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marveltaughtmetoread · 7 months

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I have one storytelling issue with Anakin killing the Tusken Raiders in Attack of the Clones (there is also a major issue with how the Tusken Raiders are treated throughout Star Wars especially in this scene which another creator explains better here but there is also a storytelling issue)

Anakin committing murder against the Tuskens should be treated with way more gravitas than it is

It's supposed to be the first step towards his fall to the dark side, where he gives into his anger and lets it rule him completely, to the destruction of an entire tribe, the problem is destroying an entire tribe is not a first step atrocity, it's an 'where in the endgame for his downfall now'

You can get away with more because of the setting of the story, the galaxy is wartorn, people we are supposed to see as the heroes have already had to kill to survive, making killing more acceptable, but the Jedi themselves are not supposed to kill (this isn't actually presented as an issue for other Jedi but we are told they aren't meant to kill so let's just move on) and this is because the Jedi are strong enough to end a fight without killing, so it's always a choice for them to kill, which is why it is such a big deal when Anakin is pressured to kill Count Dooku in Revenge of the Sith

This makes the Tusken Raiders massacre something worthy of a lot of Gravitas, not only has Anakin chosen to kill, he has chosen to slaughter everyone "the women and children too", it is a massacre and there should be no way to move past it

But the story doesn't treat it like that, the story treats it as if he had just made a slight slip, something he can come back from, immediately we get Padme silently hugging him, which humanises him and also implies that it's not that bad because Padme is shown to be quite a moral and upstanding character, and then the event is never mentioned again

Let me repeat, the massacring of an entire community is brushed past by the story

And then the next movie we see Anakin struggling with murdering Count Dooku, this doesn't work, sure Count Dooku hasn't killed someone as personal to him as his mother but Count Dooku is also someone who has been a thorn in Anakin's side for two entire movies, killing the Tuskens should have made him more willing to kill the Count so why has he become more moral rather than less

Killing the Tuskens wasn't a slip to the Dark Side it was a jump across a cavern he should never have been able to come back from but it's treated like a slip and it makes the story infuriating

Genocide against the Tusken Raiders happened way too early in the story for it to make sense considering how the story treats it, genocide is not something you can come back from but the story wants you to believe he can and then acts like the genocide of the Jedi is so much worse, no, he's already done it, yeah the Tuskens made it believable but the discrepancy in the treatment of the two genocides makes the story infuriating, it's genocide other way, why is only the Jedi's massacre treated as such

And Anakin didn't have to massacre an entire village to show he was slipping, we had already established that the Jedi are not allowed to kill and more importantly, the Jedi are not supposed to give into their emotions, him killing a person in anger should have been enough, him killing maybe two people in anger would have been enough but massacring an entire village should have been a 'he's never coming back, he has completely fallen to the dark side' moment like when he did it to the Jedi

And it just doesn't work, the only thing I can think of for why this scene exists in the form it does is poor storytelling, George Lucas didn't have a plan so he had the impactful scene of Anakin massacring a Tusken community and then low key retconned it in the next movie because he still had another movie to flesh out Anakin's fall, and it does also feel racist that the Tuskens who are based on non-white indigenous communities have their genocide treated so lightly when compared to the genocide of the Jedi

#vina rants #racism #star wars attack of the clones #star wars meta #star wars discourse #star wars prequels #the fall of anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker #star wars prequel era #prequel era #sw prequels #sw problems #tusken raiders #tusken warrior

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problemswithbooks · 10 months

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God can hori be any more heavy handed with the "DONT YOU WANT TO BE NORMAL NORMAL NORMAL" bestie, shes drinking other kids blood, thats not just "not normal". This weird retcon thing is annoying, Idk why hed bother putting her backstory in when he didnt give much of a shit about it 😭

The thing is, I actually don't think trying to say Toga's blood drinking is normal is necessarily bad or something that can't be done well. Quirks are a major part of the world and the story overall--it's not that far fetched that blood drinking might be a normal thing a person with a Quirk would want to do. If people can accept people that can make explosions which could also be dangerous to kids and people (and very much was for Izuku) then it's not a huge stretch to accept that blood drinking for Toga is normal and she should be accepted as such.

The issue is that Hori didn't really make that the issue. I don't think he really sees it himself given how he wrote Mineta, but Toga's main problem and why shes not accepted is a matter of consent not because she's seen as a creep.

This is why her backstory doesn't work very well, besides the fact it's way to late and very short. Yes, her parents freak out about her Quirk and obsession with blood. The problem is that they don't freak out for zero reason and are the only ones who reject her.

No child should be drinking the blood of birds. Whether she killed it or not, birds carry many diseases and parasites harmful to people. Her father shouldn't have hit her (because, I guess he did even though it's poorly conveyed), but the shock given what she's doing is understandable. Especially if they think she killed it (which is weird, and suggests she might have done something they found disturbing before this or were bad parents regardless of her Quirk).

Then they yell at her because she's biting her finger bloody. That's self harm and something you would want to send a child to therapy for. Sure, the counselor didn't help, but it's not like they can give Toga what she wants.

That's hammered home when they yell at her again when she drinks another kids blood. Hori messes up and doesn't show us what happens so we don't know if she hurt this other kid, or if they were scared of her or if they were fine with it.

Just giving us a look at her parents reaction doesn't give us any idea how she was seen by her peers. Because of that it's hard to make the case that she was only rejected for her Quirk alone, rather then her actions. In fact the only time we see other students they say she was popular and well liked until she attacked a boy in the class.

Given how young she looks when her parents yell at her for sucking another kids blood, and the fact she fled school after she attacked her crush, it appears these were separate events. If that was the case people in her school might have already heard about her sucking a kids blood earlier, and clearly not cared. In the very least we have to assume they knew her Quirk involved blood because Hori doesn't make any suggestion that it was hidden.

And that's why the theme of acceptance and Toga being normal because blood drinking is a part of her falls flat. No one ever said shit about her Quirk ever, except for her parents in sparse flashbacks. Ochako never thinks her blood drinking is gross nor do any of the the other Heroes or class 1A students. Hell, Tenya doesn't even bad mouth Stain for drinking blood even though he hated the guy so much he wanted him dead. This doesn't make it seem like the world rejected her for her Quirk.

No, the entire problem is that Toga doesn't understand consent or boundaries. We never see her ever ask anyone, even as a kid if she can drink their blood (that would have been a better scene then her drinking birds blood imho) and get rejected and told off and bullied/ostracized for her desire. Which if that did happen would explain why she never asks again and feels no one will accept her.

And, you could blame her parents and the therapist for this, but I'd just wager Hori doesn't really grasp that consent is the issue here. Mainly because Ochako never addresses it in anyway, even though she does bring up Toga's crimes. She offers her blood to Toga for life, but does not say that difference between Toga drinking her blood as opposed to anyone else's is because she is giving permission.

In the end Toga doesn't learn anything and just gets what she wanted given to her. Maybe Hori will address this next chapter but it really should have been brought up sooner. That or he should have had Toga actually not be accepted what-so-ever and shunned by all her peers for her Quirk even before she attacked her crush.

And this is part of the reason I really don't like the queer reading of the chapter is because by doing so it is suggesting that queer people are dangerous. If we read Toga's blood drinking as the same as kissing--which she seems to say (though her expression while drinking blood suggests something more...problematic) then she has been going around kissing people against their will to fulfill her own needs. If we read this as queer, is the story not saying that repressed gay people will sexually harass people because they can't understand consent when they inevitably snap?

I'm not saying this was or is Hori's intent. I think it's pretty clear he just didn't see how big an issue of consent there was with Toga and her Quirk. He wanted it to be all about how she wasn't accepted as normal, but didn't put in the work of showcasing that well. He has a lousy track record with female characters getting way less attention and with his rush to finish on top of that, Ochako and Toga got screwed with a half baked climax. Unfortunately that's also left it with less then great implications if you think about it for a coupe of minutes.

#ask #thanks for the ask!#sorry for the wait #and the back log of the other ones in my inbox #but i have a hard time focusing on one thing to talk about with Toga #since her character has so many problems #and the last chapter just pissed me off #cuz i'm sorry but neither of these two people know each other at all #Ochako doesn't know Toga's past #shes not seeing the flashbacks #and Toga knows even less about ochako #she just likes ochako because it gives Hori an excuse to draw girl on girl touching #like i'm sorry but I really doubt it's much deeper then that #I mean if he does make Toga/Ochako canon it's nice that wlw relationships get some exposure #but I wouldn't say it was good representation and I don't think that's means Hori is 100% behind gay rights #like at best I'd think he's like that fresh price meme “he's confused but he's got the spirit”#which is better then you generally get from a shonen jump title #so I wouldn't say it's worthless or unimportant #but that doesn't mean it doesn't have alot of flaws #and this isn't me saying all queer ships have to be wholesome/perfect #it's just that i think if it canon it will be treated as wholesome when it's really not #like way more issues then Catadora from She-ra #anti togachako #anti toga #anti himiko #mha #bnha spoilers #bnha #bnha critical #bnha 393

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locallegion · 12 days

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Honestly I'd probably get way more into actually writing Fanfiction if all my ideas weren't just really weird shared-universe crossover stuff. Okay, backstory - When I was like 9 or something I asked my brother why Shadow the Hedgehog didn't ever smile. We ended up going back and forth and suddenly we're making up an entire alternate universe where Sonic and Shadow team up to defeat Freddy from iCarly's mom because she turned evil. We were 9, cut us some slack. We always used to make continuations to that story and universe with wild crackships and everything. Like Sonic ended up with Jill Valentine at one point, it was weird. We stopped talking about it after a few years but those chats left a massive impact on me because I've had that shit continuing on in my head for Y E A R S. Like since I started just making things go along in my head;

The events of Sonic Unleashed happen but the Werehog is his own seperate person outside of Sonic but he's super chill and stuff.

Sonic turned bad and got taken out by Cassie Cage. Y'know, from Mortal Kombat because I was OBSESSED with MKX when it came out. Kung Jin was my main and he's still like the major side character if that's even a thing. Like that only happened because I was desperately trying to not seem cringe to the audience of 1 who knew this was even a thing (it was me)

Fox McCloud and Wolf O'Donnell get married and move to London so there's an entire London Arc where fuckall happens.

