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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year

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Drafting the Adventure: Dungeons Without Walls

I love the idea of dungeons, but there was a significant portion of my life as a DM where they didn’t feature in my games. While Pathfinder and 5e provided a great framework for character building and tactical skirmishes that I could build story on top of, neither was really great when it came time to detour into a dungeon. My players tended to get confused when we headed out to plunder the local ruin or cave system, spending a lot more time figuring out where they were and what they should be doing than actually doing anything.

The problem as it turned out was limited information. I had a picture of the dungeon in my head/notes but I couldn’t telepathically infer that to the party, and the back and forth questions where they tried to orient themselves within my mental labyrinth ate up a lot of session time prevented us from attaining that snappy pace that every table needs to keep the players invested.

Recently though I had an epiphany about overhauling exploration in d&d, and wrote up a whole post detailing how you could build and run wilderness adventures the same way you could a heist or a murder mystery. Because I was already writing a series about dungeon design it didn’t take long for me to realize that this exploration overhaul was 100% applicable, and could solve a lot of the delay and confusion my players usually faced on their next trip underground. Spoilers: it worked amazingly.

The key to this overhaul was giving my players enough information to see the dungeon as a sort of abstract checklist, and then giving them the power to investigate and check things off that list in whatever order they wished, when they enter a new level of the dungeon they get a new checklist to fill out which still keeps that sense of exploration. Folk love checking things off lists, and I as a dungeonmaster love it when players engage with the content I’ve spent so much energy creating even if it’s only poking their head in the door to realize they want to run away as fast as possible. Likewise, designing the dungeon this way let me tackle much larger concepts without having to sweat the details of filling up every little room as I would have to in map-centric design.

To summarize my exploration mechanic as It applies to dungeons:

During Design: After you’ve got the dungeons’ major concept, you divide it into unique “zones” (essentially what might be levels in a regular dungeon) with an interconnected theme, mechanic, or threat.

Each zone has a number of points of interest, which can be anything from trails to follow, odd sights they might investigate, to full complexes of rooms that you’ve mapped out. You don’t need to map out the points of interest otherwise, they sort of float abstractly within the zone

When players enter a zone, they become aware of its name and general descriptor, as well as how many total points of interest are in that zone. They also become aware of some points of interest immediately to serve as landmarks and give them a direction for their exploration, but most remain undiscovered until they venture off the path and start checking out their surroundings. Hidden among these points of interest are the doors that lead to zones deeper within the dungeon, encouraging the party to explore in order to progress.

During Play: When the players enter the dungeon, one player is appointed as the surveyor, who’s job it is to keep track of the zones, fill out that checklist, and check things off when the DM tells them that they’ve fully explored a point of interest.

Rather than needing to be aware of the exact room layout, the party just need to know what zone they’re in and what options are available to them, Because this information is delivered in the form of a checklist with empty spaces, the party know exactly how much of the dungeon they’ve explored, what’s left to explore, and when they’ve cleared out an area.

Lets take the image above as inspiration. Say the party is trying to make it up to the tower, you can easily see a progression of zones and maybe imagine a few to go alongside them:

Ruins & Foothills: The first area, filled with the remnants of an ancient civilization. Picked over by looters and now a home to all sorts of wildlife,

Mountainside: The obvious next goal, but locked off behind a challenging climb, Filled with hazards that threaten to knock the party back down to the foothills if they’re not careful

Caverns: Secret area accessible only if the party explore a cave on the mountainside, or make a beeline towards the old aqueduct landmark in the foothills, realizing it might be easier than the climb.

Spire Foundations: The door connecting to the foothills is guarded by a complex puzzle and arcane ward, but the party might be able to sneak in through the caves where erosion has caused a breakthrough into the cellars.

Spire Peak: High among the clouds, the party’s prize is somewhere here. Access to the upper sections of the tower are guarded by a territorial sphinx under arcane compulsion, though the party might just be able to skip that fight if they figure out the riddle to make the portal mirrors work in the foundations.

Trying to design all this by pencilling it in on a gridmap would take weeks, to say nothing of the headache it’d cause you trying to make things fit together and fill up empty space with content. Designing it first as a sequence of zones and then filling those out with interesting fights, puzzles, and encounters is the work of an afternoon or two. Likewise, its easy on your players: five zones with six to ten points of interest is far easier to tackle when you can make a checklist and see how much progress you’ve made, despite the fact that the area they’re exploring is quite vast.

I hope you find this as useful as I have, and if you need a more concrete example of how it might work, don’t worry, I’ll have one of those for you in the coming days.

#dungeon design #dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #dm advice #dm tip #dm tips #dm tools #writing advice #pathfinder #ttrpg #homebrew #5e homebrew #homebrew mechanic #exploration

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chocolatepot · 1 year

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Twitter is rapidly sinking as people are only allowed to look at it for about ten minutes a day, so I thought I would put together a post explaining the best way to get started on Mastodon! It can be an intimidating prospect as it's not as immediately user-friendly as Twitter or other corporate social media sites.

Selecting a server

The main difference between Mastodon and Twitter is that you don't just "sign up for Mastodon". Mastodon is effectively made up of hundreds of small sites (called "instances") that are all interconnected ("federated") and use the same interface. The instance you choose has only a minor effect on your experience. The main one to be aware of is that if an instance is known to be poorly moderated and have users who cause a lot of trouble, other instances may unlink from it ("defederate") and make it more difficult for people on it to interact with you. This is rare. The very big, unthemed instances like mastodon.social are more likely to have this problem than any fannish one, in my experience. (You can also make a personal choice to block an entire instance if you have an issue with it.)

The other effect is that each instance has its own universal feed of all users on it.

The sidebar looks almost exactly like Twitter's, except for "local" and "federated". Your home feed is just the people you follow. "Local" is everyone on your instance, and "federated" is everyone on any instance yours is federated with. The local feed is why it's worthwhile to choose an instance that has some sort of theme you're interested in, like fandom, tech, queer issues, history, etc.

The two main fannish instances I'm aware of are fandom.ink and federatedfandom.net. There's also wandering.shop but that seems to be more for writers, in my experience. If you want a different sort of instance, just google "[topic] mastodon instance" and you should find it.

Applying to your instance

Because instances are more tightly moderated than the rest of social media, you can't always immediately get into the one you want. (Though I suspect that many have opened up slightly as Twitter flails.) You may need to submit some kind of application and wait a few days.

If you know someone on the instance you want to join, they may be able to get you an invite code so you can skip the queue. I have unlimited invites for fandom.ink, hit me up if you want to join.

You can also join an instance that's currently taking new accounts and then transfer into the one you want later. For the impatient souls.

Posting

The mechanics of posting are just like Twitter's.

