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#terrible writing
ineffectualdemon · 8 months
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I am fucking haunted by a terrible piece of writing that was shared on Livejournal (though it from an older actual published book) sometime in the early 2000s
If anyone knows what it is or can find it PLEASE let me me know as I need to read it again
Its an excerpt from a story about a woman and the fey? And there is a moment where the fey king? Prince? Casts a spell on her and then there is this long ass section of the worst purple prose of your life
Dude uses like 5 metaphors for every single body part! Like this isn't an exact quote but it's like "her toes were like snails, small white stones delicate bones, small white shells"
And the dude describes her ENTIRE BODY like that feature by feature!
This was posted in a writing group and blew up
There was a dramatic reading!
There was fan art!
AND I CAN'T FUCKING FIND ANY TRACE OF THIS TERRIBLE WRITING ONLINE
It's SO bad and I need to 1. Read it again and 2. Make sure Tumblr is aware of it because good god
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crossdressingdeath · 2 years
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Sometimes I remember that if you play Surana or Amell in Origins the origin (hehe) of the conflict that ultimately leads to the death of the Archdemon is... the First Enchanter of one of the most "liberally run" Circles in southern Thedas leaving out a bunch of books on blood magic with the explicit hope that young apprentices will pick them up and become blood mages so that they can be handed over to the Templars as maleficars. With your best friend falling for this trick explicitly because he's terrified that the Circle is going to magically lobotomize him against his will just because he's not particularly good at magic so he feels his only hope is to run away whatever the cost. That's the starting point for your character. And again, Kinloch Hold is supposed to be one of the most liberally run Circles. This is one of the good Circles. And then in Awakening we learn that Anders was kept in solitary confinement for a year just because he wanted to live outside the Circle, and you can comment that he's lucky they didn't just kill him outright. And I know I've said this twice already this post, but this is supposed to be a good Circle. This is nice. The mages at places like the Gallows would probably kill to be at Kinloch Hold. And your introduction to it is first you, a young adult (or possibly in your late teens; you are mentioned to be young for a Harrowing, and Harrowings generally seem to be done when the mage is quite young to begin with), being thrown to demons without warning as a standard test, and then when you wake up you learn that your best and possibly only friend is likely to be magically lobotomized for not being great at magic unless you help him escape. And between those things and during the latter you'll hear about fun things like apprentices disappearing into thin air (with no one questioning it because it's that normal) and the Templars watching the female apprentices bathe! And when you return it's to find out that when things went tits up the Templars, who are supposedly there for your protection, locked every surviving mage in Kinloch Hold in the demon infested part of the tower and are waiting for permission to murder everyone inside down to the youngest child. Ten bucks says that the Templars also in there would've been allowed to live.
I think it hits a lot harder just because you don't learn that Kinloch Hold is considered a liberal Circle until after it leaves the series, apparently for good, with the Templars planning to hang out outside the door until they get legal cover for murdering everyone inside. Like, you see all that and then after that you learn that that? That was the best a Circle mage could hope for. Just a few life-threatening tests you're not allowed to prepare for. Just a bit of entrapment by the person who's supposed to stand between you and the Templars. Only rumours that the Templars will watch you while you bathe rather than confirmed fact. And only a small chance that they'll murder you the moment they're given the opportunity. That's a good life for a Circle mage.
And then in DAI they genuinely expected us to buy that actually the Circles weren't that bad and the Circle mages are just so whiny for not knowing how to survive outside the cage they've been trapped in their whole lives and also wanting to kill a lot of their jailors. It's like the writers forgot that we've seen that even the best the Circles offered was still absolutely fucking horrific. And that that was a lot of players' first introduction to the series.
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emrys-merlin · 1 year
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i’m still mad how in the episode 5x07 none of the knights defend Merlin when Gwen puts him in jail. Seriously, none of the knights question it. Merlin was their BROTHER (season 5 is such a mess and many characters were OOC). But at least GWAINE is the one who came in the morning to get Merlin out of the jail (with Gaius of course).
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There's no way that Gwaine believes in these accusations even for one second.
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chaosartic · 8 months
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Truth or Dare?
Pairing: Garreth Weasley x MC
Word count: ~1k
Warnings: alcohol drinking, my crappy writing
Summary: A game of Truth and Dare leads to a drunken-ish love confession.
a/n: My contribution for this week's Weasley Wednesday. This is still rather short and my writing is terrible and probably full of rookie mistakes. Please excuse that, I’m still learning and exploring with different styles. Anyways, if you can, enjoy.
No proof reader, mistakes may occur!
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Parties after Quidditch games weren’t that uncommon in Hogwarts and while they were mainly hosted by the winning team, the Gryffindor team and house was known to host one even after a loss. Some sort of lifting the spirit of everyone after that devastating event. Student drinking outside of those parties however was rather uncommon and not tolerated by teachers at all. Not that any teacher ever outspokenly admitted that students are allowed to drink or host parties after games.
Every once in a while someone managed to sneak a bit of alcohol into one of the common rooms and today was such a day. MC didn’t know who the culprit was or who even had the idea to start drinking in the middle of the week but nevertheless they enjoyed it. Not drinking per say but watching how others behave once they had a bit of the drug in their system.
MC was sitting with a few friends in a circle on the outskirts of the Gryffendor common room, back pressed against the wall and a half empty glass of firewhiskey mixed with something else in their hands. This was only their second drink of the night, some others had way too much of this mixture already. They could’ve sworn that at one point Leander Prewett brought more bottles of different drinks down. Or was it Garreth Weasley? Or someone they didn’t know at all?