The events of the Mass Effect trilogy happen because the planet being split into pieces wasn't bad enough now the fucking REAPERS are here.

The cast from the end of the first year and the cast from like 2017 end up fighting, causing the timeline to be reset with Cassie and Sonic ending in a stalemate as the universe fucking starts again.

Multiple retcons because my hyperfixations changed.

If you think I stopped at any point you're wrong. It's genuinely something I've wanted to write about in fanfiction for years now but I'm a terrible writer and it'd require way more action scenes that I'm willing to endure writing, they'd be awful. Oh about that new universe

Hey so the Avengers were a Kirijo Group project set up right after Mass Effect 3 happened. Shepard exists, got the perfect Destroy ending and is genuinely just trying to wind down after the whole 'saving the galaxy thing' but now she's working alongisde Akihiko, Aigis, Mitsuru and Fuuka with the project both because she can fight but also its good PR. Team Dark is also there because why not.

Cassie is not only still important to the universe but is Shepard's successor because hey, she beat the shit out of Shinnok one time, she has to be good.

Kung Jin is now a Persona-User because he shares a VA with Yu Narukami.

They, along with Garrus, Wolf, Fox and Rocket Raccoon (The GOAT) defeat a resurrected Andross in London.

Somehow, Black Doom returned. He gets taken down by Shadow (again).

Bowser and Goro Akechi are besties because they met at Jazz Jin (The Jazz bar from P5R) and Bowser happened to be doing a performance that night.

The Mario Movie is technically canon but because the ending was happening the same time the rest of New York was under attack its just considered a weird part of the larger battle.

ah shit half the universe got wiped out and literally everyone is going through it. also shepard is g o n e

Cassie, Jin, Rocket, Bowser, Akechi and Ashley Graham are a team now like a week after the whole Snap incident

They immediately have to fight Mephiles the Dark. Send Help I'm in too deep

#fanfic #fanfiction #sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #cassie cage #kung jin #bowser #fox mccloud #persona series #hyperfixation #fighting the hyperfixations and losing #mass effect #should i actually write this #this is probably the most insane thing you'll see all day #sorry

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oblonger · 27 days

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Alright! Guess I should make good on what I said and try to figure out why I thought that cool thing I wrote was out of character and/or poorly written!

Big ol' essay about my own writing under the cut.

So firstly, I thought that the way Darkrai's nightmare aura worked was that any and all dreams that someone has in in his vicinity become nightmares. If they weren't going to have a dream, then a nightmare would spontaneously form. From there, I assumed that lunar wings worked in an equal and opposite way. Doing the same for good dreams. If someone was in an overlapping section of their radius, the two would cancel out. And the subject simply wouldn't have a dream.

That is why I thought that the mechanics weren't consistent. I was under the impressions that, as long as Opal was in range of the lunar wing, she wouldnt have any dreams, good or bad. When in reality it doesn't matter how close someone is to a lunar wing, if Ark isn't covered by it's effect, then they still have nightmares. At least, that's how I interpret it. So, assuming my interpretation is correct, a plot hole arises. If Twig was having a nightmare from Ark's aura, then so should Opal. It's not something I see being written around given the way the nightmare aura actually works. Not without a major overhaul to the start of the story, or just retconning the nightmare aura to work the way I assumed it worked initially. (Which, um, DON'T do that.) Its not that huge a deal. Mostly because a lot of this I'm writing with the advantage of retrospect. But it is a small error nonetheless. It bugs me now, but at worst I'll feel neutral towards it given a couple days though.

Now for the part that I had considered scrapping this entire project over!

At the time I saw this, I was just barely getting started on the nightmare sequence. And the beginning wasn't as fleshed out as it was because I usually skim through what I write three or four times before posting it, looking to see what I can add or shorten. (And yet there are STILL spelling and sentence structure errors! AAAH!) From there I had the thought that none of this would have happened, because Twig would be very against letting Ark in her mind after he did it the one time in TPiaG.

I suppose that this could be circumvented by the part i added later on mentioning how Kip would have told her that Ark could control his nightmare to some extent. Leading Twig to becoming excited at the possibility of him visiting her in her dreams, while he doesnt have to see anything she wouldnt want him to see. Which would then lead into the events of this. So, not as bad as I thought it was I suppose.

Sooooooo... In conclusion!

• The only plot hole is minor at its worst.

• The characters werent as out of character as I thought.

• I am very thankful you encouraged me to finish writing this, despite the flaws I perceived.

Genuinely, thanks for that. This one was honestly the one that was the most fun to write so far! I would have completely missed out on making it if you didn't tell me I should keep going. It really makes me happy seeing how encouraging you are towards other people. I'm working towards being as positive as you are :)

(Also, don't feel bad that I nearly scrapped this because of my reaction to your answer. I was sleepy and tired when i saw it, and you genuinely couldn't have known that I would do that.)

(Also also, writing this has made me realize that I've been calling the Lunar wings "celestial feathers". [Agonized screaming])

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spongebobafettywap · 9 months

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That's actually a good idea not gonna lie I'd read it up Maz... Way better than what the writer came up with honestly.

Like his explanation for why Nightcrawler's now playing Spider-Man is because Krakoa fell and mutants have to go back into hiding but Kurt wants to fight crime now (he completely stopped doing that during Krakoa for no reason mind you but whatev) among other things so he decided to dress up as a mutate to not be bothered, that being Peter Parker.

Sounds okay on paper but I dare you to look up his Uncanny Spiderman costume and tell me he did a good job at hiding his mutant identity or that he was Nightcrawler. I can't express how little effort was put into his disguise and how counterproductive it was for him to pick Spider-Man as the one he should masquerade as to be "left in peace": Marvel has done Spidey so dirty lately, everyone, villains and heroes (FF and Avengers), are against him and would fight him on sight. Nightcrawler somehow drew a bigger target on his back than what was already there. It's some absolute genius thinking at play here, Maz.

Since you said you dropped X-Men for awhile now, I'll give you the concrete numbers: This is the fifth time Nightcrawler has had an identity crisis since Krakoa's foundation that eventually led to him taking on a random job he has little to no experience in (Normal 616 self to Government Chairman, then Religious/Cult leader, then Police Force Operator, then Magically Infected Horned Guy).

I don't think Marvel would understand at this point (even if the entire Nightcrawler fanbase were to rise unanimously) that Kurt Wagner doesn't need a new origin story to uncover with his double-faced backstabbing egg-donor (who has been an absolute uncaring hag to him during Krakoa btw) as that can only lead to him going through yet another (pointless) identity crisis

He needs a goddamn therapist

Thank you! Yeah I thought as Peter and Kurt are good friends it would make sense to see Kurt take the mantle on for a while, also have him bond with Peter's brother Ben. And have them be the good and the "bad" Spider-man.

Okay I like this costume but you are right this is so obviously Nightcrawler lmaooo.

"(Normal 616 self to Government Chairman, then Religious/Cult leader, then Police Force Operator, then Magically Infected Horned Guy)." Jheeze, its so painfully obvious how Marvel does this as bait to get people talking about these comics but its so cynical.

And as for the origins point, yeah I mean most Nightcrawler fans would prefer the origin to stay as it is. And not all of these fans like Azazel necessarily but the majority of us just do not want more retcons, retcons as a whole are not something that make stories interesting because they are for the most part afterthoughts.

The only reason its happening is to get people gossiping about it. It's a real problem with Marvel and Events comic culture which it is the worst offender of as they just keep changing stuff to "shake up the status quo" even though its an annoying change to get people talking about it and no one was really interested in it so it creates this disconnect between the writers and the fandom.

#maz answers #x-men #Nightcrawler

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goodbyenorthernlights · 1 year

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some thoughts on white magic

From what I’ve gathered, Slayers, particularly the original light novel continuity, has had a somewhat haphazard approach to worldbuilding, with a fair share of making-things-up-as-you-go and retconning. This isn’t really a big deal imo, but it has led to some confusing bits. In particular, I’m thinking about “white magic.”

So in the Slayers continuity, white magic refers to spells that heal, protect, and can exorcize evil spirits. It is considered distinct from shamanistic magic (which is basically your standard elemental magic) and black magic, which is destructive and curse magic.

Now, magic in this setting works by calling upon the power of outside sources. Shamanistic magic calls upon the powers of vaguely defined forces of nature, whereas black magic calls upon the powers of the mazoku. From this, one can reasonably assume that white magic calls upon the powers of the gods, or shinzoku, the beings that are the mazoku’s antithesis.

This is not the case; it is holy magic that calls upon the shinzoku. Furthermore, holy magic is unusable in the part of the world Lina and company’s story takes place in, due to the events of the Koma War.

So what the hell is white magic? According to Hajime Kanzaka, the author of the light novels, it’s just another branch of shamanistic magic. This tends to throw some people off because in canon it’s still treated as something separate from shamanistic magic. So here’s my personal take on the relationship between holy magic and white magic.

First, I imagine that, in-universe, the classification of white magic is still a source of confusion. White magic is mostly known for healing spells but also for things like exorcism, and I think there are a lot of arguments at the Sorcerer’s Guild about if this white magic spell or that white magic spell should actually be classified as astral magic or water magic or this or that, and that there may be some people in favor of eliminating white magic as a classification entirely.

In real life, after all, the taxonomy of natural things like animals, plants, planets, etc. often turns complicated and vague if you look into it. For instance, the term “vegetable” is not actually a real botanical classification.

There is, however, a cultural perception of white magic as being separate from normal shamanistic magic and the reason for this is because white magic was originally developed specifically as a replacement for holy magic.

Recall the earlier mention of the Koma War: During the war, Shabranigdu’s subordinates specifically went around desecrating the temples of Aqualord Ragradia and killing her priests, as well as isolating the region within an impassible magic barrier. Once Aqualord Ragradia was killed holy magic became impossible to use and very few practitioners of that magic- particularly among humans- and records of that magic would have survived. Not to mention it’s a plot point that, even 1,000 years later, the mazoku Xellos is still going around destroying records of magical knowledge from that time period.

