve their final issues means something and why it earns their loyalty. It shows that Shep cares about them as people.

Veilguard presents these people as experts in their fields, too. They're considered irreplacable in this conflict. And the conflict is saving the whole entire fucking world. And YET, that has to take a backseat to them figuring out what happened to a work colleague or Lucanis' grandma, because none of these experts can take a fucking chill pill to SAVE THE WORLD.

ME2 offers "low" stakes for the conflict and high stakes for the characters, so when it focuses on the characters' stories, it makes sense. You get the impression that it's character drama with a common goal that brings them all together. Veilguard offers high stakes for the plot and low stakes for the characters, but still focuses on the characters, so you get the sense that we're fucking around playing therapist while the world is on fire in the background, and it's presented as totally logical, because these guys can't save the world without a clear mind!! Despite being ... experts in their fields.

That's why, to me, Rook feels like a therapist while Shep feels like a leader.

Anyway, this is the formal end of the post but I wrote more on the specific character motivations of the Veilguard and why they don't work/feel trite to me and how that adds to Rook feeling like they're a therapist but it didn't fit with the rest of the post so under cut.

Another thing is that, while sometimes the problems of the Veilguard are technically higher stakes than the problems of the ME2 squad, there is a sense of "Hey do you actually need me for this?" And that I think is in part to the lacking motivations of the Veilguard. It's so unclear why some of them stick around that it becomes difficult to justify why they wouldn't just leave to fix their own issues.

(For example, Garrus asks us to help kill a guy. The guy isn't dangerous, he's not out there killing people or in possession of a superweapon ready to destroy a city. He's just an asshole and Garrus wants revenge. He could, technically, leave and just kill the guy himself. He knows where the guy is, so what's holding him back? Well, the job is. And Shepard is. Garrus wants Shep's help, because he doesn't trust himself to finish it on his own. He needs somebody to rely on, but he also knows that he can't just leave without Shep's permission, and that Shep needs him, too. Everything is on Shep's schedule, and there's no real time limit. His revenge can wait until Shep is ready to offer their help.

Neve is hunting an old rival who is a blood mage threatening to enslave her favorite city in all da world. It's pretty damn high stakes. But in my playthrough, Neve wasn't counting on Rook's help at all. In fact, she explicitly mentioned several times that she didn't. Yet, she still sat around and waited for their help. She didn't leave to deal with this on her own, didn't even consider it. But why not? What about Rook or this cause is keeping her there, especially since there's canonically time before the next big move and the issue is so high-stakes and pressing? People will die if she doesn't do something, yet she's sitting on her ass waiting for Rook, whose help she isn't counting on, to step up? What???)

Neve is introduced as being hired by Varric to find Solas, which she does. In the tutorial mission. She sticks around after Varric dies because ... she's in too deep now, I guess. She has to help save the world, you see. Even though all she wants is to go back to Minrathous and protect the people there. She wants your help to. Figure out some stuff. The famous big city detective needs the help of a person who's introduced as somebody who "thinks in straight lines" and whose nickname is probably a play on "rookie." She is not getting paid for this. She's doing this out of the kindness of her heart, even though most of her time on screen is spent dreaming of her favorite city in da world. She's not an expert in anything that has to do with the current plot, so she's in-fiction not really vital to keep around. Her role as a mage is made entirely pointless by the existence of Bellara and Emmrich. Supposedly her area of expertise is in blood magic ... despite hating it and not actually practicing it, on account of it being bad and evil. So she's an expert in killing blood mages, then?

Well, no. That's Lucanis. He's the resident mage killer ... who we find in an underwater prison, guarded by blood mages. I get there is a reason for why he was defeated, but the optics aren't great, ya know? We don't really free him as much as we lightly distract his guards, so he can bust out of the prison fully clothed and armored. He's suuper eager for revenge, but he's also been forcefully possessed. But that's okay, because we need his expertise for um. Killing mages. Which is what the Evanuris are. So this random possessed human guy will know better than anybody else how to kill the Evanuris. Sure. He decides to stick around on account of ... the Crows always finishing a contract. Who is paying him? Who is paying the Crows? His gam-gam ordered him to stay, she's basically offering us his services for freeing him. Guy is an indentured servant but acts like it's his choice, like it's an honor thing and not his grandma putting him in the toilet. And when it's time for him to show/offer his expertise in the field, he says "How am I supposed to fight a cloud?" which is fair enough, sure. But have you not fought mages before? Do you not have any reference for them doing weird shit at all? Do you not know how to disrupt rituals, break barriers? In the end, all he can practically do is hold the special knife and attempt to stick the pointy end into his target. Which my rogue Rook or Davrin or Taash chould've done. But gam-gam says to sit so he sits! It's not a very compelling motivation for this epic expert mage killer to just kinda. Stick around out of obligation. It could've been interesting, if he chafed against it or had to be won over, but he's just fine with it. It's treated as natural that this dude, who isn't even slightly an actual expert and is just a glorified knife holder and who isn't practically useful in any sense of the word, is still in the group. It's treated as natural that Rook has to go out of their way to help him clear his mind so he can hold the knife better next time, instead of just finding another guy to hold the knife. Maybe the spirit in him makes him stronger and more capable of fighting mages? No, the spirit is what made him miss in the first place, actually! So you have to help him figure it out or he'll miss again. DON'T ask somebody else to hold the knife though. It HAS TO BE Lucanis. Because he's the mage killer expert. Who missed. And can't handle mages.

