the prophetic dreams are getting much more concerning

fuck it. sketch poast

Kotetsu: I'm sorry I called you seaweed head!! Muichiro: ..you called me seaweed head?

Neteyam and Kiri all cozy in their little baby basket, lined with soft yerik hide and mama's blanket

idk what tone they'll try to strike for the sex scene(s) but my kingdom for a throwaway joke about how Stede went to boarding school and is at least conceptually familiar with what there is to choose from on the gay sex menu, and bonus points if his terminology ends up being just a bunch of silly euphemisms that Ed is totally unprepared for

i think one thing we all agree on is that it would be absolutely batshit insane to have will express how much mike means to him and really cement that will is in love with mike only to have him rejected ??? you’re telling me that they wanted to perfect the van scene only for will to end up alone??? you’re telling me that all those stares between mike and will mean NOTHING??? you’re telling me “hawkins is not the same without you” isn’t a coded love confession??? you’re telling me that a painting will made for mike that el told mike about in her letter to him that she thinks the painting is for someone will likes then mike receives the painting and is told el commissioned it but that’s a lie and we’re reminded once again how much mike HATES being lied to??? what about mike feeling insecure in his relationship with el and not saying ‘i love you’ and him only regretting it not because he actually does love her and wanted to tell her the right way, but because she left and potentially put herself in danger??? he says he didn’t want to tell her he loved her because he was afraid he would lose her, only to have the poor girl crying and begging in front of him to say “i love you” but he wouldn’t so his fear actually did come true by NOT saying it!! we can’t forget the formation of will, el, and mike when they’re onscreen together — will being in the middle is a distinctive film choice!! and that’s only a scratch of the surface of byler proof.

there’s too many dots connecting in all the places that lead to “byler endgame”. if byler isn’t endgame then what the hell was the reason for purposefully filming and editing these scenes to hone in on the dynamic of will and mike with will being in love with mike and mike not being able to balance a friendship with will and a relationship with el if it all means at the end we get mike and will saying they’re “only friends” ??? MAKE IT MAKE FUCKING SENSE BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE ABSOLUTELY BIZARRE TO LEAD ON A DYNAMIC LIKE THAT ESPECIALLY IN THE 2ND TO LAST SEASON

It’s not that Jason came back to a changed family where he didn’t fit into the gap he left behind anymore. It’s the fact that his family never scooted over to make more space for him once he returned.

brainworms in my head so have some quick morriana

Today's Daily Degurechaff is… being loved and cherished, as the poll dictated

florian first realizes he's developing feelings for kieran when they go to the festival of masks together, but i think he'd really fall for them when kieran reveals that they told the town the truth about ogerpon.

he'd be stunned by kieran doing something so risky, ( after all, there was a possibility that telling the truth would've ended poorly like it almost did with their ancestor, ) and how much courage it must've taken them to do that for ogerpon. he'd have so much admiration for them in that moment and think they're so amazing... it'd really be his " oh. oh, i really like them a lot. " moment.

Ryne and Gaia are like. Such good parallels and foils to each other it makes me just a little insane.

Like Ryne is sweet and caring and she always wants to help others and make them feel better even to the detriment of herself because she has seen and known suffering and doesn't want others to have to live like that too. If she can make someones life better, even if just a little bit, then she will. But she also puts everyone elses well-being and feelings so far above her own that she often ends up trying to help in a way that doesn't actually solve anything because it still ends up with someone hurt (such as trying to properly fuse with Minfilia knowing it might end up with herself disappearing). She's not a doormat, but she does have some people-pleasing tendencies.

Gaia, however, is the exact opposite. She's prickly and sarcastic and thinks of herself and her needs first and foremost, everyone else is secondary. It's not that she's cold or uncaring, she doesn't ignore people's problems, she just doesn't see them as her business most of the time (A product of being raised in Eulemore most likely). She doesn't consider the long-term outcome of what she does or says, she lives solely in the present and the future is a problem for when it happens.

These opposite traits also play into each other. Ryne inspires Gaia to care more about others and Gaia inspires Ryne to prioritize herself more. Gaia makes Ryne live more on the moment without thinking solely of what the future will bring, and Ryne makes Gaia think more on what her life will be going forward and to actually consider what she does and says and how that affects things. They feed into each others good traits (Ryne's caring nature and Gaia's sense of self) while also helping them deal with the bad traits (Ryne's people-pleasing and Gaia's aloofness).

