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golden-afternoon · 1 month

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Yeah I was working on another actual fic but uhhh the 'Nari brainrot took over so uhhh here take me going insane over him and rambling about what comes to my mind. Kay? Kay.

Warnings - nsfw, mating cycle talk from a person who only has google by her side, absolutely not proofread having gone straight from brain to paper, and just know there is a solid chance I'll have more to say about this in the future.

Tighnari, by his very nature, is a very compartmentalized person. His own problems stay within himself to be dealt with later when he is done and everyone else's needs are already attended to. Always concerned with helping others and keeping things in order, even to the point of staying up into the early hours of the morning, less concerned with himself than those around him. If he’s ever struggling with anything at all, he will do absolutely everything in his power to keep anyone from knowing about it, much less something as personal as this.

In the early months of the year, especially as Lantern Rite nears, Tighnari becomes withdrawn. Quieter, more distant. The Forest Watchers have been talking for forever back and forth swapping theories and rumors in not so hushed tones.

“I heard Master Tighnari lost a family member around this time of year.”

“Really? I heard he just reeeeally hates any kind of festivities especially Lantern Rite because it's so noisy, even when not in Liyue.”

“I dunno, maybe he's just sensitive to the cold?”

Unlike the usual case where he was quick to nip such chatter in the bud and tell off the Rangers for gossiping, he remains entirely silent on the issue, otherwise carrying on as usual. Setting up excursions, documenting his findings, helping and guiding wherever he was needed…

Until he just can't stand it anymore. With hardly a word, save perhaps to Collei to ask her to care for things in his absence, he retreats, hiding himself away in his hut, barricading himself in completely so no nosy Rangers have any reason to loiter around.

He hates it.

He understands it's natural and it's going to happen and blah blah blah, but it was such a nuisance to his life he would give anything to not have to put up with it. The worst of it usually lasts a week or two before he can at least carry some semblance of normalcy and feel willing and able to return to work, but while he's in it, it drives him insane.

Some years it's so bad that he can't even focus on anything other than the absolutely filthy thoughts that plague his mind, his hands shaking so hard he can't even hold a pen long enough to attempt any sort of work. Even like this he just doesn't feel right not being productive especially when he's always running around here and there the rest of the year, why should this be any different?

Head slamming into his desk with a groan, a flush curling up his cheeks and neck. Eventually he has to crack, begrudgingly caring for the needs that grow and grow and grow and become nigh insatiable during his rut.

It starts out almost clinical, looking to just take care of a symptom of an illness almost. Face flushed, lips curled into a deep frown, he sits at his desk, fisting his cock with precision, hoping to get it over with as fast as possible by hitting everything just right.

But no. After dealing with this for years you think he would have known by now that just once isn't enough, yet he still hopes year after year. It only gets worse. Over and over and over again until he's just sore and it hurts. Until he can't keep jerking it lest he make his own skin turn raw. By this point he usually finds himself in his bed, ears flat and face buried into some blankets to muffle the pathetic whimpers that left his lips as he kept grinding his hips into the pillows over and over and over and over, chasing even the slightest modicum of relief.

And most of the time, as annoying as it is, it was completely fine for him to just be stuck imagining some faceless, nameless mate beneath him as he struggled to sate these urges. However, if Tighnari has a bit of a crush… Well, he'd be in for a rude awakening if he hadn't already acknowledged his feelings for you.

I could see poor Tighnari getting almost ill as he realized the cute moans he was imagining sounded a little too much like your voice. Everything freezes for a moment, his stomach lurching both from the realization and the sudden loss of friction when he faltered. He tries so hard to brush it aside, chastising himself for pulling you into his filthy mind right then. But it doesn't stop. Your face, your voice, your skin. Everything. Everything stays in his mind and he cannot stop it. He feels such overwhelming shame about it, but… he does eventually give in and just let whatever fantasies take root, especially since it seems to ease the feelings when he does.

But when he sees you after the worst of it is over and he leaves his hut, guilt grips around his heart and memories of those fantasies rush into his head, leaving him turning on his heel to avoid you at all costs, honestly risking you thinking he hates you with how intensely he's ignoring you.

It's even worse because Tighnari considers hiding in his hut again for even longer as usually he was fine when the worst of it passed, he could resume his duties, but with you around, he could feel his hands shaking, the intense urge to find you wherever you were and pin you down immediately was so strong it scared him a little. Sometimes it caught him off guard too, like he would catch your scent on the breeze and while in his rut, he would genuinely get so horny so fast he's gotten lightheaded, having to catch himself on whatever was nearby so he didn't go crashing down.

If he hated his rut before, the shame of all this made him absolutely loathe it.

Maybe one day you can find a way to make it a liiiiittle more bearable for him ♡

#sunny brainrots #a little bit of spice #sunny's beloveds #genshin posting #tighnari smut #tighnari x reader #help im so normal about him-#everyone talks about this for him but MAN #i wanna talk about it even if its been said before!!!!#tighnari

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petday · 2 months

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whats little magic?

It is a puzzle game for the Super Famicom and Game Boy Color video game systems. I like the Game Boy Color game much more for its art direction, and it's also just more fun for me to play with the 'bubble magic' mechanic in that version. I wrote more about my enjoyment below, in case anyone is curious.

The game’s box art is very beautiful, right? It caught my eye right away. The in-game 'cutscene' artwork appears to be carefully-made pixel art versions of the same artist's illustrations and they are similarly beautiful. (Sorry in advance if my photograph quality is not great.)

But the actual levels themselves look very haphazard. Clashing colors and tiles. It's easy enough to guess that a blue tile next to a white tile represents water and snow, respectively, but what does the yellow cluster-of-boxes tile represent? Yellow bricks of a tower…? How about the spike-y objects in the snow-water levels? I guessed they were underwater mines, but then there's the same tile in a later level too, just palette-swapped to be red… The two monochrome tiles in the third picture above teleports your character, but it has a two-frame animation that made me think of an ‘industrial grinder’ and ‘static noise’, so I assumed it was dangerous at first. Was it intended to be nondescript ‘sparkly magic’? Where are all of these levels taking place, anyway? No other humans are in these areas, just various animals and vague environmental indicators. There are cute snakes in some ‘yellow brick’ levels that end your life upon touching them. Seems irresponsible for a teacher to allow her student into perilous areas, no matter how eager she is to pass her final exam at magic school and become a magician.

Oh, I should explain the story. (None of the above photos are in sequence, just wanted to show more of the game.) The story is about a girl who attends magic school, and aims to pass a series of tests to become a full-fledged magician. Her teacher encourages her. The lack of explanation in the story is another fun point for me. Her magic teacher doesn't explain why 'learning magic' consists of pushing a heart into a heart-shaped hole that triggers a staircase to appear, which is what you need to do to complete each level. (It’s a beating heart – is it alive?) No explanation as to why snakes end your life instantly upon touching them. The context of 'because you want to pass your exams, a teacher is putting you through trials to help you become a master of magic’ isn’t an adequate explanation, because the teacher also tells you that she has not passed the final exam - why is a teacher putting a student through something that is too difficult even for herself? Who is in control of all of the strange areas you need to ‘complete’ in order to become a real magician, then? (After you complete the game with the student, you can play a different set of levels as the teacher, but even the usual sparse context-giving ‘cutscenes’ are not there… Mysterious…)

So, all of that is why my drawing about ‘Little Magic’ is about ‘confusion’, ‘going along with something that makes sense at first, but quickly unravels to not make sense any longer’, ‘growing distrust of authoritative figures’, and ‘frustration from stagnation.’ https://petday.tumblr.com/post/730315736066768896

Maybe the instruction booklet explains everything; I did not have access to that while playing, and I like that feeling. ‘Renting a game from a video game rental store that did not come with an instruction booklet, and being perplexed by it, forced to create your own context because you have nothing else’ feeling. Randomly selecting games to play that do not have much documentation online is enjoyable to me, because of that feeling.

A fan translation group translated the Game Boy Color game from Japanese to English in 2018. There wasn't a lot of dialogue in the first place, though. I like games where there is little to no dialogue because one can imagine a story/context besides what is shown. Up until 2022, I could not find a solution for the teacher’s final puzzle, so I interpreted the ending of the game’s story as, ‘The magic teacher thought she could harness a type of magic far stronger than what she could handle, accidentally designed an impossible puzzle for herself and is trapped for eternity.’ Of course, the puzzle has a solution, but I wanted to honour my strange interpretation regardless. When I play games and have weird interpretations of them, I am definitely not saying, 'I bet this is what the people who worked on this game were thinking!' I dislike that attitude. It's just imaginative interpretation, and working with the odd way I interact with things in order to maximize fun for myself…

A part about old games that I also love, is that they can never be updated; they had one chance to release a finished game, and maybe another chance to fix glitches in a re-release if they sold very many copies the first time. I greatly enjoyed the ‘imperfect’ tilesets and abrupt feeling of this game, which might have been ‘improved’ in a patch if it had been released in recent years instead of 1999.

(I wasn’t sure where to include this point, but I must also say, my favourite YouTube comments are about someone’s unusual interpretations of a game, when they did not have access to a guide at the time. I read one recently – the comment author and their brother rented ‘Final Fantasy IV’ from a rental store, and they did not know about the ‘Poison’ status effect that depletes the characters health. There is a strange pixelation effect and a ringing sound when you walk around the overworld while poisoned. Because the save file they were playing from was during a point of the game where you visit the moon, and because of the unfamiliar visual and sound effect, they interpreted the ‘Poison’ status effect as, “The moon must be running out of air.” Things like that are beautiful to me.)

(I also wasn’t sure where to put this point, but the main character, May, from ‘Little Magic’, is stylized differently in some ‘cutscenes’. She resembles a dragon to me. It’s cute.)