Then we have Taash, who we need to kill the blighted dragons. They're the only dragon hunter around and have an encyclopedic knowledge of said dragons. Unfortunately the blighted state of the dragons that are actually necessary to kill are behaving in unexpected and different ways from normal dragons. They're literally manipulated by the Evanuris to be harder to kill. Making Taash's expertise moot. I didn't even have them in my party when I took on two dragons at once, and in fact the only dragons that Taash is presented as capable of killing are ones that they want us to kill. So this expert we recruit mostly introduces more dragons for us to kill that aren't actually threatening us in any way. The main time Taash has to show off their knowledge is when we use the dragon trap ... which was fashioned by Wardens. Who are all trained specifically to fight Archdemons. Who are dragons. That are blighted. Do you uh. Do you see my problem here. Taash also sticks around the Veilguard for inexplicable reasons. Mostly it seems they don't want to go home to their mother, which is fine, but this is a whole-ass adult, supposedly. They could go back to hunting dragons for the Lords, because they're written as too self-absorbed to really care about stepping up to the fight just for the sake of it. So despite them not really being useful in any way to the overall plot, we still have to help them figure out their gender identity, or else they won't be able to ... fight the blighted dragons. Which they couldn't fight. On account of the blight. Cool cool cool.

Then we have Emmrich, who is a professor and has shit to do. He is also presented as a Fade expert, while Bellara is somehow not, despite doing most of the Fade-related and artifact-related magic on-screen. Emmrich joins the Veilguard on account of um. Well we asked nicely, and he's a good guy, so he has to help save the world. Despite the fact that he's terrified of dying. Which he's far more likely to do after leaving his job. And the thing is, yeah, "the world might end so we need to stop that!" is a valid motivation, but if we accept it as the motivation of a central character whose plot we must find compelling, then why is it that it's only a few guys trying to save the world? This conflict is prestented as bigger than all the previous games combined, bigger than (the) Inquisition, which had literally entire armies and different branches and infrastructure for it's "smaller" conflict, and people were still volunteering and joining in droves, but here we're 8 guys? Are we meant to believe Emmrich's willingness to join the Veilguard is somehow unique to him, and that nobody else in the world would volunteer to join? When Harding exists, on the same team?

Speaking of, Harding is a character who can really get away with "I wanna save the world", because her joining the Inquisition is literally how she got into the plot in the first place. She's a joiner. She joins heroic causes. So her having this sort of bare-bones but noble motivation works. Same with Davrin. Bellara seems to join out of both curiosity and guilt, which are interesting enough reasons and come through visibly in her subplot and characterization, but more importantly, she doesn't have anything holding her back that might take priority until she finds out her brother is alive. Her sticking around also makes some sense because she's ya know. An elf mage Fade expert. Or sorry an elf artifacts expert.

I'm not saying "somebody's gotta do it!" or "it's the right thing to do!" aren't valid motivations, they clearly are, but there's gotta be more to it, especially when it comes to characters who have something to lose like Emmrich. My guy is terrified of death but he's such a good dude that he jumps into this life-threatening conflict without a second thought? But then gets so "distracted" by his wacky scientist former colleague that he needs our help figuring it out? Huh???

Um. I didn't have a conclussy for this part of the post so. bye

[bone-and-butterflies]

How to hide plot twists from both your readers and your characters in a way that is not frustrating or annoying.

So I was watching a book review for a book that I liked but both loved and hated some of the plot twists. Of course this got me thinking about plot twists and why they work for both readers and the characters that are falling for these plot twists.

Readers

The key is to control the information that your readers have. Your readers aren't going to consider an option unless (1) that twist is really common for your genre and that reader has read that genre a lot and will therefore be expecting it or (2) you have very obviously given them the specific information nessesary to unintentionally figure out the twist before the characters.

Why does this information stand out, you may be wondering. It is because there is nothing else going on to distract away from a piece of information that can seem meaningless with the right context.

Most of the time, if you're not writing a very specific plot line with a very specific genre, your reader isn't going to immediately know where the plot is going so they may not be looking out for the information relevant to a later plot twist, so as long as you justify an informational choice that explains a later plot twist in a way that covers a variety of basis, they're probably not going to pick up on the one piece you left out, aka what is going to make this twist fun.

This piece of information should be something small and unassuming. It can be magical, but if you're writing fantasy that magic has to be hidden really really well. I find that a plot twist works the best when the piece of information that is missing is something you wouldn't really think about, like the reason a prince was able to infiltrate a prison and hide his identity was because he had his cousin standing in for him and we don't know that this cousin existed and knew the limits of that world's magic (this is actually a plot twist that fooled me btw despite how obvious at sounds now).

A good plot twist that fools the reader relies on twisting the information that the reader has and therefore twisting how they think the story will go.

Midway sidenote: not every plot twist needs to exist to fool both the reader and the character, sometimes it is really fun to watch a character fail because of something inherent to that character.

Characters

Remember how I said sometimes it's really fun to watch a character fail. That only works sometimes.

It is more annoying to figure out a plot twist that is really obvious and then have the character miss it because the author said so.

So how does a writer pull this off?

Be intentional. Have an idea in mind of when you want the reader to figure it out and ask your beta readers when they figured out your plot twists to control that as much as you can.

Your character does not know which genre they're in, so you have to both get inside the character's head and take the reader along with you so they understand why this character is making these poor choices and missing the most obvious villain in the room.

Why would a character miss a plot twist?