Their pasts are good paralells too. Ryne was isolated and lonely until Thancred took her away but even then, he was distant and emotionally neglectful, so she ended up lonely in an entirely different way. Gaia had a family and caretakers that she wasn't particularly close to, but after the 'Fairy' started talking to her they got even further away until she couldn't even remember them, and the 'Fairy' was the closest thing she had to a friend even though it was what isolated her to begin with. Ryne had constant companionship but no support, and Gaia had 'support' but no companionship.

Even just. Regarding the whole identities thing they are just. Perfect. Ryne has lived with Minfilia's shadow on her shoulder her entire life and never got to learn who she actually is. She thought that she had to become Minfilia for her life to be worth anything, that it's the only way her existance is justified. The person closest to both her and Minfilia(Thancred) indicated(in her mind at least) that he wanted Minfilia to be here in Ryne's stead(which wasn't really the case but she didn't know that). The only way to get her out of that shadow was to remove her from the identity of Minfilia, hence why her new name is so important(as well as the hair and eyes being her natural colors instead of Minfilia's all too recognizable ones).

But Gaia didn't even know about Mitron or Loghrif until Eden. She had the 'Fairy', but to her it was just some voice in her head which was nice enough to her. To her, Loghrif is just some lady Mitron loved, she has no real connection to her. She has a connection to Mitron, both as the 'Fairy' and as remnant feelings from Loghrif, but none to Loghrif herself(aside from the obvious reincarnation stuff). Gaia has always been her name. It may have been Loghrif's originally, but she is so far removed from that identity that even for all of Mitron's effort to 'return' her to Loghrif, it'd never work. Loghrif is Gaia, but Gaia is not Loghrif. Simple as that.

Eden's story works so well because Ryne and Gaia are opposites in that specific way that compliments each other, rather than pits them against each other.

Having Bluebeard/Arabian Nights thoughts about our good friend Jonathan Harker and his cordial host today. The parallels have already been drawn elsewhere, but today's entry really hammered home certain points that were only hinted at previously.

The key one being Dracula going out of his way to talk about how he plans to acquire other solicitors for various needs once he's in England, implying Jonathan will be replaced. This means

A) Jonathan's services will no longer be needed and he can go home!

Or:

B) Jonathan's services will no longer be available, because he'll be dead.

Harrowing enough to consider with 50/50 odds of hope versus horror.

And then.

Then.

Dracula insists Jonathan stay with him another month. No reason given. Sure, the whole 'English lessons' thing might be an excuse he could throw in. But it's flimsy at best; he knows Jonathan is of a lower class. He wouldn't be trapped by his work obligations otherwise--Dracula doesn't want to speak like a humble English solicitor. He doesn't care that much about linguistic tutoring. Maybe there are a few odds and ends of business he feels like dragging out, perhaps, but why drag it out rather than be done with the work so he can sink his teeth in?

He's keeping Jonathan there because he can. Because he wants to.

(And, as we'll see in later entries, he's also going to the effort of keeping Jonathan safe and alive despite Other perils.)

Which leads to the obvious follow-up: Why does Dracula want to keep Jonathan around? I'd say it's because the Count is no more oblivious than Jonathan is. Dracula knows Jonathan knows the peril of his situation. And the fun of it--the 'I'll let you go on being alive/human a while longer if this is the entertaining payoff' of it--is that Jonathan can still mentally entice Dracula and maintain the act. Jonathan engages his ego. His sadism. His too-close intimacy. His attention, period.

I imagine there have been other menial workers or unfortunate visitors to the castle over the centuries who failed this particular trial, either out of fear or ire or bluster. Their bones are likely turning to dust in one of the rooms.

Regardless, Jonathan is already aware he's in danger and is t h i s close in the narrative to realizing that there's a fate even more unthinkable than death waiting for him around the corner. One that doesn't end with him just dying, but going on, bound to that castle forever. Yet the fact that this un-ending is even on the table, on top of the Count's decision to keep him locked in with him like a pet, still marks him as the clever, the endearing, the entertaining, the lucky-worthy Bride figure compared to anyone else before or after him who proved themselves unworthy of Dracula's patience or interest. A fatal offense.

Jonathan has been right all along. Because if he were not so appealing as a Scheherazade, so careful of a final Bluebeard bride, he would already have been muscled through his usefulness as an employee in a blink.