Prior to this destruction the tradition of holy magic likely served a very important cultural purpose both spiritually and practically and its loss would have been a serious wound to the people of the peninsula. There are a lot of ways people respond to a major loss like that and in my headcanon white magic was basically developed as an attempt to rebuild those lost practices and traditions, starting from the framework of what people remembered about holy magic and searching for an alternate power source for their healing and exorcism spells.

Of course, since it’s been a thousand years since the original Koma War, white magic has inevitably evolved from its original role as a specific replacement for holy magic. There are white magic spells that don’t cleanly map onto holy magic spells and there are holy spells that were basically lost forever without a white magic equivalent ever being developed. The average layperson is probably only vaguely-aware-at-most of the difference and connection between holy and white magic.

Still, the cultural perception of white magic as being of the gods has remained, along with it being commonly practiced by devotees of Cepheid and Ragradia. Technically white magic is neutral in nature but in society as a whole it serves the same function as holy magic and the associations that have become built into it (as well as the usual motivations of the priestly casters) are enough to make white magic repulsive to mazoku- creatures easily influenced and defined by thoughts- even if it’s not strictly antithetical to them the way holy magic is and was.

tl;dr “white magic” is holy magic in terms of how it’s perceived but technically shamanistic magic in terms of where it draws power from.

#headcanons #slayers

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danceswithdarkspawn · 11 months

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hello friend, just read two of swords, excellent fic, you know it's good when you're fandom blind and want to get into the fandom just so you can understand more, but I did have a few questions, specifically about lilliana. Shes tagged as being a ghost, shouldnt that be blindingly obvious to the people around her? And what exactly is her connection to ravens, is that a ghosty power thing or something else entirely? How much of that is canon and how much is au? Thanks in advance!

Hello there, I'm so glad to hear you enjoyed Two of Swords so much!

To explain LyriumGhost!Leliana, I need to explain a little about Dragon Age and Leliana in general and the retcons around her. Spoiler alert for the Dragon Age series overall.

Leliana is a character present throughout the series and is a potential party recruit and romance in the first game, Dragon Age: Origins. The Dragon Age games are known for having major choices that carry over throughout the series. Your choices make up a World State which can change certain events and outcomes in Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition.

One such choice in Origins is whether Leliana survives the events of the game or not. In short, if a certain decision is made, she will retaliate against the player, forcing you to kill her. Despite her death, Leliana returns in Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition. This retcon was something of a controversy within the DA community because we were given no explanation about how she returned until Inquisition's final DLC, Trespasser, where her epilogue card says the following:

Eventually, Leliana became distant and contemplative, often secluding herself in the rookery with none but her ravens for company. One morning, the residents of Skyhold awoke to a great beating of wings and a vast cloud of ravens blotting out the sky above the fortress. Those who investigated found both the rookery and Leliana's chambers vacant, with only a single message as explanation: "The lyrium sang thought into being. Now time is stale, and the melody is called elsewhere. Until I am needed, I am free."

In an oversimplification, we learn in Inquisition that lyrium isn't just some miracle substance that affects magical properties, but it's actually alive, and most likely the blood of a primordial being, and that it 'sings.' The place in which Leliana is killed sits atop a massive lyrium deposit, so this epilogue card implies that the lyrium resurrected her somehow. This is where the LyriumGhost!Leliana tag comes from.

About how would no one notice she's a ghost: this one I can't explain super well, except that by Inquisition, Leliana is very secretive and guarded. Her (potential) death isn't something mentioned very much in Inquisition, if I remember correctly. There are a couple times where the matter comes up in conversation, however: once with the player character of Dragon Age 2, who was familiar with Leliana prior to the events of Origins, and one from Leliana herself.

First, the player can say to her, "I heard that you died" to which Leliana will respond with, "Perhaps the Maker thought it wasn't my time."

In Inquisition, Leliana will tell you that she was "sure [she] died," before correcting herself, "I did die." But she is confident that it was the Maker that resurrected her. You can press this issue, saying that's impossible, and she will tell you that she has consulted with numerous people to try to find an explanation, but has come up with nothing. I interpret all this as her not even being fully aware of what she is until much later, and if she can't tell, maybe no one else can either.

About the ravens: this is a small headcanon I have specifically about LyriumGhost!Leliana, that even if she's not aware of her being dead, she shares some connection with her ravens, or that they are extensions of herself. In game, this might explain how her birds get to and from places so quickly and inconspicuously.

There is also a note left by one of Leliana's scouts concerning one of her prized ravens, Baron Plucky, claiming that he is a terror to work with, but is "all sweetness" when in Leliana's presence. The note ends with, "How does she do it? All the birds like her. Is it blood magic? It's blood magic isn't it." This note is almost certainly unrelated, but I always thought it was funny.

Apologies, this got much longer than I initially thought it would be, but I really appreciate the question! Thank you again for stopping by, and I'm glad you enjoyed the fic!

#the dancer answers #anon ask #thank you again!#lyriumghost!leliana #dai: two of swords

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davidmariottecomics · 1 year

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The Continuity Conundrum

Hey, welcome back!

As so often happens, I was scrolling through Twitter one day over the winter break and saw the very talented up-and-coming artist Kara Huset post a couple of polls about whether or not the Big 2, Marvel & DC, are due for a reboot. A lot very thoughtful and passionate takes from the people commenting. A little while later, I saw a post I can't source now because I've lost it talking about the idea of elastic continuity and the importance of being able to let it have give and take when you need it for the story you're telling. And then this morning I saw a very good thread from Comrade Bullski on Twitter about the strangeness around the history of the Justice Society of America, tracking them from being the first super-team to being one of the first major retcons in comics that made them from another universe to their extended runs that kept them locked in the past up to the one decade where they basically got to just be a modern day superteam with everyone else and beyond.

Understandably, all of this got me thinking about the value of continuity in comics and the ways in which it serves to enhance and restrict the medium. So, I want to talk about that: the good, the bad, the compelling reasons to throw it out entirely and the reasons it is often one of the most helpful tools a creator can have in their corner.

I've Done a Couple of Hard Relaunches

While I don't usually bring out my bona fides on something like this, I do think in this particular case, they speak to where I'm coming from so we're all starting at the same understanding. I have spent an awful lot of my career in comics working on bring new life and direction to existing, long-running titles. Notably, in 2019, we launched a brand new Transformers universe, often referred to as IDW 2.0, that stood on it's own from all other TF iterations, particularly our previous 13 year run. In 2018, we launched Sonic the Hedgehog, again, a brand-new version of the series totally separated from the last 24 year run with another publisher. I've been involved in standalones for various mini-series and OGNs, revivals of long dormant franchises, and general cleaning-up of stories that didn't always mesh together but that were in need of having some connective tissue. I have preserved continuity, helped build new ones, and have thrown it out completely when it was to the benefit of the story. Having met it in all it's forms, I think I have an insight that not everyone working in this industry does.

Real Quick: What is Continuity?

Again, just so we're working from the same terms. Continuity is the way in which past, present, and future events are connected and their meaning is reinforced as a form of consistency. It applies at all sizes of scales. It can be as simple as making sure that if a thug is drawn holding a knife in his right hand in one panel, in subsequent panels that depict the same thug, he continues to be holding the knife and/or righthanded unless an action in the story requires differently. And when we're talking about characters who have publishing histories of 8 decades or so, continuity allows for the events of previous stories to be remembered and reused in telling current and future stories.

So What's so Bad About it? The big issue that people will point to with continuity is that it is daunting. Action Comics has been published off-and-on for 85 years and over 1050 issues. The characters featured have had many decades and many thousands of other stories published about them outside of that particular comic, that are often still considered meaningful and true to Action Comics. From the exterior, if you thought to enjoy the latest issue, you had to know the exact events of all those other thousands of issues, not because they are necessarily relevant but because they could be, that would be a lot.

When you're telling a story, you often want to make the accessibility threshold low. By being clear and concise, you allow more readers/viewers/whatever to hop in and engage with the work. As more work gets added to continuity, it continues to raise the bar on the accessibility threshold, which can be a major turn-off to potential new readers and returning readers who don't remember/know/have full context for all the details.

It is a system that inherently gets more complicated and convoluted each time a new work is added. It is a dense thing to sort through, often to the point of being impenetrable.

It is also a very flawed system. While the idea is that continuity is supposed to clarify and solidify events in relation to each other, it makes contradictory information very obvious--whether that's two events happening simultaneously when they can't possibly be to rewriting and sometimes ejecting previous stories for the new story to make sense. Taking the earlier example I shared of the Justice Society of America, things that had to be altered at various points included whether or not it made sense for there to be multiple Bruce Wayne Batmans and Clark Kent Supermans, whether or not the JSA existed before the JLA in a single universe, how the JSA members maintained their relative youth despite having been adults fighting in World War II. If they were in their 20s to 40s in the 1940s, that puts them in their 100s now, for the most part, though they still primarily look like they're in their 40s to 60s at the latest.

All-in-all, the problems primarily come to the amount of responsibility that you want to give to creators and readers alike to know the details and the legitimacy of stories (including the making illegitimate of other people's stories) that is built into the system.

Okay, So What Happens if We Get Rid of it?

If you throw continuity out, it often opens up your options. I look at say, the DC young readers books, all of which operate in their own worlds, maybe linked to other volumes by the same creators or loosely tied with someone else's work, but they are largely standalone and easily accessible because of it. Prior knowledge is a tough ask and removing that barrier can open up the story to new audiences.

Open interpretation also can help give characters new life. Before the past decade, if you liked Gwen Stacy, you basically had a handful of Spider-Man comics in the 1970s that she starred in without being the main character, and then the occasional revisiting of that time in stories that reinterpreted/retold it (Spider-Man: Blue) or that changed the circumstances of those stories, often in ill-informed ways (there's a lot of weird stuff with Gwen, Norman Osborn, and the Jackal...). Now, she's Spider-Gwen/Spider-Woman/Ghost Spider, and she's the hero of her stories and she's in a cool band and she's got her own universe of stories. The flip side to that being, so much of what informs the Spider-Gwen stories, particularly the early ones, is being framed in contrast to the understood continuity. It is about how things are different from what the expectation is or how they worked in the Spider-Man comics. So even when you remove a character from the trappings of continuity--you open them up to reinterpretation and not having to be constrained by certain "fixed" events, they are often still subject to it because their story is told is other to what is established.