#long post

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zoeykallus · 2 years

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smutty hcs? yes please!

how about some turn ons for the bad batch?

one for hunter should be the reader stealing/wearing hunters clothing *mainly sweats and bandanas hehehehehehe

I was so sure I've done something like this before.... but I can't find it in my documents nor in my Masterlist.... strange. well maybe I imagined that! Okay turn ons, let's see.... As alaways if you don't give me a gender, I assume female ^^' Hope that's okay. I hope I got it right.

The Bad Batch - Spicy Headcanons 6 - Turn Ons HC's

Strongly Suggestive 18+ (Partly SMUT)

Hunter

He can't help it if you run around half-naked in his sweaters or shirts, that automatically gets him going. Just the thought of his clothes smelling like you makes his blood boil. When you walk past him, he will grab the fabric of his clothes and pull you towards him. His hands will be so fast under the fabric and on your breasts that you will hardly have time to complain or realize that he is holding you. He will immediately be all over you, wild kisses, groping and little love bites will follow shortly after.

Wet clothes, he didn't know he was into it until you got splashed more or less by accident at the pool and your shirt was wet against your skin. As quickly as he dragged you into the next quiet corner, you can not really realize what's going on, but then you feel very clearly his hard length on your leg through his trunks.

Echo

Shiny skin, when your skin shines, through oil or lotion, Echo is completely lost. The moment you find this out is heated and nervous, the usually submissive rather reserved Echo is suddenly quite fiery and can't keep his hands off you.

Dirty praise. The moment you utter a dirty praise for the first time during your lovemaking makes him downright vibrate. "That's it Echo, eat that pussy, you're doing very well". His cock twitches with excitement, he moans and almost rolls his eyes, he is suddenly so horny that he can't wait for you to sit down on his hard length.

Wrecker

Dirty Talk. The dirtier the better. Tell him how much you want his cock, how great he feels, what you want to do with him, he will be wax in your hands. Best of all, be loud, that turns him on. He loves it when he can hear that he is doing something good for you.

Suggestive movements. Bending over seductively or dancing around him with a suggestive hip swing already gets him going. He likes it when you are vibrant and if you can show it in the context of your sex life, he will be blown away. A lap dance is the best and hottest surprise you can give him. He will spoil you so much that your legs will tremble when you even think about his touch.

Tech

Surprise him with new ideas that you want to try. It doesn't matter how busy he is, if you go to him and whisper a new sexy idea to him, he will drop everything, he loves your experimentation and open-mindedness very much. He finds it incredibly sexy when you share his curiosity.

Keep your clothes on during sex. You can try many different combinations, he likes it best when what you wear reveals as much as possible without revealing everything. Breastless corsages / corsets for example with a panty that has an opening through which he can fuck you, one of his favorite outfits. Whenever he sees you wearing that, he's immediately hard. Leather, latex and vinyl he loves on you, if you have high heels on, he tends to let you take the lead every now and then and dominate him if you like.

Crosshair

Call him names. Especially call him authoritative names, Master, Daddy, Sir, as an example. He loves to be dominant and when you play along he is blown away. For example, you walk up to him and look at him: "I've been naughty, Master". He will blink while several things are happening in his body at the same time. "Well then, I will have to punish you". If you let him, he will tie you to the bed and you can expect several hours of hot play. He'll wear you out until you can't take it anymore.

He also likes bondage games, of course, but he has another preference that you will probably find out only after quite a while, because he will not address you on it. He likes sex in total darkness, when he can't see you but only feel you. This is something very personal for him, very intimate and as hard as in this moment, you have not experienced him yet.

@rintheemolion

@andyoufollowyourheart @clone-whore-99

@brynhildrmimi @kaliel2310

@misogirl828 @tech-deck

@meshla-madalene

@chxpsi

@thebahdbitch

@nahoney22 @ladykatakuri

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theflowerofthecommonwealth · 2 years

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Sole (nb or gender neutral if possible, but any will do!) being a really good artist, who draws and paints things and scenes from before the war to show their companions?

What a great idea! 💖💖💖💖 Ive always admired people who can draw and paint things really well, I can spend hours just scrolling through other peoples art on Tumblr. Sole was truly a dedicated artist, never seen without a sketchbook in hand and a new idea on their lips. Their house in Sanctuary is completely filled to the brim with drawings and paintings of prewar places and things, kept predestined thanks to Codsworth efforts. It almost looks like a gallery of some kind, with Sole allowing their companion wander through in awe. They walk over and pick up the art piece that calls out to them most, examining it carefully.

Nick Valentine: “Heh, can almost smell it through the paper.” He commented wistfully, before him a drawing of a prewar Slocum's Joe filled with smiling people eating pastries and sipping coffee, just enjoying the moment. Call it stereotypical, but the old Nick was quite fond of a good old steaming cup of coffee and a freshly baked donut right before his shift started. Cant replicate the exact feeling anymore, but this sure brings back some good memories. “You have some real talent Kid, maybe I could use your help in witnesses sketches.”

Piper Wright: “Diamond City used to look like THAT before it became inhabited by bigoted people and corrupt politicians?” She asked with a half smirk, tapping on the side of a painting of a baseball game in the place she now calls home over 200 years later. Sole had some skill, somehow she can almost hear the crowds cheering excitedly through the canvas. “Hah, still looks loud and overly cramped, guess that hasn't changed. Think my office would be right about… there.”

Codsworth: “Oh Sir/Mum, your spouse would be so proud that you managed to capture them so perfectly.” He droned sadly over the biggest painting that happened to be of Soles spouse in their wedding suit/dress, all smiling and happy. Codsworth had seen his Master spend hours creating their many works of art and even helped with some, but this one spoke the most to him and touched his metal heart. Maybe because Sole had done it purely from memory as a way to honor their fallen lover. “They'd also be proud of how far you've come and all that you have accomplished, and that you are continuing to share your gift with others.”

Preston Garvey: “So thats what Concord looked like before the bombs hit? Damn, seems unreal.” He runs his fingers along the sketch of the un-touched city drawn from a birds eye view. How the General managed to capture the city in such a way that makes it seem like a moving photo is unknown, but he is not complaining. “Someday, we will restore the town to its former glory, you'll see. Until then, this will serve a fine reminder of what can be accomplished. Thank you General... Truly.”

Curie: “Oh! A horsie!” She exclaimed happily, gazing at a large painting of a grassy field with a magnificent black horse darting through the wind that flared it's silky mane. Curie has read many books and documents that include horses in their stories or notes, but she never actually seen one in person. Soles painting made it seem so lifelike that she feels like she can reach out and stroke its shiny hair. “It would be wonderful if we could ride such an amazing creature, you did an incredible job capturing its likeness and motion.” (Somebody get this women the finest horse in the world)

Cait: “So this is what passed as a typical family in your time?” She questioned with an unimpressed look, almost glaring at the colored drawing of a family sitting in their dining room eating breakfeast with one another. For some reason, the drawing sent a little lump in her throat when she saw the way the two parents looked at their children with such realistic and loving caring eyes. Sole did a damn good job with getting the emotion across, enough to pierce her heart. “Eh… pretty nice when you squint at it. Better than what I ever got. Well done and all that.”

Deacon: “Thats all it took to woo a girl back then? Dress up like a penguin, grab a quick bite at some fancy pants looking place, then spin her around like a top?” He asked with a wide grin, tilting his sunglasses a bit to get a better view of the colored drawing of a prewar couple dancing the evening away. Seemed very romantic, he'd almost wished to go back in time and set up something like this with Barbra. At least something close to it, she would have liked that… “You mind making one of me next? Get this gorgeous figure captured for all to see? Face would be covered of course, but still would be a fine addition to your collection.”

Danse: “This is what people would do on their free time off work? Interesting…” He commented, eyeing the painting of a prewar beach house with families swimming in the water or playing volleyball on the beach. Some of them were even just laying in the sand, asleep or watching the waves wash onto shore. They all seemed to be enjoying themselves without a care in the world, something that sadly couldn't be done anymore. But Sole did a fine enough job that he could get a good feeling on what that was once like. “It takes great skill and practice to capture something like this in great detail. Im honored you chose to show me your work, Solider.”

Hancock: “Damn. Nuka World seemed like a fine place to take the Darling and the kids, before it was infested with raiders and whatnot” He muttered in awe, practically going inside the painting of the prewar amusement park with how close he was to it. It was almost absorbing him whole, the shining of the rides and the adoring eyes of the folks. Shame the place had to go down so quickly. “Sole, you have some mighty fine talent for this sort of thing. Think maybe one day we can get a ride or two working there? That would be a trip I would gladly take.”

MacCready: “You're saying thats how the streets looked all the time? How did you even get around without running into something or someone?” He inquired, staring at a drawing of downtown Boston choked with traffic and pedestrians crowding the roads and sidewalks. It was weird to imagine the city not covered in rubble and piles of discarded trash and people just roaming around without looking over their shoulders every few minutes. “If you ask me, those people are just begging to get sniped. But thats not something they really had to be worried about back then, right?”