They are distracted or delusional. Characters have goals and they may ignore their better judgments to achieve these goals based on their personality. Put more emphasis on your character's motives to hide information that may make plot twists more obvious. Also, your characters may use information about their world to explain their motives and this information may also be vital to understanding a later plot twist

The average person does not go around thinking everybody around them is out to get them especially if those people seem incapable of that through the pov character's ego or the other character's demeanor. If your character has known somebody for a really long time or knows a piece of information that is vital to the worldview they're probably not going to immediately discard it. Fun fact: in the real world, when people have their views disputed, even with very good evidence, it can make them more likely to hold on to that old belief.

Expectation of harm. Different characters have different experiences with shape how bad they think things can get. For example, if a character has never experienced something, they may not know what can lead to that thing. (FYI older characters are more likely to know more things so be careful with this one.)

The Twist

For a twist to work, it must make sense with both real world and in world knowledge as well as common sense, so keep this in mind as you plan.

Conclusion

This isn't comprehensive because good plot twists require a lot of information to make them work and that's makes them very specific. While I would love to explain why different plot twists work, part of them working is them fooling you and hindsight bias is kind of a thing.

Keep writing. If a plot twist just isn't working either scrap it or let it sit until you have the information to build reasons why it should work.

[daisywords]

some misc worldbuilding questions to get your gears turning:

Do they have germ theory or some equivalent? How do they conceptualize the spread of disease and infection?

Is the everyday economy based more on trade/barter or currency? Is the currency valuable in its own right, or is it just something agreed upon to have value (eg. salt or gold vs. paper money)

What is their main method of lighting? What resources does this use?

Primary mode of transportation? How much does this vary based on things like purpose of travel, social class, etc.?

How much of a knowledge/education gap is there between social classes? Is there a baseline of education that everyone gets/is expected to have?

What are the most popular modes of storytelling? Is everyone telling campfire stories? Are they going to plays? puppet shows? are they going to the cinema? are they reading novels or epic poetry? Are there any folk characters or pop culture things that most people are familiar with?

Where does most people's moral framework primarily come from? Religion? Philosophy? Are there different schools of thought? How much do they vary?

Is there anything considered scandalous/improper/taboo that's normal in your own culture? and vice versa

Do most people live and die where they are born, or is it common to relocate and travel widely? how much does this vary by class/profession/region?

What do they do with criminals? Do they have an extensive prison system? If so, who funds/runs it? If not, how is crime discouraged/managed? Are there specific punishments for specific crimes?

How rigid are their class boundaries? How possible/common is it for someone to change social classes?

Is there anything that people get dangerously addicted to in your world? How accessible is it?

How easy is it for someone to do research/look up information they don't know? What is the primary method of doing this?

What holidays do they have? Any weird traditions? Fun traditions? Are they universally celebrated, or only by specific groups of people?

How do they dispose of their dead? How do they honor their dead?

How much exchange is there between cultures? Do people of different groups intermingle, or do they mostly stick with their own people?

How common is it to speak more than one language, and who is most likely to be multilingual?

How much do regional dialects/accents vary within the same language? Are there any dialects/accents that are stigmatized? Do different accents have different associated stereotypes?

This isn't meant to be taken as a checklist that you have to completely fill out btw. Just things that might help add flavor to your world and characters. (Also mostly things I end up thinking about logistically anyway as they become relevant to the plot or a character's frame of reference.) Enjoy!

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Hello! How are you?

Basically, I have seen this in many spaces where people are anti hp (the series and the mc), they bring up the fact that harry isn't a great mc because by the end of the series he made/brought no changes in the wizarding world. He didn't change the system, didn't do anything about the house elf slavery, (they mention the fact that after the war harry contemplates asking kreacher to bring him a sandwich!! and that he wasn't as passionate about freeing them as Hermione was), and so on, I don't remember everything.

Mostly, they mention that he becomes a ministry lapdog and ended up joining the same system which oppressed him (like you, i hate that he becomes an auror btw) and by the end of the series everything is the same and he didn't bring any monumental change like he doesn't have the power or interest to do so.

So, my questions to you are - what are your thoughts on these opinions?? Do you think it's poor writing by jkr?? Or it wasn't relevant to the core plot?

I don't really like speculating what JKR was thinking when she wrote something, because I have no way of actually knowing, but book 7, in certain parts, always felt to me like she was ready to move on and wanted to be done with it.

I think by the time she got to writing book 7, she just kinda wanted the writing process to be over already. So, book 7 has always been a mixed bag for me — when it's good, it's really good, but it also has moments that drag and are utter stupidity.

I think the epilogue is a bit of that race to be done with it already.

Like, there is a fan theory she wrote the epilogue before the book, and honestly, I can belive that.

But, I think the Harry becoming an auror isn't bad writing in the books — it's bad writing post-books. Sure, the epilogue implies the system didn't change as much as it should have (Albus worrying about being sorted into Slytherin, Ron confounding muggles with no consequences, Percy's treatment, etc.), but I think it wouldn't have been as egregious and offensive as it is to most fans who dislike it if it wasn’t for a lot of JKR's periphery canon she wrote that added a lot of details about the characters' futures that just made everything worse (plus the CC play).

Without the epilogue, the ending of DH doesn't say anything about what Harry would do. Yes, he isn't passionate about freeing house elves, but this isn't new and is true to his character. He isn't perfect, and that's not bad writing, it's staying consistent with his characterization up to this point. The ending without the epilogue leaves the reader off with plenty of potential to work with for their imagination and write fic about Harry's future. I actually like the end note of the series pre-epilogue because it fits. It works with Harry as a character who just wants something simple to eat and go to bed. He isn't concerned with instating new policies and shit, because it would be out of character for him to concern himself over these things in that moment. Harry is not a politician and he never wanted to be one. I feel like the fandom expects a lot from Harry that would be out of character for him to do without external factors pushing him into a political role. (Don't get me wrong, he'd be a decent politician, but that would be because he won't play the same game as everyone else. And he'd never choose to be a politician without being forced/pressured/otherwise convinced into the position).