And therein lies the big issue with why it's so hard to fully remove continuity. Continuity is shared information. For as much as it can be a headache, it can also be a bridge to mutual understandings, and a way of texts interacting and responding to each other. For as much as it raises the bar of the accessibility threshold, it also adapts to create new connection points throughout the publishers' history that aids other readers and creators in bringing things together.

But You Said You had Done Some Reboots I did. And it was hard. There are things that will get left behind: characters, characterizations, ideas, plots, growth, that may never get picked up again in an official capacity. And that's a bummer. But when I've done it, the trade-off has always been quickly starting to establish a new continuity and deciding what pre-existing knowledge to play off of--it may not be in continuity with anything else, but what do we expect the audience to understand about the world or the story that helps ease their burden because they can make more connections more quickly? I've been pretty proud of the answers the teams I've worked with have come up with.

Lastly, as a note, I want to touch on "elastic continuity" again, which I think maybe is often the most helpful thing. The idea of elastic continuity is that the details can be adjusted as long as the spirit is true. If Punisher and Iron Man were both still in the Vietnam War, similar to what happened to the JSA, it would make them much older in the current comics than they're usually depicted. And so the war that Punisher served in and that Iron Man was injured in changes with the times, to keep that central part of their story true while fitting better for the ease of access to a modern reader.

Not to sound inconclusive, but I think there are advantages to reboots. I think there are advantages to sticking with existing continuities. I think often the deciding factor is how much is getting cut or written out or otherwise "lost" (not that most media is actually lost nowadays) relative to how inviting the changes are. And if you are a person looking to work on a property and in a position to pitch something, keep all that in mind when suggesting starting over.

Talk to you next week!

What I enjoyed this week: Vaccine booster (Enjoyed is maybe a strong word, I was out sick the next day, but I do like being vaccinated for the safety of myself and others), Blank Check (Podcast), The Menu (Movie), Chainsaw Man (Manga), Honkai Impact (Video game), Shin Megami Tensei III (Video Game), Nancy (Comic strip), Abbott Elementary (TV show), White Noise (Movie), Sweat & Soap (Manga, finally actually finished it and it was delightful!)

New Releases this week (1/11/2022): Godzilla Rivals II: Rodan vs. Ebirah (Editor) Godzilla: Monsters & Protectors - All Hail the King #4 (Editor)

New releases next week (1/18/2022): Sonic the Hedgehog: Scrapnik Island #4 (Editor)

Announcements: Arizona Comic Book Arts Festival - 2/25! It's a one day comic-focused event in Phoenix, AZ. Tickets are only $10. Attending artists include me, Becca (who once again is dropping some new stuff on their Patreon, see below), Mitch Gerads, Steve Rude, John Layman, Henry Barajas, Jay Fotos, Jeff Mariotte, Marcy Rockwell, John Yurcaba, Andrew MacLean, Alexis Zirrit, Meredith McClaren, James Owen, Ryan Cody, and many more! Come and see us! Becca'll have some very cool new merch, too!

Pic of the Week: Becca made this wallpaper of their character, Drew, publicly available from their Twitter to use as a phone wallpaper. They have more wallpapers as well as an alternate version of this art on their Patreon. They're doing weekly art prompts this year, so there's going to be a lot of art coming! Check it out!

#comics #comics editorial #continuity #superheroes #karahuset #justice society of america #jsa #bunny girl #beccabeean #arizona comic book arts festival #idw

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evilwickedme · 2 years

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Can I ask what your lecture on deadpool was about?

Hello anon you absolutely can

Before I continue: repeated rape and suicide mentions in this post, as well as ableist and homophobic writing. It's Wade, tho. So, honestly, all that's to be expected.

Honestly I don't even remember anymore what the concept was when I sent in the idea to the event planners, I think it was something like... The differences between movie!wade and comics!wade? So I rewatched both movies with only a week in between and then sat and read... So goddamn many Deadpool comics. I went through every single series he appears in starting in 2008 and made a list of what I wanted to read, what I had to read, and what I didn't think I'd get to. The list I ended up with was still... Ridiculously ambitious. I only had about a month left before the lecture needed to have at least a rough draft done, and I had only managed to read Deadpool's first appearance for context and fun. This is the list I wrote out in a server I'm in with some friends:

Hey, at least I show some self awareness by saying that it's a lot. What I managed to actually read was maybe half of this, at best:

This is still, like, a whole lot to read in five weeks. My brain was melting by the end, and all thoughts of comparing this shit to the movie had basically disappeared by the time I sat down to organize my thoughts.

(Deadpool doesn't appear in Spider-Men, I just don't feel like cutting it out of the screenshot for no reason)

(ETA I also read Deadpool, Volume 2: Soul Hunter, I just forgot to put it on the comics shelf on GR so it escaped the screenshot)

What I ended up with was a lecture that was half factual overview of the character and his supporting cast, half thematic overview of the character and his supporting cast.

I started with just a vague rant on canon, because I knew the kind of audience that would show up to a lecture entirely about Deadpool. I stole much of the meat of it from thepandaredd on TikTok, but basically the claim is that with comics, canon is basically whatever you personally accept as canon. Because especially with a character like Deadpool but also basically any character with any history, writers are often going to disregard or actively negate something that was said earlier (you know, a retcon) and this is made worse by the fact that Deadpool doesn't know his own history. So whatever didn't make it into the lecture was simply... Not relevant to my discussion. Of course, at the end of the lecture somebody raised his hand and asked me about Thanos fighting Deadpool. I straight up told him I didn't care. I had already said that canon in this lecture is limited to the 2008 run, the 2012 run, the beginning of the 2015 run and spideypool, and whatever other random issues I had managed to fit in between.

The next thing was introducing Deadpool - he's a mercenary, he's got two major superpowers (healing factor stronger than almost anybody else's and breaking the fourth wall, which counts as communication with a different universe), he had cancer and the cancer also got the healing factor, he's insane. Then I compared his pre 2012 and post 2012 supporting cast - if you've only seen the movies, the pre 2012 cast is the people you know: Blind Al, Weasel, Hydra Bob, Cable, and of course, White and Yellow/the boxes. The post 2012 cast includes Agent Preston, Butler (who is the man behind Wade's first appearance and who brainwashed him and sent him to kill his own parents... harsh), Ben Franklin's ghost, Michael (a necromancer, and not the reason Ben Franklin's ghost is around), and Eleanor Camacho (!!) (among others). And, of course, White is revealed to be Madcap, while Yellow is revealed to be... Wade himself. I can go into detail about the different casts another time, if anybody's interested, cause there's certainly more to say here. A constant between both these eras is typhoid mary, who raped Wade, and Spidey, although he's more prominent post 2012 with the rise of the spideypool ship and, of course, their very own teamup series.

Now that we were all familiar with the basic facts of Wade's existence and his friends and family, I started my thematic analysis. The first slide was called "Yes Homo" and was just a brutal take down of the homophobia in Wade's writing. Again, I can talk about this at length if anybody's interested, my askbox is always open, but suffice it to say, the writing is plenty homophobic.

I then pointed out every single romantic or sexual relationship Wade has had has been with a woman, unless it's treated as a joke like Cable, and discussed the important relationships in his life. I also discussed Typhoid Mary more in detail here. And then the only canonical Achillean relationship Deadpool has ever had: Madcap. Again: more detail upon request. The point is: Wade's relationships are all toxic, brief, outright abusive, or all of the above. I got asked this in the lecture and clarified that he is sometimes the abuser, and sometimes the abused. Wade isn't a good person, but he's also repeatedly a victim. It's just... A very complicated subject.

Which brings us to Spidey. I had two slides dedicated to Spidey: one about Deadpool's hero worship of him, and one about their romantic/sexual dynamic. They absolutely are connected - Deadpool's admiration of Spidey as a hero is connected to his desire of him - but I ended up including a mini rant about how much I hate Secret Empire and the way Wade's heroes influence his path in life so keeping then separate was probably a good idea. Tl;Dr, secret empire Nazi!Steve gets Wade to do some terrible things, because Wade looks to other people to see the difference between right and wrong, and he's chosen both Cap and Spidey to trust to always tell him that difference.

Once more: I'd love to go into detail about this, but suffice it to say, Deadpool admires Spidey as well as admires him, and this is important and a big reason for why I ship them.

I then talked about Deadpool's family, his inconsistent backstory, and literally made people clap for Ellie Camacho.

Then I talked about his mental illnesses, which has absolutely developed over the years. Earlier on, he's pretty much treated as a schizophrenic, although not... Well. Clearly not one person did their research and it's very badly done. The 2012 Posehn and Duggan run presents him as having what would more accurately be described as some combination of bipolar and BPD; again, not particularly well researched, but still, in my eyes, better done. Either way, there isn't a version of Wade that isn't suicidal.

I closed with my discussion regarding Deadpool's relationship with Death, which you don't need to ask me to elaborate on, because I already have! But, you know, to reiterate: Wade is in love with Death, Wade is suicidal, Wade often confuses violence and death with affection and love.

And that was my Deadpool lecture :) sorry for how long this ended up, but I did talk for a full forty minutes uninterrupted, so clearly I had plenty to say lmao. thank you so much for asking!!!

#deadpool #dp #marvel #spideypool #marvel comics #I did actually cover the movie in short but it was unimportant enough I cut it out of this summary alongside a few other things #ask #anonymous

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thenightling · 2 years

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Is the Netflix Sandman series canon and does it even matter?

Is the Netflix Sandman series canon? Well, canon to itself, yes. Canon to any TV show that might spin-off to it, yes. Canon to the comics... No. That's something else entirely and that's true with almost any show based on a comic and that's not saying anything bad about it- nor should it matter.

The original Sandman comics are still set in 1988 through 1996, with Morpheus's capture being seventy two years and it will forever be that way. The comics and what is in the comics will not change because of the show. Both can be good even when they deviate from each other. They have their own canon now. The show is its own canon. Trying to make it canon to the comics is folly because there are things that will unavoidably change and thus contradict the comics as well as the still-going audio drama.

