I saw a video today that said, “It’s very uncomfortable as an adult when your friend starts to date somebody who sucks, and you’re all looking at each other going ‘Guys, if this is the person who makes them happy…I think collectively as a unit we can agree that we would rather see them sad. So what's the plan?’”
And immediately went: modern Steddie AU were Steve dates his high school friend Tommy and everyone is tearing their hair out over how awful he’s being treated.
Ft. the Party, led by Dustin, hounding Eddie “I could get a man in a SECOND, I just CHOOSE not to date” Munson for help
However:
Eddie is mostly thinking the entire thing is a joke (King Steve and Tommy Hagan? Gay? Together?? Nice try Henderson.) until he runs into Robin. She laments that yeah, they’re bi, but more importantly, Tommy is fucking awful and Steve refuses to see it.
2. Eddie, maybe, kind of, still has a crush on Steve ("Stop laughing Gareth, everyone has--had! Had a crush on him!") and the guy was never THAT bad in high school---but Tommy Hagan definitely was and a little revenge would be fun.
and finally;
3. Instead of going with the kids' well intentioned but very misguided “Let’s get Eddie to Steal Steve” plan, Eddie meets up with the Robin/Nancy/Jonathan/Argyle/Chrissy dream team to figure out how to prove to Steve that Tommy is horrible.
Bonus: Robin and Nancy come up with a full proof multi step plan that involves Eddie pissing off Tommy in ways that look completely innocent. The hope is that Steve will see how controlling and unreasonable Tommy is, and break it off.
This hurts no one and just highlights to Steve Tommy's behavior.
Of course, Eddie goes off the rails immediately upon meeting Steve.
Instead of following The Plan, he, with the kids permission and help, gets Tommy to get blow up about THEM.
This is far more successful.
Bonus x2: A large amount of shenanigan's with the kids vs Tommy are involved. As is a scene were Steve breaks down and admits he knows Tommy is terrible, but Tommy puts up with him and Steve "knows how he is."
Eddie goes home, prints out a picture of Tommy and throws cheap ren fair daggers at it for at least three solid hours while he tries to think up ways to prove to Steve Harrington that his parents are wrong, hes very lovable actually.
In fact Eddie would very much like a shot at trying it out, thanks!
(It is also, inevitably, successful.)
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Even More Comprehensive BG3 Timeline
(Now with citations!)
Years in (paren) are confirmed, all other lines are approximations.
For my own sanity this timeline is based on available in-game information and not the Forgotten Realms at large.
1450s
Enver Flymm born
Gale Dekarios born (1457)
Enver Flymm sold to Raphael by his parents, renamed Gortash
Gortash learns about Crown of Karsus while a prisoner of Raphael
1460s
Karlach Cliffgate born
Gortash escapes the House of Hope
Gale Dekarios summons Tara the Tressym (1467)
Wyll Ravengard born (1468)
1470s
Lae’zel of K’liir born (1470)
Gortash in his Heapside Reavers period
Gortash rebrands as a black market arms dealer
Orin the Red born to Helena and Sarevok Anchev
Durge begins their serial killing spree in Baldur’s Gate (1477)
The Emperor dominates Duke Belynne Stelmane (1479)
1480s
Elminster resurrects Mystra (1480)
Gortash trades Karlach to Zariel for infernal machines & iron (1482)
Baldur’s Gate’s Beloved Ranger statue goes missing (1482)
Duke Abdel Adrian murdered during Returning Day speech (1482)
- Bhaal resurrected
- Ulder Ravengard replaces Adrian as Grand Duke
Orin kills her mother Helena in self-defense
Gortash recruits Franc Peartree to distribute infernal iron weapons
Gortash establishes a cult of Bane in Baldur’s Gate
Gortash approaches Durge about an alliance
Gortash moves against the Zhentarim & Knights of the Shield
Wyll Ravengard pact with Mizora, leaves Baldur’s Gate (1485)
Dead Three made aware of the Crown of Karsus (most likely informed by Gortash)*
- Gortash becomes Bane’s Chosen
- Durge becomes Bhaal’s chosen
- Gortash & Durge are instructed to recruit Ketheric
Gortash tells Durge about Crown of Karsus (via correspondence)
Hall of Wonders test mission*
- Durge gets Bhaalist memorabilia
- Gortash gets a bunch of Gondian designs
- Durge & Gortash get companionship
1490s
The Chosen visit Ketheric at Moonrise, learn about Illithid colony
Gortash & Durge visit the House of Hope (for intel on Mephistar?)
