#we would get an official reworking

[daydreamerwonderkid]

Teen Titans 2003 really just went: "Look, he's just all the Robins. Okay? We couldn't decide which iteration to go with so just have this wild amalgamation of them all. Is it really going to make a difference whether it's Dick, Jason or Tim? They're all fucking feral in their own right and they all got butt loads of trauma and they all were part of the Teen Titans at some point. So does it honestly matter which Robin he is so long as he's just all of them?"

And you know what ... they were kinda right.

Yes, I was one of those kids who swore Red X was Jason lmao

(No, I didn't forget that they basically confirmed Robin was Dick with the flash forward episode, shut up, it doesn't count)

#dreamer talks #teen titans 2003 #teen titans robin #dick grayson #jason todd #tim drake #it's also funny cause #three years later #we would get an official reworking #of the son of the demon arc #and lo and behold #damian would be officially canon #i still like to think #that there was a little bit of damian #in teen titans 2003 robin #boy be feral af #dreamer queue

[dduane]

Meanwhile, at the digital art end of things...

Here's another shot of that Magic Room set that I'm about to kitbash/rebuild into a bedchamber.

I'll be stripping all the contents out before I get started. But let me add a couple of human figures first for scale...

...as they're going to be the ones using this bedroom most. —Yes, other members of their marriage will be there often enough. But this is a working family, and the other spouses frequently have other places they need to be.

The initial problem becomes immediately apparent: this space is way too big for a bedroom, even for a king. And with ceilings that high, it'd be hell to heat with just one fireplace. Sure, there'll routinely be at least one magic-worker in the bed at any given time, but why should they have to constantly be spending useful lifeforce on room heating? (Or wasting power on anything besides the things one goes to bed to do.*)

So: time to throw everything out and deal with the scale issues of the main structure.

From the outside, here's what the room structure looks like.

If there's a problem with this, it's that the maker has built it all in one piece. You can't pull annoying chunks off it and get rid of them, or substitute others in their place. But (the flip side of this coin) it is possible to rescale the structure as a whole.

So what I propose to do is squash the room flatter, thereby shifting the shape of those arches somewhat, but also lowering the ceiling. I can also decrease the length of the room somewhat. The combined reductions along the X and Y axes should render the room's proportions a bit more snug and liveable: roomy enough for a Middle Kingdoms family bedchamber, but not a great hollow echoing space that can't be comfortably filled except by sending out to USC or someplace similar for a marching band.

So let's throw all the extraneous furniture out. And (after this shot) the chandeliers. No need for them: this isn't a public space, and the intended resizing would screw up their proportions anyway.

Now we start squeezing the structure into better dimensions. Reducing the room on the X axis (to about 80% of its original length)...

... then on the Y axis, making the ceiling about 30% lower...

... and then widening the Z axis out to 20% or so wider than previously.

So that's a start.

Now about twenty different things have to happen to this space, including fixing the lighting (which got knocked out of kilter by the various resizings, as you can see), hiding unwanted objects like that staircase, changing various materials—such as the floor, which before has always been European-medieval style encaustic tile, so that's what it'll be again—reshaping the head of the bed into something more neo-Gothic (probably in Blender) to reflect the arches, installation of the necessary fireplace, and loading in much old furniture from other renders. (As it happens, this detail's canonical. The other main characters have started teasing Freelorn about Kynall castle's endlessly recycled furniture—especially those beds still equipped with mattresses so old that Héalhra Whitemane himself might have slept on them.)

Anyway, not going to bore anyone still reading this with any further process, except to say that the reworked room features the pale-colored marbles quarried all over that part of Arlen, as well as whitestave wood, used extensively in the Castle and nearby official buildings for its durability and its ancient associations with the Lion and Arlene royalty.

So this is what's in place at the moment, at least down at the bed end. Yet to come: more hangings, more furniture, better bed linens, clothes-presses and bookshelves, clothes thrown over chairs, etc etc...

And at the fireplace end:

More texture and detail work to do down at this end as well; as well as tuning the firelight (always a nuisance). ...A job for another day.

Meanwhile, turned around the bed-facing camera just in front of the fireplace, and found myself regarding a not-too-bad reverse angle.

(eyeroll) These two idiots. :)

*Like sleep. ...Or, yeah, okay, other things. (shrug/grin)

#digital art #Daz Studio #Middle Kingdoms meta #set building #kitbashing #Herewiss #Freelorn

[itsclydebitches]

IT'S BEEN A DOOZY OF A DAY, FOLKS

Yeah I've got a couple asks about it lol. (Always a terrifying experience when you log onto tumblr and immediately wonder why your inbox blew up...)

Man, I don't even know how I'm feeling right now. We've spent so many months working on the semi-confident assumption that RWBY would be cancelled that on the one hand I can't feel very shocked about this. On the other hand there's definitely a wide-eyed part of my brain going, "Holy shit the 'RT is failing' theories finally came true O_O" I'm kinda devastated that a company that's been a part of my life for almost a decade (and for other fans far longer) is just up and gone, but simultaneously I don't care because what I loved about RT hasn't existed for some time now. We've already been dealing with that nostlgia for years, we just got a hell of a concentrated dose of it today. There's admittedly some level of vindication regarding those who've been pulling shit in the company for so long and empathy for those who were just getting by and are now suddenly out of a job. There's regret that (despite my tendency to fall VERY behind on projects. RIP I owe everyone in this fandom a massive apology) I'll probably never have an official end to my RWBY Recaps. And there's worry about how this will impact the fandom...

Yeah, not to jump on the pessimism train, but I feel like this is going to catapult some fans' misreadings into new territory. RWBY is now forever the show that was canonically unfinished and thus its perfection is assured. Think there are major issues in Volume 9 and earlier? Nah, that's setup for Volumes we just never got. Catch a contradition or other mistake? They would have explained that if they could. Any possible issues with the show if it gets picked up by someone else? Well, of course there are issues, RT isn't writing it! This was already a fandom where having accurate, nuanced discussions about the text was hard as hell... but it just got so much worse.

Honestly, I say let it go. If they're going to do anything I'd prefer a complete reboot/reworking so that this story might stand a chance. Airing new RWBY Volumes was already beating a dead horse. Resurrecting the horse to start beating it anew just feels ridiculous. Yes, I'm sad for those fans who wanted an official ending, but we've spent so much time waiting on RWBY, being worried about RWBY's future, and I personally have encounted so many shows lately whose finales soured my enjoyment that there's something reassuring in the combination of definitive ambuguity here: you know you're not getting an ending by RT, so just have fun imagining your own.

Overall, I feel like I've got to sit with this for a while, you know? I totally get why so many fans (partiuclarly RWDE fans) are celebrating and/or releasing a sigh of relief right now. I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen any crabs yet lol. But maybe it's just because I'm "old" my tumblr's standards, but there's something undeniably sad about losing that part of your fandom life. Or at least, losing what led to/represents that life. Getting introduced to RWBY by a friend, binging it for the first time, pulling new people in, finding like-minded friends here on tumblr, analyzing it for thousands of words, tracing its history and watching how radically it has changed... that's gone now. Not actually because RWBY still exists, as do my friends, and there's nothing stopping me from writing as much fic/meta as I want, but it still feels like someone closed a door on that part of my life. That's not wholly a bad thing given what RT has been lately, but I do think it'll take more than one post for me to unpack it all.

#RWDE #RWBY #mymetas

[ancientschampionau]

RealAgeAU drabble - Moving

Hello I am back and I got another idea for this little silly au that I have @spotaus to thank for for the original idea :3 Though I think this may be officially becoming one of my AUs hahahaha First part Prev Part Next part

Also yes. I know it would work better to number these uploads but also i am not writing these in any set order so it will become miserable for all of us if i number them because either they will be out of order or I will have to rework all the names and I am already editing links I don't need that extra energy in my life.

ANYWAY! :D

Next part! The one I lovingly clal in my head - The one where the gang finds a more permanent temporary home. (also yes. Before this they all speed-run the whole Parental bonding and emotional bonding to the idea of having a babybones. Which honestly can and probably will make four different drabbles)

-------

Horror stares at the door and wonders once again how he got to this point.

Well, no. That is a lie. He knows exactly how he got to his point.

He glances over his shoulder where the other four at hiding off to the side. Out of view from the doorway but still visable for Horror if he looks just right. Seems like Dust won the discussion, again, and is holding Nightmare, again.

Horror wants to say it is surprising how quickly they all just... accepted the situation they got into but he really isn't. Monsters are weird like that. Forced adoption is not that wild all things considered when you are talking about beings made of magic and emotions.

Horror stares at the door and raises his hand before knocking twice.

He really hadn't wanted to do this but they have no other choice. As he waits he can't help but think back to what made them decide this.

Cross walks from side to side "That was way to close! That was the third time we came across the Stars with Nightmare out. Third!"

Killer nods from where he is sitting wiht the sleeping Nightmare in his lap "Yeah no kidding. It is annoying as shit that they are hunting us."