Here's how canon works: The Sandman comics = Canon to itself and all comic spin-offs. Sandman spin-off comics (The Sandman Universe / The Sandman Presents) = Eh... This is iffy. The 1996 Dreaming is not canon anymore and means comics that referenced events in it like the 2016 Lucifer comics by Holly Black aren't canon or are at least partly retconned. Also the Locke & Key Crossover is not considered canon by Neil. He likes the story but he does not consider it canon. There are some major continuity and characterization problems if you pay attention. You can like something and not consider it canon. That's how fan fiction writers get fans. Fan fiction isn't canon but many people find it enjoyable to read and write.

The Sandman audio drama = Slavishly faithful adaptation and even fills in some blanks. Canon to itself, the comics, and comic spin-offs. The Sandman Netflix series = Makes necessary changes and some creative changes, including timeline changes. Canon to itself and any spin-off series it might get. This does not mean it will not be good. It just means it's big enough and just different enough to be a canon of its own, like how Arrowverse isn't canon to the original Green Arrow comics. All canon means is "This is fact within this story." or in some cases "This is fact within this shared continuity / universe." Everything is its own canon. You shouldn't WANT The Sandman Netflix series to be canon to the comics, it would mean re-writing parts of the comics and stupid fan arguments about "Who was really there with Morpheus? John Constantine or Joanna Constantine?" when both are correct in their own continuities. Both are canon for their own things. "Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will remain when mere facts are dust, and ashes, and forgot." Everything is its own canon. Something new cannot overwrite the original comics. Something new can create its own canon to be followed with other TV shows or movies. And that's okay.

#The Sandman #Sandman #Canon #What canon?#Neil Gaiman

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ladundying · 2 months

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I’m Making A Yakuza Fan Game!

Intro (PINNED POST)

Hello! I’m Avery ( @averydavery is my main account) and I’m creating my own Ryu Ga Gotoku/Like A Dragon/Yakuza fan game which will be called “Like A Dragon: Undying.” This post is the pinned post for this blog that should explain some questions you may have about it and bring awareness to the game itself! Please read below the cut for more details

Info

What kind of game is LAD: Undying going to be? What is it a spin off of?

Like A Dragon: Undying (LADU) will be a multi-genre title. It borrows elements from RGGO! and LAD 7 & LAD 8, but still incorporates some aspects unfamiliar to veteran players. LADU’s story sections will be in visual novel form and feature rendered artwork of each character’s various expressions. Each chapter will feature one or more brief but important story beats that feature a fully painted and semi-animated scene to emphasize whatever is the most important moment of that chapter. If you’re familiar with the Metal Gear Solid Visual Graphic Novels, then it will be something very similar to that. However, combat/gameplay sequences will divert for this entirely and be in an 8-bit style. Fights will be turn based RPG battles on a horizontal plane, similar to OFF or Deltarune. These battles will feature a normal attack mechanic and a special attack point-buy based mechanic. Also the player will get some very few special moves that feature a brief animation for it— I plan on building a mechanic on when and how this special move can be unleashed.

What will the plot be like?

The plot takes place after the events of LAD 7 but departs from the traditional plot of the series by incorporating a supernatural element to it. While I cannot explain what I mean by this I will say that it isn’t anything like high-fantasy by any means.

As for a brief overview, the game starts with Ichiban crossing paths with the game’s new deuteragonist, Nokori, a vengeful amnesiac who is willing to do whatever it takes to find out his what happened to him and what his true identity is. Ichiban vows to help him on his quest and together they search for the truth.

Who is Nokori?

Nokori is my oc and the secondary protagonist to the game (who I plan on making playable for at least one chapter). He is seen in the art on this post wearing an orange and teal outfit! He dual wields with his katana and tanto, making for some interesting combat abilities. Later in the game you will see that he gains some very powerful and entertaining moves for battle, but I can’t say too much about him or else I’ll be spoiling. His personality is very much like a cat. He’s quiet and reserved, quick to irritation, speaks very eloquently, and at times can very bold when he’s cocky or teasing.

Will there be romance?

I plan on writing in a romance but it won’t come until the latter half of the story. I’m hoping by then I can maybe make it optional for those uninterested? But this entire game idea came from the oc x canon fic I wrote three chapters of about Nokori and Ichiban so… 👩‍🦯

YOU’LL ALL LOVE HIM TOO I SWEAR!!

Where can I see examples of your artwork to get an idea of what the game will look like?

On my main blog that I dropped the @ to above I have the majority of my artwork but all of my work and my most active platform is instagram! my username there is @averydavery.png!

Are there spoilers for it anywhere?

YES! Surprise, surprise, you can actually get spoiled up to chapter 3 if you know where to look. As I mentioned before this started as a fanfic and that’s still public, which you are free to read as you please but please know that some things that happen there have been RETCONNED in the script to the game, so be warned. I’m not share the name of it or anything either because I don’t want someone posting spoilers or something to ruin the intrigue of this game.

That being said I actually have some artwork that contains spoilers floating about and while I think it’s been archived or deleted, you can never be so sure…

Where can I play LADU when it releases?

It is my goal to post it on Newgrounds or Itch.io, or both!

Support

As of now I am working on this game almost entirely on my own and it will be amazing if I only ever get one chapter of it done. My fantastic friend Thea (no full name given) has been my editor and has been the person I’ve been running all of this by, so I’d be nowhere without her. Also I have another friend who has offered to compose a song for the OST! He’s making Nokori’s theme which I’m so excited to hear when he’s finished with it. However, since this is a fangame I’m not profiting off of it by any means and am making it from scratch so I don’t get sent a cease and desist order from RGG Studio. That means I am animating, designing, drawing, writing, and coding everything myself. So far the only thing unoriginal is that I’m using the intellectual property of LAD. Besides that everything is by me.

How can I support you?

The best way to support me and my fangame is by spreading the word! Likes, comments, reblogs, shares, and asks are all appreciated! Also it would mean a lot if you did the same on my instagram! However if you’d like to off me monetary support I take commissions!

How can I volunteer?

Since I’m making this on my own, any help would be greatly appreciated. However, I’m only looking for people who are qualified (musicians and coders are needed the most) so please understand that I will want to see your work first before deciding if you can assist. Please understand why I’m doing this and also understand that you will be VOLUNTEERING I am in no way forcing you to do anything and do not expect you to toil for hours on end for me. Like even some simple guidance on how to do these things myself would be great.

Updates

3/2/2024

Finished script for chapter one

Designed Ichiban and Nokori’s base sprites (not animated)

Made this blog and an instagram reel

Did some planning shit

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megamattzx · 1 year

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If there's anything I've learned in both Dragon Ball and fiction in general, it is that nothing that was previously established is going to stay the same as it was before. Everything is subject to change over time, even if we don't necessarily like it.

Changing how Ultimate Gohan works, or never having a clear-cut example of how it works, is an example in Dragon Ball. Still, for a non-Dragon Ball example, you can quickly turn to what was once originally Canon for Star Wars regarding the expanded universe, AKA Legends.

And this might not even be a pure dragon ball discussion because of this Factor, as I'm definitely going to be talking about Star Wars Legends a lot. This might not be a pure Dragon Ball discussion because this thing that applies to Dragon Ball also applies to Star Wars.

They also applied to other franchises like Godzilla and even Ultraman at times. Marvel and DC are also primary examples of things being subject to change. A lot of things need to be considered. Now is this inherently a bad thing? No.

Whether or not something is good or bad depends on who you're asking at this point, as writing can simultaneously be objective and subjective as you can make arguments for both sides of that debate.

For an example of Dragon Ball not being safe from any possible changes, we have to take a look at Super, and even though people try to say that Super is not Canon, this factor of everything being subject to change for better or worse depending on who you ask must be considered.

Just because it was Canon back then in the original Dragon Ball doesn't mean the original Dragon Ball ending, which suggests ten peaceful years of peace, is entirely safe from being changed or sacred due to said Factor.

Just because it was previously established does not make it completely safe from being retconned. Just because it was the original Canon does not mean it is the current Canon. Meaning just because something is Canon then does not AUTOMATICALLY make it Canon now.

Super in multiple ways has retconned the end of Z which GT follows, for one, 10 years of peace after the death of Majin Buu implying that nothing really happened afterwards. This is contradicted by Battle of Gods and everything after it in Super.

Recon number 2 Bulma explicitly states to Goku at the end of Z, that she hasn't seen Goku in 5 years, well courtesy of Super, we now know that is no longer the case. As throughout the entirety of Super, Goku has seen Bulma and talked to her.

Why this is important is because Dragon Ball super superhero is set one year before the end of Z. This is another retcon that has been made. Then there's also the fact that Frieza is indeed alive in the story even though there is no mention of Frieza at all.

Nor any references to the events of super as I mentioned before 10 years of peace and Bulma had not seen Goku for 5 years. Another thing is that in super Vegeta does explicitly mention Uub when in the end of Z only Goku knew about him but clearly did not know exactly who he was.

Goku also knowing about Uub at least in the manga in the TOP is another clear indication that this factor of the ending of Z has been retconned as Goku has full knowledge of who Uub is.

Let's also keep in mind that theoretically Super can't happen before the eoz without retcons. Another major factor is that Goten and Trunks seem to still have an interest in fighting right before the ending of Z, just about while Goku and Vegeta were forcing them to enter the tournament and to train at the end of Z.

The fact that Goku trained Goten implies the Earth was peaceful. So that's another retcon right there. Another factor is that some of the lore has also been retconned as well like the functionality of fusions and how certain states of power work. And he is not training on his own.

The fact that Kabito Kai remains fused is another Factor too as GT as I mentioned followed the original ending of the Dragon Ball Z anime. And now we know that fusions can be temporary if it's either both mortals involved and if a fused God uses the Dragon Balls to defuse.

We also see Goku and Vegeta still keep their rivalry going so that is clearly another retcon right there and this is one of the retcons I think should still apply because in my opinion, Goku and Vegeta benefit too much from their rivalry.

But as I mentioned Dragon Ball is not the only franchise subject to change in retcons like this. And no one will truly agree if it's changed for the better or for the worst. We're also going to be dealing with non Dragon Ball examples as well so let's begin. So a major non Dragon Ball example is Star Wars as that Universe is constantly changing and has not one, but two expanded universes. Canon and Legends. With Legends being the original Canon of Star Wars beyond the movies and shows.