Right before Dracula, bored and bloodthirsty, slaughtered him like a lamb.

i've shared some of Alex Freed's narrative writing advice before and i recently read another article on his website that i really liked. particularly in branching/choice-based games, a lot of people often bring up the idea of the author "punishing" the player for certain choices. i agree that this is a thing that happens, but i disagree that it's always a bad thing. i think Freed makes a good case for it here.

...acting as the player’s judge (and jury, and executioner) is in some respects the primary job of a game’s developers. Moreover, surely all art emerges from the artist’s own experiences and worldview to convey a particular set of ideas. How does all that square with avoiding being judgmental?

[...]

Let’s first dispel–briefly–the idea that any game can avoid espousing a particular worldview or moral philosophy. Say we’re developing an open world action-adventure game set in a modern-day city. The player is able to engage any non-player character in combat at any time, and now we’re forced to determine what should occur if the player kills a civilian somewhere isolated and out of sight.

Most games either:

allow this heinous act and let the player character depart without further consequence, relying on the player’s own conscience to determine the morality of the situation.

immediately send police officers after the player character, despite the lack of any in-world way for the police to be aware of the crime.

But of course neither of these results is in any way realistic. The problems in the latter example are obvious, but no less substantial than in the former case where one must wonder:

Why don’t the police investigate the murder at a later date and track down the player then?

Why doesn’t the neighborhood change, knowing there’s a vicious murderer around who’s never been caught? Why aren’t there candlelight vigils and impromptu memorials?

Why doesn’t the victim’s son grow up to become Batman?

We construct our game worlds in a way that suits the genre and moral dimensions of the story we want to tell. There’s no right answer here, but the consequences we build into a game are inherently a judgment on the player’s actions. Attempting to simulate “reality” will always fail–we must instead build a caricature of truth that suggests a broader, more realized world. Declaring “in a modern city, murderous predators can escape any and all consequences” is as bold a statement on civilization and humanity as deciding “in the long run, vengeance and justice will always be served up by the victims of crime (metaphorically by means of a bat-costumed hero).”

Knowing that, what’s the world we want to build? What are the themes and moral compass points we use to align our game?

This is a relatively easy task when working with a licensed intellectual property. In Star Trek, we know that creativity, diplomacy, and compassion are privileged above all else, and that greed and prejudice always lead to a bad end. A Star Trek story in which the protagonist freely lies, cheats, and steals without any comeuppance probably stopped being a Star Trek story somewhere along the line. Game of Thrones, on the other hand, takes a more laissez-faire approach to personal morality while emphasizing the large-scale harm done by men and women who strive for power. (No one comes away from watching Game of Thrones believing that the titular “game” is a reasonable way to run a country.)

These core ideals should affect more than your game’s storytelling–they should dovetail with your gameplay loops and systems, as well. A Star Trek farming simulator might be a fun game, but using the franchise’s key ideals to guide narrative and mechanical choices probably won’t be useful. (“Maybe we reward the player for reaching an accord with the corn?”)

Know what principles drive your game world. You’re going to need that knowledge for everything that’s coming.

[...]

Teaching the player the thematic basics of your world shouldn’t be overly difficult–low-stakes choices, examples of your world and character arcs in a microcosm, gentle words of wisdom, obviously bad advice, and so forth can all help guide the player’s expectations. You can introduce theme in a game the way you would in any medium, so we won’t dwell on that here.

You can, of course, spend a great deal of time exploring the nuances of the moral philosophy of your game world across the course of the whole game. You’ll probably want to. So why is it so important to give the player the right idea from the start?

Because you need the player to buy into the kind of story that you’re telling. To some degree, this is true even in traditional, linear narratives: if I walk into a theater expecting the romcom stylings of The Taming of the Shrew and get Romeo and Juliet instead, I’m not going to be delighted by having my expectations subverted; I’m just going to be irritated.

When you give a player a measure of control over the narrative, the player’s expectations for a certain type of story become even stronger. We’ll discuss this more in the next two points, but don’t allow your player to shoot first and ask questions later in the aforementioned Star Trek game while naively expecting the story to applaud her rogue-ish cowboy ways. Interactive narrative is a collaborative process, and the player needs to be able to make an informed decision when she chooses to drive the story in a given direction. This is the pact between player and developer: “You show me how your world works, and I’ll invest myself in it to the best of my understanding.”

[...]

In order to determine the results of any given choice, you (that is, the game you’ve designed) must judge the actor according to the dictates (intended or implicit) of the game world and story. If you’re building a game inspired by 1940s comic book Crime Does Not Pay, then in your game world, crime should probably not pay.