You type in the box, you hit "toot" (I know), and out it goes. You may notice that you get a 500 character limit! This is nice.

If you add an image, make sure to add alt text. Not including alt text may get you flamed or shamed. You can also make a poll, set privacy levels, and add a content/spoiler/trigger warning that will require people to click through to see the text.

Use of hashtags is strongly encouraged on Mastodon. I've seen some talk praising Tumblr's style of having a separate field for tags and suggesting Mastodon add that, but I don't know if it'll happen. But unlike Twitter, there's an earnest culture of incorporating tags into your text (eg "I just bought a new #fountainpen") and following tags to get posts about different topics. This is the main way to find people with similar interests to follow, outside of your local feed.

It's also Mastodon culture to write an introductory post with your interests, including hashtags, so that people can find you.

Something else to be aware of is that you can edit your posts! If anyone has already rt'd ("boosted") them - they will just get a notification of your edit.

You cannot qrt on Mastodon at this time. It's a hotly debated topic. You will have to settle for boosting and then replying, or making your own post with context and linking to the post you want to qrt.

Following other people

If the person you want to follow is on your instance, that's all well and good. Click on their name, go to their profile, click the "follow" button.

If they are not on your instance, you need to make sure that you're accessing them through your instance. Clicking on their name from your federated feed, or if someone has boosted them onto your home feed, will automatically take you to the version of their profile on your instance. Also all well and good.

If you get to their profile from somewhere else, such as a direct link from another social media platform, that's a problem. If you try to follow, their instance will bleat at you that you don't have an account. There are two ways to get around this.

One is to paste their entire username (eg "@[email protected]") into the search bar on your instance, from your home feed. The other is to navigate to "http://[your server address]/[their whole username]" in your address bar. Both will take you to the same place.

#mastodon #tutorial #please join me on mastodon it's lonely

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inbarfink · 5 months

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It is sometimes so funny how Adventure Time has been so many Different Things at different times. It experimented with all of these different tones and concepts and different levels of emotionality and seriousness and silliness. And yet, it’s also something you really need to just… watch from the start all the way through to experience fully. Both because part of the appeal is to watch the show gradually develop its tone and its themes and its unique identity beyond just ‘the lolrandom weird show’. And also because everything is so interconnected.

So much Serious Lore is built of random one-off gags from the early seasons, and so much important characterization is built on what seems like silly standalone episodes, and so many seemingly innocuous gag characters end up coming back in surprisingly serious and poignant ways… And you really can’t predict what sort of Silly Goofy Detail is going to be Incredibly Important later or not.

There’s a lot of serial media that offers, like, good jumping-on points especially in moments where there’s Big Shifts in tone or themes. You know, you’ve got a potentially new audience you’re aiming for, a new audience that’s interested in the new direction of the show- you might want to give them a good entryway into the story. But Adventure Time is notable… for never really doing that. I mean, even its first damn episode is kinda famous for being a Weird and Sudden Entryway into the show that explains nothing.

Obviously that other attitude has a lot of perks… but also there’s something very appealing about Adventure Time’s total uncompromising confidence in that area. It’s like "If you can't handle me at my episode about getting finding a way to satisfy a violence-hating mountain a talking frog and a dragon with an itchy butt at the same time you don’t deserve me at my tragic story about a family that was almost but never was"

#adventure time #atimers #at #adventure time with finn and jake #adventure time analysis #cartoons #animation #animated shows

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veliseraptor · 7 days

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May Reading Recap

A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine. Rereading A Memory Called Empire was a treat - an expected treat, but it was good to find out that it lived up to memory. I liked A Desolation Called Peace a little bit less, but only a little bit - it very much followed up directly on the themes from A Memory Called Empire that I appreciated.

The Last Graduate and The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik. I devoured these books. I'm very surprised by this fact, since I'm not generally a "magic school" person, but there we are; Naomi Novik apparently managed to make me one temporarily. The last book was a particularly strong one and did some very interesting things with its worldbuilding that'd been set up in previous books and delivered in the last one.

Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says About the End by Bart Ehrman. I've read and enjoyed some Bart Ehrman previously, but I feel like the quality of his books has diminished from his earlier work, and this book confirmed that for me. I'm a bit of an eschatology enthusiast (the main reason I picked this up, as well as the fact that (a) it was available at the library one time and I grabbed it on a whim and (b) author recognition), but I learned very little from this book that I didn't already know.

Strange Beasts of China by Yan Ge. One of the things that made me happiest about reading this book was, unfortunately, the fact that I thought I recognized the ways in which it was referring back to Classic of Mountains and Seas, which I felt (again, unfortunately) sort of smug about. Checking the Wikipedia page for the book, apparently "Additionally, each chapter begins with a brief description of the beast which, in the original writing, was written in Classical Chinese, while the rest of the book was written in standard Chinese," which is so cool and I wish had been conveyed in the translation.

In general though, this was a good one, though I feel like the descriptive copy was a little misleading. It's less a mystery than a series of interconnected stories following a central character investigating the titular strange beasts, and learning how they connect to her life and history.

Dark Heir by C.S. Pacat. I liked this one significantly more than Dark Rise - which I guess makes sense, since a lot of Dark Rise was setting up the concept that most compels me about the series (the main character being the reincarnation of a notorious villain from the past). It still feels YA in the way that YA usually does, which isn't necessarily a bad thing if stylistically less my preference (and something I feel worth mentioning in the context of a possible recommendation). The ending was a gut-punch of a fun kind. I will be looking forward to reading the third one.

"There Would Always Be a Fairy-Tale": Essays on Tolkien's Middle Earth by Verlyn Flieger. I loved Splintered Light and was disappointingly underwhelmed by most of the essays in this collection. There were a couple that were more interesting to me, but on the whole a lukewarm response.

The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Adrian Tchaikovsky wins again!!! I don't love this one quite as much as I've enjoyed the Children of Time series, but I actually think that I liked it more than The Final Architecture series. Fascinating concept, as usual fascinating worldbuilding for societies wildly different from our own, and dedicated to themes of cooperation and unity-across-difference without it feeling preachy or didactic.

Aphrodite and the Rabbis: How the Jews Adapted Roman Culture to Create Judaism as We Know It by Burton Visotzky. This was a good one! I already was familiar with some of the information here, but not all of it, and the work around art and architecture was new to me. I felt in some ways like Visotzky overstated his case a little, but on the whole a very interesting read.

Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives by Phyllis Trible. This one is kind of a classic of feminist Bible scholarship - a short book that does a close reading of the text of the stories of four biblical women who suffer in some way (Hagar, Tamar, the unnamed woman from Judges 19, and Jephthah's daughter). It's a powerful work, though it felt a little basic to me on the whole - probably due to the fact that it's relatively early scholarship on the subject working from a literary angle.