Dust shrugs "Not surprising. Nightmare 'disappeared' after all. We are their only lead."

Killer grins "We were lucky Cross managed to lie his way out of the last one." and he shoots Cross a wink.

Cross sputters "I panicked!"

Killer grins and winks "Sure sure daddy crossy."

Horror holds up his hands between his two... co-parents "This is not the time. We need to figure out where we can go." and he thinks things over.

Cross sighs "I don't get how they keep finding us!"

Dust huffs as he packs their bags "We go to too little universes. Makes it easy for Ink and Dream to pick us out because they recognise us personally."

Killer frowns "Meaning. we need a big universe?" he taps his chin "But also mostly positive as we still don't know how obvious Nightmare would be otherwise."

Cross frowns "I think it will be fine. He can't feel the balance anymore right? And no one seems to have a reaction to him like they had before nor how people have a reaction to Dream's aura thing. Maybe with the corruption gone he really is just... ex-guardian now?"

Killer groans "I hope so. I am not a fan of child labor."

That is when it hits him. Horror sits up "I think I know a place."

All of them turn to him and he immediantly regrets saying anything. See? This is why he normally tries to limit what he says.

Either way. Here they are now and Horror prays this works. Please. They need one thing to work in their favor.

The door opens and a gasp "Horror! It has been ages! It is great to see you. How have you been?" Crop smiles at him.

Horror steels his nerves. Come on. Too much hangs on this moment "Hey Crop. Nice to see you. I am... okay. How are you?"

Crop frowns at him instantly "You sure? You don't sound okay. Trouble at home?"

Horror chuckles "Kinda? Not exactly. Euh... Can't go back to that place now?"

Crop frowns "Why? Need a place to stay? I got a spare room."

Okay yes! this is going great! just... gotta make sure he knows.

Horror nods "I do need a room. Not just for me though..." Crop starts to frown and Horror raises his hands "Just temporarily!"

Crop frowns "Did... something go wrong?"

Horror pauses and thinks this through once more. He trusts Crop. Crop has never been anything but kind even when Horror had been an ass. Even when he had to once drag Dust here to get healing before they could make the jump back home.

Horror looks to the side and he sees the others just beyond the treeline, hidden in shadows and waiting. Crop takes a look as well but he can't quite spot them. Crop looks back up at him.

Horror takes a deep breath "You need... to promise me, no not just promise you need to swear. That what you are about to learn will not leave this universe."

Crop frowns as he immediantly looks uncomfortable. It is the reaction a promise gets from most of them. But Crop also shoots him a considering look before he nods. He holds out a hand "I swear and promise I will not share the about to be giving information. UNLESS! It endangers anyone." and he waits.

Horror stares at the hand and thinks. That... That is fine right? That should be fine. Nightmare being a child doesn't endanger anyone. Only them and Nightmare. Horror nods and shakes the hand.

Crop nods and steps aside "Come inside. I bet you will be more comfortable explaining there." he glances at the forest "Do your... friends? Want to come in too?" a guess clearly. probably on multiple fronts.

Horror shakes his skull "Not yet. Need to know your answer and reaction first." He turns to the forest and makes a signal to wait a bit longer. He sees a thumbs up shot his way back. Probably Killer. He never bothered with the signals they had learned together.

Crop nods as he steps aside and Horror walks in, having to duck slightly for the door. The door closes behind him and Horror sees the small living room with fireplace.

Crop leads him to the kitchen "Lets talk there. I will get some tea."

A few minutes later they are both seated and with a cup of tea. Crop looks at him expectingly.

Horror takes a deep breath and takes out their most valuable resourch. The Dreamtale book. And places it on the table. Crop frowns at it before looking at Horror.

Horror nods to it "It will help explain... Very long story short... Nightmare was never an adult. He was a child with a magical shield of some type. That magic has ran out."

Crop stares at him for a moment, then he pulls the book closer and starts reading it. He pauses at the title before opening it.

And now he waits.

---------

Crop sits wiht his skull in his hands. Horror just sits across from him, with his empty cup of tea. Crop's own cup has grown cold a long time ago. Horror just waits for anymore questions but Crop hasn't said anyhting in the last ten minutes.

Horror looks back at the book and sees that Crop has turned the pages back to the one with the drawing of Nightmare's head being cracked open. The image makes a very clear show on how small Nightmare was compared to the ones attacking him.

Horror still thinks the book doesn't do it justice. Nightmare is much smaller in person than the picture makes him seem. The cracks had been much worse than the picture showed. But it is the closest they got.

Crop finally sighs and speaks. He doesn't look away from the picture "I don't... Know a lot about this whole... multiverse stuff. It isn't my place at all. And that is fine." he pauses for a moment "But this... You are telling me... That the one being that had everyone afraid. That everyone saw as a demon. Is a child... is this child?"

Horror nods before he explains more "Nightmare... gained a lot of magic and powers when he ate those apples. At least that is what the story implied. We haven't managed to get him to tell us yet, mostly because well... he is six again." Crops pulls a face as well, yeah. Horror agrees. A PTSD filled six year old is not easy. But they are managing.

Horror nods "so... What Cross nad Dust think what happened is that... The magic and negativity of the apples bond itself to Nightmare. Which game him the magic and powers he would use. The connection to the balance because the apples were part of the balance. and more importantly, an adult form and mind to fit all the magic. There was just no way all that magic and energy would have fit a babybones. Especially one that hadn't shown much magic beforehand." an assumption on their end as Nightmare was never said to use magic in the book.

"We think... We think that this magic of the apples just. ran out. We had been in battle at the time and Nightmare had been hit but it shouldn't have had that much of an effect. it was the same type of attack he had been hit by before. Dust thinks it was just the last bit of magic that the apples had having run out. Meaning that with the magic and energy so went the form." all a theory of course. But it is the only thing they have.

Crop nods as he clearly thinks "And as he was suddenly an adult. instead of just being afraid and scared. all that pain and emotions took a more violent turn. As he was an adult and was suddenly able to realise that it was unfair which made him angry..." Crop pauses.

Crop glares back at the table and shakes his skull "It is... It is a whole story about victim blaming. A victim is blamed for the abuse they suffered. They are made to believe they deserve it and should be abused. Then as soon as they fight back and defend themselves they are seen as guilty." Crop takes adeep breath as he leans back "What I don't get... Why come here? I can't help with any of this."

Horror shakes his skull "This isn't about any of the big stuff. We don't even care about it. We just... Nightmare is himself again. His real self." he taps the page lightly "Not his aged-up self that the corruption enabled him to be."

Crop stares before his face changes to shock "You are trying to hide him." Then a frown "Why not go to your own home? Has it been compromised?"

Horror snorts "At this point? probably." a confused look and Horror continues "Nightmare used his magic to shield off an universe and make a castle." he shrugs at the glance "Nightmare likes to read. I imagine he liked to read back then too. He may have been an adult technically but he was still a child at soul. Child him wanted a home and wanted that to be a castle and adult him made it happen... probably... that is Killer's theory at the moment."

Crop laughs and nods "Suonds reasonable- oh... and with his magic disappearing."

Horror sighs "When I left his universe the castle had already been decaying..."

Crop frowns "Left? The five of you you mean?"

Horror looks to the side and feels the shame return "We.... we did not react well... when we saw the changes at first... we... we obviously dind't know what was going on and well." he looks down "We abandoned him. I know it was wrong and stupid and we all regret it. We came back but we still did it." shame.

shame shame shame shame shame shame shame-

A hand on his shoulder. Horror glances up and Crop smiles at him "It is okay. You are trying to fix it now right? obviously. Not cool that you abandoned a child... but it can be nerve wrecking. Suddenly going from a position where a person is mostly guiding you, to going to a position where you suddenly are responsible over that same person."

Horror looks to the side "We still left." he can't believe they just left!

Crop nods "But you returned." he grins "And you are trying to fix it."

Horror nods again "We are..." he chuckles "Not that we have been doing a good job at it. Jumping from place to place."

Crop hums "So you are looking to settle, at least for a little bit, while also hidding. Why this universe?"

Horror nods "Yeah..." He looks to the side "We... we don't know how everyone will react. To him being like this. Maybe they will react well. Maybe not. We don't want to risk it. Risk him."

Crop stares at him for a long time and nods "There must be better places?"

Horror shakes his skull "The Stars kept finding us. Dust figured out we needed a big universe that leans towards positive. Yours is one of those. It is one of the wider and bigger ones. And overall leaning towards positive."

Crop frowns "It can't be the best one..."

Horror shrugs but continues "True... there are bigger and more positive ones. But those are busy. Many people. many places. Yours is quieter. more empty. Gives peace and room to work from."

Crop frowns as he taps his chin. He thinks deeply before sighing "You guys got any type of backstory we can use? The multiverse thing isn't a known thing here and the only reason my brother and I know is because you crash landed here."

Horror blinks "You will let us stay?"

Crop nods "Sure." and he grins "Can't kick out four parents with a babybones." and he gets up.