The epilogue itself, while, closing off some options and proving the wizarding world still has many many issues, doesn't actually mention the Golden Trio's (or Ginny's) professions and still leaves us with a lot of open room for interpretation. Harry isn't stated to be an auror in the epilogue — it's JKR's writings after the books that made him an auror and Hermione a minister and kinda butchered Ron altogether (book 7 started the job of butchering Ron's character, though...). Even if the epilogue doesn't paint the best picture of the future of the WW, it's still open enough to work with if you really want to. It's the stuff she published after the books that made everything about the wizarding world's (and Harry's) future so much worse for me.

I do think, the epilogue is bad writing in that it doesn't add to the story and I think makes book 7 (and the whole series) worse overall, but I would've hated it less if it wasn't for all the information she added in after the fact (that didn't actually add anything, just ruin and destroy).

And a lot of her periphery canon writing show how much she doesn't remember from her books. I talked about it when it comes to fahion and the term "warlock", but she tends to, not really know her own world building and she contradicts herself a lot. This tendency is at it's worst with book 7 Wandlore, a lot of her Pottermore articles, and, of course, the Fantastic Beasts films and CC (some of her commentary in the Hogwarts Library books collection as well). So, I take any periphery canon stuff as additional to the books and optional depending on if they make sense with the books' canon or not.

So, I'd say, the problems for me are more with post-books stuff, and not the content of the books themselves. Becouse yeah, Harry mentioned wanting to be an auror in years 5 and 6, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't change his mind once he realizes what it entails

15-16 year old Harry talking about wanting to be an auror actually fits his character. Not because I think the job would be great for him, but because of his low self-worth. Moody/Barty told him he has the talent to be an auror and Harry is ridiculously insecure in himself. When one of the first adults to tell him he is talented and good at things to his face told him he'd make a good auror — of course that's what Harry would focus on!

Even if Moody/Barty was discovered to be a Death Eater later, he was still someone Harry looked up to. Harry who thinks he isn't particularly good at anything:

“Well, I’m not going to tell you,” said Moody gruffly. “I don’t show favoritism, me. I’m just going to give you some good, general advice. And the first bit is — play to your strengths.” “I haven’t got any,” said Harry, before he could stop himself. “Excuse me,” growled Moody, “you’ve got strengths if I say you’ve got them. Think now. What are you best at?”

(GoF, Ch20)

Was told he'd be good at something (being an auror) — so it makes sense he'd want to pursue it initially. I think Harry is likely to not want to stay as an auror though. I love to headcanon him as an auror program dropout, honestly. That he starts and then leaves. Which is possible with book 7 canon (including the epilogue).

The books actually don't contradict some changes or changes-in-progress in the WW (including the epilogue). It's just been 19 years, not even a whole generation, big systematic changes rarely happen this quickly, so while some of the patterns are worrying, you can work with it, I think the epilogue is bad, but it's not the worst that happened to HP books.

The worse problem is that JKR kept writing contradictory things instead of leaving the books be once they were done.

(Not that the books don't have their moments of contradicting themselves, they do. There are plot contrivances, stuff that makes zero sense, and plenty of plot holes, but when it comes to Harry's future and the WW's future as a whole, the books are not the main culprit here, the epilogue was a witness that did nothing to help at the scene of the crime at best).

[saxandviolins77]

Transformers Skybound #17 and #18 spoilers below cut

FINALLY, things are starting to move in this damn comic.

ISSUE #17

BLADES FROM THE PROTECTOBOTS??????

MOTORMASTER TRANSFORMERS MENTION???

Oooooh, this Bluestreak content is so fucking good, keep it coming, DWJ.

I really enjoy how Blue is like the voice of reason when Elita-1 starts giving it into despair. Don't think I haven't noticed that little crumble of backstory for him... Lost whom, hm???

THE STAKES!! THE STAKES!! REMEMBER. THE DANGER. THE THING YOU OUGHTA CARE ABOUT. HUMANS AND UHH, LIFE, FREEDOM TOO... UH, BUY COMIC.

THRUST!!! MY GUY THRUST! AND HE'S ACCURATE????

(also Ratbat, I see you.)

Nice Cybetronian Alt-mode.

I won't say this isn't innovative.

Middle school bickering type of shit be so fr rn LMAO.

(What part of Devy is that, btw???)

Nice fakeout, DWJ. Really clever.

How big is the car?

Wow, they look so ugly! I love it!

THIS is the non-binary character people were talking about? Guys... Do you think DWJ intended it to be rep, or is it because they're some sort of hivemind made out of a bunch of sparks?

This issue was FINE. As you have seen, I was much more interested in the sequences occurring on Cybertron.

ISSUE #18

I don't know if I'm too tired, but this new Skybound issue was funny as fuck, I'm so fr rn bro.

Am I crazy, or is Bluestreak genuinely afraid of creating someone so powerful and having some traumatic flashbacks?

All that while Eli is like, "Finally, we can kill those fascist fucks."

Side notes:

>Shredhead is badass.

>Nice use of obscure characters for fodder (no irony, I like the gruesome deaths.)

Things went to shit after this, but holy fuck... This is so sweet.