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff. Books with footnotes are very hit-or-miss for me - not meaning books with contextual footnotes, but books with footnotes that are part of the conceit of the text itself. Some authors can pull it off; others really shouldn't try. In this case, the author felt a bit too taken with his own cleverness to pull it off; in general I felt like this book was trying a little too hard to be edgy and voice-y and ended up just feeling kind of shallow. It was a fun read, in some ways, but not a good one, and I'm torn on if I'm going to continue reading the series. If I do, it probably won't be in a hurry.

Tolkien and Alterity ed. by Christopher Vaccaro. I was excited about this particular collection of essays (you can probably guess why) and found them mostly uninspiring in the reading. The exception was a bibliographic essay on the treatment of race in Tolkien scholarship, which proposed more use of reader response theory, a suggestion which seems fruitful to me and more interesting than debates about whether or not Tolkien/his works are or aren't racist.

Knock Knock, Open Wide by Neil Sharpson. I feel like this is going to sound more critical than I really mean it to, but this was a perfectly adequate horror novel. I wouldn't call it exceptional, and it didn't freak me out, but I read it pretty much straight through and enjoyed the experience on the whole.

Thousand Autumns: vol. 4 by Meng Xi Shi. I liked this volume more than I've liked some of the others, and am enjoying the development of the central relationship, though I feel a little like I've been bait-and-switched about the level of fucked up that it's involved. Maybe that's why I'm enjoying this one a little less than I feel like I should: I was expecting more fucked-up between the two main characters based on the initial conceit and don't feel like the novel has really delivered on that. But I am enjoying Yan Wushi getting a little more...outwardly affectionate toward Shen Qiao, and Shen Qiao's concomitant confusion about it.

This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer. More than an adequate horror novel but less than an excellent one, I felt like this book relied more on gross-out horror than I typically prefer. Still, was definitely spooky, and confirmed for me that wilderness horror gets to me in a very specific way.

I'm presently reading Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood, which I have mixed feelings about (not negative! just mixed). I'm not sure what I'm going to read after that, save that I'm now trying to alternate genres and might try to read some nonfiction, which I've been sort of off for a while. Otherwise I'll probably just end up reading Translation State by Ann Leckie, and possibly A Fire in the Deep by Vernor Vinge. But I'm really going to try for some more nonfiction next month.

#reading recaps #sometimes i read things

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betweengenesisfrogs · 4 months

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Desynced

So I really like Desynced.

Strictly speaking, it doesn't 100% fit what I was talking about in my Homestuck manifesto, since it's technically a Homestuck fan adventure rather than a brand new work.

However…for a fanwork, it feels more like a new piece of Homestuckian art than many others I've seen?

I'm reminded of an old Hussie formspring response, where the question was about what would happen if siblings living in the same house played SBURB. Hussie's response was that one shouldn't try to solve this with the rules of Homestuck, but instead imagine the kind of story and plot that would suit such a scenario.

Desynced is like that - playing by its own rules. A lot of other fan adventures feel too stuck (ha) in adhering to the rules of SBURB and Paradox Space. Desynced is quite literally playing an entirely different game. It lets go of so much about the way a fan story is traditionally conceived, and brings in its own set of laws and ideas that fit its own story better.

Some things I like, in no particular order:

-The depiction of parents and children - Desynced knocks this out of the park by splitting the difference between faceless authority figures and relatable kids by playing with perception and letting the parents talk to each other as adults, even when they're faceless to their kids. There is some really phenomenal parent-child content here. The relationship between Kate and her father, for instance, is fraught and filled with missed conversations that break my heart

-That in 2024, everybody in the main group gets to be queer and trans from the very start

-That the protagonist kids are Zoomers, and we see that their interests tend not toward 80s movies but things like Minecraft and Discord chats

-That we seem to be building towards a "war in heaven" theme, where different members of the future gods and Carapacians will take different sides in a cosmic struggle

-The music, which is full of bangers and feels like the sequel to the Homestuck bandcamp page that I never knew I needed

-The total reimagining of Jack Noir, which seems like it shouldn't work, but totally does

-The genius way that the game's equivalent of Denizens tie into weird cosmic mysteries

-Alien kids who appear at first glance to be trolls but are quickly revealed to not be trolls at all (maybe they're tieflings)

-The way in this universe, Trollsonas only exist in connection to an obscure game called Hiveswap

-The fact that the fantasy land inhabitants, the equivalent of consorts, are more fleshed out and have their own lives going on instead of just being silly animals - which hints that we're taking 'their existence more seriously and sincerely.

-That when Desynced does "play the Homestuck hits," it reminds you of how good those narrative structures are. Examples include:

Ordinary internet friend group discovers they are all interconnected and inveigled in a vast conspiracy

Making sense of the rules of a confusing alternate gamey-reality that suggests a sense of purpose but doesn't give you instructions for achieving it

Oh, and also, you have to do this while the world is ending and you're about to die

Villain narrator makes fun of you, the reader

Alien kids interrupt your game session to ramble at you about how they know much more about the game than you do, but it turns out they're just a tiny bit ahead and they're as confused about most things as you are

Ascending to godhood helps you redefine your identity but also causes as many problems as it solves

It's like, woah, Homestuck was really cooking, wasn't it?

We're all so used to the Homestuck plot structures and conventions that I think it's very easy to lose sight of why we fell in love with it in the first place. Reading Desynced made me remember how much I love the premise of Homestuck. Desynced achieves this by detaching from convention and focusing on Homestuck's themes: parent-child relationships, the limitations of one's ideology, the double-edged sword of finding identity in fantasy, and more.

So yes, Desynced is a Homestuck fanwork. But if we're asking where a Homestuck literary movement might go in the future, Desynched offers us a really neat glimpse of part of the answer.

I highly recommend checking it out, if you're interested.

-Ari

#desynced #homestuck #homestuck fanworks #homestuckian art #there's much i didn't even talk about here

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chaifootsteps · 2 months

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There are a plethora of issues regarding Vivziepop's writing, but the one that really stands out to me is her lack of themes. She has ideas, occasionally she has something to say, but she has no themes.

If you don't mind my ramblings; I have been considering an AU that is effectively divorced from the series, focusing entirely on the characters Blitzo, Barbie, and Fizzarolli. In brainstorming the story, I have been able to streamline the narrative to 3 core themes.

Masculinity, Control/Power, and Belonging.

Everything in the story is connected to one or more of these themes in regards to the characters and their motivations. Even side characters are wholly infused with these three concepts.

In my AU, FizzaRolli is not a performer, but a stray child with a group of other feral children Lord of the Flies. Blitz is the son of a circus owner who craves his father's approval even as he resents him. Barbie is an up and coming starlet brutally managed by her father who effectively curates her sense of identity as she creeps closer to the spotlight.