Horrro shakes his skull "That isn't... Well I mean technically." He knows that Killer has come close to killing quite a few people with how protective he has grown over Nightmare and that isn't even including the motherhenning of Cross nor the clinginess that Dust has.

Crop chuckles as he nods towards the stairs "The attic is messy and should be cleaned but can be used by you four, well five. There is an old bed and an old lounge chair up there." more thoughtful "How big is he exactly? we will need some clothes. Probably also get a healer to check him if he is developing okay after all those magical shenanigans."

Horror stares for a moment before smiling "Thank you... I know it is a lot."

Crop shrugs as he opens the linnen closet "Horror. Taking care of milking all the cows on your own is a lot. Having to fix your roof in the middle of a thunderstorm is a lot." He straightens his spine with blankets in his arms "Helping a friend and his friends who have somehow aqcuired a babybones, while strange, does not compare to either of those. Now get your friends out of those woods. They will make the animals nervous." he grins "I am excited to be one of the first ones to meet the real Nightmare."

Horror smiles as he packs his book and goes towards the door. "Thanks again Crop."

Crop waves it off as he moves the piles upstairs.

-------

Boom! and they are staying in FarmTale for now! Horror and Crop are homies and Dust is more of an acquaintance of Crop but it works. Aged-up Nightmare knew that Horror had an universe he liked to visit but never demanded details. *shrugs* Nightmare didn't see the point. as long as horror wasn't going to betray him what did it matter he didn't tell him?

Surprise Nightmare, this is your temporary home now. For a bit. or maybe longer? They are still figuring it out.

First part Prev Part Next part

#RealAgeAU #UTMV #fanfiction #drabble #nightmare sans #Deaged Nightmare Sans #Horror Sans #Dust Sans #Killer Sans #Cross Sans #Farm Sans #Look most of them aren't in it for long but they had to be included okay?! They are mentioned! It counts! #We are back with me writing stuff to indulge myself again #hihi i am having fun #The guys are all very attached to their immortal toddler. #does six year old equal a toddler? #okay one google search later and turns out it doesn't. #doesn't matter immortal toddler sounds funnier #What else. #Yeah right Horror 100% once crash landed in FarmTale and had to wait for his teleport crystal to recharge before he could leave #He made friends. #and once Dust got dragged along for the ride because the idiot got too hurt to teleport them and Horror's crystal didn't have enough charge #so they made a stop there #Dust was very confused to wake up in a random farmhouse #This is also why Dust hasn't just teleported away with Nightmare #because technically this isn't a strange universe and he kinda knows these people #so relatively okay #Killer and Cross however are not yet chill about this #But yeah they are rooming with Crop for a bit :D #Okay rambling over time to fix my links

[bisexual-detectives]

I've seen a lot of "fanfiction is only tolerated because it's not monetised" takes recently and they're completely missing the point of why IP owners tolerate fan works.

Fanfiction inherently breaches copyright, whether you make money off of it or not. The reason why copyright owners tolerate fanfic is not because fanfiction writers don't make any money for writing it but because fandom is insanely profitable for IP owners. Fandom gives the original works value those corporations could never dream of creating on their own. Why is Skyrim the one video game that won't die? Because Bethesda enables and encourages modding, releasing modding tools and even enabling mods on playstation, something basically unheard of. This allows gamers to change anything they don't like about Skyrim, personalise it to their preferences and add endless new content so it never gets boring.

Fanfiction does exactly the same for other mediums: it lets fans fix whatever they perceive as mistakes, personalise the content to their preferences and it adds endless new content. If you watch an obscure TV show that doesn't have a fandom, how invested are you going to stay long term when there are no gifs for you to reblog and no fics to read? And in contrast, how invested are you going to stay if you watch a different show which has endless fan content to consume?

Fan works keep media relevant, generate free promotion and create deeply invested consumers. Why can Bethesda keep releasing full price Skyrim reworks for every conceivable platform - that people keep paying for? Because mods keep people invested in Skyrim. Why are people buying stupid official merch for ancient franchises like Harry Potter? Because fandom keeps those franchises alive.

Fandom is only "non profit" for the fans. For IPs, fandom is free labour that generates absurd monetary value - that's the real reason they allow or even encourage it. Disney and Netflix won't suddenly start going after AO3 because some people made $15 on kofi lol AO3 is making them way too much money. Also, going after fandom in the age where internet fandom drives media consumption would be a PR disaster. Harry Potter was the first big fandom to be born into the internet era and Warner Brothers learned very quickly to stop cease and deceasing fansites when the fandom boycotted their HP products in return.

Don't delude yourself into thinking that multi-billion corporations wouldn't have fanfic sites shut down in a second if fanfic was inconvenient for them in any way. They allow fanfic because it's fucking profitable for them and they don't care if fan writers make some change along the way.

If you want to learn more, here's a video essay about copyright and fandom I co-wrote and here are the academic works we used as sources: "Exploiting Fandom: How the Media Industry Seeks to Manipulate Fans" and "Fandom as Free Labor".

#i have no stakes in this i don't read or like fanfiction i'm just annoyed when people misunderstand how fandoms actually work #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic #fandom #copyright #mine

[idrellegames]

Apologies if this (or anything similar) has been asked before, but how long did Wayfarer take to plan/write/etc before you started posting about it on tumblr or actually.. writing the game?

I'm currently in the very early planning stages of my own IF and I don't want to rush on making the worldbuilding. I imagine lots of planning went into Wayfarer (?) before you started to actually write the game or promote it on tumblr, and I suppose I'm just curious to know? Again, my apologies if this is a weird question or one you don't want to answer.

Oh that's a good question!

To be honest, I wouldn't use what I did as a good example of what to do. 😅 As some of you know, Wayfarer has its roots as a Dragon Age fan game. That game went nowhere (and has no similarities to Wayfarer other than Alexia, Ren, Calla and Aeran were all originally OCs for it), but it did mean that I had an audience from the DA fandom when I made the switch to original writing. I made this blog and did announcement posts and OC questions before I had anything substantially written. I released one demo in May 2019 and didn't get much further than that.

2020 was when I made changes and abandoned the fan game to work on what is now Wayfarer. I did about 5 months of plotting and planning before I made the announcement; I actually did most of the initial worldbuilding and outlines for a video game scriptwriting course I was taking at the time. I had to develop a game bible for a hypothetical game, so I used Wayfarer for that coursework, although that game bible is not very representative of what the game is now since I had to do specific things in specific ways to appease my professor.

The first thing I did after announcing the switch to orginal fiction was commission a portrait of Mel. 😂 I already had portraits of Aeran, Alexia, Ren and Calla and though those ones were commissioned while the game was still Dragon Age, their character designs are still the same. Though I don't think artwork is necessary to have a successful IF, it can be very helpful in terms of gaining an audience. Visuals are eye-catching!

I tried a lot of different things in 2020. Some things worked, some didn't. The first half of the year I was worldbuilding, outlining, and reworking the game bible. I wrote and coded a Prologue that eventually got scrapped, and the beginning of Episode 1 up to the fight with Kane, which didn't. I livestreamed it on my Twitch channel with my partner reading and doing voices (shout out to anyone who remembers Southern Sero because that was... a thing that happened).

I rewrote the Prologue with the one we have now in September 2020 and worked to add more material to Episode 1 before making an official game announcement in November 2020. I can't quite remember how far that first demo went, but I think it was the Prologue and Episode 1's fight with Kane if the player went to Rat Alley and up to the end of the meeting with Zenaida if the player went to the docks. All of that would have been around 51k words of playable content in the game when the demo released.

Looking back, I probably would have done things differently. I also think that there's no one way to make an IF. What works for one person is not necessarily going to work for another, it's okay to find your own path. 💗

But I can give a little bit of advice:

You need to know what you are writing before you go ahead and write it. IF is not a medium that can be pantsed (unless you're creating a short or micro game). Get comfortable plotting and outlining in well in advance. You should have an idea of how your game is going to shape up and the main thrust of the plot before you start, otherwise you're going to get overwhelmed with too many ideas and risk fizzling out.

To promote a game, you need to have a game. Before you launch an announcement post and officially start marketing your game, you need to have a playable demo with substantial content. Think of it this way: you only have one shot to make a first impression and it has to be a good one. The demo needs to introduce the player to their character, the world, the game's main mechanics, and a plot hook. The amount of work this is going to take is going to differ depending on the scope of your game and your writing style, but a character creator and 1000-3000 words is not going to cut it.

Don't use your blog as a way to worldbuild. Keep that offline and between you and your beta group or writing circle. If there's one repeat tendency I've seen a lot over the past few years of IF development on tumblr, it's that there is sometimes more interest in answering OC asks and writing flash fiction and answering prompts then there is in writing the game. These asks can be a lot of fun and can absolutely drive engagement for your blog, but at the end of the day they can either take away from the time and energy you should put towards your game or they will spoil the development of your characters for the players. The line between player engagement and player participation in a game's development is a very fine one that can get tricky to walk.