Gortash & Durge raid Mephistar
- They get the Crown of Karsus
- They get the book on the accelerated grand design
Gortash captures the Emperor
Gortash & Durge return to Moonrise
- Their identities are kept secret from Ketheric’s people
- Durge impresses the Moonrise Gnolls, but not Steelclaw
- Ketheric yells at Durge in the throne room for an unknown reason
Durge proposes their plan to the Elder Brain who accepts
Raid on the illithid colony (1491)
- Durge puts the Crown on the Elder Brain
- Orin gets Durge alone during the raid & stabs them in the head
- Orin tadpoles Durge, making them the first True Soul
- Orin leave Durge in a pod
- Orin declares herself the Chosen of Bhaal
1492
Durge breaks out of the pod & is found by Kressa Bonedaughter
Minsc captured by Absolutists at a recruitment rally in the Undercity
Gortash gets weird and intense with unethical experiments
- Some futzing to get the tadpoles to consistently remain in stasis
- This is when the name ‘True Souls’ gets coined
- Extremely questionable fun with brains
- Getting the Absolute’s voice sorted out
- Tadpoling his parents
- Poorly conceived experiments on children & their parents
Gortash has Iron Throne converted to hold hostages
Gortash presents prototype Steel Watcher to the city council
Jaheira tracks cult to shadow-cursed land, meets Isobel
Minthara Baenre is recruited by Orin and Ketheric
The Descent, Elturel falls into Avernus happens
Guild Bursar Uktar launders money for Gortash’s Campaign funds
Isobel is resurrected by the Dead Three
The Elder Brain sends the Chosen dreams about the Astral Prism
Gortash researches the Prism, finds out that Vlaakith has it
Gortash tasks Ketheric with sending a team to get the Astral Prism
- They send a nautiloid piloted by the Emperor and other illithid
- The Elder Brain lets the Emperor slip its leash
- Magthew Budj arranges for Durge to be on the nautiloid as well
Gortash deploys Steel Watch in Lower/Outer City
At this point Elturel is no longer in Avernus
First Druid Halsin captured by goblins
Nautiloid picks up Shadowheart & the Prism from Astral Plane
Nautiloid picks up Lae’zel
Nautiloid goes to Baldur’s Gate, picks up Gale & Astarion
Nautiloid goes to Avernus, picks up Karlach & Wyll
Nautiloid crashes, (20 Eleasis, 1492)
Some helpful links:
A page from Sarevok’s book: Sarevok - (Murder tribunal)
Accelerated Grand Design: Gortash -
An Offer: Gortash - (Peartree basement)
Aquatic Labor: Gortash - (Flymm’s Cargo Basement)
Baldur’s Gate Temple of Bhaal: Yanthus - (Gortash’s Office)
Balthazar’s Notes: Balthazar - (Necrotic laboratory)
Clasped Book: Balthazar - (Balthazar’s chambers)
Devil’s Fee Observer’s Report**: Himberloo - (Nine-Fingers’ office)
Elder Brain Domination: Ketheric/Yanthus - (Ketheric’s Room)
Enhanced Weapons - Sales Ledger: Peartree - (Peartree basement)
Experiment on Cruor: Orin - (Temple of Bhaal)
How To Build a Watcher: deceased Gondian - (Steel Watch foundry)
Journal of Enver Gortash: Gortash - (Gortash’s Office)
Magical Histories: Volume 2: The Spellplague: unknown - (Sorcerous Sundries)
Memoir Notes with Recent Addenda: Gortash - (Gortash’s office)
Missive from Gortash: Gortash - (Ketheric’s room)
Missive from Ketheric: Ketheric - (Moonrise, 2nd floor)
Mistress of Souls’ Research Log: Kressa - (Mind flayer barracks)
My Gratitude: Gortash - To Peartree (Peartree basement)
Next Steps: Gortash - (Gortash’s office)
Prayer for Forgiveness: Durge - (Necrotic laboratory)
Scrapbook of Letters: Gortash/Durge - (Flymm’s Cobblers)
Special Operations - Infernal Arms: Uktar -
Studies of the Elder Brains: Gortash/Yanthus - (Gortash’s Office)
Suspended Ceremorphosis: Gortash/Yanthus - (Tadpoling center)
Test Mission with Gortash: Durge - (Temple of Bhaal)
The Astral Prism Heist: Gortash - (Gortash’s office)
The Dukes of Baldur’s Gate: unknown - (Baldur’s Mouth/Peartree’s house)
The Grand Design: Gortash/Yanthus - (Mind flayer colony)
The True Life of ‘Lord’ Gortash: a skeleton - (Wyrm’s Rock Prison)
The Ultimate State: Gortash - (Gortash’s office/Flymm’s Cobblers)
*an in-game contradiction between Gortash and Durge. See: ‘Test Mission with Gortash’ and ‘Memoir Notes with Recent Addenda’. I’ve placed it after, but there’s also a legitimate argument to be made that Gortash and Durge met and became allies much earlier, possibly around the same time as Gortash’s betrayal of Karlach
**no link cuz the bg3.wiki doesn’t have it??
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I will say this one more thing about this: I do not believe the other try guys (or even many people at 2nd try) knew Ned was cheating before they found out sometime earlier this month. Not because I have some blind faith in the other guys to be good ppl (imagine saying ‘‘he would never’‘ when someone you might have said that about literally just did smth horrible), but because:
- knowing he is cheating and hiding it/keeping him on would be an absolutely ridiculously stupid thing to do and I think they’re smarter than that. Because with how well known they are, that’s a ticking time bomb until someone will snap an incriminating picture in public and if it then comes out you’ve known and protected him? That’s your image of wholesome, good guys absolutely destroyed.