Much of Blitzo's story focuses on a young man coming into his own in a world that runs on toxic masculinity, balanced out by the guidance and love of his sickly mother whom he cares for. He's a young adult figuring out himself in a world and community who keeps telling him what he should be. Sub Themes of responsibility, respect, strength and the abuse of power are key cornerstones of his story.

Meanwhile FizzaRolli is the foil of Blitz's story. An orphan without parental guidance living out his coming of age in a Teenage Wasteland. Additionally, Fizz is gay, meaning his queerness colors over the themes in a fundamental way. Being in a Teenage Wasteland, Fizz is effectively in the closet because of how queerness can change others perception of him. And weakness often is associated with queerness, which has no place in a micro-society that elevates this toxic, Fight Club-esque concept of masculinity and belonging. Fizz seems to belong, carve out a space for himself in his community, but struggles come into himself. Especially because underneath it all is a severely traumatized child who never got to be a kid long enough to learn how to be a man.

And from the far other side, Barbie's relationship to these themes comes from the viewpoint of living under the patriarchy as a young woman. How girls are raised to cater to the needs of men, treated as glorified children unless they "prove" themselves over things that many men are merely handed. Her father prioritized her career above and beyond her as a person. While that isn't a trait inherently based in sexism, how he curates her life and downplays her desires and intelligence is rooted mainly in her being his daughter and thus not expected to "step out" into her own like her twin. Leaving her feeling impotent, infantalized and resentful even as she is held on a pedestal.

Control over one's self, perception, and direction.

How masculinity fosters respect and responsibility for young boys while simultaneously threatening punishment for not meeting or stepping outside of certain expectations. Especially the competitive aggression and emotional warfare in toxic masculinity

And a sense of belonging, be it in a community or an identity.

Themes help maintain a cohesion to a story, helps the characters feel interconnected and the world lived in regardless of how much emphasis is placed outside the main cast. It also helps ground the ideas of characters in an abstract way that doesn't place pressure to "prove" to the audience a character does fit the traits you as an author see in them. Most of all, it better enabled the author to pivot viewpoints and easily switch between characters so that they feel individual and not that there is a singular "voice" speaking behind them. It creates a unique soul rather than an empty skin suit for the author to don.

Sorry for the long rant.

No worries, Anon. Thanks for the ramble, it was an interesting read!

#Anonymous #actual blog post #viv stuff

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devotioncrater · 1 year

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The thing is this: we knew that Jack wasn't going to be endgame for Keeley. We knew that from the jump. So now I'm trying to piece together why, to me, their breakup feels off and weird.

And it comes down to three main questions which are all interconnected.

1. Who is this for?

2. What is the context, both in show and in the broader sense?

3. What is the message underneath the choices the writers have made?

Who Is This For?

While the show itself is geared towards adults in the USA, there are storylines within that are written for specific demographics of the general audience. These are the implied audience.

Henry's storyline this episode was a nod to children of divorced parents; Sam's storyline last episode was geared towards immigrants and people of color (although, as others have pointed out, it also felt off in how it was handled); and Colin and Trent's storyline in episode six was for closeted queer people, gay men in particular. Keeley and Jack's implied audience are queer women.

But just because a storyline is written for an implied audience does not mean it excludes the general audience. If anything, it can be argued that it helps broaden the general audience's views on different stories they otherwise may not seek out or watch.

Which is why context is important. It plays a big role in how the general audience outside of the implied audience will form their opinions on the characters, the show, and the issues discussed. Context — especially in shows set in Today's World like Ted Lasso is — also informs how the general audience should interpret the underlying themes/messages.

It is worth noting that storytelling does not exist in a vacuum. Writers have a choice in how to present storylines and they have a responsibility to acknowledge how their choices interact with the real world. Life imitates art, art imitates life; societal norms inform stories, stories inform societal norms.

What Is The Context?

The context here is layered.

It isn't as simple as the microlevel of Jack breaking up with Keeley because she doesn't want to be associated with her anymore. To reduce it down to that level ignores the bigger picture. It's the same as judging a portrait painting based only on how, say, the eyes are rendered. (We knew the portrait will have eyes, but do the eyes fit to the face? How do the eye expressions shift the vibe of the portrait? What message is the artist trying to convey through the eyes?)

Let's talk in-show context, beginning with the characters and then expanding outwards.

Keeley, a bisexual woman who worked her way up to where she is now, is running her own PR firm. Jack, a queer woman who is the daughter of a billionaire, is her investor/employer. The chemistry is there, they get together even though Keeley is still upset over her breakup with Roy.

Jack sweeps Keeley off her feet with expensive gifts and trips. Keeley doesn't mind them, but Rebecca warns her (and the audience) that it sounds like love-bombing. Rebecca takes it a step further by comparing Jack to Rupert, who is established to the audience as an abuser. This idea of love-bombing — and by extension, the idea that Jack can be abusive like Rupert — is further reaffirmed when the waitress tells the two their bill had been taken care of by Jack.

Onscreen, Keeley establishes boundaries with Jack. The two appear to have discussed the love-bombing conversation offscreen, too, as they joke about it in Taste of Athens. The expectation for Jack to be like Rupert is subverted in the croissant scene, but still lingers in the background because of her remaining similarities to the man (wealthy/powerful/keen interest). We the audience need time to trust her after how Rebecca casted doubt on Jack's intentions.

Things seem to go well after that, with the two waking up together and Jack making plans to take Keeley to a family event. Then Keeley becomes a victim of a leaked video, and Jack begins to distance herself because of it. When Keeley says she doesn't regret making or sending the video, Jack leaves after victim-blaming and slut-shaming her.

Again, we knew Keeley was not going to end up with Jack. Their breakup was in the cards, this aspect was no surprise.

Expanding outwards now to other relationships in the show, Keeley and Jack are contrasted against Nate and Jade in both episode seven and episode eight. Where Keeley and Jack are established in a sapphic relationship, Nate and Jade are just beginning their own heterosexual one. Where Keeley and Jack wake up and have breakfast together, Nate and Jade do too. Where Keeley and Jack breakup, Nate and Jade's blossoms and cements labels.

Which, sure, fine, that's how it goes. But if we further expand outwards, we see that Keeley and Jack are the only sapphic relationship in the entire series. An entire series which featured, up until this season, exclusively heterosexual relationships. And still does, now that these two have broken up. There isn't another gay relationship onscreen (unless you count Colin and Michael, even though we haven't seen Michael since episode 3).