Worldbuilding isn't something that you do at the start and never again. It's something that grows with you as your write your project; sometimes you'll have to shift things and change them, fill in holes you didn't see coming, scrap ideas entirely. Allow yourself breathing room. I think you're off to a good start by knowing that you don't want to rush the worldbuilding. It's something that takes a lot of time to grow organically, and it's going to change and grow with you.

Good luck! 💖

#wayfarer #wayfarer if #interactive fiction #interactive novel #twine #twine game #coding in twine #on writing

[anim-ttrpgs]

Patreon Poll and Kickstarter Funds Update

Alright, we’ve had a weekend to rest and now it’s time to get back to work. We already have almost ten new snoops done and ready to be put in the rulebook, "FORIVA: The Angel Game" is almost completely reworked and ready for patreon re-release, and we might have new merchandise coming soon.

As soon as "FORIVA: The Angel Game" is done, we still start back work on editing the finished sections of the rulebook.

I have started brainstorming work on the Living Doll playable supernatural characters type, as well as the Talking Dog and several other stretch goals.

I’ll do anything to put off finishing these examples of play..

We are still waiting on more than 60 backers to finish their backer surveys, so we aren’t sending out emails regarding the custom rewards yet, we want to try to be able to do that all at once if possible. Even if all the backer surveys had been completed, we would still wait on a lot of the emails, because we would want to confirm our funds first before we tell our team artists to get to work on custom rewards. Kickstarter won’t actually give us the money until at least 2 weeks after the end of the campaign. We plan to pay them up front, so we gotta have the money before they start seriously working on the project.

Speaking of that, there are three backers from whom Kickstarter has been unable to collect payment. At the time of writing this, this accounts for about $371 of our funding. On Friday, May 17th, if these payments have not been resolved, Kickstarter will cancel them.

That means we won’t get the money and those backers won’t get their rewards. It’s probably just a matter of the bank marking their payment as suspicious, but it needs to be resolved before May 17th. If you’re a backer and you’re reading this, please check your Kickstarter account and your email to find out, and please try to get this resolved before Friday.

Next, I’ve got to talk about our patreon. Despite the major success of the Kickstarter, patreon is an essential part of making A.N.I.M. a long-term viable career.

You can find our patreon here. Subscribing for $3 or more will give you access to our patreon discord server where you can meet the team and offer direct feedback, as well as have a vote in what our next project will be. Subsribing for $5 or more will also give you access to regular, playable updates on all of our in-progress projects.

We will of course be posting updates on our progress in finishing Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and adding the stretch goals on Kickstarter, but if you want to actually play these updates as they come out, you can do so by supporting our patreon for as little as $5. We know some of you will jump at this opportunity to get improved beta versions of Eureka early, and some of you will just wait until final release, but for those of you who would like to get the playable updates, we have a question.

Would you rather us officially update the patreon beta copies twice a month, or once a month? There are definite pros and cons to each one and that’s one of the reasons we’re asking the fans.

Twice a Month

Pros

More frequent updates

Cons

Updates will be smaller and less significant in how much each one will improve the game materials.

Updates that come too frequently could annoy the people who are actually trying to use the beta copies for their campaigns, as they may feel like have their campaign rules changing too frequently to memorize.

Once a Month

Pros

Updates will be much bigger and more significant

Gives more time for people who are playing with the beta copies to have several sessions in between rulebook updates.

Cons

Updates less frequently

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Free Beta Copies

If you don't want to wait, but don't want to sign up to our patreon either, then you can get an older beta copy for free on our website or itch.io page.

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

#detective #ttrpg #ttrpg tumblr #ttrpg community #role playing games #tabletop #indie ttrpg #ttrpg art #lgbt art #queer art #eureka #monsters #eureka: investigative urban fantasy #rpg #roleplaying #indie roleplay #indie games #indie ttrpgs #indie rpg #supernatural rpg #supernatural #urban fantasy #modern fantasy #fantasy #short story #vampires #scooby-doo #scooby doo #living doll #horror

[hwaightme]

Your fan, Yunho (part 1)

(part 2) (your fan ml)

🎮pairing: yunho x game developer!reader 🎮genre: fluff, slice of life, opposites attract, serendipity, humour summary: a bulletpoint-style wordstream of what it would be like if yunho was stanning you 🎮wordcount: 2.6k 🎮warnings/tags: language, reader is a developer, coding and gaming is life, wooyoung knows, yunho as a gaming enthusiast, reader is a serious introvert, business friend playing wingwoman, flirting in chat, reader is oblivious, yunho wants to be noticed, possible gaming dates, ateez have potential as twitch streamers, let me know if anything else 🎮a/n: Hello everyone! This is a wave I had in relation to 'Your fan,___', now for Yunho! Thank you everyone for your likes, comments and reblogs <3

You were a game developer, who started out quite early with simple arcade style games, and progressed to more complex rpgs story-focused fps games, which had given you recognition and helped you rise to where you were today.

And where were you now? Well, you were your own boss, a developer self-started Cogent Studio, in the heart of Seoul, working with some of your closest friends.

When you had the time and energy, you would attend cons, do interviews here and there, or join your gamer friends' streams to either play together if the game was multiplayer, or merely enjoy a peaceful couple of hours together, talking about the greatest love of your life - games and computer science

Other than that, you never really chased the limelight, nor felt the need to. So long as you could keep on doing what you did, you were happy.

This was why you were grateful that one of your friends was terrifically social media savvy, and could start a trend out of nothing if they wanted to.

They were normally the ones do give you nudges as reminders that "it was time to do some publicity"

This was exactly how you had stumbled upon a livestream which ended up changing your life for even better

It was a couple days after the official release of your studio's latest, rather ambitious project, Aenigmata.

This fever dream had, from initial character sketches to final implementation and server testing and the sort had taken a grand total of five years, with you repeatedly reworking one part after another as your skills improved and you found other experts to mentor you along the way.

On top of this being a career challenge, you wanted to be extra evil and create countless riddles and adapting puzzles, making them the way to have the highest chances to succeed in the more "action-packed" parts of the game.

So bent on wanting to create the perfect intellectual challenge, in fact, that you had dabbled in the implementation of machine learning into the game, to make the World of Aenigmata feed on your mistakes and challenges (to a limit, of course)

This strategy/shooter/rpg crossed with a science experiment had already done some rounds among enthusiasts and critics, being very well received, and commended for its "disruptive nature" compared to the current market.

You were not too bothered by the sales, seeing as your less multifaceted projects were doing well enough (unlike your distributors), but they appeared to be as stable as a game of such a style would allow.

Your extra sleepless nights dedicated to ensuring there were both single player and small party multiplayer paid off too - Youtubers and Twitch streamers were starting to get in on the fun and publicise the game you had made with your very own hands.

And on this particular day there was one livestream in particular that had caught the attention of your friend and marketing guru.

A certain 'Jeong duo' from an idol group by the name of ATEEZ were live on YouTube, actually had been for almost an hour, and lo and behold, were playing your game.

"Can you imagine, Y/N? THE Wooyoung and Yunho from ATEEZ, playing Aenigmata. This is like, gold for us. Can you believe how many potential buyers we could be hitting right now? Come on, take a look here-"

"Do they like it?" You deadpanned, not wanting to take your eyes off the code you were currently debugging.

Your friend wiggled her phone right in front of your face. "Y/N, this is IMPORTANT!!! This could bring us the BIG FIGURES if we use it right!"

Back at it again with the business-speak... you were glad that this was not your task to take care of. So to satisfy your now pouting marketing chief, you switched attention and repositioned the phone to take a closer look.

Oh no, they were handsome. Here lied your rationality. No, Y/N, we must stay focused, brothers, we must stay focused.

You actually bit the inside of your cheek to remind yourself that it, in fact, was not simp o'clock, and you had hot two-dimensional characters to design. Okay that brought you back down a few notches. Now for the...

Wait, they were pretty good! You took note of what stage of the game they were at, and called out for your friend who was texting on her other phone (yes, she was that type of boss lady)

"You said they were idols, right?" After receiving an enthusiastic confirmation, you rubbed your chin, pensive. "Okay you know what they are cool, I respect them. And look at that set up sheesh flexing that alienware..."  you trailed of, seeing as your friend began to lose you after the first sentence.

"Then how about you say it?"

"Didn't I... just do that?"

Your friend pinched the bridge of her nose.

"No, you dufus. IN CHAT."

"Oh."

After a couple more minutes of pointless back and forth, you were convinced. One could even say you were excited. Normally you would only make appearances in streams of people who you knew personally (even in chat) so this was a first. Even though you were going to be sending a message through the studio's account, it felt personal.

Here went nothing.

<cogent_studio> Happy to see you enjoying Aenigmata! Thank you so much Wooyoung and Yunho, ATEEZ hwaiting!

At first everything was quiet - honestly you were a little disappointed.