There were tons of storylines that added more and more layers to the Galaxy as a whole and focused a lot on other characters as well. And there were some changes that were made for better and for worse, depending on who you ask, which was oddly similar to Dragon Ball.

For example, You have the extremely controversial Dark Empire series for example which made a huge decision. This story is controversial even amongst Legends fans due to one major decision that the story made and that was to bring back Emperor Palpatine, who was the main antagonist at the time of the original trilogy with Darth Vader as another main antagonist. He was also killed in Return of the Jedi and Dark Empire takes place 6 years after the events of Return of the Jedi. This was a retcon from the Dark Empire.

Also for the Star Wars prequel fans you may also notice that they were changes in the prequels when a lot of the older material never referenced anything in the prequels and the reason for this is simply because the prequels didn't exist at that point. many of the recons were made to fit the prequels which added more layers to the universe overall.

We didn't know much about the various events in the Clone Wars that we do now in both continuities of Star Wars back in the day. We didn't know how the Empire Rose to power in the galaxy until the prequels. But George Lucas also borrowed elements of Legends.

He used Coruscant as the capital of the Republic in the prequels and in the Legends material it was formerly the imperial citywide planet. You also have mandalore that was introduced in the expanded universe which was eventually implemented in various games books and even shows.

We also didn't know much about Anakin's character before the prequels came out aside from him being Darth Vader. So this was another major factor into his character, that was added after the original trilogy which some people to this day do not actually speak kindly of. However like GT and super I've seen some people's opinions change, some for better some for worse. But I've also seen people's opinions not change over time.

Then you also have the critically acclaimed video games Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2 which are set thousands of years before the events of Star Wars the original trilogy and the prequels alike. Would add more aspects into the Jedi Order that would never be fully explained in before and determine that there was a long history in the Republic even if the Republic stated to have existed for a thousand years. You also have various different eras and events that occurred in the Legends material as well both before and after the original trilogy.

And we need to now mention the elephant in the room aside from Disney buying Star Wars when it comes to talking about canon in Star Wars due to the fact that this man was involved with Star Wars before Disney acquired it and that is Dave Filoni with his Clone Wars series. This was he most notorious for. Not the fact that he made bad content that a lot of Star Wars fans hated but because he outright contradicted and changed plenty of Clone Wars content in the Legends material which was meant to be a multimedia project, to his own liking. And unfortunately the hierarchy of Canon allowed him to get away with it and before the team in Lucas arts and Lucas film could rectify the issue, Disney acquired Star Wars and eventually made the biggest record in history which we will explain later.

However Dave Filoni is known for creating Star Wars the Clone Wars, the 2008 animated series but the problem with Star Wars the Clone Wars is that it actually retcons a lot of the previous Clone Wars content. It killed Adi Gallia before she was she was supposed to be killed off, it back Jedi Master Eoth after being killed in a earlier installment, it made Anakin Skywalker a Jedi Knight around the early months of the Clone Wars when Anakin was originally not a Jedi Knight until month 30 of it, it completely rewrote the history of the mandalorians, it literally retroactively changed and adapted the slaves of the Republic series which was a promotional comic for the Clone Wars, retroactively deeming that series non Canon, it changed Assaj Ventress's character, so much so that people literally thought that Faloni actually created her when in reality he didn't, and he changed so much of her story with the exception of her backstory that it deemed a lot of her character non-canon prior to the Clone Wars show. He also intended to completely change her end and the conclusion that the original creator of the character intended for her in the series as well.

These are just examples from Dave Filoni alone and Disney made the biggest retcon in history, by deeming Star Wars Legends completely non-canon. And the contradictions don't stop there. The sequel trilogies pretty much undo all the development that Han Luke and Leia underwent. It undermined all the things that they went through and completely destroyed everything they thought so hard to attain without a proper explanation. They made Luke Skywalker a coward and Han Solo a deadbeat. The Last Jedi undermined a lot of the buildup from Force awakens and the rise of Skywalker undermined The Last Jedi for damage control, Dave filoni's bad batch contradicts a lot of Celleb Dume/ Karran Jarris' story from rebels, particularly his time before the series with order 66, Dave filoni also butchered ahsoka's original story post Clone Wars with the Ahsoka novel. The secret trilogy like Legends also brought dark Empire elements by bringing Palpatine back in the rise of Skywalker, and like dark Empire before undid everything the previous trilogies built up to, the Kenobi show contradicted major aspects of the original trilogy by having Obi-Wan leave tatooine face Vader and meet Leia at the age of 10, and the list could simply go on and on.

The reason why I mentioned both these continuities along with dragon ball is that unlike Dragon Ball, Star Wars has a concrete Canon. That is, at least it is supposed to. And 5 years ago there was an argument that Canon was better than Legends because Canon more often than not was more consistent. 5 years ago there was an argument there. Now Cannon is very convoluted just like it was in Legends but unlike Canon, Legends had a concrete hierarchy of Canon. Back in 2014, Disney vowed to make sure that Canon remained consistent and that it would never contradict itself. Almost 10 years later, however, it's clear that Disney has not kept that promise. A lot of lore has also been changed as well as the history of the entire galaxy as well in the new Canon of Star Wars and even then there's a lot of inconsistencies. There are a lot of writers that have played a part in this but right now the worst offender has been Dave Filoni. It is not the fact that he is a terrible writer that is the issue, it is the fact that he does not respect the works of other writers at all and blatantly and seemingly intentionally butchers the story that the previous writer wrote.

In my opinion this deserves more backlash than Toriyama contradicting his own writing as he is not the creator of Star Wars. And some believe that he's actually also gone against George's works as well. There's a reason why the Star Wars community seemingly has more backlash towards him then Toriyama seems to have backlash in Dragon Ball. And even though Toriyama is allowed to change his story however he sees fit, he is still not free from criticism of it. But at the end of the day he is the creator of Dragon Ball therefore if he truly wants to make the changes he is in his right to do so. And if he wants to allow those writing for the franchise to tell their own stories and have no connection to his original one he is also in his right to do so. This is probably why in my opinion, Filoni deserves more backlash with Star Wars than Toriyama ever will deserve backlash with Dragon Ball is that simple fact. Because Toriyama is the creator of Dragon Ball, he is in his full right to make the changes to his own story that he wants to make even if he gets backlash for it. Filoni on the other hand does not own Star Wars and therefore is more susceptible to backlash because of the fact that Star Wars is not rightfully his. And people gave George Lucas backlash for the prequels which most of it in my opinion, was actually not deserved. As people literally treat him like shit purely for changing certain things from the original trilogy. But like with how Dragon Ball fans forget about Toriyama Star Wars fans forget one major fact about George Lucas in Star Wars. With two franchises that were created by either George Lucas or Akira Toriyama, respectively, George Lucas with Star Wars and Akira Toriyama Dragon Ball, whether the fans like it or not, unlike Toriyama and George Lucas, the fans are not the creators. George Lucas as the creator of Star Wars could change anything he wanted about Star Wars when he still owned it. The only reason why George Lucas is no longer able to do so is simply because he no longer owns Star Wars.

The only difference between Star Wars and Dragon Ball when it comes to the Creator's end is that Toriyama still technically owns Dragon Ball. He can change whatever he wants even if it goes against what he previously established. Even if he is getting the rights to his son and Toyotaro, it doesn't change the fact that Toriyama still technically owns his own franchise and ultimately can say how the story goes and literally do whatever he wants with it. This doesn't mean we have to like and accept everything though. If we don't like something then we don't like it but it doesn't necessarily change the fact that the changes will be made. It simply is what it is. Nothing is going to change that. We can criticize and complain as much as we want but at the end of the day we do not own these franchises. It is up to those who either created the franchise or those who own the franchise currently that have the final say. And whether or not we like it, doesn't matter.

We do not own these franchises therefore we can't decide how something goes when it comes to franchises. No one is going to like everything from an official franchise. No one is going to like every change made. Nobody is going to agree on the same topic. Everyone has a different perception, everyone has a different interpretation, everyone has a different idea of how something is played out or portrayed. However that doesn't automatically make it true. And it also doesn't mean that it isn't subject to change.

Marvel and DC have had a long history of retcons and reboots. And multiple continuities. So much so that they all exist in the Multiverse which pretty much makes them all Canon and part of one Canon as a result, while also being allowed to stand out on its own. Marvel and DC have had a track record of also taking things that they previously established and completely retconning them. In some cases erasing them from existence or even in other cases bringing them back. This not only applies in the various movies and shows but even in the comics and video games themselves. Some of these retcons are under the same umbrella as Star Wars and Dragon Ball on whether or not any of the changes were made for better or worse, depending on who you ask. Dragon Ball has a very divided fanbase, so do Marvel and DC. Star Wars also has an extremely divided fan base, these franchises always have.

Now before I conclude this let's talk about Godzilla for a little bit as Ultraman could be argued to have a similar dynamic with Marvel and DC with different universes. Godzilla has multiple series of movies and shows but did you know that not all of them are connected? Some movies are actually only able to be a standalone film. Others are set in completely different universes from each other. All the older Godzilla movies from the mid 1950s all the way to the 1970s where it's on Universe with the exception of a few called the showa Godzilla series. The '80s and '90s Godzilla films were set in a completely separate timeline which was the Heisei series for Godzilla. These were a series of movies that told a cohesive timeline but were their own separate timeline from each other. There's only one series that continues to follow this trend for the most part and that is the Godzilla monster verse made by Legendary Pictures and Warner brothers. You have two Godzilla anime that are two completely separate continuities, Godzilla singular point and the Godzilla anime movie trilogy, planet of the monsters, City in the edge of battle, and the planet eater. You have Godzilla 2000, to which only the original 1954 Godzilla movie was Canon, Godzilla versus megaguirus where certain aspects of of the 1954 film where Canon, you have giant monsters all out attack which again only had the original canonical to that movie, you had Godzilla Tokyo SOS which only had its predecessor Godzilla against mechagodzilla and Godzilla 1954 as Canon to that movie, and you had movies like Godzilla final Wars that were a completely standalone film and had no connection to any other films. You had a TriStar Godzilla movie which had a continuation through the animated series, Godzilla the series, which was a direct continuation from where the ending of the original TriStar film left off, you had a loose story of the pipe works Godzilla games. And you had plenty of Godzilla games that also told different stories as well that had no connection to the films or even the other installments of the franchise.