Their friends were lively, hyped up and chatting about everything and nothing. This happened as soon as someone drank a bit too much, pulling the others along. Their eyes landed on Ominis Gaunt, a close friend, who by their guess was the only one who hadn’t had a sip of the mixture. He was ever the careful one, keeping a distance from the substance and making sure that they and his best friend, Sebastian Sallow, would get home safely. Unlike Ominis he would get drunk almost every time using it as an escape from reality, he told them one time.
Some students, mostly Gryffendors, they didn’t know or hardly talked to, sat in the circle as well, chatting with everyone happily. Two red haired Gryffendor students joined them. They recognized one immediately by his flaming red hair, Garreth Weasley.
Without a warning their heart started to beat faster, butterflies going crazy in their stomach and eyes drawn to him. This happened every time he entered the room or started talking.
The other one must be Leander Prewett, they saw both together when they first entered the common room an hour or so ago.
“Enjoying the drinks?” Leander asked the round and got replies that sounded like yes and absolutely back. A smirk adoring his face afterwards gave them the impression again that he might be today's culprit. Out of the corner of their eyes they watched Garreth twirling his glass and they shamelessly watched how his hands grabbed the glass. They had a crush on the potioneer even though they haven’t admitted it to themself yet or anyone else for that matter.
Almost two hours of idelly drinking and chatting passed before someone had the splendid idea to start playing Truth or Dare. They didn’t pay much attention to the beginning of the game. Mind clouded by the buzz of the alcohol in their body and the close proximity of Garreth. More students joined them and instead of expanding the circle or sitting differently everyone just pressed together. Leaving them almost shoulder to shoulder with the handsome Gryffendor student.
Garreth and Leander were at this point also drunken, almost as bad as Sebastian. MC realized that while Garreth was always cheerful he was outright hilarious drunken, telling joke after joke. Leander wasn’t better and both apparently had a bunch of fun teasing each other and trying to get everyone to tell them their secrets.
Quickly the Truth and Dare questions started to get more and more risky, one more ridiculous than the other. The strangest dream turned to asking about the spiciest one followed by if that person is currently in the room. Sebastian was asked who he thinks the best looking person in the room is, his answer was obviously himself.
“Garreth you’re next.” some Ravenclaw girl exclaimed. They waited nervously what his choice would be, knowing that soon the Dare and Truth questions would turn even more spicy. It wasn’t uncommon that some were asked to kiss others they know from past games. However they had no right being jealous over something like that, he wasn’t theirs.
“Truth.” he told the group, knowing fully well what happened during the last drunken game given the rumours that spread for days afterwards.
“Confess to your crush.” Leander said. Garreth's eyes widened for a second, probably looking for a way out of it already. “I know they are here Garreth, you have no option but to do it.” he added. Perks of sharing a dormitory with someone.
They saw his eyes shutting for a second before looking around. Everyone was anticipating what his next words would be. MC knew it would be them, he was out of their league after all. And while they did converse with him from time to time, they weren’t friends or anything at all. Coming to think of it, they know almost nothing of him.
“MC.” he turned towards them, eyes looking with theirs. “I love you.”
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ask-the-toy-box · 11 months
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You broke her. Don't get mad at me, they wrote the comic that way.
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secretgamergirl · 7 months
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StarCraft 2's story- Good or garbage?
I'm kind of lurking in the discord of a new RTS that's running a kickstarter right now. I don't know how strongly I want to endorse that because while what they have in the can looks darn good in terms of mechanics and gameplay polish and the people involved seem generally cool, I don't think anything at all is really pinned down otherwise. At the very least though it looks very "I'll make my own StarCraft 2! With blackjack! And hookers!" and I'm down for a game with that flavor of mechanics doing well when made by anyone other than, you know, Blizzard.
It's impossible not to draw comparisons when a game is pretty nakedly marketing itself as "we want to divorce the things we like about this one game from the monsters who made it" of course, and so now I'm thinking about just how powerfully terrible the writing was in StarCraft 2, but I'm not going to go off about it in some poor people who I don't know even have a writer yet's forums. I'm gonna ramble about it on my blog.
Now there's two ways to look at this one. We can look at the story of this game on its own, in a vacuum, or we can look at it as a continuation of the story of StarCraft. It's terrible by either standard, but let's start by looking at it as a continuation first.
Now, I'm not going to jump in here and just slap you with a novella long list of all the flagrant plot holes, direct contradictions, and unrecognizable characters if you actually go through these beat for beat. I've done so in the past. Might have done so on this blog. I mean when StarCraft 2 came out I was absolutely insufferable to everyone around me shouting about these things. Like... I don't even know how you can drop so many balls like that. Maybe they were doing that thing where they didn't even glance at the source material and were just poking around some fan wiki populated with random crap from tie-in novels and comics by people who were just going off on their own things... I do always have to mention though that whether by intent or incompetence they seem to have totally dropped the expansion's story from the canon, at least before 2's expansions came along years later.
But no, I want to focus on just basic themes and character arcs here. So the original base game of StarCraft breaks its story into three arcs, each from the POV of a character from one of the three playable factions in the game. This isn't the greatest structure for maintaining narrative cohesion throughout, especially when one of those factions is the communal hive mind of a big swarm of space bugs who at the end of the day just want to eat everything. And if I'm being brutally honest, there isn't a whole lot to write home about in the back third either. They kinda slipped back into old habits there and it's kinda just the sort of stock fantasy story you tend to get with games. Decadent ancient space elf empire ignores a big obvious problem due to hubris and a frankly incompetent leader, turns out their ancient traditions and prejudices are total BS, go quest for some magic rocks, have your big grand final battle where the hero self-sacrifices to blow up the monsters.