- all the claims that they did know for months or years, that i’ve seen came from random twitter or reddit accounts or were even entirely anonymous. That’s not evidence. That’s some random person saying some random shit
- they were already cutting him out of videos before the video was leaked. Meaning they were already preparing to cut ties with him regardless of whether the fact he was cheating came out or not so ‘‘oh they just have to fire him now bc it got out’‘ doesn’t really make sense.
- if him cheating was somehow an ‘‘open secret that the entire company knew’‘ it wouldn’t stay secret long. Nothing ever does if a lot of people know about it . You ever try to plan a surprise party for someone without someone tattling? This is this except tattling would seem like the more moral option to many ppl and make it even more likely that someone tells so again hiding it in that case is just a stupid strategy even with NDAs (bc your employee could leave instead of signing said nda or they could just hide their tracks well while leaking smth)
Now I will believe that they quite possibly weren’t planning on telling the public why they got rid of Ned, both to protect Ariel and others from harrassment and to protect their own image - any dirt on Ned also harms them bc if one of the wholesome good guys isn’t actually all that, maybe the others aren’t either. If the video wasn’t leaked I imagine they’d have been vague or said it was for personal reasons or whatever, but they still would have seperated from Ned.
I also think like.... listen, you can know your friend has flaws and maybe sometimes flirts too much when he’s drunk or sometimes says inappropriate shit and you can forgive him that and still be friends with him and try to push him in a better direction, you can do all that and never suspect he might be cheating. Because there’s a big jump from one to the other and we always see the best in the people we love. It’s easy to say in retrospect that it was obvious but shit like this is never obvious. You don’t suspect your friends of being capable of that stuff unless it’s pushed right in your face
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The Adaptation That Shall Not Be Named aside, I had an idea for an interesting way you could represent ART in a visual medium: it's cameras.
We know that, in any visual medium, what The Camera (be that literal in film or figurative in animation) chooses to show and focus on is important. Its the primary way the piece of media communicates to its audience, and the framing of a scene tells us a lot about how we're supposed to interpret it. What is on screen and how it's on screen convey authorial intent.
Take all that, and turn "authorial intent" into character expression (in this case, for ART). A conversation between Murderbot and ART that would traditionally be shot-reverse-shot becomes shot-ARTPOVshot, so both shots would be of Murderbot, but one would be from The Camera and one would be from ART. Even though the subject is the same, the difference between them could show us something about ART in the same way a reverse shot shows us something about any other character.
To me its like those shots from a monster's POV in horror movies, where one second you're with your protagonists, the next you're watching them from a far off angle between some blades of grass, shaky cam, ragged breathing. It's a classic, even a cliche, but it does the job of conveying the sense of unsafety, of Something Out There Watching Them, of monstrosity, of something feral and dangerous. All without needing to see the monster. What if that type of shot was all we ever got of a character?
(Also, in all honesty, some of my favourite meta about this series is how it's in conversation with the horror genre. ART and SecUnits being the type of characters that would be The Monster in another story, or from another perspective, is compelling to me, so i'm drawing on that a bit here. The idea of characterising but not visualising ART by taking pages out of horror monster cinematography? I just think it's neat.)
Anyway, you could also do all the sci-fi Augmented Vision stuff with it too. ART POV shots where we watch it pull up a feed tab over the camera feed and replay a section of audio, or check Murderbot's diagnostics, or look at Some Code Or Perhaps A Graph. ART POV shots that are broken into multiple feeds showing different things. ART POV shots that give you the sense of it being textually present without it being physically present.
You could use some of this for Murderbot itself, if you leant into how its drones are an extension of its awareness. You could even use it in a similar way to how Murderbot uses its narration, narrating less when it's upset as well as leaving out major details. What if, when Murderbot is tired of people looking at it or in a more vulnerable headspace, we get more drone POV shots without Murderbot in frame. It's still there, but present in a different way, behind The Camera rather than in front of it.
I think there's potential in using POV shots from ART's cameras to characterise it without visualising it in a traditional way. I think there's potential in using horror movie monster language on ART and Murderbot. I think there's potential in having the cinematography focus on what they're seeing in a way that emphasises the amount of Surveillance both of them are constantly doing.
I think there's potential in a show using The Camera as cleverly as the books use Narration.
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