There are plenty of other franchises that are clear examples of the sentiment of nothing being subject to change and they're not being a true Canon in said franchises. But these are some of the examples that I know of and if anyone has other instances that they think they can add to the discussion, I will be happy to hear them out.

#writer speaking

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chacusha · 2 years

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Picard season 2 review

I finished watching this a while ago, but just didn't have time to write up my thoughts in detail. Basically, the first half was promising; the second half was noticeably worse both in terms of general writing and how the things hinted at/established in the first half ended up paying off in the end. The writing, while probably better overall than Discovery season 4, nevertheless had a lot of the same issues. And then on top of that, I dislike every bit of worldbuilding Picard did and am going to consider this show non-canon. More thoughts, lots of Picard negativity:

Okay starting with the positives, I thought the episodes and pacing were quite good in Picard. I also think the writers did an impressive job of giving all the members of season 1's extremely motley cast something interesting to do this season, which I imagine was really hard because they all have such disparate jobs/life trajectories! There's also a lot of fanservice characters/cameos, which I appreciate.

By the end, though, the characters started having the Disco S4 problem of stating exactly what they're feeling in long speeches.

Also, another major issue with Picard S2 is that the plot is centered around a convoluted time travel plot. Time travel plots have to be handled very carefully because time travel mechanics tend to have weird consequences for both stakes and causality. The more seriously you take a time travel plot and the more drama you try to add, the more possibility for mismatch there is between characters' emotional reactions and the stakes of the show. For example, the show spends a lot of time on the characters grieving Elnor and being glad he gets to still live... but what about all the borgified soldiers from the 21st century who presumably were neither borgified nor killed in the original timeline where the Borg Queen WASN'T brought to Earth by Picard et al., but were killed in order to create a timeline that eventually leads to averting a disaster with a catastrophic death count? Do those soldiers and the Borg Queen's other casualties not deserve mourning? Is their sacrifice for the future not recognized? There is an odd mismatch in tone between the tenderness of Q orchestrating this elaborate series of events to give Picard closure (and also save all those future lives) and the way Elnor is mourned and ultimately revived vs. the way faceless and nameless people are literally used by Q as pawns and killed by the Borg Queen or Raffi et al. to create this future. The show just glosses over this entirely.

And then here are all the creative decisions / retcons / worldbuilding that I did not like:

So, at the time I watched Picard season 1, I hadn't actually seen Voyager so Seven was just, "like, some person I guess" to me when she appeared. Now that I have seen Voyager, though, I am retroactively pissed that they didn't make Seven Starfleet. And then season 2 makes it canon that she was rejected because of racism?! Do not want. Like, if they really wanted Seven to be a ranger living on the rough-and-tumble edge of society, they could have had it so that Seven applied for Starfleet just by default, but Janeway took her aside and said, "Look, you can already do any job on any ship in the Federation. But the thing the Federation can offer you is variety and choice. There are a whole lot of ways to live out there. Go out and try some. And if you decide Starfleet is what you want after all, then, fine, you'll always have a family here. But I want you to know you can do whatever you want." And if Seven then decided she liked being a ranger, cool! But no, this world has to be depressing and so Seven gets rejected from Starfleet because of anti-Borg racism. WTF? I mean, I guess they've already established that the Federation in this world is hella racist against Romulans and synthetics, so this isn't surprising worldbuilding but yeah, I do not approve.

Just... the whole thing with Picard's mother. I don't buy that the advanced Star Trek future wouldn't have better ways of treating mental illness and preventing suicides other than locking people in rooms.

Also, I especially don't like the implication that they kept hinting at, that the reason why Picard became a Starfleet captain and did a bunch of good deeds is to make up for the responsibility he feels for his mother's death. This SUCKS. This fundamentally Misses the Point of the Star Trek future. The point is, people in the Star Trek future are good by default -- either because human nature is good or because a good society is set up so that you get inculcated with the right values as a matter of course, and you're given the resources and support in order to be a good person. The notion that people need to experience personal tragedy in order to be accomplished and want to do good in the world (they didn't outright say this, but it seemed like that was what was going on with Picard at least) is just... bad, verging on tragedy porn or idolization of suffering.

Oh yeah, also, I did not like the implication that the reason why Picard never settles down with anyone is because he believes he is fundamentally unlovable. Bleh. Boring. Why can't it just be the case he is aromantic or just has other things going on in his life that he values? There is so much character development and establishing for Picard throughout TNG where he's presented with the choice of family life and his career and he picks his career every time, and is at peace with that choice. It's not like he doesn't value family but it just is never the number one thing for him. And that's a perfectly fine way of being. Maybe this wasn't the intention, but the idea that Picard's singleness was actually all along because he had Psychological Hangups that needed to be Fixed rather than he's just not that into romance feels like the show has difficulty imagining ways of life outside a conformist sort of pattern.

In general, I do not like the Borg Queen because it turns the Borg from "a very alien lifeform of collective consciousness with unclear/inscrutable purpose because it's just a bunch of people thinking together and who knows what that gets you," to, like, "one Very Evil Lady and her drone army, I guess." That ship has very much sailed at this point, though. Anyway, having the Very Evil Lady actually turn out to be a Very Lonely Lady who just wants Connection and is only doing bad stuff to fill a hole in her heart is... somehow even more underwhelming. And also indicative of the general issue with Discovery and Picard, which is that they do not actually do very well at portraying actual difference; everyone ultimately wants love, connection, etc. Rather than seeing new life and trying to understand it and learn to accept it despite differences, these shows instead settle for discovering how other life is just like us, actually, and ultimately everyone just wants the same things we want and that's what makes love and connection possible. (Contrast, for example, with the way TNG portrays Klingons (e.g. Riker's Klingon exchange program), who have a hot mess hierarchical society and practices that are intense and violent and really go against Human morality, and yet the Federation still manages to maintain friendly relations with them, or the way Voyager portrays Tuvok's really quite cold/distant and unemotional approach to parenting and how it still portrays him as a legitimately good parent.)

While I thought Rios's romantic plotline was cute, the idea that he doesn't fit in the future and has nothing to give up by living in the past kind of invalidates his whole plot arc from season 1... But yeah, I'll forgive this one since the writers seemed to be juggling a lot of balls with the main cast and this might be the most satisfying arc that could have been written for Rios.

(Also, maybe: "Picard's brother? Never heard of him." I guess? I can't tell if they removed him from existence or he just happened not to be relevant in any of this Picard family drama. 🤷‍♀️)

(I also couldn't tell if they were retconning Picard and Guinan's timelines. Shouldn't 21st century Guinan recognize Picard because she already met him in the 19th century? Are they removing that, or is her timeline nonlinear too? I don't get this. )

I just find the worldbuilding in Picard very unimaginative -- it cannot imagine a world where people are good and what the implications of such a world would be, and it can't imagine learning to love and accept people who are actually truly different rather than revealed to just secretly be an instance of what we already view to be relatable. As such, I would like to disregard all of this show's additions to the universe entirely.

#star trek #star trek: picard #st picard negativity

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anarchy2021 · 3 years

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PSA Day! (Rp etiquette)

{ID: A person standing next to a flipchart. They're thin, and have medium-length brown hair, pale skin, and dark brown ears. The ears are angled horizontally. They're wearing thin-rimmed glasses, and their expression reads as confident. Their hair is partially tied up in a bun. They also have a long tail the same brown as their ears, with brown fur the same color as their hair on the end. They're wearing black trousers, a black waistcoat with a white shirt underneath. Additionally, a black overcoat with gold edges is draped over their shoulders. The inner lining of the overcoat is red, and partially visible behind the person. They have their right hand on their hip, and with their left hand, they're holding a stick up to the flipchart, which reads "RP 101 :)". The 101 is underlined. END ID.}

Greetings! You may not recognize me (unless you were watching the debate perhaps, then, sup) as I admit I’ve been a bit…. Behind the scenes as it were (as secretary of VOID there is a lot of looking at the void, usual routine for me mhm mhm). Regardless, I’m Days (or Nights, either or) and for today’s PSA I’m here (along with some words from our recently freed from totally-not-prison president, Graphite, at a later date) to talk to you about roleplay! More specifically, rp etiquette and terms and how that relates to the DSMP and how it should be talked about.

Now now, you might be wondering “oh but what is your experience?” Glad you asked! I’m a long term text rper with over 5 years of experience- and my main avenues of rp are rps similar in structure to that of the DSMP- long term improv driven sandboxes that also have important events planned ahead of time in some regard but are often player driven most of the time. Now, let’s get into it!

Head writers/admins

Let’s start off with a pretty hot topic regarding the server, which is the existence of a ‘head writer’ (usually in reference to Mr. Soot). Now, mainy take this as meaning quite literally a writer- like in a show, but, with what information we have I think it’s safe to say he’s not really that and more along the lines of an rp admin/head. The admin’s main purpose is to keep things structured and organized, as well as putting together the events they’re in charge of. This is pretty much how everyone treats the man anyways, BUT, while an admin is in charge of a lot they do NOT have the final say over everything, particularly in regards to the characters and their players.

Players in an rp for the most part have full control over their characters (within reason and the confines of the rp setting) and an admin enforcing their will onto a character (such as enforcing certain backstory choices that don’t seem particularly wanted. For example, the fridge with c!Phil) is often frowned upon unless there is a good reason for it and discussed with the rper.

It is also notable that just because there is an admin, that doesn’t mean they’re the sole writer/organizer/etc. It is not at all uncommon for specific subplots and or other important events to be headed by players involved in it in this type of rp. This can be seen in practice with how the Eggpire plotline was headed by BBH and the prison plotline was mainly written by Dream and Tommy.

Summary:

- head writer/admins do not and should not control everything

- organise and structure events

- players might admin their own smaller plots within a rp

Narrative consequences

Now, another hot topic- especially in regards to character discourse (my abhorred personally). Narrative consequences. These are generally referred to when someone thinks a character is not getting the consequences for their actions in the story that they should, or (more rarely in my experience) when they feel a character is being punished too hard for their actions. While this is an understandable feeling to have, at the end of the day narrative consequences just aren’t much of a thing in roleplay, at least not to the same extent as a book or tv show.