Well, it turned out to be lag, because after giving it a few more seconds, chat exploded, @ing you and the two members, saying that this was the world's most ambitious crossover in history.

This fanbase was wonderful, you decided.

"Wait... wait... DID THE STUDIO WRITE TO US IN CHAT?" The louder of the two exclaimed.

"Let me check... Oh my, Woo, yes they did, HELLO!!!" the one who you now knew to be Yunho waved at the camera.

He was about to leap into the air and never come down. His fans knew that he was pretty good at certain games, though still often attributed the title of gaming king to Yeosang, but what they did not know was that your work was especially meaningful to him, and your drive and wit made him look beyond the products. He was your loyal fan, and was not ashamed to admit it.

Of course, it was the studio account that had written in chat, meaning it could be anyone with permissions (as far as he could remember you had entrusted three people with rights to spreading culturally significant memes) but he could not help but hope that of all the staff it was you who had noticed him. So he tried his best to be ever so gallant and attractive, much to Wooyoung's amusement. His friend was well aware of Yunho not so subtly being starstruck by you, but so far was not wrecking havoc.

Your friend looked particularly smug when she saw a grin spreading across your face. And not while you were amidst work... well kind of related, but still, much further away from the centrepoint of your comfort zone.

What sealed the deal for you and kicked you over the edge and into checking ATEEZ out was when Yunho, allowing Wooyoung to take over the gameplay for some time, decided to try directly interacting with you.

Patiently waiting for every message from you. Asking questions. Gushing about your other projects.

Finally, Yunho thought, it was his geek side's time to shine. The more challenging part was not keeping up the conversation that was getting progressively more technical, but to stop himself from over sharing.

And that was HARD when he had your mains in various games down pat, memorized the funniest moments from streams where you were hanging out with your friends and had read up on the theories and conspiracies attempting to connect the various games you had released over the years.

He had found out about you through a group of game connoisseurs back in high school, and had not looked back since then. Mingi knew the best about all the ins and outs of Yunho's stanning (though it spread rapidly enough - not that anyone minded, it was cute; besides, you had expert and exclusive knowledge on such a grand variety of things in the industry, that sometimes a member would even Yunho in watching bits of press or streams)

Being your fan was a way for him to keep himself grounded and and connected to other parts of life when he was a trainee, when he had events back to back and was sometimes struggling to function.

Just seeing you, of similar age to him, out there, going through your own battles and coming out on top, continuing to hone your craft whilst ignoring any hate spat in your direction... that had motivated Yunho to go on.

To put it simply, it was had for Yunho to contain his inner fanboy. So he switched it up and instead acted like a gentleman.

At one point your friend even half-whispered "is this... a date?" To which you countered

"How would it be anything except business? He is talking to the studio, and I am merely a rep."

"Uhhh.... what did he say just now?"

Yunho had suddenly grown quiet, stumbling over his words a couple times - some observant fans had pointed out that his ears were growing pink. Why was he so cute and bashful all of a sudden?

Your friend leaned into the screen peering at the two ATEEZ members and the chat like a scientist into a microscope - "What is happening, I lost the plot"

Luckily for you, Wooyoung had found Yunho's behaviour and inaudible question entertaining, so he paused the game and placing a hand on the taller man's shoulder, smirked right at his audience.

"Yunho, I think you might actually be Sherlock Holmes with your deductions. Let's try it out. Who do we have the pleasure of talking to, could it be the Y/N herself?"

Oh. So apparently the style of your responses was enough for Yunho to figure out it was YOU?

More than enough, actually. He had seen you chat enough times to know your style.

You wanted to run and hide. Or more specifically, to lie and say "unfortunately not, this is her friend. But at the studio we are pretty much a hivemind so you could say you are talking to Y/N!"

You were about to send those exact words when your friend SLAMMED the back space and literally hissed at you

"WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, YOU FOOL???????? CAN'T YOU SEE?????? THIS IS CRITICAL!!!!!!!!!"

"Okay bro chill"

<cogent_studio> yes, indeed it is! No wonder you are acing Aenigmata

After that, Yunho's behaviour had noticeably changed. So did his body language.

He had adjusted his posture to be somehow even more proper, you swore his voice got slightly deeper, and he got more... competitive? With his own team mate?

It was almost as though upon finding out that it was YOU he was talking to he felt it to be his mission to impress you with his skills... at playing your own game.

Wooyoung had an unreadable yet sly expression, giving Yunho the occasional jab on the shoulder or giggling to himself.

As a wise man once said "this is kinda sus"

And that was pretty much how the next two hours passed. You had transferred the stream to one of your monitors, and during intervals when the guys were in hardcore focus mode managed to finish your debugging duties. This sort of contact was not as bad as you thought.

Once the livestream ended, with Yunho shining like a thousand suns when he saw a final message from you thanking them and hoping to stay in touch, you deflated.

Who was this social person and what did they do to Y/N? You desperately needed to lock yourself in your gaming lair and play some mind-numbing simulator. Just as you were about to clock out you caught the devious winks from your business friend who started this whole thing.

"Hello hello, I see you are free again, how are you feeling, darling?"

"Drained, tired, overwhelmed, was about to go hermit mode for the rest of the day."

"Ah brilliant, then I caught you at the right time. You have a call with ATEEZ's management at two fifteen in the afternoon tomorrow, don't worry I'll be handling the details there you just have to look pretty and do your big brain things. But if all goes well there, you will be having a gaming session organised with ATEEZ to promote their activities and your game."

Oh what the hell did you get yourself into?

Surprise surprise, everything did go well and you were to have an official scheduled activity with a major idol group.

You did not want to admit it, but inside you were shaking. This live would have an astonishing number of people compared to what you were used to, or at least a totally different type of crowd. Maybe there would be some of your diehard supporters here and there, but without a doubt 99% would be ATINY.

On the day you had met two new additions to the gamer squad, in the form of Yeosang and Mingi, wit the former recognising the brand of your gaming chair and complimenting it. Needless to say, you had labelled him as a homie straight away.

Just because they were apparently famous did not mean you went easy on them, oh no, they were with a person who had deliberated going pro into esports at one point.

And your good-humoured and well-balanced competitiveness paired with a genuine passion for the craft and activity had resulted in a record number of views - two disparate fanbases coming together, confused but enjoying the show nonetheless.

One of the most popular highlights from the stream ended up being you and Yunho's genius sabotage in Among Us, where literally everyone was clueless of who was impostor until you got to steal the victory. And another, that had gained more likes upon being turned into an edit was one from the couple of Overwatch 2 rounds you had played. Specifically, it was after you had solo carried your team to victory after their elimination and got MVP.

The edit was simple, and all it really showed was the MVP reel and Yunho's face cam. The caption did all the work:

"Get you a man who looks at you the way Yunho looks at Y/N getting MVP"

You rewatched that edit an embarrassing number of times. Fooling yourself into thinking that it was because it was just that funny (no, fam, no)

A couple of days after and your routine had gone back to normal, aside from a considerable increase in sales of Aenigmata, as well as your older games, and being mutuals with ATEEZ on Twitter.

But one night, marking nearly a week since the scheduled gaming session, when you booted up Steam again to pick your way to unwind, someone sent you a chat. Like they had been waiting for the your little status icon to turn green, all this time.

When you opened up chat, you did a double take. The username was of none other than Yunho, asking if you were free to play.

And thus began your story as an unbeatable duo.

You had finally gotten yourself a new gaming companion, while Yunho started falling for you, far beyond what was previously just being a fan. Now, he was getting to know the real you, and you could not be more attractive.

#ateez x reader #bullet fic #ateez drabble #ateez drabbles #ateez imagine #ateez fluff #ateez scenarios #ateez fanfic #kpop writing #kpop writers #kpop scenarios #ateez yunho #yunho #jeong yunho #ateez jeong yunho #jyh #yunho x reader #jeong yunho x reader #yunho x y/n #jeong yunho x y/n #yunho imagines #yunho scenarios #ateez au #kpop au #ateez #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #gaming au #game development #hwaightme

[kit-herondale-blackthorn]

Hear me out: James was supposed to die in ChoT

Not sure if someone has already said this, but I think James was supposed to die in the original ending of Chain of Thorns.

We all know that this book was supposed to have a much more devastating ending than it did and that CC reworked it because it was too sad.

And that whole thing with the paladin’s sword being able to heal the wounds it inflicted came completely out of nowhere. It was revealed in a really odd manner, and by Lilith herself - why would she even tell Cordelia that? I think it was added as an afterthought (as did so many parts of this book) and that James was initially supposed to sacrifice himself to kill Belial, but this time die in the process.

Continuation of the Herondale line would not be an issue - Cordelia would have already been pregnant by the time he died. (Why else would she let them finally confess their feelings and fix the miscommunications halfway through the book instead of the second to last chapter?). And they were married, so Cordelia was officially a Herondale, and so the child would get the Herondale name as well.

This would have also made the love triangle somewhat less pointless, because I believe we’d then also see Matthew stepping up to take care of Cordelia as a pregnant widow after James’ death, and later marrying her.