I love humans in Transformers. THERE I said it, smite me.

So cutes...

THIS BITCH EMPTY. YEET.

I dgaf about the Combaticons, but WHY is Bruticus so complaisant?? like, this HAS to be a plot point, or else it is just a weird writing decision.

"Why bad things happen to me? I'm a based blackpilled seeker entrepreneur. I need a glass of wine..."

SCREAMING, CRYING, CUMMING, THROWING UP, FAINTING, DYING, BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS.

YOU DON'T KNOW HOW GIDDY I WAS TO SEE MY CHUD SON BEING SO AWESOME!! HE EVEN GOT A SPREAD PAGE OF HIM KICKING BRUH-TICUS' ASS!!!! YEAAAH!!!

(I am... Extremely easy to please...)

I actually really like Soundstar.

Bruh moment.

FINALLY BRO. SOUNDWAVE CAN STOP CARRYING RAVAGE LIKE A PROP.

(It would be so cool if Ravage was actually relevant and was a fucking person.)

THIS SHIT IS SO FUCKING COOL!!! HE'S ITALIAN!!

[dotthings]

Let me debunk a few more misinformation things about what Misha or Jensen say about Destiel. (Bolding some particularly relevant things I really want people to notice).

At Darklight Con Nov 8, 2020, Misha firmly said Cas's confession was about romantic feelings for Dean. (Notably, this is a European con, not CE in the US). Misinformation has sometimes been spread that Misha said Cas's confession wasn't romantic. Not true.

Misha then added that in his "interpretation" it was "unrequited" but continued on that "I'm speculating" and "I don't know what's in Dean's head. And Cas doesn't know." Misinformation has gotten around that Misha ever confirmed that Dean absolutely isn't in love with Cas back.

He then said the same things Jensen has said about supporting people's interpretations. They align on this viewpoint. (Antis don't want to listen, it's inconvenient for them).

He confirmed that Jensen was all in supporting Cas's confession scene. And that Jensen was told 3 months in advance. Since some have tried to claim it was sprung on Jensen at the last minute, a week before filming or something, and it was all an evol nefarious plot to lie to Jensen, trick him, and ambush him.

I mean, come tf on.

Jensen had three months to think about it.

And it's not only common practice on TV to have actors not know things too far in advance so their performances can be as spontaneous as possible, Jensen himself has said it's his own practice not to read ahead, so Dean's reactions can be as spontaneous as possible, and Jensen was in fact was given more than the usual amount of lead time about Cas's confession.

And was all in.

But especially interesting to me is how Jensen and Misha's comments mirror each other's take about the other's character.

Jensen and Misha have both told us they talked about Destiel.

Am I being clear enough here? They have talked about it. With each other. Often. They have an understanding among each other. (Yet antis seem to be in complete rampaging denial about this little fact).

And Jensen and Misha's takes often complement each other's, fit each other's on certain points, or even align via different styles and slightly different approaches and takes but actually boil down in essence to the same thing, plus both of them keep saying to fans...run with your interpretation.

It's like...both of them were trying to hand it to us, in any way they could manage, despite all those network shenanigans where it's not going to be acknowledge on any official SPN PR (like DVD set extras...and it seems like Misha kinda went, you know what if the network won't back press about this, I'll do it myself so he said things, here and there, to say what this was, dodging the CW sniper).

Misha's take: Cas has no idea what's in Dean's head and Cas doesn't know whether Dean is in love with him romantically the way Cas loves Dean or not. Jensen's take: in Dean's pov, because of Cas being an angel, assumption that his love is so cosmic and unfathomable no human can grasp it, so Dean has no clue as to the specific nature of those feelings for him. Mirroring!!!

(Side note...there's plenty of room here for an interpretation that Cas did know how loved he is at the moment The Empty took him. And I think that too...but that doesn't mean he knows Dean is romantically in love with him back, just that Dean loves him, period).

BTW, Jensen never said anything about how he played things wrt Dean's feelings for Cas, what he said was he never played Dean knowing Cas was in love with Dean (because Dean didn't know Cas was in love with him!!!!).

(And omfg I am so sick and tired of seeing Jensen misquoted about that, and it's never done with good faith motives, ever.)

It's about what Dean didn't know. It's about what Cas didn't know.

Which is the actual plot!! We watched!!! Dean and Cas not realizing the other one is in love with him is just so *chef's kiss* exactly miscommunication destihell. Was always part of the story, how many times did we talk about this ourselves?

Receipts below.

[grandeurlusions]

They retconned this??

VAGUE POSTING Canto 6+ Spoilers btw!! Nothing explicit is mentioned but be mindful if u don't wanna hear anything.

Day late and way to sleepy for this but this is the funniest patch note of all time

That third thing caught my eye, I had to pause

3-22?? Which choice event could that be, that makes a sinner act out of character??

It's tread the heated path, apparently!! Because we know Don isn't supposed to take those stinky shoes off even if they melted under the scorching heat. The single biggest plot point we have about Don going into canto VII is that she's Don QuiTOEte and Rocinante stays ON night or day rain or shine, Im losing my MINDDDD

Only PM can make these ugly UGLY kicks plot relevant and get away with it

[krems-chair]

Desperately Searching for Dwarf/Titan Content. Coming up (Mostly) Dry :/

Part of the strategy with my second playthrough is to pay attention to my surroundings quite a bit more since I'm no longer in a hurry. I've also always been into the paintings we find (Solas' or otherwise) but I turned up the brightness in photo mode to better illuminate this one, which lurks in a darker corner of the music room at the Lighthouse today, and I think it could be useful for people interested in examining the Solas/Mythal relationship, and perhaps for those who, like me, wish there was more content surrounding what Solas did to the titans and dwarves.