Speaking of Colin, sidebar here: The phone scene with Issac and his reaction to what was on Colin's phone is now the second time this season the writers have dangled the expectation of Colin potentially getting outed. Which, judging by Colin's knee-jerk reaction to both Trent and Issac finding out, would be a traumatic experience for him. Being outed is a traumatic experience regardless. This repeated use of fear also specifically plays into the Gayngst (Gay Angst) trope.

If we expand another level outwards, we have the in-show damnation of sexism and slut-shaming and victim-blaming. Multiple characters offer sympathy to what Keeley's fallen victim to. Rebecca, Barbara, Jamie, Roy — they all condemn what's happened and express their support to Keeley in their own ways. This provides context for how the general audience should interpret the underlying message of "A woman's private photos or videos getting leaked online is not her fault. It's an act of violence normalized by a sexist society, and the blame needs to be placed on the person who leaked them."

But who at their core doesn't show that support to Keeley? Who acts as an oppositional view to the underlying message? Jack. Jack, a woman. Jack, a queer woman.

She has her own motives. In a toxic spiral, she begins by cancelling on the event, then she downgrades Keeley to "my friend" in front of a peer, and finally she verbally expresses that it's bad for her personal and professional image if she's seen linked to a woman who's private affairs got leaked. The line in the sand is drawn: Keeley's livelihood is not the priority, Jack's image is.

And this sequence of events all reaffirm Rebecca's earlier mistrust that Jack is not a good person. While Jack is no where near Rupert's level, how she handled what happened with Keeley is still terrible.

And like, yeah, it also serves to show that both men and women are capable of causing harm and abusing their privilege and being egotistical. It reflects real life in that way. But look at the context of the show's treatment of its queer characters in a broader sense and how that context interacts with both the general audience and the implied audience of queer people.

The only sapphic (or queer, if you don't count Colin/Michael) relationship onscreen within three seasons is set-up to fail. The love interest is placed in a position of power over Keeley, which is pointed out by a straight character. Then the love interest is revealed to be toxic, which was also foreshadowed by the same straight character, and she slut-shames/victim-blames Keeley before leaving.

This was a deliberate writing choice. There were so many different avenues the writers could have taken. They could have had Jack fallout with Keeley over the leak in a less internalized misogynistic way, or even over something completely irrelevant to the leak itself. Jack, being a new addition, does not have the same groundwork put into her character to where she is confined to how she'd react. It wouldn't have been OOC of her to genuinely support Keeley, because we don't know her well enough to pass that judgement! On the flipside, it isn't OOC of her to leave, either, because of the same reasoning. But then the discussion becomes: what kind of character is Jack, and what does she represent both symbolically and narratively?

Storytelling doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Going outside of the show now, if you look at queer women stories in television/film, you begin to see the repeated pattern of queer women characters being written as toxic — or worse, predatory — and this characterization is rooted in real life lesbophobia and misogyny. There are tons of resources out there that detail the damaging, pervasive idea that queer women — lesbians, especially — are the same as predatory men. In a patriarchal, misogynistic, heteronormative world where women are hyper-sexualized yet demonized for taking charge of their sexuality, society shames queer women on all fronts.

And because queer women do not center men in their relationships, society historically has viewed sapphic relationships as "lesser" or "not a true relationship" or "just friends/gal pals". It's dismissive. (Until, of course, the fetishization kicks in. However that is a can of worms not to be opened in this meta.)

Queer women barely get screen-time as it is, much less outside of period pieces, and so when every other confirmed relationship shown onscreen falls into the same pattern, the same routine, it's exhausting. It's the same message/theme over and over and over again: "Queer women are toxic. Sapphic relationships don't work."

So why, then, did the writers of Ted Lasso introduce a sapphic plot for Keeley and choose to make it toxic? For a show that takes pride in subverting expectations, there is nothing subversive about this.

We can't judge this storyline by just the eyes. We have to look at the entire portrait painting and then go from there.

Which leaves us with the big double question of: What Is The Underlying Message Here? Why Choose To Portray The Only Sapphic Relationship On The Show In This Way?

#ted lasso spoilers #ted lasso #keeley jones #jack danvers #idk im just. really fckigng tired of seeing queer women relationships fail onscreen #ted lasso meta

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purgemarchlockdown · 8 months

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The Intertextuality of Magic and Purge March

(CW: Child Abuse, Torture, Cults)

So, Intertextuality is defined as the relationship between two texts, and is usually used in literature to discuss the interplay and intersect between two (usually separate) works.

Now, Milgram isn't a book and since it's a Series the MVs are naturally interconnected with each other. But the Way those MVs connect and the nature of there relationship is fascinating to me and I'd like to talk about the way Magic and Purge March connect with each other, since I think the way the two MVs shape Amane Momose's story is really interesting and well-written.

A Lot of scenes, events, and objects in Magic can be mapped onto scenes in Purge March, and a lot of things that Did Happen/Are Involved aren't in Purge March but in Magic and vice versa.

For example, As people have noted, Amane actually has Two murder weapons.

The umbrella, which is presented in Purge March and not in Magic.

And the taser, which Isn't in Purge March but Is in Magic.

We already have an incredibly important detail that isn't included in Purge March but Is in Magic.

Except, this detail probably wouldn't have been noticed in the first place if it wasn't for Purge March Establishing that a taser exists in the first place.

Purge March also does a lot of fun recontextualization of elements in Magic. See, the stagelight and the cat.

Most people Assumed this was a literal stagelight (myself included) except Purge March doesn't have this light Anywhere. Which seems strange considering how important it is in Magic as the thing that causes the cat to be hurt in the first place.

The cat was also something taken as a stand in for a human that got hurt. Not a literal cat.

Except, not only is the cat a Literal cat, the the injury on the cat in Magic isn't even the same in Purge March!

But wait there's more! Because Amane is paralleled with the cat

So not only is the cat a literal cat, it is also a stand in! Just for someone we didn't expect.

While the stagelight is most likely just a metaphor, since Magic is a TV SHOW and a Tv show needs lighting. The Stagelight falling being a metaphor for how the cat lead to the destabilization of Amane's "ideal" reality. Purge March completely contextualizes one of the most important parts of Purge March.

Which leads to even more interesting implications and themes, since we can take the cat's death by her abusers as...a metaphorical killing of Amane Momose.

Something that she does To Herself in Purge March.

(Though The cat is also...multiple different metaphors stuck inside a girl and a cat but we do not have the Time to unpack all of that and it's not too relevant to this discussion.)

This is what really makes me love Magic and Purge March, it's their ability to recontextualize each other in interesting directions and the way information is hidden and obscured by the both of them. Only being able to be seen if you look at both of them together.

And while that is true for the other MVs I think it's the most prevalent in Magic and Purge March!

The way the lyrics interact with each other is also really interesting and how it helps show how conflicted Amane is about her situation and how she should Feel About it.