X6: “Must have taken great strength in the ankles to achieve such a graceful performance.” He remarked, staring straight at a painting of ballet performer dancing on stage before an audience of well dressed individuals. While he himself didn't see a good reason to spend money and time just to see someone glide across a stage in a supple manner, he could see how such an exercise could benefit ones strength and agility. Maybe he will try it one day, as part of training, of course. “Excellent work on the painting, Sir/Ma'am. A true masterpiece.” (Just imagine him doing ballet)

Strong: “Why puny human show Strong bunch of blobs and scribbles?” He points angrily at a realistic painting of an ideal Thanksgiving meal, complete with a thick and large turkey in the center. It seemed to be so real, like he could reach out and take a big chomp out of it. Yet there was no smell of fresh meat in the air. “Strong doesn't care about fake food blobs! Cant even eat them!” (He tried anyways and now there is forever a bite mark on the painting)

Dogmeat: Barks at the sight of another dog across the room, sprinting over to greet the new potential playmate or rival. He stops a few feet before them, confused on why they haven't reacted to him yet or even moved. Dogmeat had been with Sole while they were painting this very portrait of a prewar dog sitting obediently with their head tilted, but he fell asleep for most of it. The pup whines, cautiously stepping closer and taking a whiff, looking back at Sole in doggy astonishment when he realizes the other dog is a fake. “Bork?”

Moral Of the Story: If Bethesda doesn't give you enough character background or story to work with, do their job for them and make up your own to give everyone more delicious flavor. (Keep those headcanons coming y'all)

Boom! Another one down! Thank You for the request Darling!!! 💝💝💝💝

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spitxlfields · 2 years

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Writing a Character with DID -- Part 1

I would like to eventually make a big master list, but that takes more organization and thought then I am currently capable of, so I’m going to post these little snippets and then eventually put them into one big post/document.

*Disclaimer -- I am not a doctor, not do I even play one on TV, however I have been officially professionally diagnosed with DID and am undergoing therapy for it. I have done a lot of research on the subject, and am also the expert on my own experience, but there may be times when I get things wrong or word things in a way that unintentionally lead them to be misconstrued.

You cannot tell when someone has DID.

Overt DID is pretty rare. Huge oscillations in accent, affect, clothing choices, etc. in quick succession are the exception and not the rule. This isn’t Clark Kent going into a phone booth and coming out as Superman. Most cases of DID present themselves as covert. However, even in overt cases, most people’s first thought will not be “Oh, this person has DID.”, it will be “Oh, this person is really weird.” You are much more likely to be branded by the average Joe in the street as a rogue theater kid than someone with a dissociative disorder. On that note, when it comes to people noticing changes, most people really don’t care to pay enough attention, and when they do think something is up, the human mind is amazing at brushing it off as literally anything else. There are tons and tons are just weird and wacky people in the world who don’t have DID, who change their looks and likes with every passing fancy because that’s what happens to make them happy. Do you want to know how many times even well before I got diagnosed that I have been called ‘eccentric’? I can’t count that high. Unless you are a trained professional observing a client over an extended period of time you as a lay person cannot tell who has DID.

Specifically looking at the majority of cases that present as covert, you are not going to be able to tell when someone switches. This is not the dramatic eye rolling and head nodding you see on TV. It’s more like several moments of dissociation (hence the name of the disorder), maybe a few blinks of confusion, and then back to whatever they were doing. I think most people have had the experience of walking into a room and completely forgetting what they came in there for. It’s similar to that, but with mild to intense episodes of dissociation and happens a lot more often.

DID is a disorder that specifically tries to hide itself from the host/main fronter. Most people who have DID don’t know they have it, and don’t find out they have it until being professionally diagnosed. That’s not to say that you can’t have an inkling that you have DID and then find out you are correct, but most of the time it’s not until psychiatric intervention (and usually after being incorrectly diagnosed with everything else under the sun). Because DID forms in early childhood, the missing time, the identity alteration, the feeling of lacking an identity, the dissociation, etc. becomes your normal and you don’t notice it. And again, the human mind is really good at making up excuses for itself. Many times, a person isn’t diagnosed or thinks they might have the disorder until they are finally out of the dangerous and trauma inducing situation that they are in and are in a safe space. Upon being in a safe space, sometimes alters will act up or act out because there former ‘job’ has been uprooted.

Too add to all of this, surmising whether or not someone has DID is really gross and literally none of your business. Not only are you making assumptions about a person’s trauma, it is also literally none of your business. It also feels very much like trying to clock someone as trans -- there is not exclusively trans look, and there are no gross details that can tell you for certain that someone has DID. DID is also a highly stigmatized disorder, and openly claiming that someone has it can be detrimental to them. Also did I mention that it’s none of your business. I love to be nebby as much as the next fellow, but you need to learn to draw a hard line.

In conclusion -- if you are writing someone with DID, someone who just met them, or even someone who has known them or awhile, are not going to be able to tell they have the disorder.

#dissociative identity disorder #writing tips #did #osdd #moon knight #moon knight rp #rp

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 1 year

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The Death of Diplomacy

https://www.patreon.com/empyreaniris?fan_landing=true

https://starr-fall-knight-rise.tumblr.com/post/182501791735/master-post

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jzEIdDAB4omdO2JcQVMObfrhLJ5kX4ONmSsLypM1ks0/edit?usp=sharing

You could have broken the tension like a rod of glass. The room was trapped in a bubble of complete silence unbroken by any living thing as all those that did live held their breaths in anticipation. On the void side faces were lit in shock and concern, and on the Maker side bodies were tense with anticipation poised and leaning forward. In a way Adam felt he was an intruder on a moment that should have been intensely private, but the outcome would mean everything.

Lanus was their last card to play,and if this didn’t work, he didn’t know what would.

Looking at Lanus in the near silence, tall, strong, and regal, Adam was struck by a sudden and overwhelming sense of guilt. He had only ever heard stories of Lanus from Sunny. From what she described he had been everything you hope to have in a father, kind, patient, loyal and protective. He had done his best to protect Sunny in a world where she was not welcome.

And his death had been catastrophic.

A death that Adam had facilitated.

Lanus had died during the last push of the Steel Eye operation, and it was Adam himself that had struck the death blow, and it was his death that had caused Kazna’s original spiral into revenge, something that once seemed small, but had primed her to become what she was.

Now, the universe was on the brink of ending, and Adam couldn’t shake the guilt that secretly bubbled in the pit of his stomach.

The universe was ending and it was his fault.

Despite everything that had happened between him and Sunny, despite their slow movement through mistrust, to forgiveness, to friends and then to love, he had still never been able to forgive himself for what he had done to her father, for taking away one of the only people in her life that had ever protected her. Thinking about into made him sick, and looking at Lanus, fighting quietly to rectify his mistake was almost too much.

The meeting hadn’t lasted more than a moment, but still waiting for Kazna’s response took what seemed to be a lifetime. It wasn’t until she reached up her hand, pressing the flat of lanus’s palm to her cheek that Adam felt a spark of hope arrive in his chest. “Hijan Cheel.” She said murmuring the words softly into the palm of his hand, “You have returned to me.”

Everett and Noctus shifted nervously glancing back and forth between each other unsure what to do.

Renegade lurked at the back of the group arms crossed over her chest.

The expression on her face was difficult to read but somehow seemed to hold undertones of confusion.

“I have.” Lanus said, he reached up his other hand, cupping her face in both of his palms, “I am only sorry I could not have come to you sooner.”

It seemed things were going well.

Maybe…

Maybe the could end all of this here, maybe they could turn Kazna to their side, of course the Makers would want her to spend a couple of years in their little hell pit, but after a few thousand years Adam might not care so much considering that was plenty of time to raise his children and die peacefully.

He did his best to stifle the hope that was rising in his chest, but to do so wasn’t entirely possible.

Reaching out with her lower set of arms, kazna took lanus’s hands in hers. For once her expression held no hint of malice, or mockery. Disbelief slowly beginning to melt into excitement, “My love you are here…. “ Her voice trailed off for a moment, jaw working to find words before squeezing his hands tightly in hers, “Come, come with me, come and be at my side Lanus.”

Adam’s heart sunk right down into his boots.

“I am so very close to the greatest achievement of my life. Winning the greatest war.” She pulled him closer looking hard into his eyes, “Once you join me, everything shall be as it should be. With you at my side there is no power that can stand in our way.” She reached up with her hands, gently caressing his face as if attempting to memorize its form simply by touch, but stopped as a dark expression passed over Lanus.

This was not good, and for a horrible moment Adam wondered if he had made a horrible miscalculation. Would lanus change sides instead of Kazna. Did he just hand over a valuable asset, the one final playing card without knowing what he was doing.

He glanced at Sunny, watching her face.

He could sense the tension in the lines of her body, and the set of her jaw. She knew her father better than anyone.

“What is it?” Kazna asked

lanus took one of her hands in his but stepped back for a moment taking her hand in his, “My dear one…. I was hoping that you would join me…. The Maker world is a beautiful one. There are many battles to fight, many things to do, and I have found my place in the ranks of a glorious army of light.”

Kazna frowned, “Within the ranks…. Lanus please you are not a simple soldier, you are a general, a leader of Drev. you are wasted as a simple soldier.”

Lanus shook his head slowly, speaking slowly as he tried to chose his words with the utmost care, “Kazna, there are many who have come before us, saints and glorious heroes of the past who can teach us much. I am but a student, eager to learn what they provide. One day I will find my way to the top of their ranks, but I am willing to wait as I learn.’

Kazna shook her head, “But I offer you a chance to take it all now, to join me.”

“Kazna…. The path of instant gratification is not the way. Your war will be the end to us. There will be no more battles, there will be no more conquest, there will be nothing left, and I…. I do not wish to lose you to non-existence.”

Watching Lanus try and talk Kazna down was like watching a man try to defuse a nuclear bomb with ten seconds left on the clock. Adam’s stomach was a pit of nerves and nausea to the point he simply wished to walk out of the room and wait until it was over.

There was a pause in the room, almost imperceptible.

And it wasn’t good.

Kazna took a small step back frowning, “Lanus, I am asking you to join me as my battle partner, to fulfill the oaths that you gave to me in the circle.”

“Oaths I am willing to fill. I only ask that you give me eternity, not days Kazna.”