Finally, CC has never killed off a main character before so it would definitely have been a shocker. And it would explain why Tessa always recalls the TLH time period with great pain.

#i kinda wish this happened in the final version tbh #would have been way more interesting #chain of thorns #chain of thorns spoilers #chot #chot spoilers #james herondale #cordelia carstairs #matthew fairchild #the last hours #tlh #cassandra clare #chain of thorns theories

[82mitsu]

{18Trip} The 18 Questions Corner - Natsuyaki Chihiro

This is a translation for the 18 questions interview uploaded on the official Youtube channel. I suggest to read this translation alongside it!

Note: P stands for "Player", this series has a voiced male & female character for the player. The interviews are conducted by the male player in this case.

Full TL note at the end of the interview due to its length! But as an opener:

Chihiro refers to himself as ちぃ (Chii) at times. This is kept as is when explicitly mentioned, other times regular first person pronouns in English are used.

P: 18 questions for the Tourism Ward Mayors! We look forward to your cooperation!

Chihiro: Let's get it popping!

What’s your name?

Call me Natsuyaki Chihiro.

How old are you?

22 years old! Still got the pep in my step!

Tell us about your occupation!

I’m an Alpha Dazzler on social media ☆ You better hit that follow button and share my posts!

What’s the first thing you do when waking up in the morning?

The full course of washing my face, putting on a beauty mask, and brushing my teeth!

Anything you’re particular about with lunch?

Snapping pics with filters that make it look sooo yummy♪ is a must!

What pops up in your mind when it comes to “evening”?

Um… looong shadows.

What’s your routine before bed?

Can’t skip out on updating my socmed & checking my notifs~ Gotta give each and every Dazzler that sweet “Like”!

Where do you start with washing your body?

My hair persnaps~ Hair treatment for super silkiness!

What’s essential when leaving for a trip?

Toooootes my phone!!!

What do you check before traveling somewhere?

I like, so gotta check where all the fancy spots are.

What’s your favorite method of transportation for traveling? 

Don’tcha just wanna go with the flow and hop on whatev’s the local transport there~?

What’s one item you’d bring to a deserted island?

My phone… ah, but like, a deserted island doesn’t have signal, does it?

Please give us some fanservice! 

✧・ﾟ: *Welcome, little kitten. Let's enjoy ourselves to the fullest*:・ﾟ✧ How’s that~!? OMG, did Chii just like, serve and eat that!?

Who’s someone you’d lean on for support? 

That's gotta be Taotao~ He’s easy to talk to!

Who would you swap bodies with for a day?

Morning Squad’s Ten-chamu!

What would you want to do as them?

Ten-chamu’s style of dancing is lil’ bit of a diff genre, right~ So I wanna try breakdancing like that!

Pass on a message to your roommates!

Taotao~ Chii wants to also like, get master rank in Anigun’s new season so plz carry me ‘kay♪

Tell us from the heart, what’s a “journey” to you? 

A super duper hype meeting!!! I want all the people I see for the first time ever to recognize Chii’s charm~☆

P: Thank you, those were all 18 questions!

Chihiro: Oatscurry! See ya at Chii’s stream laters!

Chihiro: Natsuyaki Chihiro! HAMA’s 12th Ward Mayor. Leave all the hospitality to Chii the Commanding Officer of Hype to deliver you the bestest of best!

TL notes:

よろぴく (yoropiku) is outdated slang for よろしく (yoroshiku). Has been turned into various slangy ways to represent it.

トリメ is short for トリートメント, aka hair treatment.

イケカテ is short for “ikemen voice category” which is a way to classify what kind of voices you prefer. If you hear someone that makes you go, “Kyaah~ such a handsome voice!” you file him away in ikekate. If it’s like “Woaaah, so cyoot!” you file him away in kawakate (kawa being kawaii). Chihiro also makes a pun with this: ikekate rosen demo ikenjanee (lit. can’t I like, go down the ikekate route!?). While this has been reworked into something else completely, I included it in the TL note simply as an FYI. 

あげぽよ (agepoyo) is Gyaru slang for when something is super duper extra mega hype poggers, etc.

There’s more quirky stuff, but he drained me of all my braincells for now.

#18trip #ev3ns #natsuyaki chihiro #18qs #823_tl #eveningsquad

[graveyardcuddles]

Not hating but I really don't understand why some need NEED Astarion's original "corrupt magistrate" backstory to be canon so badly. I keep seeing posts trying to argue it's still canon based on interviews from all the way back in 2020 when the game was still in early access and the art book and it's like...okay but none of that is actually in the game. There are TONS of things in the official art book that never made it into the game. Lots of things about the game and story changed from 2020 - final release. Astarion's "corrupt" backstory isn't even alluded to in EA so technically it's not even cut content. It just was never in the game. You can headcanon whatever you want, obviously. But if Astarion was doing something as over-the-top evil as knowingly trafficking people to Cazador Larian would have made that revelation clear in the story. But Larian clearly cut that content with purpose.

If I had to hazard to guess I would say Astarion's original EA backstory involving trafficking victims directly to Cazador was probably changed and reworked into Astarion being compelled to kidnap the Gur children for Cazador. Which brings me to Astarion's evilness. I see some people complain that the changes made to Astarion's backstory ruined the only evil male companion by "toning down" his evilness. And while I can see why they would find his original backstory compelling for that reason, I'm a bit confused as to why these people don't consider current Astarion to be an evil companion. I absolutely love and adore him to pieces, but Astarion in the current game can still be plenty evil. Even before he learns about the ritual he approves of tons of evil actions and actively wants to control the cult of the Absolute to take over the world lol.

He may have been compelled to take the Gur children against his will but his reaction when you confront him about it is super telling: he immediately goes into self-defensive mode and his first instict is to throw them under the bus and sacrifice them to ascend. And unless you pass the speech check to talk him out of it, he WILL DO IT. Astarion still gets plenty of chances to be the evil male companion you want him to be in the current version of the game.

If anything it's more shocking to see him be so dismissive and callous towards the Gur children as the Astarion we've come to know and love rather than some abstract past version of Astarion that we've never known and that he barely remembers himself. But seeing him actually contemplate sacrificing all those people rather than just being told he sent some innocent people to their deaths 200 years ago is chilling, especially playing through the game first time and not knowing if you'll be able to persuade him out of it or not. I love that we CAN talk him out of it. And to me, that does show he's not pure evil or irredeemable. But the potential for evil is absolutely there.

#bg3 #astarion #astarion meta

[sapphic-agent]

I know this probably sounds egotistical and arrogant and perhaps hypocritical because I am a believer that fans shouldn’t dictate how a story should be made, it should be up to the writer and author of the story how it is written.

But after the hurricane of shit that we’ve gotten to where Bakugou is just now being forced down our throats and the story and focused being ripped Izuku and instead bequeathed to this overrated dick, I don’t care anymore.

I say we should petition that, after MHA has initially died down in popularity, we get new writers to reboot the show to where the main focus is on IZUKU, he gets treated the respect he deserves, and Bakugou isn’t the glorified asshole that gets shoved in our faces and told again and again he went through significant “ChArAcTeR dEvElOpMeNt”. Because I am so goddamn sick and disappointed in Horikoshi right now.

Absolutely! When Isayama was getting all the hate when he ended the AOT manga, I was one of his firm defenders. Even though Gege has broken my heart quite a few times in JJK, I still respect their decisions. I absolutely loved how Shirai ended The Promised Neverland manga even though a lot of people didn't. I'm all for writers making doing what they want for their own stories because usually I can understand why they made the decision. Even if it's one I disagree with, I can comprehend why they took that particular course because it usually makes sense in one way or another.

But what Horikoshi did to MHA is appalling.

He reworked an entire series to focus around one character (who was not the main character and wasn't even originally set up to be the deuteragonist). It was bad enough that Bakugou's development wasn't that good anyway, but why did all the other characters have to suffer? Why did Izuku's character have to suffer in his own series?

Not to mention the plot. There were so many aspects to the world Horikoshi created that could have been explored. This was a story about people not being born equal and had so many facets of this society it could have expanded on: quirkless people, mutation quirks, weak quirks, villainous quirks, exploitation of young female students (Kendo and Yaoyorozu), quirk marriages, child assassins (Hawks and Lady Nagant), corrupt government, etc. But nah, let's focus on and pander to the rich privileged brat who was born at the top of society with a powerful quirk and was literally quirkist.

Not to mention, the story literally forgot Izuku was quirkless. All that time he spent miserable and everything he went through (even outside of Bakugou) just down the drain. He never mentions it and hardly even thinks about it. It just... Doesn't matter. A vital aspect to his character gone just like that. Because if we acknowledged it that would just make Bakugou look bad.

Izuku deserved better as a main character. Izuku's real friends deserved to be the ones at his side, not Bakugou who only just started to not be a dick. I'm sick. And when I'm not sick, I'm tired.