This is for one simple reason, consequences rely on the character’s actions and how they respond to others around them, if a character does not feel like it’s fit to react or if it angers their character- it is 100% within their right to respond accordingly.

However, there is also an argument that can be made if a character responds to something in a way that doesn’t align with a character’s usual actions. For a personal example, one time in a rp I was playing a character who was intervening when another character was being hurt, however, my character was met with scorn from being somewhat aggressive regarding it- I felt that this was unfair as none of these character showed the same scrutiny to characters who did worse things, and none of these characters had been established as hypocrites.

This grudge lasted the entire rp until my character died. This is a point where believing that the consequences to a character are unjust is more or less fair, but, a character simply not getting immediately smited or a character getting scorn is not automatically a point against the character, especially since an rper cannot reasonably make their fellow rpers react a certain way.

Summary:

- narrative consequences are not the same in RP as in other mediums

- can't force characters to react, or force players to react in a way they don't feel is fit

- but can critique RP if things feel unfairly ooc/inconsistent

Retcons

Next up, retcons. What is a retcon? It’s short for retroactive continuity, in essence it’s when in a piece of media something is changed retroactively- such as a character’s personality, how an event occurred, etc. for an outsider audience perspective retcons are often looked upon unfavorably, as it’s changing something already established which can cause friction among those attached to certain ideas, but in reality retcons are both a neutral concept and fairly normal to occur in rps.

Rps are (generally) not professional writing, they’re things made up on the fly with perhaps a base to work off of (and depending on the rp, not even that. However in the rps I’ve done we generally had character sheets and the like for backstories and all) and thus sometimes mistakes happen. One of the main causes for minor retcons is when details are confused or left out that would have realistically affected the situation or how characters would have responded to it, unless in severe cases these usually happen on the spot and don’t cause much of a fuss.

Major retcons often fall along the lines of players and how they choose to present their character. This is especially common when a player is using a character for the first time or even if they’re just new to an rp in general, sometimes as we rp we simply decide to take things in a new direction and sometimes that direction may cause things already established to be retconned, even if not outright stated.

A good example of this is the enderwalk with c!Ranboo, the enderwalk as it was first introduced is very different than it is portrayed now, likely as a result of Ranboo taking a new direction with his character since then. More widespread retcons may happen if people are unhappy with a certain plot thread, in this case an example would be the canon status of SBI, Wilbur used to push it but Techno (and later Phil) didn’t want it to be canon, so anything about it previously said has been soundly retconned.

In my own case character retcons very often happen to me when I first use an oc, as the character takes a different shape than what I put on the paper in practice, even sometimes within the same rp (one of my first ocs was practically unrecognizable as the same character in the beginning of an rp as compared to even just a few weeks later).

So, retcons are fine and normal to occur, but, like I said- they’re neutral. A retcon can very well be done poorly and cause problems. This is mainly in issue with retcons made that affect highly established and built upon aspects without discussion with all those who’d be effected, this can cause confusion, plot holes and cause characters to be in a weird limbo if they don’t know how to have their character act without whatever was retconned. Major retcons need to be discussed in order to prevent these problems, and in some cases should be avoided entirely- instead it being better to work for a compromise and rework events rather than removing them.

Summary:

- retcons are normal and neutral

- small retcons happened frequently in RP to help keep things going in an improv heavy medium. Usually unnoticeable

- large retcons tend to have with new players, or if the story is taking a new direction.

- large retcons require a lot of communication, and sometimes whould be avoided, instead working to compromise and rework the direction of the RP

Metagaming and godmodding

Metagaming and godmodding are two very important terms to know for rp etiquette and if you’ve done any rping you’ve probably seen these words thrown around in rules lists and such already. These are both ultimately negative things that should be avoided at all costs. What are they? Metagaming is when you use information that you know OOC and use it IC even though your character should not have that information. Godmodding is when a character is taken over by another person for one reason or another against the player’s will- such as having a character react to something without letting the actual rper do it.

The former is a big issue when it comes to discussion of the DSMP and how people interact with it, mainly in the chat and donos. When you are trying to get a character to react to information that they shouldn’t have you are trying to get them to metagame, which is heavily frowned upon in an RP. This is also important to note in discussion, a character not responding to certain important events is not a mark against them if the character has no way of even knowing what was going on, or would not reasonably respond to it with the information they have.

Summary:

- both frowned upon

- god modding is taking over someone elses character

- metagaming is using out of character information to do in character acting

- Meta gaming is relevant to DSMP particular in how it relates to donos and chats. Don't encourage meta-gaming

All of these factors are important to consider when discussing the DSMP and it’s narrative, it’s not going to function the same as other forms of media nor should it- as once you go in that direction you’re competing with the big boys over at tv and at that point things would fall apart. Improv and it’s unique variables is what makes the DSMP, and anything else like it, special and interesting to follow!

#dsmp #dreamsmp #rp etiquette #mcytblr elections #anarchy2021 #mcytblr election 2021 #PSA day #art by Days #long post #editted by zaph :]#first post from yours truly #(thats days not zaph... i post a lot i will not shut up <3)

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bookofmirth · 3 years

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I really do believe that Elucien and Gwynriel will be endgame just from a logical perspective. We know there are two more books in the series (excluding novellas), and SJM has said that there will be a book from Elain’s perspective. The other book must be about Azriel because he’s the only “main character” left from the inner circle (excluding Mor and Amren, but I really think Amren’s story is done and as much as I would love it, I doubt SJM would write an entire wlw romance book for Mor). If the next book really is Elriel, that would mean the last book would be from Lucien or Gwyn’s perspective and tbh, I don’t think they can carry a whole book on their own with a new love interest. So that leaves Gwynriel and Elucien.

My only issue with this is - even though I am Elucien shipper - I don’t see how their romance could be written without retconning or some random event that pushes the two together. I feel like SJM kinda backed herself into a corner with the timeline, because it’s been 2 - 3 years since they’ve discovered they were mates and almost nothing has been done about it. We can see Elain growing a bit more comfortable around Lucien and I definitely don’t think she hates him by acosf, but their mating bond still hasn’t been acknowledged. She hasn’t rejected or accepted him - either romantically or platonically.

To remedy their relationship, maybe we would get to see more interactions between Lucien and Elain in their book prior to acosf (through flashbacks or if the book just starts at an earlier time). But even if this retconning is done, I think it would feel inconsistent with how the two are presented in acofas and acosf - especially with the Azriel bonus chapter. Because Elain still seems pretty indifferent to Lucien. The only other way I could think of the two coming together would be a random major event that forces them to interact and get to know each other better, sparking a romance. Because if Elain hasn’t taken any action towards Lucien in three years, I don’t see why she would - out of the blue - without some external reason.

Sorry this is long, I hope it makes sense! What are your thoughts? How do you think an Elucien romance would play out?

See, I don't think that there will need to be any retconning, or any going back in time (especially since sjm doesn't typically do that. She writes very linearly except for brief flashbacks like to when Aelin was a child. Or Rhys during the war, for some random ass reason, in acowar.)

I wouldn't say that Elain is indifferent towards Lucien. Otherwise, she would be able to converse with him as if he were anyone else. Instead, I think she is very, very conflicted.

The way that I see it, Lucien and Elain have had a lot of feelings - positive and negative - towards each other, brewing this whole time. They haven't talked about those feelings, or what to do with them. It's a perfect recipe for a blowup. There is a ton of tension between them, 2-3 years worth of things left unsaid and arguments and conversations they only had with each other in their heads.

The issue of even striking up a platonic conversation (if that's a thing?) is that they can't really do that. They talk, and the mating bond is there. They look at each other, and the mating bond is there. They sneeze, the mating bond is there. It's a lot of pressure, and that might prevent them from talking things out.

Imagine Elain and Lucien both knowing that once they finally talk to each other and get to know each other, it could change the rest of their lives. That's a huge pressure and no wonder they are avoiding it. (Well, he is. She has her own, more personal reasons for doing so.)

There could definitely be a plot thing that brings them together. Maybe it could be related to Autumn, or Spring? Elain seems ready to get out of Dodge. Maybe... something could happen with the fourth Dread Trove object, putting Elain in danger? Or, I know that a lot of people think that Elain will make a major mistake later on, in her attempts to become human or prove her autonomy. Perhaps someone could sit Elain down, Feyre probably, and ask what her intentions are?

There are lots of ways that they could end up together, either by forced proximity or because one (or both) of them can't take the tension and uncertainty anymore. I'm kinda glad that we don't know that yet.

However it happens, I think that when Elain and Lucien finally do talk, it's going to be angry and resentful. Why? Because they have those 2+ years of pent-up emotion and lack of communication and imaginary conversations. (This is my headcanon I guess, just because when I have something unresolved with someone I have conversations with that person in my head A LOT.) They will say all the things they've been wanting to say and will likely surprise each other. They probably have an idea of what the other person is like, and that perception will be challenged when they actually engage.

It's going to be great, tbh. Imagine the "well I feel this way," and the "did you even consider what I felt?" and the "Oh yes because it's all about you," and the "well I tried," "WHEN?" and then "do you think I wanted this?" "well I certainly didn't". "And when you thought about Jesminda..." "well you were thinking about Graysen" "I was in love" and then "well so was I". Finally they exhaust themselves and get everything out that they have been wanting to say. Then they collapse dramatically into their comfortable yet stylish armchairs.

And then maybe "so what now??" Then they take a break and take a sip of tea and feel so much relief that all of that is off their chests, and they realize that they have actually been experiencing a lot of the same emotions (fear, hope, resentment, curiosity, anxiety) and hadn't ever considered that the other was feeling the same way. And they realize that now they can move forward, and now they don't have anything to hide.

Also, feysand and nessian have made bargains pre-relationship, so I would be highly surprised if elucien doesn't make one as well. Maybe they already have. That could be a good way of tying them together, even if the bargain itself serves to drive them apart temporarily (as nessian's bargain did).

Wow this got long sorry!

#elucien #acosf #acotar #ugh the banter though #ask #anon

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