Obviously, it being art and all, it's open to interpretation, but I personally take a lot away from what seems to be a depiction of a wolf engaging in violence while a Mythal-shaped woman watches on from within radiant light (of the golden city, perhaps?)

The wolf looks haggard, gaunt, maybe? And blood is dripping from its fangs and onto a hand reaching out from the ground, so I'm taking it as perhaps the only real reference I've seen in a minute of Solas actually acknowledging what he did to the dwarves and the titans* (asterisk followed up on below the divide so this isn't too long on anyone's page).

And even that is just me making a reach there, but it does make me wonder if it was something that was originally going to be looked at more (especially with the game's previous title) and just ended up being another thing that the team decided not to keep. At the very least, despite there being 8 ish years between this game and Trespasser, the painting seems older in age to me, so I wonder when he started struggling with this self-image of a destructive beast getting its hands dirty to preserve the clean image of the one giving it commands.

*(fully fucked up their lives as they had always been and ended a good many of them, btw.) This is a side tangent that probably deserves its own post, but I do think a lot of Solas/solavellan fans would do well to grapple/reckon/sit with that a little more because the fights I've seen break out between dwarf fans who would just like at bare minimum some acknowledgement of the role he played and others who are intent on fully shutting them down are brutal.

I, personally, would have liked more that addressed this in-game other than Harding getting the chance to mention it only once to him, and that's IF she lives and you bring her to the final mission). I think there are maybe a few more dialogue references to it in Veilguard, but that mixed with the near-silence from Solas if you bring him along for the relevant DLC in Inquisition (I know some have theorized it's because a lot of people do it after he leaves the party/the devs didn't plan on him being there or that he just feels too guilty/conflicted to say anything, but with how big a plot point it is that's not enough to satisfy specifically me) just leaves me like okay...I like this character. But we get to his happy ending (if that's what you so choose for him) without ever really forcing him to struggle on-screen with dwarves and what he's done to them. And I wish we had gotten that beyond just a painting I'm inserting that plot line into.

[mwagneto]

okay phew. my thoughts on watson episode 1. might put a readmore coz it'll probably get long. anyway um

so 💥 IN MY OPINION 💥 it was not good but it wasn't bad either it's the exact perfect mid i usually get with american episodic tv especially one trying to adapt something from england. not even a complaint btw i would've been shocked if it was good. i do think they needed a much stronger pilot but it was like... fine? like i had a good time with it overall and then sometimes i went HRHRGH WHAT. but anyway let's go category by category otherwise this'll be even more incoherent than it already is. so yeah cut incoming this is gonna be long as hell i was right

1) characters

watson: i elaborated on this topic in an earlier post but to sum it up, i think watson's personhood, by nature of being the pov character in the novels, revolves so strongly around holmes that it's an incredibly difficult task to define who he is without holmes, and especially to portray it. so far nothing this watson has said or done made me go "he wouldn't fucking say that" but at the same time nothing's made me go "he WOULD fucking say that" either. no actually him immediately jumping into a waterfall without any hesitation coz he saw holmes go in was extremely in character he would fucking do that. but like that just comes back to the whole issue of like, that's in character for him bc it's about holmes. but the rest? like who even is he? esp here where he can't even be defined by his position in his society or his era or his city because he's in modern day americatown instead of victorian england. so like overall i like the guy but as soon as the scene isn't about holmes he stops being watson and just becomes generic medical show leading man. i'm very curious to see if they can manage to make me feel like i really am watching dr john watson instead of just a random guy. but again outside of not really being watson i like him he seems fun

adam and stephens: i don't know why the showrunners would fuck themselves like this like why are you making your job so much harder by having 1 guy play 2 guys. edit ok apparently it's literally coz the showrunner wanted something challenging. well i hate it. also i don't think the twin thing works on any front it just makes me very uncomfortable to watch a guy trying his absolute hardest to pretend to be two separate people. it sucks. hopefully their plots will be interesting at least. calling it now there's gonna be a plot where they switch places

ingrid: i like her she's really hot imean interesting but her energy is so millenial i feel like she's gonna drop an umm that just happened! any second now. but that's not the character's or the actor's fault it's just a vibe i get

sasha: i had to look up her name on wikipedia icl but i only know the other people's names because every time a name was mentioned i rewound and paused and said OK THATS [insert name]. DONT FORGET. she just didnt get a proper namedrop ig. anyway i have 0 thoughts abt her other than her first line being about her accent which then proceeded to completely disappear in her 3rd line and then come and go as it pleased for the rest of the episode was really funny. the adoption thing is interesting tho let's see where they go with that

mary: mary-s (maries?) tend to be very strangely written bc every time they're included the writer wants to do a subversion of the generic irrelevant wife from the victorian era stories so she's usually a plot relevant badass which like. i don't think that's necessary. like you don't have to be doing all that. like i don't mind i'm usually neutral abt any given mary i just think it's annoying that they all default to that instead of doing literally anything interesting. so it's a relief that i actually like this mary coz even though she's still the usual plot relevant badass, it's not accompanied by her being watson's epic cool girlfriend she gets to be her own person. like as far as i can tell they're not gonna get back together #i ❤️ divorce. she's even bisexual!! sweep

shinwell: whyyyyy does he talk like that omg. please. also guy from the east end is a criminal duuuuude thats crazy however do they come up with these. sucks so bad. i'm gonna like him out of spite but he's such a bad character what are we doing

moriarty: what can i fucking say man. why is he here. also the acting was so bad??? like wh??? ???? why was it this bad. i guess you could blame the script but like, second takes exist yknow. you can do another one if the first take sucks. are you aware. anyway i hate it when moriarty is a big bad but we'll get into that in a later section... can't say much abt his character he was only in 1 scene. usually i'm a huge fan of colourblind casting but i don't get making him a poc if you're gonna make him the horrible evil mastermind but hey at least he's not a black woman killing orphans for money like in enola. still don't know why they did that. getting off topic anyway why did he also get hit with the yankify beam. does anyone remember england. sherlock holmes was there