“Your understanding of what I do is flawed, Lanus. The Makers have warped your mind!” Kazna’s agitation was growing, like a slowly building eruption. Lanus was doing his best to diffuse the situation, to talk her down like a hostage negotiator. Not that Adam was an expert on hostage negotiation, but Lanus seemed to be doing a better job than anyone else might have circumstances permitting.

He pulled her back, closer to him, and when he spoke his voice left out all the accusation that another man might have leveled at her, “Than explain to me Kazna, what am I missing? I wish to have you forever, but this war of your can only end in our ceasing to exist.”

Kazna shook her head, “We become part of something greater Lanus.”

“I am….. Fuzzy on how you become part of something that does not exist, my love.”

Kazna huffed in frustration, “You need to look beyond what is simple to understand, Lanus. Give up those things which you know and join me in the unknown, in a greater future beyond this world.”

Lanus paused and shook his head slowly, “I am afraid i do not understand.”

It was likely at that moment things began to devolve. It was no fault f Lanus, h had done his best in trying to quench the absolute insanity that was his wife, but a man can only do so much.

At that point, kazna was too far gone.

She pulled back from Lanus withdrawing her hand from him, and all at once her eyes hardened, “The Makers have ruined your vision Lanus, made you complicit.” He reached out for her, but she took a step back, “I asked you to join me, and as my battle partner, there should have been no question, but even now you resist me. You have been corrupted. You are not the Lanus that I knew!”

Things had gone very suddenly sideways, and now they were riding into hell on a speeding bullet train headed right for “oh shit” valley, and the bridge crossing was broken.

Lanuswas a good actor, had been willing to sacrifice his own sanity for an eternity with kazna, but even a patient man has his limits, “Kazna.” His voice was firm, scolding like a father to his child, “Than maybe you never knew me at all.”

The words were sharp, cutting.

The first words he had spoken in anger and they sunk right down to the bone”

Kazna’s face twisted.

Lanus’s posture shifted ever so subtly, “You have broken your oaths Kazna. WHen we entered the circle we promised always to protect each other, to protect our family.” he shook his head in frustration now beginning to boil over, “You murdered my children, crippled others and drove more to the near edge of insanity. You have broken the sacred customs of our people by seeking personal revenge, and worse, you have attempted to murder children, my grandson you have tried to kill.”

At the mention of his grandson, kazna flared with a sudden spark of rage that had her shadows coursing back to her feet, “Grandson! How could you Lanus, how could you accept that THING.” Her mouth worked hard stammering with rage before she could find the words, “That hybrid FREAK is no blood of mine.”

This was the first time Adam had seen Lanus truly angry. Up to this point he had been understanding, relaxed, and reasonable, but in that moment he switched to hot overwhelming rage, that filled the room and caused members of both delegations to step back in alarm. Kazna’s anger was nothing.

Adam expected the Drev to begin screaming, but instead his voice dropped to a near whisper, “Speak of him like that again kazna, and i will strike you down where you stand.”

Adam and Adham exchanged looks.

This was not going according to plan.

Things had derailed and had done so in a spectacular fashion.

Bu of course it was Kazna who finally sent the train careening off the tracks, deploying an underhanded move that would never have been accepted in a Drev dueling ring. She attacked in the middle of a peace talk, and she did it suddenly,underhandedly against all code of drev combat.

In an instant her massive black trident sprung into her hand and thrust forward at Lanuz’s chest.

Sunny shouted and held out a hand in shock, but Lanus was just as fast. Reaching up, he dodged to the side, trident passing through the space he had most recently occupied, then with one hand he snatched the shaft of the trident and yanked hard pulling Kazna off balance and straight into the path of his waiting palm.

The move was distinctly un drev in nature, certainly more human, but the slap itself was powerful enough to knock Kazna to the floor.

And it was about that time that all semblance of diplomacy evaporated into chaos

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artsekey · 1 year

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Companies I've Applied To

I figured that as I embark on my quest to Get Hired, I should probably document the process for both myself and for others who are trying to get their foot in the door for industry work.

For context (and for those of you who don't know), I have a Bachelor's of Fine Art in Emerging Media: Character Animation and an Master's of Fine Art in Animation and VFX. I graduated in spring of 2022 after completing a fully independent short film, and have been working as a "visiting lecturer" at my University ever since.

My Employment History

When you're looking to get hired, your past work experience matters... a lot. Because of how intense my Undergrad/Graduate programs were, I didn't have a lot of time to cultivate my portfolio or bolster my resume. Getting hired by the University right out of college was a huge relief, but it doesn't tick that pesky "2+ years of Industry Experience" or "At least 1 AAA Game Shipped" prerequisite on most job postings.

With that in mind, I'm doing my best to push for the "or equivalent experience" caveat.

What I Do:

I've mentioned this a few times on this blog, but my professional focus is in 3D character modeling, rigging, groom, and sim. In the art field, this is usually considered a technical job, and from what I understand the market for tech is usually a little less competitive than the market for modeling/animation.

So, with all that out of the way, let's get to it!

DreamWorks:

I sent in my application for Character Tech Anim about three days after the posting opened. They had their own hiring website through nbcUniversal. I'd gone through the process before with internships, so it was pretty painless! It's a remote position, which is huge, and the salary would be competitive with the one I have now as long as I can stay remote.

Biggest con in my application is that I'm still missing Python proficiency. I'm learning it right now, but god damn is it an in-demand skill!

It's a job I'd love to get, and I think my skills in rigging/groom/sim line up well.

Process Pros:

Easy to apply.

Clear (and reasonable!) qualifications listed for the job level.

Honest about expectations regarding overtime and hours.

Allowed PDF uploads of CV & Resume.

Sent a confirmation email after the application had been received.

Had a section for "Additional Comments", which was a great place for me to throw in that I'm learning some of the skills they want.

Process Cons:

Likely will not receive a rejection notice in the event they decide not to hire. This isn't a huge con; the studio is massive and sending out rejection notices would be a time sink for them.

Advertised working weekends and overtime in the listing... definitely something I'll ask about if I move forward in the process. Work/life balance is important!

Had to enter my resume information and upload my resume. :(

Result: Too Soon to Tell

Gearbox:

I sent in my application for Technical Animator (Character Rigger) about two weeks after the listing was posted. They had their own hiring website. This is a hybrid position, which wouldn't be ideal, but a friend of a friend works remotely for them, so maybe it's negotiable?

Biggest con in my application is, yet again, that I'm still missing Python proficiency and tool dev experience. Learning it now!

I was missing a lot of the credentials on this one, so it's more of a hail-Mary application.

Process Pros:

Easy to apply.

Clear (and reasonable!) qualifications listed for the job level.

Allowed PDF uploads of CV & Resume.

Sent a confirmation email after the application had been received. Seems to promise a prompt response, which means I can likely expect a notice of rejection if they choose not to hire.

Company culture seems extremely reasonable and employee health is a priority.

Process Cons:

May have to relocate if hired.

Result: Too Soon to Tell

Aquent:

Honestly... no idea what was happening here. It was for a character rigging position, but it seems like it might've been for a broader hiring agency?

Process Pros:

Allowed PDF upload of CV and Resume.

Process Cons:

Had to apply for the job and make a separate account on their website to set up the application.

Confusing website.

Had to upload resume and then type up the resume again.

No place for a CV for the specific role.

Honestly, I'm not sure what company this went to.

Result: Too Soon to Tell

Steamroller:

Local studio that I've seen a lot of people go into! Applied for a rigging position in their animation department. Hybrid and remote are both an option for me!

Process Pros:

Allowed PDF upload of CV and Resume.

Easy to apply!

Received a confirmation email.

Credentials were clear and well listed; I matched most of the requirements.

Competitive salary! :)

Flexible work methods.

Allowed me to link to my website AND upload a static portfolio, which I love.

Process Cons:

Likely will not receive a rejection notice should they choose not to hire.

Result: Rejected (03/21/2023)

BonusXP:

Can't speak about the process much on this one! They have a rolling, general application process which means I just send in an email and if a job comes up, they'll let me know. Feels straightforward and simple. :)

Result: Too Soon to Tell

#job hunt

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adickaboutspoons · 7 months

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The Curse of "The Curse of the Seafaring Life"

So now that I've had some time to come down from the euphoria of watching two middle-aged men kissing in the moonlight, I've got to admit episode 5 is... bad. Like the kiss is divine and perfect and I love it with all my heart and soul, but the rest of it doesn't make a lick of sense, within the context of what we've seen this season, or within the themes of the show as a whole. And it's not just a matter of inserting a couple of lines of dialogue to fix it as with episode 4. To me, it requires a full tear-down to the very studs.

I understand that for future plot purposes implied by the trailers, it will become important that Stede knows how to do fighty pirate-y stuff, but the way they get there challenges credulity. Stede states that he "hasn't really felt [that he is the captain]" since they got back on the ship. But... why? He's called and led at least two all-hands meetings in the past two episodes (letting the crew know Ed was not dead after all, and mediating the non-pology sesh), collected votes for the decision to exile Ed (and stayed with the crew rather than going with Ed, even though finding Ed was, like, supposedly his entire motivation, god that still makes me so angry writers I am in your walls!), and convinced the crew to, at least temporarily, let Ed be un-banished. No one is challenging him for his position. No one is questioning his authority. No one is being insubordinate or any less respectful to him than they generally are, considering he encourages open and honest dialogue (which sometimes invites less-than-respectful expressions of ideas with this crew.) No one is even suggesting that his feelings for Ed might negatively impact his objectivity or his ability to perform his captainly duties. For heaven's sake, half of the crew (eventually) followed him in applauding Ed's feeble scrabble at an apology. And quite aside from all that - how many times, exactly, does he need to prove himself? He JUST orchestrated a successful escape plan using fucking TOWELS. He's ALREADY captain material! So why would he have that less-than-captain feeling?