That first third though, and some threads that carry through the rest, have some good stuff going on. We've got a newly appointed magistrate (the unseen unvoiced player) and marshall (Jimmy) on some backwoodsy wild west sort of planet. They're pretty young and idealistic. Space bugs attack, they try to help, trying to help gets them in trouble with their higher ups who don't really buy the seriousness of this space bug invasion. Desperate for anyone to help fight the good fight, they fall in with a fringe militant cult leader (Mengsk) and his right-hand gal (Kerrigan) who he busted out of some government psychic supersoldier program. Jimmy immediately crushes on her, she doesn't reciprocate.
The gang goes along with all of Mengsk's plans, overthrowing the government to gain control of their armies and psychic experimentation programs to deal with these space bugs, and the level of moral compromise this involves gradually ratchets up until everyone finds themselves complicit in Mengsk killing the whole civilian population of the capital by having Kerrigan set up a psychic murderbug attractor and nobody bother's to evacuate her afterwards.
The other two realize they made a really bad choice of who to throw in with, smash up some major military hardware in the process of bailing on Mengsk as he's setting himself up as dictator for life, and eventually throw their lot in with the protagonists in the third arc, just kinda helping out while they do the whole deal of defying the orders of the ancient space elf council, learning the magic arts of the misunderstood outcasts, flying a big spaceship into the main brain controlling the space bugs. Kerrigan meanwhile gets converted into a space bug/human hybrid super soldier which... honestly feels like it's setting stuff up for a big showdown that just kinda never happens.
Still, we've got characters, they've got arcs. Mostly we have Jimmy (and the silent player character) learning the hard way that long-established power structures tend to be too inflexible to be helpful, and you should never trust anyone openly seeking personal power because they will just exploit everyone around them. It all even roughly follows the classic 3 act structure (and I mean, there's literally 3 acts mapping to that too, just that act 2 is all shown from a villain's perspective). In other media, this is sort of just the bare minimum, but games rarely bother with characters growing, changing, or having real setbacks that make them question things along their way.
This was followed up with the expansion, Brood War, which mirrors that same structure. One long story arc for each of three playable factions. Space elves largely doing standard fantasy beats, middle third switching to a villainous POV so radically different the main narrative gets largely put on hold, and some really good stuff with threads stretching through the whole thing.
Here the villain interlude is that it turns out Earth in this setting is run by full-on fascists, they caught wind of everything going on in this region where there'd previously been a big rebellion, and swing back in to clamp down again. They don't interact with the actual protagonists much (generally, they see the space nazis sweeping in and run off to lay low), so we mostly just have them swooping in and quickly mopping up Mengsk's little newfound dictatorship, with the actual story being the relationship dynamic between the guy in charge (DuGalle), his right hand man he's known forever (Stukov), and a local rebel welcoming them with open arms (Duran). Long story short, Duran's actually a double agent and very gradually pits the other two against each other. DuGalle eventually has Duran kill Stukov thinking he stabbed him in the back, realizes that's dumb, ultimately fails at his whole invasion, and in the epilogue kills himself, which if you read the relevant bit of my FF14 summaries, you know is how I like my stories about clear nazi analogues to end.
In the main narrative though, we pick right back up from the big heroic sacrifice with the bummer of a reveal that killing the primary brain of the psychic space bug collective didn't really get the job done, because some of its secondary brains (refreshingly not a concept pulled out of nowhere, these were firmly established to serve the dual purposes of having clear military targets for a giant pile of bugs, and a way to actually have enough characters for dialog exchanges in that third of the story) are trying to put the band back together. In their current disorganized state though, Kerrigan is no longer a semi-autonomous corrupted bug minion, but totally has her free will and sense of self restored, while still being all chitinous and at least somewhat capable of commanding the other bugs.
So as the whole expansion plays out, and the perspective shifts from the space elves doing some real desperate migration and defense because the plan to save their home world from the big bug invasion ultimately failed, through the nazi invasion, and ultimately to the POV of the secondary bug-brain you'd previously played as who'd been buggified Kerrigan's baby sitter essentially, now forced into taking orders from her, we are mostly dealing with this big hanging question of whether she's really good and trustworthy again, or secretly still under bug control, or if she's good for now but any minute that hivemind could properly come back online and take her over again. And of course, Jimmy's all angsty and pining because he never got over that one-sided crush.
While there's plenty of red flags about her being trustworthy over the course of things, the narrative actually manages to play things close to the chest well enough for the ultimate reveal to be a pretty fun twist. She absolutely 100% is fundamentally herself again, it's just that for a series of mostly pretty well-justified reasons, she absolutely hates every other character in the story. Either they've been trying to kill her, they abused and manipulated her, or they've totally objectified her. Or they're nazis who just showed up, who you don't really need a personal reason to want to kill, but just for good measure they're trying to revive and mind control the central bug mind, so, yeah, that's a threat. So at the last minute the whole thing just reveals itself as a big elaborate revenge story with a fairly strongly gendered theme about being denied agency and being othered, where the actually quite clear-headed just ruthless girl wins.