2) the plot

the episode's plot: it was... fine? like it was stupid as hell but it's a medical drama so whatever. patient needs mouse bites to live. this vexes me. etc. i do think the whole today☝️ we're 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 NOT ❌ doctors ⚕️ we're 😎 detectives 🕵️ was kinda cringe but it's like the entire premise of the show so it's very much a megszoksz vagy megszöksz situation. how do you say that in english. my way or the highway. take it or leave it. you get what i mean

the overarching plot: i mean obviously this was one episode so i can't reflect on the entire thing but i CAN look at the setups and think about them. it's nice that a major part of this show seems to be watson coping with the absence of holmes. i think they should focus on it slightly more, like acd watson's life was essentially over and pointless post reichenbach and i don't think they fully emphasise the severity of that but we only have one episode so we'll see. i am very very annoyed that moriarty is a presence at all in this show and especially that they didn't even have enough faith either in the audience or their own material to wait a bit before revealing him. episode one bam he's there and he's immediately named. it sucks. we do not need him. hold my hand. look me in the eye. it's ok to write a holmes adaptation where moriarty doesn't keep coming back from the dead. it's ok to have a different villain. or just regular ass criminals that aren't masterminds. it's fine. it's ok. you can just have moran if you're desperate. in fact you SHOULD have moran we're literally post final problem pre empty house this is moran's main time in the spotlight. but whatever what's done is done. i just think what's done is dumb as hell

3) the technical stuff that reviewers love talking about to make themselves sound smarter

the dialogue: chief. it's not good. like it's not outstandingly bad but there were some lines that made me go 😬 and some of them are just. so bad. eugh. like i alluded to in ingrid's section, if a script feels like it could smoothly fit an mcu style quip without it feeling out of place, maybe reconsider the lines you're writing.

the lighting/colours: i actually really like this, i think it gives the show a very distinctive look. i do think it's weird how ambient all the lighting is in this hospital but it's a lot nicer than the horrible white and blue you'd normally get, plus as a serial surgery haver i would much prefer to have this to the inhumane buzzing leds. not to mention i'm eastern european so compared to our hospitals, this place is like a spaceship.

cinnamon topography: i just watched brilliant minds last week which had some of the most beautiful shots i have ever seen and easily the most beautiful shots i've ever seen in an episodic medical drama which is unfortunate for this show because it's also very competent in this field but my standards are all the way up. but yea overall the shots range from generic-good to pretty good so no complaints there. i really liked the shot of watson and mary talking with the garage pillar separating them, and the overhead shot of a board that says WE LIE in big red letters made me laugh really hard

4) miscellaneous

my cat just crawled into my lap while i was trying to spell meschallenios everyone shut up. ok she was there for an hour and then left so back to it

acd story references: i always think these are fun and very satisfying to clock, and by god there were a lot of them in just this one ep. my episode was like 240p so i couldn't really observe the background details (to be remedied once i get my paws on 1080p) but even then there was a ton of stuff to go duuude 🫵 at. the 1881 robot (year study in scarlet is set in) which was then immediately revealed to be called clyde (elementary turtle) was really funny like why are we referencemaxxing. like i mentioned in the john watson post, i hope they won't overly rely on them, but it was fun to pay a little extra attention to everything to see if there was a reference hidden anywhere

5) overall

my general faith in this is. very little. a lot of people have a lot of goodwill for this show, both because of elementary (which i haven't seen sorry) and because of morris chestnut (who i didn't know before this but i'm very much the kinda person who prefers to not even know the names of actors) but neither of those have any impact on my opinion or my trust in the show, nor do i think it should. even if elementary was my favourite show, i'd still expect watson to win me over just by itself. i'm also very worried about some comments the showrunner made, especially the one abt adler being holmes's lover (what?? 💀) none of which inspire confidence but again that's not part of the show either and if the show itself is good, i don't care what the showrunner thinks.

but is the show itself good? i mean, it's not bad and i never expected it to be good. i'm a huge fan of holmes adaptations and have seen way too many of them (pretty much every single one that's not unwatchably bad, and then some) so i'm always hyped when there's a new one. i don't hate this by any means, i'm glad it exists and it was a fun way to spend 2 hours watching something that's 40 minutes long and then an entire day writing a review of it.

like i said at the beginning of this unnecessarily long post, it's perfectly mid with some tentative swings in both positive and negative directions which is probably why i was able to write this much about it. if it was good i would've just said IT SLAPS YAYY YIPPIE and if it was bad i would've said "holy shit this is the worst thing i have ever seen" and that would've been it but instead here we are. hope you're glad you spent the past 7 hours reading this instead of war and peace. thank you for coming and hopefully my review of episode 2 will be a more managable size coz lowkey what the hell am i doing lol. goodbye

[yuurivoice]

Hi!