And the only thing that I can think of is that they needed to get him to train with Izzy somehow (why did it have to be Izzy, though? More on that in a moment). So how to get him there? Well, Izzy's mean, right? So maybe Stede needs to think that he needs to get mean, so he'll go to be trained at the foot of the master. But why would Stede suddenly think he needs to be mean? Especially considering how delighted he was when Yi Sao clocked his energy as soft? Well, maybe Ed tells him the way to Feel More Captain-y is to be more assertive.

But as much as Ed-in-a-collar asking Stede to order him around is going to find a forever home in my fanfic plotbunny document, that just... doesn't make any sense. Ed LOVES that Stede is out here doing things completely different from anyone else. One of the main theses of the show is that Stede's people-positive management style is CORRECT, actually, and another is that living life as your authentic self is more important than duty or obligation. Stede needing to "butch up" to be a proper captain runs antithetical to both those ideas AND to the established dynamic between Ed and Stede. Honestly, it reads a lot more like validation of Stede's insecurities about not being enough for Ed, and that whole dream sequence that opened the season. Which would be fine if Stede was going through an arc where he thinks he needs to be more manly and learns in the end that he's fine just the way he is, but that doesn't seem to be the case? As such, it's frankly pure contrivance, and just sloppy writing.

So taking out that pin about training with Izzy. I'm gonna be real, this feels like pure fanservice to me, and I'm not just talking about Con O'Neil's magnificently sculpted tits. Izzy's "redemption arc" (and, yes, I'm putting it in scare quotes) feels completely unearned to me. What - he's absolved in his suffering? Even though we've seen not one hint of remorse for what he's done to others (only for how the repercussions of his actions actually impacted him)? Not even the barest scrap of a non-pology? Then Why Isn't Ed? Ed who has suffered too. Ed who was so fucked up he made MORE THAN ONE attempts at suicide by proxy in episode 2? Ed who keeps getting kicked when he's already down and NOT extended the same sympathy and understanding from the crew? It's a real bad look, y'all. In fact, it looks a lot more like Izzy is not going through a "redemption arc" so much as an "he's already redeemed, trust us" arc, and training Stede is more about him proving that he's part of the community by offering support and expertise, and resolving his personality crisis ("who am I to you?" and "what even are you?") - roles which, by all rights, would be better filled by Jim (who had JUST given up on their vengeance quest to try and see what being part of a family might be like, only to be caught up in the Kraken's shit and having to fight for survival, and could now have an opportunity to work through their trauma by using their skills to HELP someone rather than hurt, and learning how to be soft - like the flesh of someone becoming human after so recently being someone's puppet) or Ed (who needs to learn to reconcile the various aspects of his personality, and that violence doesn't have to come coupled with the baggage of being unlovable, and who needs to relearn how to trust and be trusted by Stede, and how to earn the crew's forgiveness). Because the fact of the matter is? Stede MUST be lying when he tells Izzy that Ed attributes "everything he knows" to Izzy's teaching. The whole point of the escape from the Spanish relies upon the premise that there is knowledge that Ed possesses that Izzy doesn't and can't. Look at Stede's face when he says "More specifically, he said you taught him everything he knows.":

(corporate needs you to find the difference between these 2 pictures) It's giving very "Stark Revelations" vibes. I'm thinking Stede is getting Izzy to buy in to his training by using a little of that weaponized empathy he picked up studying at the feet of the master: Yi Sao. I don’t love Stede pandering to the ego of a mediocre white dude by conferring upon him the responsibility for Ed’s achievements and brilliance in order to get what Stede wants out of him, but it’s immeasurably better than the suggestion that Ed’s achievements and brilliance actually ARE down to Izzy. Neither way of interpreting the implications of the scene are great, though, which is uncharacteristically sloppy writing from this show. All the more reason why Stede’s training should be in the hands of anyone else EXCEPT Izzy.

The training montage itself is… not a training montage. It’s a cringe compilation. Just scene after scene of Stede being bad at things and no follow-up scenes that show him improving. The line about him just letting his body take over in the field and it working out for him is just bad and wrong. First, it conveys Plot Armor on Stede, and obviates the NEED for training. Second, really, Stede? How about the time you almost stabbed Doug for the crime of *checks notes* putting his hand on your shoulder? Or the time you blacked out and walked barefoot to Bridgetown after Chauncy shot himself? Like, let's please not suggest trauma-induced fugue states are Stede's super-power. Third, that's really not how we have seen Stede earn his victories up until this point, and it really undercuts the fact that Stede is VERY smart, clever, and resourceful, great at improvisation and using his environment to overcome mightier or more skilled opponents (think of the way he bested Izzy at their first encounter, or even, more recently, how he used his habit of putting scent on his towels and how everyone inevitably wanted to breath it in deeply to knock out the prison guards and orchestrate their escape - again, using towels as a zip-line). One of the things about Stede that I think gets under-acknowledged is that he's actually kind of low-key a master of seeing a thing once and figuring out how to do it. In spite of what my Advanced Maneuvers fic would have you believe, the Unhand Me Or Bleed move actually comes from him observing the bar brawl in ep 2, and then there’s all the stuff with the duel with Izzy and the butt swat and taking it on the left that Ed had shown him only once and only a few nights previously. But what does any of that matter if he’s just going to Dead Zone it and let his body do what it will?

It also bothered me that, when his training is “complete” and he’s going on raids, he's just brute forcing things? Like, his plan was the same every time - run in shouting and waving your blade around. Where’s the clever planning? Where’s the distraction? Where’s the style and finesse? What happened to his rapture over fuckeries?

The resolution of the curse storyline/training montage is bothering me in a way that I feel is emblematic of the bigger problems with the season as a whole so far. The whole point of a training montage is either to payoff with a scene SHOWING the use of all the accumulated skills, or a subversion of that; why they CAN'T use those skills (like in Galavant where he over-trained for the joust and therefore couldn't move when it came time to actually participate). But instead, we get exposition fairies. "Wow - that sure was an epic battle we just did! With us fighting back-to-back and Archie swinging from a rope!" All the interesting and important stuff is happening off-camera, and we're just being asked to accept that it happened. Just like we’re asked to accept that the Swede’s time with Jackie is more fulfilling in some way that his time with the Revenge was not. Just like we’re asked to accept that everyone’s just cool with Izzy now - even the people who last saw him when he was marooning them, even to the point of working together to make him a peg leg and calling him their new unicorn. Just like we’re asked to accept that Black Pete or Olu missed their SOs, even to the point of “crying every night” for the former, but never seeing them actually mention it/crying about it.

And about that - although I was initially overjoyed by it, now that I’ve had some time to reflect, I'm not sure I'm so happy about the Proposal. Like, Lucius is still clearly in a v. vulnerable and traumatized state, and it's maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe not the BEST time to be making big life choices? Juxtapose with Ed finally learning to maybe not charge full-speed-ahead. Maybe handing the U-haul keys to another couple isn’t all that great an idea, actually?

Now on to the Curse. What the dying priest literally says when Stede and Jim enter the room is "We were voyaging to the Vatican to seek an exorcism." My auditory processing is sub-par, especially when more than one person is speaking at the same time, so I can't really make out most of what he says after that because Jim keeps babbling about curses (which? I’m sure Vico had lines they were written for them to be saying, but it to present as a translation something that is v. much NOT what the person is actually saying in the mouth of a native speaker of the language is SO weird to me), and maybe it's me splitting hairs, but exorcism is v. much a casting demons out of a PERSON thing - not a "cursed artifact" thing. But fuck it. Let’s go with the “translation” Jim gives us and stick with cursed items instead of bedeviled people. There’s a real missed opportunity here to have done something extremely clever linking the "curse" and the crew's trauma and, through the process of coming together to formulate a plan for how to free themselves from the curse, managing to take the first steps toward exorcising their own demons. I mean, this is just surface-level metaphor stuff, and it's troubling to me that instead we got Stede the Rational White Dude pandering to the superstitions of his mostly POC crew.

I LOVE that Fang reached out to Ed, and that he brought to Ed’s attention the fact that Ed often defaults to problem-solving mode, trying to FIX problems. Which is great when you need to make an impromptu lighthouse to escape the Spanish, but is not necessarily the best approach for emotional problems, where the better answer is sometimes listening rather than talking, or even just actually sitting and dealing with negative feels (though I am not loving the implication that Ed's a non-stop chatterbox. Sometimes he is, but there are plenty of examples of him being introspective - like literally any time he stims with his silk - and also, sometimes soundboarding is an effective tool for processing complicated or painful concepts, too. And also, we see MULTIPLE scenes of Ed crying alone. He’s clearly sitting with his feels. Admittedly there is a huge difference between wallowing/indulging and PROCESSING, but Ed sitting alone in silence with his feels is v. much NOT the problem). But I HATE the messaging about retributive justice in that scene.

So retributive justice - the idea that a person who has caused damage has to be punished to an appropriately equivalent degree in order for 1) justice to be meted to the wronged party, & 2) the wrong-doer to be redeemed for their wrongdoing - is all kinds of problematic to begin with, but especially when seemingly exclusively applied to a MOC. And we have two examples of that in this episode - we have Ed offering to let Lucius to knock him over the rail so that they're squaresies (v. eye-for-an-eye, that), and we have Fang explaining that he's cool with Ed because he brutalized Ed's unconscious body after Jim knocked him out with a cannonball, so that makes them square for all the shit that Ed did to him.

With Lucius, we see that it DOESN'T actually make things square. Lucius is still traumatized, and just as obsessed with Ed as ever, possibly even moreso. With Fang, we see the exact opposite. He and Ed ARE cool, and Fang doesn't seem to have any lingering issues.