And then, a decade later, we get StarCraft 2. And what's the main narrative of StarCraft 2? We spend the whole time focused on Jimmy, who has somehow gone from this young idealistic biker/space cowboy with thinning hair, talking like a hippie and bouncing around getting in way over his head trying to rescue people from space bugs by just lending a hand to whoever else seems interested in doing that and crushing on this girl Kerrigan who couldn't be clearer about not liking him back to uh... some sort of gruff jaded old former military general with a bunch of old war buddies, a drinking problem, and a full head of hair, cruising around on his big personal battleship saving various worlds from the big space bug threat pretty much singlehandedly, and hoping to rescue his love interest Kerrigan from space bug mind control, with the help of some kind of prophesied magic space rocks you can build a big totem out of. It even completely de-buggifies her in the end, leaving a helpless little naked girl to chivalrously scoop off the ground and carry to safety. P.S. She's white now.
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This isn't like, "oh whoops, we forgot the main character lost one of his boots at the end of last season" nitpicking. This is doing complete 180s on the character arcs and backstories of the central characters here. Kerrigan not needing to be rescued from zerg corruption is the ENTIRE point of Brood War's story. Which also establishes there's no longer really a zerg threat of any sort beyond what she personally wants to tell her mindless bug pals to do. And really, even if you want to de-canonize all of that for whatever reason, tacking a "hero saves the girl" ending onto the story we had in the base game of the original StarCraft still just does not work. You're taking a story whose whole theme is "putting faith in the wrong sort of person has serious consequences" and then turning around and going "actually no it doesn't."
And you know, speaking of Mengsk, it's a much lesser point, but StarCraft 2 depicts him like he's some sort of grandiose emperor from some ancient dynasty. Big imperial palace, little silver spoon in his mouth prince of a son who wants to break from his family's legacy, the whole nine yards. Again, this both fundamentally misunderstands his part in the whole central narrative, and everything that happened to him in the expansion (where not very long at all after his big power grab the UED showed up and completely took him apart, and would have executed him but Kerrigan prolonged that to watch him squirm). And when did he have this kid of his? With who? And where is Jimmy getting all these war buddies? He didn't have'em at the start of things or he wouldn't have had to join up with Mengsk. And his war buddies from that war would just be the magistrate and the surviving protoss characters who act like they barely know him here.
So, no. This does not hold up at all as a continuation. How about if we just look at it in a vacuum then?
Nope, still bad. It leans heavily on a backstory we don't get to see. And I don't mean we're missing a ton of StarCraft 1 flashbacks. I mean, we have all these "old buddy" characters, especially Tychus, but we don't get into how they became friends or do anything to show how they still are, so there's no real emotional stakes to where that ends up going. We start with him drinking his life away in a bar over how he misses this apparent old girlfriend, but we never get into the history between them and even the depressed drinking never comes up again past that shot. We vaguely establish some bitter history with this Mengsk guy, but that never really leads anywhere at all. We just kinda have these various vague and generic handwaves at Standard Protagonist Backstory Stuff. Then we actually dive into things, and it's this very episodic affair where you just hop around from planet to planet either showing up to rescue people or showing up to collect a magic rock to help build the magic Toblerone that cures being half-space-bug. And I mean, I already covered how this sort of simplistic no tension, hero always wins, collect all the treasures for victory sort of narrative is the general baseline for game writing, but other people have been trying to move things forward the last couple decades and this is just sitting at the starting line with a princess to rescue.
Now to be fair, the original StarCraft absolutely also had questing around for magic rocks. The protoss have a totally magic rock based electrical grid, the overmind wanted to eat their special magic rocks to make them more vulnerable, the last protoss mission even had a big ancient temple that did an energy blast, but that one just killed all life on the planet outside of its immediate vicinity, which feels like a more grounded thing for an ancient alien artifact to do than... vaporize/purify space bugs and leave everything else alone. And it wasn't scattered in little bits everywhere.
And then of course there's the expansions to StarCraft 2... well the good thing here is they're so divorced from anything in the original game, and even from the base game of StarCraft 2 that you don't have to worry about them messing with the legacy. I mean, OK, Heart of the Swarm has this whole weird reset where we have Kerrigan mostly human again, just so she can go on a big spirit journey and bug herself up again, so that she's strong enough for her ultimate goal of... showing up to take down Mengsk... again. And you somehow end up with a zergified version of Stukov which... OK that's just the weirdest possible way to double back and recanonize that expansion. I'm not sure that Kerrigan and Stukov were ever even really aware of each other's existence, and he died to a bullet through the head in a military base with no zerg anywhere near it. I mean, unless you remember that Duran was a double agent working for Kerrigan. Except the thing there is if you know the plot of the secret epilogue mission you'd know he was ACTUALLY one of the secret ancient aliens who created both the protoss and the zerg just pretending to a horrible bug monster spy for Kerrigan, in turn pretending to be a normal human. And that's a pretty obscure detail I'd forgive someone for missing except that literally in the mission where you're playing as Zerg-Stukov, the whole reason you're playing as Zerg-Stukov is that Kerrigan is busy doing one of those things where the two wizards fire big energy blasts at each other like some kind of tug-of-war with weird phallic overtones, and the big energy phallus she's trying to squish back is FROM Duran, in his revealed-himself-to-be-that-whole-mess glory. They remembered one thing only to get it wrong basically.