I vote that a ton of fanfiction writers work on rewriting MHA together. Because if they release an official manga that treat their precious Kacchan (barf) as anything less than a martyr, there will be riots

#mha critical #bnha critical #anti bakugou katsuki #anon ask

[aeternallis]

The Third Song / Why Kim chose to rewrite Chay’s first song 

So one day, I was thinking about what happened to that song Kim was working on in episode 9. 🤔 The tune Kim strums and vocalizes to is pretty catchy, and so I also wondered about how we don’t get a lot of scenes of Kim’s creative process with his music in general, yknow?

I have a fic idea about this subject in the works also, so I figured I may as well write a meta too to get my thoughts in order. Haha!

But before I go on and start ranting, for the sake of this meta I think it’s important to establish the level of fame Wik already has by the start of the show. Admittedly, it’s quite difficult to do this since Kim’s persona of Wik hardly makes an appearance, and the show didn’t necessarily focus on Kim’s life as a celebrity. But from the minimal amount of clues, I think it’s okay to make an educated guess. 

From Chay’s shrine, we know that Kim has done at least one photoshoot with GQ (if memory serves me correctly), and a number of smaller publications. So he’s gotten some exposure already; his fame isn’t limited to the internet, in other words. Due to this, it’s most likely he does have a PR team of some sort, by virtue of being a public figure and most likely because he’s an heir to the Theerapanyakuls’ (very public) business empire. There’s no way Kim can afford to remain a private citizen, not only due to the notoriety of his family, but as well as his own celebrity status. 

Incidentally however, it’s also hard to look at the crowd size in the university during Kimchay’s first meeting as an indicator of his fame, because I imagine the school would have had to make it very clear to the staff that the performance was for prospective students only and perhaps have prevented non-students from entering the grounds to see his impromptu show. Furthermore, according to the trivia session at the time, he’s also starred in a number of MVs, and we know he has a recording studio of his own. 

Yet still, Ohm is not aware of who he is, and if we give Ohm the metaphorical role of being the outsider to all this, it would seem Kim’s fame is also somewhat contained. This being the case, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that Kim is also most likely under a label as an indie artist, since I feel like he does not yet have enough clout that he can move to build his career independently. 

So if I were to take a gander at Kim's fame, I would probably say it’s at the level of Jeff Satur’s just before he made his official announcement of leaving BOC–rising fame to come close to reaching national stardom, but not just yet to say he’s a true international (or even regional) star. 

(Arguably, one can also say that a good chunk of his fame is his good looks, but that’s a different meta altogether, lol)

Having established his level of fame for this rant, now I can maybe make a gander at tackling his creative/thought process. XD 

By the time we’ve reached past the midway point of the show, the audience sees that despite the level of success he’s achieved so far in his career as a musician, Kim is currently in a bit of a creative rut / writer’s block.

We see perhaps a hint of it in episode 4 when he’s just nonchalantly strumming his guitar off camera before Big hands him Porsche’s bodyguard application, but we don’t see it explicitly until episode 9, when he’s visibly frustrated by the WIP song he’s trying to figure out:

So by this point, there’s technically two completed songs between him and Chay, as well as a WIP song that he was struggling with. For reference, I’ll refer to the songs between them as follows: 1stver.WDYS (ep 5), TSiCY (ep 8), Kim’s WIP song (ep 9), and Finalver.WDYS (ep 14). 

So knowing that Kim’s WIP song was partly inspired by Chay, knowing that Kim currently had a song in the works, why did he not choose this WIP song to sing to Chay in their final scene together? Why did he choose to rework Chay’s 1stver.WDYS to become his (Kim’s) Finalver.WDYS, when he already had a song up in his sleeve that was different from the other two? 

Why choose to re-write one of Chay’s songs, rather than use one of his own? 

Thematically and for their relationship, choosing to re-write 1stver.WDYS makes perfect sense. This is the song that holds the most weight between them, because it was the very first one they had worked on together (kinda, lol). It carries with it a powerful sense of nostalgia, of simpler times, and it’s a symbol of all that had been between them before everything fell apart.

Furthermore, Kim came into Chay’s life at a time when Chay had been vulnerable and very much alone. In a way, WDYS–both its first version and final version–is symbolic of Chay’s and Kim’s own narrative journeys, of their respective worlds expanding beyond just the simple (yet also very complicated) existence they’d been living up until that point, into allowing one another into their hearts. The yearning within Finalver!WDYS’s lyrics can apply to both Kim and Chay, which makes it all the more resonate with the audience. 

Yet still, this is only partly the point of view of the audience, not necessarily of Kim himself (although there is some overlap). 

So what would have been Kim’s thought process when he’d decided to rewrite 1stverWDYS? How would he have ultimately decided to willingly choose to steal from Chay? 

After all, Kim is a musician, an artist. One who is starting to grow exponentially in fame, but also one who does take his craft very seriously. Being as Kim is an artist, he would know more than anyone what it means to have artistic integrity in his field. Especially with how the music industry is nowadays, I would imagine that Kim is the type to do whatever he could to stand out, but not so much that he would be the sort to just copy someone else’s style. He has his pride, for one, and he wouldn’t have garnered fame the way he did had he been in the habit of copying. 

On top of that, it's not hard to see that music is very much personal to Kim; it's an alternative avenue for him to express himself and his thoughts and feelings.

In the end, the way I personally see it, Kim choosing to rewrite 1stver.WDYS was very much a calculated move, designed to break through Chay’s defenses, to illustrate his intent in getting Chay back, and what he’s willing to sacrifice and do in order to do just that. 

Nostalgia - This is the first song they ever worked on in the studio, and at least for Chay, carries significant weight emotionally. It’s a song initially about Porsche, and the impact he’s had on Chay’s life. Knowing that this song means so much to Chay, I don’t think Kim is above using that emotional significance and turning it on its head to change the meaning of the song: from Porsche’s influence in Chay’s life to Chay’s influence in Kim’s life, in order to bring Chay’s guard down.  (Sidenote: In a way, WDYS carries more weight than TSiCY ever did, even if that's the song that was meant to express Chay's feelings for Kim. TSiCY was straightforward, and accomplished what Chay set out to do: complete the homework Kim gave him, and express his feelings to his idol while he was at it.) During their final scene in episode 14, there’s hints that it's the first time Kim reaches out to Chay in a month, if not the first time Kim has reached out to him in this specific manner. If Kim has any hope of capturing Chay’s attention as soon as he catches him off guard and he clicks on that video link, Kim has to be able to not only grab Chay’s attention right off the bat, but also keep it. What better way to hold Chay’s attention than to serenade back to him the first song he ever wrote? When Kim chose to rewrite 1stver.WDYS, it wasn’t necessarily to impress Chay, but to grab hold of his attention with the least possible chance of Chay closing out the video and turning his attention elsewhere. 

Intent to show Chay that he wants him romantically - This is pretty straightforward, looking at the Thai version of the song, and its translation (Ex: Just you, just having you, no matter what. A world without stars but the two of us will move forward). It’s a song about yearning, of wanting Chay back in his life, of how much Kim has missed him.  Per Jeffy himself, WDYS is a love song. (credit to IYSmomo on Twitter for that translation!)

Sure, his delivery of the song in the video makes it sound like an apology, perhaps, but ultimately, WDYS is a love song–a most selfish one at that, and within the context of that final scene between them, also highlights Kim’s nature as a Theerapanyakul. This boy easily throws away integrity over his shoulder to tell Chay he’s in love with him. Lol If that isn’t in keeping with family tradition, I don’t know what does~  Could Finalver!WDYS act as an apology? Does Kim regret his treatment of Chay? Meh, debatable imo, considering his deception was meant to safeguard his family and figure out the mysterious circumstances surrounding Porsche’s swift employment. Sure, there’s definitely guilt, but regret? That’s up for interpretation. 

Intent to show Chay what he’s willing to give up - Oddly enough, Kim is completely honest with Chay only twice in the show: the first time they meet, as well as their final scene together. By the time Kim sends him the video link, the mask Kim wears as Wik has been completely discarded. It’s a bold and risky choice to get rid of this mask, even temporarily, because this is the armor Kim has in his sleeve that separates his life away from the mafia. And he does get rid of it, not only because he singles out Chay in that video, but by appropriating Chay’s song in the first place, had Chay been a lot more vindictive than what his disposition allows, this is incriminating evidence of his theft. Lol  But getting back on point: Wik is Kim’s livelihood outside of the mafia. Without this mask, is it even still possible for him to operate outside the mafia? It’s a dramatic question, but I think a legitimate one, considering he’s put quite a bit of stock and time in perfecting it, to the point he’s close to reaching national stardom.  Yet still, he gets rid of that mask when he sings to Chay of his feelings. At the very least, for Chay, he’s willing to drop that armor altogether to tell him he’s in love with him. It’s a powerful statement, and imo, shows the depth of his feelings for Chay, in that he’s willing to sacrifice it entirely, if it would mean being with him.