So not only is the scene with Fang kind of gross and reductionist, and reinforces the "broken people do broken things" idea that's been uncritically floated earlier in the season, instead of recognizing that sometimes people have maladaptive behaviors in response to suboptimal circumstances and insufficient support systems, but also, when juxtaposed with the scene with Lucius, the show is refusing to come down one way or another on the topic, and I think that's pretty cowardly on the "toxic masculinity and racism are unequivocally wrong" show.

So how would I fix it?

1) Frame Stede’s practical pirate training urges as Stede self-enriching by re-taking up the reigns of his pirate lessons, not as him needing to learn how to captain

2) Make Ed his teacher, and thereby allow for a gradual rebuilding of trust and strengthening of their relationship (and also some flirtatious banter and UST because they're both trying to hold back and re-figure things out, but also that undeniable chemistry is still there. For me. As a treat)

3) I guess Izzy can help. But HE has to ask. As a "trying to find my place now that so much has changed for me" kind of thing, and also expressing some fucking gratitude to Stede for saving his rat ass

4) My training montage would be an ACTUAL training montage with the comedy failboating at the beginning, and showing actual progress until they're ready to do the Curse raid (which sets up the subversion of payoff for the training montage because they ARE ready, but there's nothing to fight on a ship of the dead). Nix the second raid altogether so I don't have to get cranky about expositing the action sequence. Also that line about blacking out and just letting things happen would be erased from history, too.

5) Ed's participation in the "exorcizing the demons" plot is what starts to mend bridges with the crew and starts to bring him back into the community. (Also, I want Ed to be able to see Stede feeling himself in his red suit, and it is a CRIME that we were denied that.)

6) It’s my drastic re-write, so in my version, we’re gonna nix the Fang line supporting retributive justice, but we’re KEEPING the Lucius interaction. Maybe in the 'exorcize the demons' brainstorm sesh, Ed proposes that he dress in the devil suit and Lucius be allowed to push him overboard (a 2-for-1 expurgation. Also, there would be a line where Ed goes up to Stede and is all "I really need to get you out of those clothes", and Stede breathlessly replying, "Oh, Ed!" and then Ed awkwardly having to walk it back with hasty explanations, and Stede apologizing for making assumptions, and Ed having to beat a hasty, flustered retreat, because even though he has 100% seen Stede naked before, there’s an unbearable tension to the idea of seeing him like that now). But the overboard plan doesn’t work on EITHER front. Once Ed is back on board, still wearing the devil suit, something goes wrong that convinces the crew the curse is still there (maybe it's Stede doing target practice in the background with Izzy, and THAT'S when the sail falls on everyone's head), and Lucius' can still have his "That didn't actually give me the closure I thought it would have" mini-arc. Ed can start in again, pitching more ideas and talking over people, and Fang can gently suggest that Ed doesn't have to be the one to come up with all the plans. Sometimes it's ok to just sit back and listen, and realize that sometimes your input is doing more harm than good, and it's ok to take a step back.

7) Lucius and Pete aren’t getting engaged. Sorry. Maybe Lucius can propose, but Pete would gently tell him that, while he absolutely wants to and plans to spend the rest of his life with Lucius, he’s concerned that Lucius is moving a little fast, and maybe flailing for something to make him feel better immediately rather than taking the time to work through his trauma, and as much as Pete loves him, he’s not going anywhere; Lucius can take all the time he needs to come to terms with what happened to him, and then, when he asks again, Pete will say yes.

8) After the Curse plot is resolved Ed has been sitting and stewing with the bad feelings that your input can be deletory and unwelcomed. THEN Fang can impart the "sometimes you just have to sit with your feels and let it be uncomfortable" wisdom. Maybe Ed shares what he’s been going through on his own and hiding from the crew. But knowing how to process your emotions instead of just ruminating on them is a learned skill. I don’t know if Fang is the person to teach that to Ed, but honestly I don’t know who IS since Lucius would NORMALLY be the emotional intelligence guy, so I guess Fang can be the one with emotional insight since he is quite the softy under it all.

But also I still want moonlit middle-aged men kisses, so maybe Fang also suggests that just because your input isn't needed in some places doesn't mean it would be unwelcome in all - and sometimes it's a matter of redirecting your energy, and him indicating Stede (in his shirt) brooding over the rail at the loss of his awesome (I am only saying this word for Stede’s sake, because I actually fucking hate the hideous cutaway tailcoat with its tacky, poorly applied appliques) suit. And things are better between them because of training montage, but still awkward, and Ed is now the one taking the initiative to meet Stede where HE'S at and complimenting the shirt, "wear fine things well," etc.

(And, hell, since this is essentially a fix-it fic in essay form, there may or may not be a plotbunny brewing in my head about them agreeing to "take it slow" and then sloooooowly walking together to the captain's cabin and Whoops! they forgot there's only one bed now. Should one of them maybe take the pile of furs on the floor? No! they can totally share a bed platonically. Yup. Just two platonic buds sleeping and nothing else at all in the same bed. Except Stede DESPERATELY has to masturbate about what just transpired between them. He is not as stealth as he thinks he is. And maybe when he wakes in the morning, Ed informs him that he was moaning Ed's name in his sleep all night…)

#ofmd #our flag means death #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd s2e5 #I've now said “exorcize their demons” so frequently that “Exercise the Demons” by LVCFT is now running on an endless loop in my head

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exhausted-archivist · 10 months

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WIP Wednesday: Foods of Thedas Project

Genuinely wasn't expecting Ferelden to be the winner for the last poll based off how all the previous polls went. I'll be posting the next poll next week on Wednesday, and I've gotten to a point with the recipes I think I'll start sharing some blurbs. I really appreciate all the participation.

I want to take the moment to just explain the scale of what this project has become, because boy oh boy did I fixate a little too hard on this with the recent limitations I've been having with my art.

So I've been pulling from historical recipes and have been knocking my way through each country. My goal was to just have fun with the recipes and not be too concerned with the amount. I was expecting to end at around 80 or so recipes in total.

Except I didn't. Now I'm sitting at 540 recipes that I'm going to need to organize a bit and probably make a few more so each nation can have the same amount. (Because I want them to be even.) This also doesn't account for the 180 drinks I have roughly written out. None of the dishes or drinks are fully workable yet though. I do hope to start making some of them workable and testing them out soon. My aim is to try and also test across dietary restriction, however I have a lot myself so I will be subjecting willing participants to testing things that I myself cannot eat.

Truly, I am risking being Icarus.

The goal was originally 80 recipes/food blurbs and I just stick it in one pdf/document. But now, I'm going to run this in a zine like format and just put out one nation at a time. At the moment I'm looking to put 20 per nation. Hopefully, by the time DA4 comes out I'll be ready to update/adapt things for Tevinter (maybe the Anderfels, Nevarra, and Rivain as well).

Oh also, complete sidenote. When the Official Cookbook for Dragon Age comes out I'll be putting out the updated master food and drink posts.

Wanna support this project or blog? You can check out my ko-fi.

#dragon age #dragon age food project #foods of thedas wip #wip wednesday

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ari--anon · 3 months

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Hi! Big fan of your writing! If it’s not too much to ask:

How do you keep track of the small details you add in your writing? Especially the mega master writings. I find myself not writing for a while and struggling to remember or find the small infinitesimal detail I may or may not have mentioned - in order to keep coherency.

Hi, thank you :D

There's two way I keep track of details. First off, (and this saved me many times), I have a beta reader (friend of mine) who will often remember stuff I don't, and point it out in scenes where bringing that detail up would be plausible, or even if I completely contradicted something I've written before

Then I usually make a note of things that I should keep track of in a separate document, which is sort of a place where I dump all my chapter ideas. It doesn't have to be anything complicated, just a quick mention like "remember x!"

For example, me and my beta reader will often make rudimentary floorplans for rooms the characters will spend a lot of time in. These are made in ms paint and are really ugly, but I always come back to them to see where the characters are in relation to the room. (Plus this is a good way to initially really visualize the room!)

Or before I'm writing, I will make a really simple list of information to every character, and I will update it as I go. This includes stuff like age and important bits of appearance that stray from the norm, and then a sentence that describes the core of their character. You could do something similar with the chapters as you're writing them, so you'll always have an up-to-date list.

I know that taking notes is not for everyone, though, so this might not be good advice. Everyone has their own system that they need to crack, and I'm certainly still trying to settle into mine. Maybe, if notes aren't working for you, you could try to do it in a more visual way.

Like, if they pick up an item in chapter 4 that you want the character to use from then on, but you have trouble remembering, you could take a sticky note, write 'chapter 4' on top, and draw that item, and keep it close to your computer/laptop/writing paper. (Or if you write on your phone, I know that many notes apps have a function to draw on them too. It doesn't have too look pretty, you just have to know what it is! Like drawing a letter on your hand to remember something you need to do later)

If it's more abstract things, like a string of thought a character had that you think a character should hold onto for the story, this might get a bit more difficult, but I think that if you draw something related to it (even if it's just a thought bubble or something), you will most likely remember what it meant, even if vaguely.

But this is all stuff you do before, or during writing. I know this bit is difficult, especially when you've written A LOT but I guess the easiest way to keep track is to just read through it again.

But it's really important to remember that it's fine to go back and fix stuff! That's the fun part of posting online. If it's a matter of if a dress was white or red, and nothing you considered worth writing down (we can't put everything down after all) then I assure you, the minority of readers will catch if you change that up.