But yeah, otherwise that one's just so wild a departure I don't even know what to say. There's just... named zerg characters? They're all like bug centaurs? Because we need people to talk to and they just totally forgot they had cerebrates to get around that problem? Instead of the ancient ancestral zerg being like, psychic ringworms gradually specializing their hosts over generations, here they're like... talking dinosaur puppies who steal each other's "essence" to get huge? Past a point there's so little resemblance to the source material that I can't even be mad. And then the protoss expansion just kinda decides that the whole casting the dark templar out of their society over irreconcilable religious differences is something they've actually done like... 3 or 4 times? So we've got the outcast invisible jedi and the outcast robots and the outcast Darth Vader wannabes with some sort of society-wide ordered queue where there's exactly one person directly ahead of everyone they're allowed to kill to move up in the world. Oh and we're claiming this one robot centaur is Fenix somehow. Despite Fenix being very dead, and this robot centaur neither having that goofy muppet-y orc voice nor the overwhelmingly positive attitude. And he also somehow doesn't notice that he's a robot centaur and not a guy in a life support pod inside a robot spider. They also expect us to believe this little naked twink turned into this pile of steroids and shoulderpads somehow:
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Oh! I almost forgot but also there's this thing called the Khala and it's unambiguously this set of religious teachings defining a caste system and such... but then here someone watched Avatar so we're retconning that into some sort of psychic spiritual network you connect to through your hair. You don't plug your hair in though it's just like a wifi antenna. Also it only works if you're part of the main society that keeps throwing other people out none of these other people have hair wifi. Also like the entire deal here is that protoss just are not psychic, it's their one flaw. There's this whole thing with them representing physical perfection but being held back by being a bunch of very religious idiots, while the zerg are mentally perfect what with the hive mind but physically just, like, a ringworm, so the ultimate life form their creators really wanted to create requires the zerg to take over the protoss, or just going screw it and hybridizing the two in a lab. Again, this is one of those really obscure details, it only comes up in the weird backstory in the manual that doesn't even get touched on in the game outside the one secret mission in the expansion... but here we have the same scene both acknowledging that deep lore and totally contradicting it.
But yeah, taken as their own independent stories... well... what stories? Kerrigan wants to be a big buff bug lady so she can depose a jerk she already deposed, and she does that. There are no complications or twists along the way. "Artanis" has to go collect all the protoss the in-group don't count as people, because Satan got into their hair wifi and anyone who didn't just get a haircut turned evil. So he goes and does that. Again, no complications of any sort along the way. Also no real ideological conflicts.
The deal with the robot protoss is some idiots went "hey what if we took all of our greatest most celebrated heroes and we copied their minds into robots in their entirety" and then got super confused that they still, you know, want to be treated as people with rights and such and not just mindless robots. So, you know, simple fix there. Then the... actually just evil ones are... lead by John DeLancey. Everyone likes him. So, problem resolved? And the dark templar are already befriended from before, so nothing's needed there besides going to their homeworld to pick them up. Their uh.... home world everyone already evacuated to and then that was compromised and their leader was replaced with puppet and then everyone maybe died? But yeah they're fine.
So then after all the racism is solved forever by just... deciding not to do that anymore, Kerrigan jumps in some kind of magic pool to transform into a giant naked golden angel, and she does this to become the embodiment of purity of essence we apparently need (which also purges all zerg-ness I guess?) and... look there's no easy way to say this. It turns into Homestuck. That whole convoluted thing from Homestuck where there's this eternal cycle of universes being created by light and dark themed people teaming up to create the next one and in theory kind of operate as it's gods but not if they don't feel like it... we're just ripping all that off wholesale for this complete asspull of an ending. And then everyone shoots space satan in the face. He's a big squid. And then Kerrigan turns back into a normal human girl so she can go on a date with Jimmy. Oh and then there's a third expansion recycling the scrapped plot from that action game they were going to do back on the N64 or whatever but I learned how awful the company was before getting curious enough on that one.
It's just bad. Even by game writing standards, it's bad. And I didn't even get into how bad it is with women in particular. We've got the big doe-eyed scientist who needs to be rescued from the scary bugs and then oh no it turns out she got bit by a bug and now she's turning into one and has to be put down (and no, this has never been how that worked). Then we've got Kerrigan who aside from needing rescuing and purifying and coming out naked has this whole expansion to herself where in theory she's totally in charge and self-directing every decision, but every time you click anywhere the confirmation is just her getting all pouty and whiny? Like a toddler you're telling to put shoes on so you can go to the doctor or something? Like, is it just me? Is it the direction? Is it the voice filter? Was the actress just miserable in the recording booth?
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Then she's got this little bug girl assistant who hangs down from the ceiling, kinda like the adjutant from the original StarCraft, but instead of being all detatched and robotic she's all uwu pwecious? And the protoss campaign just kinda keeps turning women into mouthpieces for Satan. It's... a whole thing.
So yeah, badly written stories all throughout, no matter how you slice it. No continuity, no consistency, no character arcs or tension, just be the big cool action hero, do some getting the band back together stuff, collect some magic rocks and ritual circles, purify this girl here with the big magic circle (3 times no less) and then whatever there's space Satan. It's a mess... did I even have a larger point with this?
Probably not, but it was entertaining I hope? Maybe throw a little cash my way?
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dinkflocculent · 9 hours
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Hiraeth - Part One: Anamolous
This is something I wrote for fun. It hasn't been proofread or edited in any form. I don't like how it's written, but I need to train myself to be softer on my pieces. Enjoy!
Dark, cold, cramped...