Writer’s Block / Chay is Kim’s muse – Of course, I don’t think we can dismiss the fact that Kim was going through a bit of a creative block during the time we see him in the show. Perhaps we can say that part of the reason Kim chose to rewrite 1stver.WDYS is because he couldn’t think of anything else. Lol Thinking of Chay was able to get him out of the block in episode nine, and he was able to figure out the chords for the WIP song. Chay is definitely a muse and a source of inspiration for Kim. Yet still, I don’t want to be too hasty in making the leap in logic that he couldn’t think of anything else, since we don’t see him past the point after he sings Finalver.!WDYS to Chay. We don’t know whether he continues to struggle with his creative block, or if he manages to get past it (especially for when he and Chay get back together--//hits).

Ultimately, Kim’s gamble to repurpose Chay’s song about Porsche–although he doesn’t know it just yet–works greatly in his favor, judging by Chay’s reaction in the end: Chay not only watches the video all the way through, he’s unable to click “Delete” right away, unlike the other times, when he’d blocked Kim without hesitation. 

The fact that Kim can make that decision to take Chay’s song to use it for his own purposes, the fact that Chay can listen to his own song that’s been stolen and repurposed, only goes to show that at the end of it all, they’re still very much wrapped around each other’s fingers.

#kimchay #kinnporsche #kinnporsche the series #meta #meta post #meta rant

[earlgreytea68]

I'm not sure if this will make sense to anyone by myself, but for some reason, Pete's lyrics throughout SMFS have such an "almost" energy to me.

"In another life, you were my babe..."

""Time is luck, and I wish ours overlapped more, or for longer..."

"I've got all this love I've got to keep to myself..."

"Here we are untouched forever, saving this all for later..."

It almost feels like he's saying to someone : "We never were officially anything to each other, but in hindsight, I wonder if we could have been. I don't regret what we had, or have, but it still crosses my mind sometimes, that maybe there was a time and place we might have been more..."

Like, perhaps a certain singer who he's been gazing at adoringly nonstop for over two decades now, and the nature of his relationship with whom has been the source of speculation for just as long?

I can't help but wonder if it's a coincidence that these lyrics are what inspired Patrick to be more vulnerable with his songwriting in turn, and that this album cycle turned into the tour of healing, where so many previously untouched songs were finally heard for the first time (*cough*GINASFS*cough*).

I dunno. Just something that crossed my mind....

Oh and P.S: Thank YOU so much, EGT, for this wonderful and welcoming space to talk about our favorite band! It's been a joy!

Awwww thank you!

And it's very true, the lyrics have such a wistful feeling about them, and I love that they inspired Patrick in turn, and I love that they then bled into this tour of rejuvenation.

I think sometimes, because I'm almost exactly Pete's age, like, that wistfulness is such a getting-older feeling, your roads of possibilities start closing up around you. Like, there are still choices in front of you but they're less and less and less. You start to realize that you have passed the ages you use to fantasize being and you start to wonder what you even did with those ages. (This fits so well with Pete being like, "My kids are what I still think I look like, and my parents look like my grandparents," like, it absolutely so jarring to realize how quickly you get old.) And to me the SMFS lyrics hit me really hard that way, like, "Look at all the things I missed doing and I didn't even notice that I was missing it when I was going on." And it makes sense that Patrick would take those lyrics and be like, You are not done. WE are not done. And then that carried over into this incredible tour that was so very clearly a loud declaration: WE ARE NOT DONE. Instead, they did things they once claimed in their youth they would never, ever do. They reopened the possibilities they thought they had closed. They multiplied their choices. They started realizing the limits were coming from them, and they could change the rules...and they did.

I never forget that Pete originally wrote In another life, you were the sunshine of my lifetime, and Patrick, when he reworked that for the album's overture, changed it to just, You were the sunshine of my lifetime, dropping the other life bit. Like, you didn't miss the chance at all. The chance still lives.

Oh, yeah, and probably they're about Patrick lol ;-)

#peterick #fall out boy #fob

[the1975attheirverybest]

Hello. Since Matty posted new song, he posted a photo from drive like I do account, fans are getting excited about it but I am late what is it about drive like i do? Matty created it ? I'm sorry I need someone to explain it to me 😩🖤🖤

hey babe!

Drive Like I Do is The 1975. It's a band and its members are Matty, Adam, Ross, and George. Here's a very brief over view of the main facts for any new fans.

Before The 1975 became The 1975, they started several bands that had different names (same primary lineup. same 4 boys). "The Slowdown," "Talkhouse," "Bigsleep," and "Drive Like I Do."

They made a lot of songs under the band name "Drive Like I Do." Check them out here.

DLID was mostly an emo-pop band, or, to be fair to them, "emo inspired." as you can probably imagine, they put their own spin on things, as always.

Several DLID songs became 1975 songs. Examples: Sex, Robbers, She Way Out, Chocolate, among others. Mostly the same songs but re-arranged/ re-produced. You can still find the originals online and compare between versions!

After The 1975 became recognized, a lot of fans went back and listened to their DLID songs and enjoyed them very much. Popular DLID songs include Penelope, Lost Boys, One Wish, and Wolves.

Fans expressed interest in an official release of these songs, or potentially even more/ newer DLID songs, and Matty has always promised he'd do it.

Matty often refers to DLID as a "separate project" from The 1975. That is, its aesthetic, artistic influence, the band's philosophy is slightly different, so it wouldn't make sense to just re-release the songs as 1975 songs. They did that with the only songs that they thought would still be compatible.

Over the years, Matty has hinted at having made newer DLID songs with a plan to release a 6-track EP.

In fact, there was a time a few years ago when he contemplated ending The 1975 after making a final "Music For Cars" record, and then potentially doing solo stuff and/or DLID stuff. (that changed shortly thereafter though.)

Of the 6 new DLID tracks that Matty mentioned releasing as an EP, one got reworked, and one was given to Bea (Beabadoobe) called "Pictures Of Us." So now there are 4 tracks. One of which is potentially called "Nice Sweater," that he once posted a snippet of online.

Every year, rumors re-surface that The 1975 is finally planning on doing a DLID record. It never happens, lmao. But we can dream.

It seems like this might be more legit than a rumor this time though...cuz he did just release something? who knows.

I hope this helps!

#Drive Like I Do #The 1975 #Matty Healy #George Daniel #ross macdonald #Adam Hann

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

Henry Cavill will take on the iconic role of the Highlander himself Connor MacLeod – portrayed in the original by Christopher Lambert.

Lionsgate Moving Forward With Henry Cavill & Chad Stahelski ‘Highlander’ Reboot As Action-Fantasy Pic Heads To AFM To Enliven A Strike-Hit Market

By Andreas Wiseman

October 27, 2023 8:17am

EXCLUSIVE: In the world of Highlander reboots, there can still only be one…and it’s a good one at that.

For the first time, Lionsgate will be launching sales at the AFM on their long-gestating fantasy reboot which has Henry Cavill aboard to star as the eponymous Scottish swordsman and John Wick filmmaker Chad Stahelski set to direct.

We hear this will be a big-budget proposition, north of $100M. Stahelski himself has previously talked about it as akin to John Wick with swords. The team is eyeing a 2024 start.

This will be welcome news for AFM buyers whose pool of pre-sale projects has been diminished by the ongoing strike.

The new movie will be based on the 1986 original, which starred Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery and Clancy Brown as immortal beings, hunting down one another and collecting more power. The time-jumping film — with its “There can be only one” tagline — spawned four sequels and three TV series including the popular USA series starring Adrian Paul. Queen memorably provided the soundtrack for the original movie.

Producing the reboot are Joshua Davis, Fast And The Furious producer Neal H. Moritz, Stahelski (thru his 87Eleven Entertainment production company) and Louise Rosner.

The current draft of the screenplay is by Mike Finch. The late Peter S. Davis, the producer of the original Highlander, initiated the development of the new film. Summit first acquired remake rights to the original in 2008.

Former Superman and The Witcher actor Cavill remains in high demand. Among movies in post are Matthew Vaughn’s Argylle and two Guy Ritchie projects, including WWII pic The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.

Stahelski has directed all four John Wick films, which have been a goldmine for Lionsgate, taking more than $1BN. He previously talked about the new Highlander as the first in a trilogy but we’ve not had word whether that’s still the case.

Cavill and Stahelski were attached and reported before the strike.

The arrival of the Highlander reboot is a shot in the arm for the AFM, whose business has been hampered by the SAG-AFTRA strike. This and Kevin Costner’s Horizon movies, which we told you this week would also be on sale, are the two biggest-budget prospects revealed for the market so far. A number of packages haven’t come together or aren’t being officially announced due to strike restrictions or anxiety over optics. Frankly, given the limitations posed by the strike, I’ve been surprised at the number of new or reworked projects that are on sale (many are shooting in Europe). There are still a handful of pre-sales packages for buyers to get their teeth into, even if more action may be done this market on completed and near-completed movies.

I'm all for Henry in a kilt! 😊