I'm currently going through iawwc again before posting the last chapter, because I'm looking out for exactly those type of details that might've gone under as I've been writing. Especially in those mega works that take a while to read and write, readers will often not notice if you changed a past chapter up so that it fits your current stand of things. So don't worry too much about this. Oftentimes when a detail went under, it probably wasn't that important in the first place, and can easily be cut out/changed.

I hope this helped, and thank you sm for your ask!

#asks <3 #i do hope it helps but everyone has their own way going about things #if you ask different authors they will give you wildly different answers

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supportivecircle · 1 year

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Sonic Wisps Warlock Patron Homebrew Part 3: Invocations

Part 3 of the Wisp Warlock (Part 1 Part 2 if you want insights and commentary) from my Sonic DnD Campaign is here. I was going to upload the full document alongside this today but I am distracted by my friends playing Hunt Showdown and myself playing Pathfinder War of the Righteous for the first time so I’ll get that all together tomorrow. The full document will be a Google Docs link so people can make copies if they want to edit it for their own usage. This post is detailing the four invocations, and the Pact of the Chain familiar, so it shouldn’t be too long. Excuse a lot of the math though, a lot of my explanation of why some things were done break down to average comparisons and trying to make the alternative options stand up somewhat to the Eldritch Blast+Agonizing Blast meta that a lot of people feel compelled to fall into to stay consistent and relevant through combat as the game ups the stakes and difficulty levels.

So first off, the wisp. Familiars kind of suck for combat by default. The options you can pick from a regular Find Familiar are almost entirely for supporting you in non-combat means, with the closest to active combat benefits being creatures like the Owl statblock who can do Flyby Help actions. Pact of the Chain Warlocks get a few additional options to pick from with more combat utility, but not by much, and they don’t have a lot of long term viability for combat. Most of the games I’ve played in have had a Warlock in them, or someone who has a Familiar and wants the gameplay and aesthetic of having an actually useful addition to combat in their familiar/animal companion. We’ve always turned to homebrew for aid in getting better options that make Chain familiars not complete trash mechanically compared to just eldritch blasting. It’s a delicate tightrope to walk, so we look to our objectively superiors. I have owned the Compendium of Forgotten Secrets since maybe 2019, and it is so ripe with flavorful options for cool Warlock patron content. So I pretty much aped off the Emberborn familiar from that book, but tweaked it to be more wispy. Instead of three damage immunities I dropped it to damage resistance against non-magical physical damage, lowered the max HP by a damage die, and dropped the damage die down to a 1d4+1d6 rather than 1d6+1d6. The logic behind the damage is that the average damage on a hit from FRENZY! ends up being 9 damage, one of the types is necrotic so more rarely resisted, and a basic Eldritch Blast with 16 CHA at level 1 is 8.5 damage with the Agonizing Blast invocation. At Level 5, the Eldritch Blast gets another die so the Wisp becomes a less appealing use of your action. The Investment of the Chain Master overcomes it and lets you use your bonus action to get your Familiar to attack. FRENZY! also has Pack Tactics like the Emberborn because as far as I can remember, there’s no way of increasing your familiar’s attack bonus outside of some magic items. We originally had Blindsight on the FRENZY! but in hindsight its probably too much even though it fits thematically. Our Warlock never used FRENZY! to scout ahead, but if they did they would probably have found out how good Blindsight can be for a scouting familiar. This is meant to be a primarily combat focused familiar, its perks and benefits will shine in that area. Also the Color Power for FRENZY! is rad as hell.

Okay so the Invocations. Starting with Advanced Color Theory (oh my god I’m brilliant), there is one Invocation for each Pact as well as a general one for any Wisp Warlock. Advanced Color Theory never got used in our game because our Warlock was a Chain warlock and it is exclusive for Tomelocks, so I can’t say how powerful it is outside of theory. It should be okay. I don’t think the potential is off the walls, but its a reliable means of ensuring better damage on some of your spells. Warlocks only get so many spells per short rest, and if two of their uses happen to be damage dealers, then they have a means of ensuring a better damage roll. If they don’t plan on, or have an opportunity where its appropriate, to use a proper spell slot on a damage attack, they can always use the charge on an Eldritch Blast. It’s not WOW! (the hidden wisp no one talks about) worthy, but it’s probably not bad. Feeding Frenzy is the Chainlock option. There are three Chain-exclusive invocations in the available official content: one lets you heal way more when your familiar is nearby, one has several benefits that increase its ability DC and attack on a bonus action, and the last increases your familiar telepathy range to same-plane and talk through them. So for combat, Investment of the Chain Master normally makes your familiar stay relevant damage wise as they now don’t compete with your Eldritch Blast. This invocation won’t top that in value probably. It does up their damage as you gain levels, but at lower levels it will mostly make your FRENZY! beefier. The two invocations are meant to synergize together to keep it damage relevant and more survivable as the game goes on. The only error is that Investment sets Familiar DCs to your spell level, so if you already have it the DC13 strength doesn’t matter and the latter benefit at level 16 is already provided. Aside from that, they are meant to synergize together. The level 11 damage increase pushes the average damage to 17 and level 16 will be 24,while an EB+AB will probably be dealing a total of 31.5 and 42 at the same levels. Nothing outside of way more in depth changes will keep a familiar at pace with EB in terms of damage (and our game wasn’t going that long anyway). Investment gets around this by removing the action competition, while this Invocation will slowly up the damage while also provide the added capabilities of pulling an enemy prone and keeping FRENZY! in the fight longer. Hyper-go-on-and-on (dude I’m so funny) is the Invocation mentioned in the prior post that allows players to access the fun color power mechanic early, while also still providing a good benefit once the powers are naturally unlocked. Two extra uses per day without exhausting the Wisp lets the player use their favorite abilities more often, while still not being enough to make use of the same power for every combat in the adventuring day (if you have more than 3 fights in a day).

The final invocation was already posted, and it is the Wispon Warrior invocation for Bladelocks. In the same way that Chainlocks just can’t compete damage wise with using their action to EB+AB, Bladelocks also notoriously suffer in trying to fulfill their main role if they want to DPS. You can get extra attack and add bonus Charisma to damage with invocations, but outside of the Hexblade who can use their Charisma for attack+damage, the reliance on Strength or Dexterity still puts Bladelocks in an awkward spot of having to further divide up their stats and their damage modifier will not top 4xEB+5 at 20 Charisma late game. Rolling the Hexblade Charisma bonus into this Invocation helps ease up the pressure on the situation. You can take this and Thirsting Blade and settle for 4d6+10 total (average 24 per turn with CUBE!), and stick with two Invocations dedicated to it, or still take Lifedrinker and bump it up another 10 points. With all three invocations, you can sit around 34 average which surpasses 3 EB+AB at level 11 and is about 8 points behind 4 EB+AB at level 16. Now, unlike Hexblade, the Bladelock Wisp Warlock doesn’t have medium armor and a shield to shore up survivability, so alternative weapon options are included to give reach or ranged options, and certain Wisp Powers (QUAKE!, LIGHTNING!) can give you an opportunity to get in the enemy face and not get bodied too quickly every now and then. My Warlock player did not get to use this, but I did get to experiment with it via Whisper, who was a Bladelock in my campaign. She was still primarily focused on EB+AB (because as stated in the previous posts, I give Warlocks AB, and if they go Bladelock they can swap it out at 5 when they can get Thirsting Blade) but also did not have access to QUAKE! or LIGHTNING! or any of the Wisps outside of her canon ones. By the way, to compensate for Whisper only having 1/3 of the available Wisps of her subclass, she got 3 uses of each Wisp compared to the normal 1. None of her Wisps are absurdly broken for that, outside of LASER! which lets her get a few solid shots in reliably throughout the time she might spend with the party. Anyway, this invocation should check out to be okay. None of the weapon options are stronger than any regular weapon, although the crit effect on the CUBE! form has always felt a little underwhelming to me. I never saw it in practice, but I also didn’t want to make it too strong of a bonus effect cause it’s already got a maul’s stats. I kind of tacked it on there so it have a little bit extra like how the SPIKES! having reach and being able to remain for Opportunity Attacks (the other weapons explicitly don’t have that stated for a reason, they are meant to last in that form until the end of the attack then return to Quarterstaff stats) or DRILL! having medium range. If you wanted you could do something for CUBE! where instead of having a shove on a crit, the Wispon can stay in that state until the start of the player’s next turn like the SPIKES! sawblade and provide something like a +1AC bonus or something cause of the CUBE! energy bolstering your defences. Just a thought I had while writing.

This isn’t a part of the Warlock document, but it was an item I made available for purchase from the campaign’s Wizard merchant for the Warlock which was really cool. I figured it’d be a peace offering for not having the full document ready to share. The cost by the way is just nonsense, I did away with Copper/Silver/Gold for Sonic and just made a general currency of Zennys/Jennys/Gennys (Z/J/G) to be even more confusing to say. Functionally it was worth 10,000 Gold in regular DnD currency. Anyway throughout the campaign, the biggest frustration the Warlock faced was the turn difference between their character and FRENZY! and how much can change between those turns if the initiative count is big enough. We also might have misunderstood some elements of the turn logics and commanding. Unlike other companion classes like Beast Master Ranger, Drakewarden Ranger, or the Artificer Battle Smith, the Familiar of the Pactlock does not get any kind of means of moving it’s initiative up to follow the player. So I decided to make a magic item to give that, but also realized it had to have a lot more going for it to be appealing for an attunement slot. So it ended up giving a bonus to initiative, a means of getting the Familiar right into the action when a big spell is used, and a synergetic back and forth between the Warlock and their Familiar. FRENZY! becomes less likely to hit as the game goes on and enemies get tougher unless they are given a means of increasing their attack bonus, so the +Prof to attack/damage on an attack might not proc as often as the speed bonus for FRENZY! which is intentional considering how much of a bonus it becomes. It only applies to one attack though, and Warlocks don’t get a ton of spell slots for this to be used on every turn in a combat. In any case, as with all of this stuff, it was made for a specific campaign so don’t go expecting a perfect balance with this item. Also I gave it some Archie flavoring cause my world was an amalgam. Pretty cool, HUH? Anyway thanks for reading and enjoying this content. I had a blast with this campaign and was very happy with how this subclass turned out in regards to all the flavor it added for the player character. I will have the full Google Docs file ready tomorrow for people to get copies of if they want to edit it on their own or save it in its entirety. If you do edit it and post it somewhere, or share it with your friends, please link back to the original. I would love to hear people’s experiences with it if it ever gets used in any niche Sonic themed campaigns, as well as any ideas people might have for similar content! I love reading cool homebrew and brainstorming ideas. If I get any inspiration to share other content from this campaign I’ll be posting it on this account. For instance: This artwork of a boss in the campaign consisting of Rough and Tumble in a traced+modified mech suit from either Metal Gear or some other mech series.