But if you’ve set the player’s expectations correctly and made all paths narratively satisfying, then there can be no bad choices on the part of the player–only bad choices on the part of the player character which the player has decided to explore. The player is no more complicit in the (nonexistent) crimes of the player character than an author is complicit in the crimes of her characters. Therefore, there is no reason to attempt to punish or shame the player for “bad” decisions–the player made those decisions to explore the consequences with you, the designer. (Punishing the player character is just dandy, so long as it’s an engaging experience.)

[...]

It’s okay to explore difficult themes without offering up a “correct” answer. It’s okay to let players try out deeds and consequences and decide for themselves what it all means. But don’t forget that the game is rigged. [...]

Intentionally or not, a game judges and a game teaches. It shows, through a multiplicity of possibilities, what might happen if the player does X or Y, and the player learns the unseen rules that underlie your world. Embracing the didactic elements of your work doesn’t mean slapping the player’s wrist every time she’s wrong–it means building a game where the player can play and learn and experiment within the boundaries of the lesson.

the one thing i feel pretty certain about for this episode is that america will not decide the election. a decision will be made, a president will be elected, but america will not be the deciding factor.

succession can’t mimic 2016 or 2020 point blank, that would be boring and have nothing to say. it can’t try to outdo trump because it’ll go too whacky and fall flat like veep’s last season (sorry conheads, no way he’s winning). but what it CAN do is illustrate the immensely corrupt, often arbitrary, and hugely influential nature of news media and conglomerations on political processes. i think probably jimenez will be in the lead, then atn/waystar does something to, i don’t know, discount votes or cast suspicion on jimenez or call the election for mencken early, and the tide will shift, even though the votes are already in. the votes don’t actually matter. the actual result doesn’t actually matter. that’s the power logan (and as an extension, billionaires and CEOs in general) hold. shiv says it herself to logan in s4e2: “just cause you say it’s true doesn’t make it true. everyone just fucking agrees with you and believes you, so it becomes true and then you can turn around and say like, 'oh, you see? see? i was right.'” but it doesn’t matter that logan’s “a human fucking gaslight,” everything he says comes true anyways. not because he was right, but because that’s how it works. he says things and then they happen, regardless of what the truth is or what should actually come to pass. that’s been one of the key throughlines since the very first episode of the entire show when, in response to kendall calling logan out of touch because times are changing and logan isn't changing with them, logan hisses that everyone always says you’re wrong until you do it and prove you were right: “you make your own reality.” you can't miss the bus if you're the one driving it. the election, the votes, the political process? none of that matters. it was always going to come down to the roys and their ilk (allies or enemies, just the top 1%) — that was the whole point of “what it takes” (the mencken episode) last season, after all.

i’ve seen lots of theories about what america will choose and how the candidates will respond and all that and i just don’t think that’s the show’s focus; i think the whole point is to demonstrate the lack of agency, the illusion of democracy. because, i mean, we’ve already seen the fall of democracy via fascist election and fascist election-denial, both in real life and in the countless (usually mid) satires created afterwards. it would be disappointing to see succession use the election to reiterate that same point of 'ohhh alt-right ahhhhh!!!' i don’t think it’ll be about ‘fascism’ at all — at least, not ‘trump-y’ fascism. it’ll be about fascism in the broader sense, the kind that doesn't sport a KKK hood (even when it keeps one tucked away in the attic). it's the fascism that every single roy (very much including shiv and kendall) aid and abet -- the fascism that so many succession fans don't seem to regard as fascism, despite it quite literally being the definition of fascism. trump wasn’t the entrance of fascism into our political process. he wasn’t the lone sign of the failing of american democracy. democracy in america has long been illusory, trump just made it more blatantly evident with his particular brand of hate-speech-ridden masculinist in-your-face fascism.

so i think that’s what this episode will hopefully focus on — america will not decide. corporations, news media, and the roys will. thus, the president will most likely become president not because the country supports his policies the most, but because he’s likely to agree to help block a business deal for a major media empire, and the other candidate is unlikely to. and this will likely come to pass due to said major media empire's interference and influence: they create their own reality. they say it, and everyone agrees with them and believes them, so it becomes true.

honestly one of the most painful things to see as a religious person is for someone who left your faith to explain why, and its because they misunderstood a major tenet of the belief (or had it misrepresented to them).

like most of the time there's not really anything you can do to help them see it differently or undo all the trauma that the misunderstanding caused, and that sucks. especially when the ex-believer then uses it as proof for why your belief is bad.