Even I can say "I'm sorry" Even I have hope I swear! I'm going to be a good girl now! That's it! ---------------- After you cry, repent, and kneel, it’s now your turn to say that hopeless “I’m sorry”

Not meaning to brag but I’m pretty happy I’ve made up my mind so they don’t make that face at me again ------------------------ If you become a bad girl, monsters will come out This is the magic that stops that from happening

It's inaccurate to call Magic Amane a less aware Amane because I'd argue she's Very Aware to some extent.

This is a show she's acting in and she knows it. Magic is a plea in a sense, to her parents, to Es, to god to forgive her. That she Can Be a Good Girl. Not that she is, that she Can Be.

I won’t say “I’ve had enough” Will you laugh with me and forgive me?

While Purge March Amane is happily dealing out justice by destroying "sin." She's not presenting good girl as if it's something she isn't, she's presenting it as something she Already is.

We must not give into them, they are the ones that should be judged With pure, unsullied body and soul, let us preach all that is true and right

Sure she might have some weaknesses but she gets rid of them easily and efficiently!

And these two Amane's are the Same Amane.

That medal, the cape, the wings, the feathers- This the same Amane. This is the Ideal Amane. Just recontextualized and framed in a different light. Magic Amane is on the path to being a good girl while Purge March Amane is. This change in perception being a consequences of our "condemnation" of her actions in T1!

Amane is More Critical of herself, More Punishing, More Strict in Purge March. But also more sure of her own righteousness than in Magic.

However, Magic and Purge March both downplay Amane's pain in some way.

Even with how sure she is of her own righteousness Amane still diminishes her own suffering.

You see my point- these two MVs are constantly discussing and interacting with each other and I just think that's cool.

I could talk about it more but if I did we would be here forever, plus I've already discussed alot of these points in different posts. I just wanted to talk about why I think it's so interesting.

#milgram #amane momose #008 #milgram amane #cw child abuse #cw cults #milgram meta #milgram analysis #I FINALLY DID IT!#its shorter than I thought but thats because Ive talked so much about a lot of this that it would be redundant if I talked about it here lo

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nanistar · 7 months

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How did you go about making your story Saltburn's Clan? I really love how fleshed out and interconnected things are, it's really good! I want to make my own story, too, but I'm struggling to know what steps to take to get there and where to start. So, how did you go about it?

this one is really hard. i get a decent amount of people asking me how to start/how to write a comic, but never how to start/write a story.

truthfully, i don't really know. i have always been a more oc oriented person rather than fandom oriented. when i was in middle school i tried writing fanfiction but was never as attached to the canon character as i was with ocs. now oc x canon, however, i could roll with. all this to say, i have always had oc stories floating around in my head, so starting a story itself is easy for me. following through is not, i have to really hit a vein early on.

so when it comes to story, what do you like? i like 70s and 80s grungy sci-fi and gory/campy horror (alien, event horizon, the thing, evil dead) niche and hostile biomes with highly adapted creatures (like deep sea or deep desert) and i love specbio, even if i'm far from an actual scientist. i also love bastardizing Christianity because the themes and motifs are. (chef kiss) Delicious. (a lot of these inspirations don't come into play for SBC but since i was 15 or so i've been working on another story, starting the comic, cancelling it, rewriting it, completely wiping everything but the core characters. most of these themes are more appropriate for them)

and what sort of character tropes do you like/don't like? i personally am uninterested in writing stories of younger people discovering the world around them and discovering who they are. i love to read them, but i've already lived through that situation and don't want to have to work through it again. another thing i'm personally bad at writing is will they/wont they romance stuff. that's why i like established adult characters with established relationships. Saltburn and hollowspur are both 5 years old and have been dating for about 4 of those years. we know that they love each other, as they visit and play around, and sleep over often, but we also know that they are independent and self-sufficient without each othersince we know that they live apart and have no interest in moving in together. (this is all shown, not told, in chapter 1) i did not start saltburn's story and setting with the intention of making it into a comic, or even to share it with tumblr or anyone other than my friends, outside of drawings that i did for myself and posted. she was just a little kitty cat who lived in my head for a while. i talk a bit more about it here, but basically when it came to actually coming up with the setting, i knew i wanted it in the desert so i researched biomes and found ones that would be good for clans.

warrior cats in particular lends itself to a really good jumping off point for stories, as it already has an established hierarchy and society so you dont have to think TOO hard about it. but also you can modify it to your own discretion. i'm personally sick of starclan's interference so i didn't want them to have anything to do with the story, plus there are a lot of better "starclan is evil/fucked up/has bad intentions" stories out there than i could do (@the-exiled-comic, the dog star, ect) . i also didnt want any clan v clan drama because weve had enough in canon. from there i established that cross clan relationships are fine and joining a clan that fits you better is okay too. then i filled out the clans, i started with sunclan and did marshclan last. through drawing that huge list of characters i was able to set them up with families and histories along the way because i could look at similar coat patterns and stuff and assign them as family. briskwater and hollowspur were always siblings, but hawkwasp being from briskwater's litter came a bit later. i knew i wanted flickerstar to have exes and a lot of kids so i came up with a bunch of names first and figured the rest out later. having these established histories that go back helps make the world feel lived in.

saltburn's unusual design came before the creation of moonclan, though i knew i wanted a 4th clan at this point. i decided there would be a clan that lived in the mines and came out at night, and then eventually worked them back so that they were instead banished away deep into the mines. there is a lot of moonclan lore that i have not revealed yet (we will learn all about them this upcoming chapter) and most of it has stemmed from the question: If life is so bad for them down there, why hasn't anyone left yet? because a major plot point form moonclan is that nobody knows they exist. SO there has to be something, physical or otherwise, keeping them down there. when you build a world you gotta ask yourself WHY a lot, and figure that out too. why are the surface clans so friendly with each other? because they don't need to compete for resources and are able to spare some. why hasn't anyone left moonclan? well...

anyway a lot of these things will come naturally the more you think about it. and tbqh, i did not go into the comic with all this lore and stuff planned. it has come to me as i work. moonclan's [Redacted] has been rewritten like a dozen times as i come up with cooler ideas. when i plan a scene, i usually wrote a short kinda vague script for it, and then work through it as i do the pages. an 8 page scene takes a month to do, so I have a lot of time to mull over the dialogue, so i don't worry about writing it all down ahead of time.

but beyond all that. i personally can't go "i want to write a story" and then do it. i have to work it over in my head and as doodles for a long time before i get anywhere that i'm happy with it. it comes naturally to me i just sorta zone in and focus on stuff.