The cage wasn't comfortable, but it has become a comfort for Caspian. When opened, the noises were loud, the lights were bright, and Master was never nice when he came to visit.
Humans weren't so welcoming to his kind.
His species hasn't fought or terrorized humanity in decades; roles were switched. Now they were rare, exotic pets humans showed off to their guests. He was about to become a pet to be looked at. His cage moved at every bump the carriage went over. It was a nuisance, but he didn't want it to stop. Humans who had a large amount of money to pay for him were never good-hearted.
He curled tighter into his ball, trying to get the thin, small blanket to cover his body. He closed his eyes, dreaming of a reality not ruled by humanity.
***
His ears stung at the loud, incoherent yelling of Salesman; Caspian will never understand why humans punch doors to open them. The cage constantly shuffled and slid. Was humans so weak they couldn't hold his cage containing his average form?
He heard the slow creaking of the door, and locks being unlocked. 
"Oh, it's here," his new master didn't have a rough, cruel tone. It was soft but had a hint of disappointment. 
"It'll be hard to train it. This one's pretty obedient but rarely shows his teeth."
"Pesikos doesn't need to buy creatures to become guard dogs!" he felt his cage be roughly handed, praying the blanket over the cage doesn't get taken off.
Salesman huffs, the sound of hooves carrying off. A door closes and his cage moves as the handler walks. He's set down on a hard surface.
He's inside his new master's home.
He scoots towards a corner of his cage, shaking with fright. What will Master use him for? By the anger in their tone responding to Salesman's remark, he's definitely not going to be put into any sick beast fighting rings. Will he be a pet? Is Master nice to pets, or will he be something he can use to let out his anger after a long day?
A key is inserted into the lock, the door creaking open. The light from the outside world makes his eyes sting, his body curls up as if his life depended on it. Maybe it did.
What will his purpose be in Master's house? Will he ever escape this place? Will he ever escape his cruel existence?
"The poor thing's so afraid. I've never seen a dratleon this skittish..."
A kind human voice, one that belonged to humans who were nice to his kind.
A female's voice.
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mochacat09 · 1 year
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I had to find some way to deal with my Malleus brain rot and here it is "I'll always love you"
1) This was cross posted on ao3 2) Forgive me if this is terrible but its literally 4/bout to be 5 a.m. rn so I'm blaming it on my not getting any sleep --------------------------------------------------- "Tsunotaro? What's wrong? Did something happen?" Yuu asked as the dragon fae nuzzled deeper to the crook of their neck. Yuu could feel what they guess was a little smile bloom onto their neck from the nickname they insisted on using. It was hard to see his face as Yuu's back was on his chest so it was mainly just an assumption.
Malleus replied but, whatever he said was lost in a sea of his mumbling as he held onto Yuu's waist tighter with one hand and held Yuu's hand with his other. It's not like Yuu would mind more attention from their boyfriend but he was acting strange. 
When Malleus had entered Ramshackle dorm, like he always did when he knew Yuu was home, he had greeted them half heartily and he couldn't even muster a smile like he usually did with his lover. In fact Malleus had sat on a completely different couch instead of immediately sitting with Yuu like he normally did. Malleus took every chance he could to get the prefect's affection so why now was he being so wary of them?
Malleus pouted but it wasn't the annoyed cute pout he did... It was in an almost sad way. He didn't look particularly upset with Yuu so, maybe something had happened during class? 
It had taken a good amount of coaxing just to get him curled up around the prefect like he was now. Yuu couldn't help but be worried about their partner and how quiet they've been. Malleus was always a quiet guy sure but never this quiet. Especially around Yuu!
Since Yuu's back was on Malleus' chest they did the next best thing. Gently, so he wouldn't be startled by the sudden movement, Yuu lifted their hands that were interlock with the others and brought it to their lips.
They left feather like kisses on Malleus' hand as he looked up with curiosity at what they were doing. Now that they've gotten his attention they turned themselves around to look at him.
"Is something bothering you? Or someone? Because if someone's bothering you know I won't hesitate to-" Yuu started only to get cut off by a deep chuckle that sent the good kind of shivers down their spine every time they heard it.
Malleus had been amused at how quickly his lover was to declare their worries for him. Yuu wasn't a violent person unless truly aggravated. To know they'd fight for him, no matter how much he'd certainly discourage it, made him fell warm inside. He felt safe and reassured that his worries were all part of his head messing with him.
"My dear there is nothing to worry about. It's just some insignificant thoughts I had putting a damper in my mood."
"Well what were you thinking about that made you this upset? You could barely look at me when you'd walk in. I was starting to think I did something," Yuu chuckled a little finishing off their sentence.
"You'd never do anything wrong," Malleus quickly reassured them that it wasn't their doing, "It was simply me over thinking. I just... I just guess I was scared when I thought you didn't want to spend you lunch with me. I was worried you were growing tried of me, or scared. There are so many things said about me that I wouldn't blame you if you've become wary of me. I wouldn't blame you if you'd leave me out of fear... because to everyone I'm a dangerous monster. That's all I'll ever be to anyone..." 
Malleus never thought that he could lay all his insecurities out in the open so easily but with Yuu it was almost too easy how they made him spill his thoughts.
"You're no monster. You're my beautifully majestic Tsunotaro," They booped his noise catching him off guard, "Who has all these things people seem to fear about him, from his horns to his scales he likes to keep tucked away, " Their fingers lifted part of his sleeve up to reveal dazzling obsidian scales, "It's really all just small pieces that make up my beautiful fae. Things I simply adore about him!"