I’ve been a silent viewer for a little bit & I'm trying to get caught up. 

While watching your housewarming stream (congrats on the new studio btw!), & seeing/hearing about some stuff from the upcoming projects you/the team have been working on, I thought of something.

From what I could tell, it sounded like there may be a definitive “main listener” character in EoE who plays a specific, significant role in the story.

So, if EoE is the world that everyone in BitterSweet, Shattered, Lost & Found, etc. originated from before they became dreamers, is the listener in EoE supposed to be an amalgamation of all the listener characters from all the other series? Like, was the listener from EoE “split” into the dreamers we now know as Boo, Rook, Casper, etc.? (Similar to how there are multiple “multiverse” variations of Finn.) 

Or, will EoE be another instance where there are multiple listener characters that can branch off alongside the other original characters you introduced? (Like, Thomas gets his own listener, Evalas Finn gets his own listener, etc.)

Am I completely off with my interpretation? I fear I may be getting a little too lost in the sauce, & that I'm looking for information/lore that might not even be true or relevant. 

Anyway, I’m so excited to see how all of this pieces together in the end. Keep up the incredible work!

A little lost in the sauce, but I like your gumption! Short answer, there will be multiple listeners for SOME characters. Thomas most certainly will get one, but I haven't uncovered who or why they are.

What's really different about Evalas Finn's listener is that they're not really his listener. They're a member of a group whose POV will span multiple characters and interactions and are not tied to Finn in such a way that they are constantly in his pocket. While that is a tried and true way to do ASMR Roleplay things, I wanted a silent protagonist. Someone whose motivations are their own, and not so closely aligned with the characters they share scenes with.

Finn has secluded himself and kept secrets. What I realized in the now redacted EoE entry was that creating a character who just cares about Finn, or even had some motivation but ultimately had to be with him to function wasn't going far enough. We're in a fantasy setting in a world where I could do anything, with a clean slate and tons of options. It felt silly to just play the hits when we could get really interesting.

There's a key shift behind that and I'll just put it plainly.

I don't really care about selling smut tied to Echoes of Evalas. I've given up trying to voice every cut of meat so I could moan for money. I've given up on every relationship between character and listener being perfect and occasionally horny. The machine will continue running if I can't peddle my smut, and that means...not everything has to be a perfect, sexy, agreeable situation. It can get messy.

With that freedom.......it's a whole new world of options.

Now, I say that, but there is definitely spice pretty early on buttttt...it kinda serves a narrative purpose. The intimacy isn't just something that happens and is otherwise unbothered with the plot. It leads to some things!

What I think I'll discover is that my box I put myself in before this freedom was one of my own making due to listening to a handful of voices I let get under my skin...including my own.

There is something unique about this listener, but it will be at least somewhat clear early on. At least you'll have enough to start sniffing in the right direction!

[prontaentrega]

@fluctuating-fixations It's mostly about some specific word choices that don't really change the plot or the whole direction of the story so it's not like, an entirely different book, but they alter the whole tone of it and makes it worse to me. The first thing i noticed I didn't like about it was when Valentín first mentions Marta and he says "my girl" i immediately went he would not fucking say that!!!!!

In the original Spanish the word he uses for Marta is "compañera" which translates to partner or comrade (F). It's not the most common word to talk about your girlfriend in spanish so it's a deliberate choice on his part. What was the need to change it? to make it sound more natural? to make him sound less political?

In that same page he goes on to talk about his guerrilla comrades and he actually uses the word compañeros for them. The masculine/neutral form of the word he uses for Marta

But the one that really annoyed me is this one

Because in this part the word he uses in Spanish is, again, compañera. And idk about you but i think it has a completely different meaning if you say "if she's my woman, it's because she's in the struggle too" or if you say "if she's my comrade/partner, it's because she's in the struggle too." And besides he would never call anyone "his woman" it's just completely contrary to his whole character... this and a bunch of other small stuff like it mischaracterizes Valentín as more of a macho figure than he really is. And this is an issue i have with literally every adaptation and translation of this book tbh everyone's always so fixed on making this college educated communist latino more violent and sexist and angry. I wonder why

This one's minor but it also bothers me, when talking about the panther woman movie there's a character that in Spanish is "the architect colleague" but in English she's "the assistant" ????? what reason was for that other than misogyny

Maybe this is a non-issue and I'm nitpicking but with the book's narrative being exclusively a dialogue between two people, word choice is fundamental because this is the only way we have of knowing these characters. And especially on a book where gender expression and gender roles are such a main theme this is not like, getting mad because they switched coffe for tea on a sentence. Which I'm also mad about btw. They completely ditch any mention of the characters drinking mate and switch it for tea. Once again I'm asking what was the point? to make it all less exotic? to make it easier to understand to English speakers? having to look up what a mate is or just guess it from context isn't gonna kill anybody, but the translation is so afraid of alienating its gringo audience that it discards cultural context and reduces its only two characters to shallower versions of themselves. And I'd say the cultural context is pretty relevant because this is a book about two political prisoners under a dictatorship that was written and published when Puig's own country was under a neoliberal dictatorship. It's not Vonnegut's cat's cradle with a made up dictator in a made up country, this was actually the situation in Argentina in 1976.

And obviously someone who only speaks english won't notice any of this. What makes me sad about this is that none of the problems i have with it have to do with impossible cultural clashes, it would be extremely simple to fix all of that. It's a tragedy that the only english translation of a latin american book about gender and propaganda was made in 1976. But still I'd rather someone read the book even with the bad translation than not read it at all