#nyask #advice #i guess?#sorry i cant really be more help other than just saying idk do it

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distortedsense · 3 months

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Past/Present/Future WIPs (tag game)

Rules: past is a WIP you stopped working on/finished; current is a WIP you're currently working on; future is a WIP you want to write

Thank you for the tag @theeccentricraven !

Past: my first book Bound in Spirals is a portal fantasy story I wrote from early 2015 - early 2018. It is pretty interesting in some regards but mostly reads as someone still figuring out writing as I was going. Too heavily influenced without proper interrogation of the influences. Clumsy handling of some themes that teenage me hadn’t thought all the way through. Some vibrant characters but a lot I would write differently now. I was still figuring myself out too. Was meant to have a sequel and I still intend to revisit it at some point but my current story was more demanding then and still is now.

Current: I started writing The Day My Dream Died in March of 2018 and it is ongoing. A fantasy journey dealing with dreams and living nightmares. Where humanity’s perceptions of the world are projected on an interconnected dreamscape called the undermind that some people can access and manipulate. Influenced by the work of Philip k dick (incl. both bladerunner movies), Ursula le guin, the video games hyper light drifter and breath of the wild, the tao te ching, JC’s avatar, Star Wars, my family, life in general, and my experience living with chronic pain(it pops up in everything I make, really).

Future: Between BiS and TDMDD I wrote a couple short stories in a sort of post-cyberpunk world that I want to turn into an anthology at some point. I also wrote an epic fantasy short story as I was writing the end of BiS as a sort of warmup for TDMDD that I think could easily be expanded into a full novel or novella. Nothing in stone because TDMDD is going to be ongoing for a little while, it’s still the most demanding of me so it gets all my attention.

Tagging @anulithots @writingamongther0ses @dyrewrites @junypr-camus @axl-ul

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brother-emperors · 1 year

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What interests you most about the pazzo conspiracy? I've been reading up about it and all the forces at play are so fascinating and also the long chain of events that leas to it. Have a good day!

the biggest thing is probably that I hate the medici family with the force of a hundred suns exploding at once lmao

but also! I love the interconnected dialogues on tyranny that happen between the conspiracies! it's interesting, especially when you get into the reception of it.

Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy, Marta Celati

there is something very revealing in a failed conspiracy, in how the people who maintain their hold to power choose to invent the narrative, and who they employ to create the propaganda. the resulting art and literature people create about an event, on an event, discoursing on it, is equally revealing and complex.

April Blood, Lauro Martines

with the pazzi specifically, it's sort of how the medici have gotten away with basically everything they ever did. public reception of them to a casual enthusiast of art or history tends to lean positive, you'd be surprised how many assassin's creed fans have strong opinions on the matter even though that's a game, although it does have a place in the arena of historical reception and fiction and how it reflects/informs a casual audience's opinion on the event. (pour one out for my twitter notifications when my handle was 'francesco de' pazzi apologist' jesus fucking christ)

April Blood, Lauro Martines

the pazzi are a recognizable strike against them, and it's all the more fascinating to me how they persist (whether positive or negative, nbc's hannibal uses the pazzi thematically, i medici [the show]......exists, assassin's creed does as it does, etc) despite how thoroughly lorenzo de medici tried to erase them while simultaneously celebrating his own triumph. pazzi portraits were probably altered or destroyed. there was also a fresco of their bodies commissioned for the public to see. (botticelli got the commission for the pittura infamante)

April Blood, Lauro Martines

and also the literature commissioned after the conspiracy was obviously propaganda* to paint the pazzi in a bad light, some of it fucks hard.

*most art commissioned was propaganda in one way or another

Conspiracy Literature in Early Renaissance Italy, Marta Celati

April Blood, Lauro Martines

in summary: I hate the Medici, and I like the Themes™

#lorenzo de medici and octavian augustus are the same to me #shdhghghhh i quote these two books often but if i start going into the medici it's like. that's a twenty page event #anyway these are good books if you're interested in conspiracies/conspiracy lit in the renaissance #long post #ask tag

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tacticalfiend · 26 days

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okay so I have one more ep left to watch of the Fallout tv series and while my opinion of the show has improved somewhat, I still think it's pretty mediocre.

I see a lot of people reeeaaally love Cooper, seen many people say he "steals the show," but he is easily my least favorite part of this series. Usually his character archetype is one I really like, but in Cooper's case he's missing a certain something. Not quite sure what it is yet. I also am really bothered by the new ghoul serum thing. The concept on it's own is fine I guess, but I can't help but wonder how this serum is being manufactured. What is it made out of? Who's manufacturing it? It seems like some ghouls need quite a lot of it to prevent themselves from going feral, but considering how persecuted and feared ghouls are I struggle to see WHO would be willing to do this besides a good samaritan or another ghoul. However, ep 4 seemed to suggest this whole serum business is a business. Like these two random humans just run this supposedly profitable business selling serum to ghouls, which is weird to me. I just don't buy that this would actually make them bank or be sustainable (literally see NO OTHER GHOULS until ep 4!?!?!). I will acknowledge this is something that won't bother someone who isn't a world building/lore obsessed pervert like myself. My questions may also be answered in the next season or whatever too, I'm simply not sure they will be able to provide an explanation I'll find satisfactory.

I also do not have much to say about Lucy or Maximus. Both of them had similar issues to Cooper for me. I see the foundation for good, fun characters, but they fall short of really sticking the landing. I like Lucy the most out of the three of them, I think. Part of what holds Maximus back for me does have to do with the BoS though. I am... not a fan of the direction they took in this show. They seem so interchangeable with every other like overly militaristic, power hungry faction in any other story that has one. They kinda remind me of ceasar's legion, but lacking the way they neatly fit into FONV's overarching themes (desire to return/inability to move on from an idyllic past). The BoS were interesting in Fallout 1 and New Vegas because they weren't just the obvious "bad guys" or whatever. They were kind of mysterious in Fallout 1 initially. They were a little weird, isolationist, and ultimately rather selfish and distrustful of humanity. While they were very effective fighters, they weren't really militaristic... atleast not from what I remember. They weren't "the good guys," but they weren't villains either. Regardless of what you, the player, felt about them they were at least interesting and memorable. The version we get from the TV series is so fucking passe imo. So forgettable, so unimaginative, and it naturally rubs off on Maximus. It makes him less interesting by extension. It would have been cool to see a version of Maximus that did grow up in a BoS more akin to what we see in Fallout 1 and New Vegas. It would give a point of commonality between Lucy and him as well. Both being out of touch with the wasteland due to their isolated upbringings, but in different ways/varying degrees.