He just stared at them as he tried to compose his thoughts. They like his scales! And his horns! Yuu had even referred to Malleus as their beautiful fae. He couldn't be happier. He gave a small peck to their forehead before laying his forehead on theirs.
"And me? Scared of you? I've been through five overblots! You're like a kitten who's always curled up in my lap compared to that! You couldn't get rid of me if you tried prying me off of you," they laughed heartily.
"Splendid because I have no intentions of letting you go," Malleus stated proudly with a hand on his chest. As he finished his words Yuu tenderly cups his cheek in their hand, which he instinctively leaning into, allowing himself to close his eyes and relax in the company of his lover.
Yuu had murmured something that if he were not a fae would have been impossible to hear.
"I'm sorry if I made you feel like I didn't want to hang out with you. I was in a hurry. But, remember this ok? No matter what I'll always love you!"
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bacchicly · 7 months
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worst smutty sentence I have ever written below the cut...the cutting room floor is calling...
 and wooosh his semen pulses and gushes out of his flared body into hers - propelling his rockets of DNA fast and deep into the microscopic obstacle course that is the last bastion of survival of the fittest.
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benslerandolitzlove · 2 months
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Ughhh I’m just now watching last nights episode and is it just me or is the writing for SVU just terrible and cringy at this point!
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buggy-beeps · 2 months
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because for some reason i have no shame and would like tumblr to see this aweful essay: here's my english final for the book never let me go. (yes i know the paragraphs are long, our insitutaiton says an english paragraph should be about a page long.
Power and Perspective: Their Intertwinement in Narrative and Remembrance
Power is a universal concept, playing a critical role in everyone’s lives, impacting not only their views but also their actions. In his novel, Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro uses a dystopian society of clones being raised purely to donate their organs and die, using the clones to look at those who the system is exploiting, and Miss Emily and Madame as those with power trying to change the system, albeit maybe not in the right way, to study the impact of power. By looking at power in the hierarchy in a fictional society, it makes it easier to identify the faults in the real-world and address them; once faults can be identified, it is possible to move forward to improve them. Madame and Miss Emily’s explanations about their experiments examine how those in power detach themselves from the harm they cause, justify their actions and how the narrative shifts based on the speaker’s position of power.
Miss Emily’s explanations about their experiments examine how those in power detach themselves from the harm they cause and adjust the narrative to justify their actions . When Kathy and Tommy track down Madame to try to get a deferral, Miss Emily and Madame explain that Hailsham was a social experiment to prove that clones have souls and should be treated more humanely. Miss Emily said that “if students were reared in humane, cultivated environments, it was possible for them to grow to be as sensitive and intelligent as any ordinary human being” (261). The whole thought carries a degrading tone. Miss Emily is arguing that what she did is right, meaning that her words are either deliberate or subconscious at this point. She refers to the clones as “students”,  and “as sensitive”, suggesting that she believes clones have to learn how to process emotions, or have a soul. She implies that Hailsham is completely in the right, that any harmful emotional impacts would be developed because they were taught how to feel.By noting that the Hailsham kids were raised in “cultivated environments”, Miss Emily uses herself and Madame as a distinction between Hailsham and other clones. This action creates a narrative that praises Madame and Miss Emily if the experiments are successful; and, should the experiments fail, puts the blame onto the inherent nature of clones. Madame and Miss Emily’s positions in power allow them to alter the narrative in a way that most benefits them without acknowledging those that were harmed. Later, when Kathy confronts her about the impact Hailsham had on her, Miss Emily responds “it might look like you were simply pawns in a game. [...] but think of it. You were lucky pawns” (266).  Her phrase, “think of it. You were lucky pawns” places the blame of her actions on the clones. Coming right after the admittance that they were viewed as mere pawns, she brushes past the impacts of her actions, instead telling them to be thankful it wasn’t worse. This carries an idea of willful ignorance, suggesting that the impacts of actions can be ignored if the reasoning behind them is believed to be morally right. Miss Emily demonstrates how those in power are able to adjust the narrative to best serve them, allowing them to not have consequences to their actions
Miss Emily’s and Madame’s reactions when confronted with the negative impacts of their actions explores how those in power shift the narrative to focus on those in power, suggesting those with power are responsible for everything, not only demeaning those with less power, but also impacting how they are remembered. After Madame hears about the tragedy in Kathy and Tommy’s stories, she says “Poor creatures. I wish I could help you but now you’re by yourselves. [...] You poor creature” (272).  The thought carries self-blame and pity, using empathy to force the focus of the scene onto Madame rather than Kathy and Tommy. By calling the clones “poor creatures”, she degrades them, discredits the character growth and emotions they’ve felt. Madame wanting to “help” implies that everything that happened to Kathy and Tommy is Hailsham’s, and consequently her, fault. This places Madame and Miss Emily as central figures in their lives, suggesting that Kathy and Tommy had no agency in their lives. When Kathy and Tommy first greet Miss Emily to ask about getting a deferral, Miss Emily says “I think I shall remember [...] We’ve heard a lot about you. I remember, you see. I dare say I remember you all” (256). The repetition of the word “remember” examines the relationship between power and remembrance. Miss Emily has power, so she is expected to be remembered as an individual, she is remembered by the clones for the impact she had on their lives. The clones however, aren’t remembered for the individuals, as shown by how long it takes Miss Emily to remember Kathy and Tommy. As an individual, the clones held no power, speaking to the idea that individuals who lack power have to band together to hold power. However, by banding together, they lose their individuality. Missing the emotional impacts of their past, arguably the most powerful aspects of a story about human experience. In order to gain power to be remembered, they have to lose part of themselves, losing part of what needed to be preserved. This speaks to the idea of how power impacts who and what is remembered, making it possible for those in power to manipulate the story to remain in power, creating a never-ending cycle that benefits those in power while demeaning those without it. 
The Industrial Revolution shows that by using empathy, instead of degrading and ignoring the implications of actions, it is possible to improve society to balance out power; arguing that empathy is more powerful than political power. Lewis Hine was a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, working to outlaw child labor. His work “portrayed his subjects in a direct manner [...] capturing details of his sitters’ bare feet, tattered clothes, soiled faces and hands, and diminutive stature against hulking industrial equipment” (Saunders). The framing of Hine’s work highlights the poor conditions of the children, not demeaning why they’re in these positions but letting the photographs say everything that needs to be said, he doesn’t filter or adjust the narrative, doing his best to show it as it is. By depicting the expressions, the emotions, of the children, the photos humanize the effects of Industrialization, forcing people to recognize that something is wrong, demanding they pay attention. Hine’s photographs use empathy and the general public to get a reaction to create change. Hines was able to show hundreds of perspectives, each telling their own story, but carrying the same theme: the inherent dehumanization in exploitation. Hine himself, “died in poverty, neglected by all but a few” (National Archives). Hine didn’t hold power in the way those in political power do, being able to directly affect laws and those around him. By himself, he was powerless, but by using the public’s sheer volume to hold the power to change, he got himself asserted as one of the biggest social reformers in history, suggesting that the amount of power someone has doesn’t dictate whether they deserve to be remembered. But rather, those who change someone’s life for the better should be remembered. Lewis Hine is a testament that to create change, it is necessary to forgo one’s image to focus on those in need. Hine succeeded in all the ways Madame and Miss Emily failed. He was able to rally the public, creating the change through empathy instead of dehumanization and passing the blame to keep himself in a positive light. The Industrial Revolution shows that to reform society it is necessary to tear down the narrative those in power have created and force attention away from those in power and focus it on those being exploited. 
Failed social reforms in fictional worlds are easier to look at objectively, making them easy to study and understand why social reforms fail. By understanding how those in power are able to justify their actions and adjust the narrative to dismiss the issues, it is possible to find the best way to get the message across and encourage change. Once this is understood, real-world examples of successful reforms gives people hope that it is possible to create this change, and encourages the world to become a better place.
Bibliography
Magazine, Smithsonian. “The Photographer Who Forced the U.S. to Confront Its Child Labor Problem.” Smithsonian.Com, Smithsonian Institution, 12 June 2023, www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-photographer-who-forced-the-us-to-confront-its-child-labor-problem-180982355/.
National Archives and Records Administration. (2017). Teaching with documents: Photographs of Lewis Hine: Documentation of Child Labor. National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/hine-photos
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densofyarrow · 1 year
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kneeanderthal · 2 years
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YOU LIE
YOU ARE LIKE PAPA
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missstreetsahead · 2 years
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day 23 of refusing to admit that eddie munson is dead because I’m delusional and I genuinely refuse to face the truth
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I am being forced to watch some stupid episode of some dumb sit com and the husband who is supposed to be in an overeater support group, has been lying to his wife and pretending to go. Instead, he's going to a support group for men in abusive relationships, because they have donuts. And in order to get pity from the men there, he's lying through his teeth, claiming she beats him and attacks him and calls him names.
And all the men are scared of her.
So when she realizes he isn't losing weight and is gaining, she asks questions and he lies so much she follows him to the support group. Painting his wife as an abuser for the sake of food, and allowing them to excuse his excessive eating by blaming her for it.
And this is treated like the funniest shit in the world. And when she calls him out in front of his new friends and he's revealed to have lied through his teeth... they still take his side.
When are writers going to graduate from this, 'abusive spouse is funny' thing they always fall back on ffs. They depict the worst hetero relationships ever and we're supposed to think of them as the best love story of all time?
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sparksinthenight · 11 months
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So we talked about Wattpad today. I used to go on Wattpad a lot as a lil girl. Let me tell you a story. I never published this story. Thank all the gods that ever have existed or will exist that I never published this story. Because if I did publish it, then, looking back on my actions at an older age I would unironically die of cringe. But despite not having published this, I did write it. Because I was a middle school girl and middle school girls are just like that.
So in the story there’s this 15 year old girl. She’s very pretty but she doesn’t think so. She’s a rebellious teen and she goes into the woods to do rebellious things with her friends. One day the police catch her and they sell her to a very handsome 26 year old billionaire. So he’s mean to her at first and horrible in general but she knows that he has a heart deep down. She knows that he’s secretly good deep down, he just doesn’t know how to be good, but she can change him. He is so off-put, and then amazed, by her rebellious spirit that he falls in love with her and turns nice and good. So then the two of them run away to the secret group of rebels living in the forest. Oh he also forces her to get an abortion against her will at one point before he turns good. Man of the year everyone.
You know, I didn’t even publish this but I think I’m going to unironically die of cringe anyways. I think the Google doc that the story is on still exists. But thank the gods that it’s on my old account that I don’t use anymore so I don’t have to see it.
Anyways. Listen. If a guy literally bought you, don’t try to change him, just fucking run.
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