Speaking of the wasteland, it feels so empty. Maybe "compartmentalized" is the better word, though, none of the locations we visit feel interconnected. Funnily enough, it feels very "video gamey," like we're going from one hub/level to the next rather than exploring a vast wasteland. I think this problem stands out for me so much because I am not particularly invested in any of the characters, and by extension the narrative, so everything surrounding them just becomes even more distracting. idk, this post is getting way too long. I have a lot of other thoughts I'll probably share later. Need to watch the last ep too.

#fallout #fallout tv series #saturn.txt #also yeah I know I call myself a ''lore pervert'' jokingly but I'm not like married to the lore. There's also a lot I'm forgetting I'm sure #I'm fine with the worldbuilding and lore diverging from the games (not like THOSE were ever consistent either) as long as they do something #interesting with it. I just think they failed to do that imo!#long post

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garbagequeer · 6 months

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i stand with the woke mob 🫡. but fr i hate when people oversimplify catherine and heathcliff to be a tragic love story that wouldn't have been tragic if they'd married each other as they wanted to. like 1 what about the great way that wuthering heights comments on the interconnection of family (including marriage) as violence and domination because of its relationship to private property. 2 what about the very purposeful incest themes which are key to the atmosphere of repetitiveness confusion and oppressive isolation and stagnancy created by the 2 generations and the 2 houses and the 2 intertwined bloodlines. you can't say heathcliff and catherine are related but you also can't say they are not related. you can't say they love each other as a husband and wife or as a sister and brother or as best friends and sometimes you can't even say they do love each other but you also can't say that they don't. heathcliff's otherness cannot be assimilated in the models of their society in any one way in a way that adds to his dehumanization and relationship to the landscape itself and his role in the story. and 3 to me it erases what's so interesting about catherine which is a level of awareness about the limitations of her society and the undefinable nature of her relationship to heathcliff in that she presents two modes of love in how she loves heathcliff who is herself and her childhood and who she can't stand to be parted from but from who she does not need or even particularly want marriage or sex or even niceness and then in how she loves edgar which is a pragmatic love in that she likes him and how he is with her and what he offers her and she never makes a point of being unhappy with him but she doesn't try to make marriage a love epic either. like they're all way more complex than a love story gone wrong and i hate when people try to reduce it to romance alone

#personal #wuthering heights #ive just seen this kind of post too many times #but like if you say wuthering heights and incest in the same sentence out come the romance police like #wow are you trying to hashtag cancel emily bronte #no. im just trying to acknowledge the themes of her work instead of brushing them off for a less challenging read. because i love them

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asha-mage · 2 years

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WoT Meta: The Problem of Androl

I think upon reflection my biggest issue with Androl isn't necessarily his resume to rival Barbie's, or the fact that his power set exists JUST so that Sanderson can Think With Portals, or even that he is the MOST cishet protagonist that Sanderson could have chosen to be the Black Tower Pov. Those are all problems, but their not what makes me feel like Androl dosen't belong in WoT.

The biggest problem with Androl, and the reason he doesn't fit with the other characters, is that he's boring.

One of Jordan's hallmarks as a writer, and one of things that makes WoT so compelling is that in very few words, Jordan is capable of painting a picture of person as a fully realized person, with their own history, foibles and agency. It's one of the reasons that the series is packed with mid-tier and minor characters that have huge fan interest. Even one off PoVs generally feel distinct, and more over feel like living breathing characters. It's more then just the 'everyone is hero of their own story' school of writing thought, it's more that everyone, no matter how insignificant they might seem, is important, maybe not to the heroes, or the villains or even destiny, but to themselves, and to the world.

Now obviously this is hard thing to do, and I don't begrudge Sanderson for not succeeding, or for succeeding in only limited ways. (Hinderstap, for as much as it is a DnD module used for filler is a good example of making characters encountered only briefly come alive and feel like their struggles matter). But their is something in particular about the way that Androl is written that feels antithetical to Jordan's character writing.

His vague sprawling backstory is meant to make him mysterious and interesting, but a in reality a hodgepodge of concepts that, any one on their own would be interesting, but when all tied together just...make a mess. Everything that surrounds him is wishy washy and indistinct. We're given glimpses into who Androl is but instead of painting a concise picture they instead show a vicious tangled mess of different ideas.

A man who convinced a Wisdom to take him as an apprentice despite being a man? A+ Asha'man concept, would pay to see him and Nynaeve bounce off each other. A man who always suspected The One Power ran in his family and came to the Black Tower seeking answers on if that is what drove his father to suicide? Yes, give me forty chapters of him. A man whose sense of justice is strong enough that he joined a hopeless rebellion for a land that wasn't his own? Fantastic. A man who spent his whole life starting and then abandoning different crafts due to a deep sense of dissatisfaction, and a yearning for purpose and meaning that was never fulfilled until he found The Black Tower? Amazing.

All of those men being one man? The interconnections never properly being explained or totaled out? That's....to much. And it reveals the hand of the author, reveals that Androl's character isn't so much about exploring ideas or themes, but about being whatever Sanderson needs him to be at that moment. His character comes to feel paint-by-numbers, and as a result, incredibly boring to read about. He is a variable in an equation first, a character second, and fully realized and fleshed out never.

The truly, truly infuriating thing about Androl though, is that he is largely unnecessary, as the ideal Black Tower PoV already existed in the form of Emarin. First appearing in Crossorads of Twilight, Emarin(/Algarin) a Lord of Tear who did not fear the Power, a man whose brother was gentled by the Aes Sedai, but who lived years afterwords thanks to Cadsuane's compassion. A man who upon learning of the Cleaning took up his brothers name, and left behind his family's noble title and power, in order to The Black Tower and live his brother's dream in his stead. That concept, introduced in SINGLE paragraph in CoT is far far more compelling then all the pages of Androl put together. And that's assuming that their is some reason Logain couldn't have just been the Black Tower PoV- which I am not necessarily convinced it the truth. (Yes, the Almost Turned the Shadow thing is kinda important to show the 13x13 trick and to give the Dreadlords narrative weight, as well as to the contextualize Logain's choice to walk away from the sa'angreal at the end, but I feel like that could have still been done with Logain as the main Black Tower PoV over Androl).

As an aside, a part of me, a very petty part that I don't necessarily think is rational, wonders if the reason that Sanderson didn't take up the opportunity offered by Emarin was that, Emarin is the rarest of all WoT creatures: a canonically gay male character. The knowledge that it was Sanderson that cannoized his being gay mitigates that voice, but the knowledge that Jordan's notes contained many characters unstated sexualities keeps it from disappearing whole cloth.

Anyways Androl is boring to read about, and Pevara deserved a lot better.

#WoT #WoT Meta #Wheel of Time #Wheel of Time Meta #AMOL Spoilers #WoT Book spoilers #androl genhald #pevara tazanovni #Emarin Pendaloan #Logain Ablar #Asha'man #A Memory of Light #sanderson critical

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