It actually came in three images: solid pieced together, and then split apart:

And yes, that’s a chaos emerald. They stole one at one point and got their bandit group’s engineer to make a “Totally awesome robot suit.” The fight started with them powering up in the suit and saying “You'll yelp in pain, you'll groan and grumble! You're about to brawl with ROUGH AND TUMBLE!” and then at the ~60% health point they said “This fight is getting jank, but we can't just stroll out! It's time for… Tumble to Tank and Rough to Roll Out!” and split apart to reveal the chaos emerald energy source. Before the fight one of the players hacked into the personal laptop of the duo and read their diary entries to figure out what their plans were, then found a document containing all their rhyming ideas and dragged it to the trash folder immediately.

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echodrops · 1 year

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The Promises I’m Making (2023)

Oop, a little late on this this year, but it was really hard to come up with 50 different promises this year. Some years it is so easy, but this year I just drew a total blank. I think the complete unpredictability of the past two years has left me with the sense that I shouldn’t try to plan for anything--the wild events of the year might just send those plans up in smoke in an instant!

Still, the show must go on! So, 16 years later, I’m still making 50 promises a year. Definitely hoping that this year will be better than the last and I’ll be able to keep quite a few more promises, including some of them that have been rolled over for multiple years--maybe, maybe! Without any more ado, here they are:

2023 Promises

1) Work on the Texas house yard. It’s still never really recovered from the frost that killed everything in 2021 and it looks pretty shabby right now.

2) Get both bedroom floors sanded in the Utah house upstairs.

3) Get the Utah house sprinklers up and working ALL the way for this summer.

4) Actually get the back fence fixed up and the greenery back there trimmed and managed.

4) Put a new sink/vanity in the downstairs bathroom of the Utah house.

5) Related to that, lose at least 20 pounds. 2020-2022 was not kind to me and the stress eating was real.

6) Take my mom on a road trip to one of the U.S. states that she has not been to before.

7) Get back in touch with the allergy specialist to continue working on my allergy/inflammation issues.

8) Go through my closets and donate or throw away clothes that I know I will not wear.

9) Finish at least five books this year.

10) Organize my documents (especially student papers)—my desktop and documents folders give me nightmares just looking at them.

11) Help Kacchan through her first semester as a teacher! Exciting!!

12) Get a decent paper shredder to shred old mail.

13) Clean off my back patio/car port area so I can park my car there again.

14) Get the Texas house dishwasher fixed… I’m so tired of washing dishes by hand… How do people do this, oof.

15) 100% complete FF16 babyyyyy!!

16) Talk to an HR rep about my retirement savings so that I can consolidate my retirement accounts. I have been putting this off for like five years now.

17) Do at least one artwork to actually use that new paint program I bought.

18) Pay my credit debt down by at least $2000. I’m still paying off the hell year but I hope I can make progress on this.

19) Finish making changes to master courses. No more major revisions!

20) See a zone-tailed hawk. This is another rare-but-possible bird for my area.

21) Attend the FFXIV Fanfest in Las Vegas!

22) Update HaaH at least once. Please, Echo???

23) Get the small leak fixed in the side bathroom of the Texas house and have the faucets replaced.

24) Look into the cost of light housekeeping services to give myself a little more time to do things that aren’t work.

25) Catch up with hanging up all the charms/pins I’ve gotten recently on my corkboards; these are just sitting in boxes/bags around the house. D;

26) Use Spotify more often or cancel my Spotify Premium subscription; it’s not worth it if I don’t use it.

27) Get an art display book to preserve my great grandfather’s artworks (which we discovered my now late uncle STOLE from me even though they were willed to me when my grandfather passed away???)

28) Fix the screens on the Texas house.

29) Bird watch at a specific location in Texas. It’s my secret where since I’d rather not share my specific location on social media, but let’s hope I can finally make it to this place!

30) Finally get rid of the dirt pile in the front of the Utah house.

31) Sign NeNe (my puppy) up for the intermediate dog training course.

32) This is super nerdy, but my bro got me the FFXIV cookbook and made me promise to actually use it, so I guess I’d better at least try to make something from it.

33) Take down the remains of the wooden fence posts at the Utah house.

34) Take part in the fitness challenge at work this coming semester.

35) I will remember to take my medicine on time, all the time. Taking them late is messing things up quite a bit.

36) Get a stand for the toaster oven in the break room so we can finally use it!

37) Get my car detailed because the inside really needs to be vacuumed.

38) Go horseback riding on the island. I’ve never ridden on a beach before!

39) Eat healthier. Maybe cutting out snacks is too much to ask, but at least replace some average meals with salads, etc. and overall make an effort to actually eat better. Sometimes the fact that I feel like garbage is my own fault.

40) Wait, I should probably acquire a Playstation 5 so I can actually play my new copy of FF16, lol.

41) Help make sure the new tutoring requirement for the English classes goes over well.

42) Finish decorating the main office. I’ll feel better if my workplace reflects the level of professionalism and school spirit that I envisioned it having this year.

43) Catch every variant of Vivillon in Pokemon Go. I’m currently missing Icy Snow, Marine, Meadow, Monsoon, Ocean, Polar, River, Sandstorm, Savanna, Sun, and Tundra, if anyone would like to be friends!

44) Try to be more comprehensive with giving feedback to students. I’m always good at providing detailed comments on essays, but I’d like to spend more time commenting on smaller assignments too this year.

45) Make sure the retirement party for my coworkers who retired this year goes off without a hitch and honors them well.

46) Take part in more activities on campus; I have a tendency to not attend many events because they’re in the evening when I’m tired, but I should really stay more often.

47) Write some Chainsaw Man fanfic for @mistystarshine!

48) Help my parents tear out the carpet in my old childhood bedroom.

49) Do something to destress (massage, pedicure, something?) at least once per month. I gotta take better care of myself…

50) I will keep my promises!

Wish me luck!

#50 promises #new year's resolutions #IRL stuff

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cookinguptales · 2 years

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watwudbuffydo said: I get that- I just hope that Guillermo gets even more confident about /less like he needs to hide when being gay and doing crime. I just think it’s hilarious that he has no problem having his record as a serial killer by proxy documented but he draws the line at the camera crew knowing about the embezzling. But hey, he’s our king of cognitive dissonance I suppose lol.

[cont.]

In other words, I say forget London girlboss adventures- Nadja and Guillermo mob bosses is where it’s at!

---------------

I mean, realistically speaking I think he’s just more afraid of Nadja finding out his crimes than the cops. Which is the sanest thing he’s thought in years. I think it’s actually more interesting that he trusted them to hide that he was a slayer but then thought he had to bribe them now. (Aside here, I do think there’s been a shift in the way he’s come to trust anyone at this point, but that’s a whole other post.)

Like I think that being a familiar has shielded him from legal repercussions for so long that normal crime doesn’t really faze him. This is the man that we saw dismembering bodies in their yard once, for god’s sake. In broad daylight! But doing something against his vampires is different. That would endanger his place in his home and in his family, and doing something against Nadja specifically could be a death sentence. A very painful death sentence. lmao. I can see how that information getting out would scare him a lot more than any of his other crimes.

(I think there’s also an examination to be done here of what Guillermo has grown to find an acceptable target for his crimes and machinations, and how that’s changed along with his confidence levels and disillusionment with vampiric power in general. He’s really gone from “I will rob dead humans only” to “okay I’ll commit crimes against live humans too but only in service to my masters” to “nah actually petty crime is always fun against humans” to “maybe I should kill vampires too but only in self-defense” to “okay but what if I also kill them in service to my masters” to “I am now committing petty crimes against vampires for my own benefit” to “hell, I’ll kill that vampire right there for fun”.)

I also want him to lean into being a (not so) smooth criminal right along with Nadja. I want game to recognize game. I want them to enter into a long con together. I want them to kick ass together. Just like Nandor has come to recognize Guillermo’s skills as a warrior and Laszlo has come to recognize his skills as a protector/carer, I want Nadja to recognize his skills as a completely balls-to-the-wall insane criminal. I love that Guillermo designed a long con for them in The Casino. I love that Nadja pretended to be Over It but then she got more into it than anyone.

I want them to do so much crime together. I want Laszlo and Nandor to be so scared and so proud and so horny. I want Colin Robinson to grow up in the lap of psychopathic luxury. I want Nadja and Guillermo to become the criminal breadwinners for the family now that Colin can’t pay the bills. I want their guywives to be kept men. God, I want Nadja and Guillermo to be “organized crime” but organized like a scribbled-out chore wheel for children. I want them to get through their increasingly insane schemes through sheer stubborn gumption and sexy murder.

ohhhhhh criminal nadja and guillermo. love it. I need them to recognize each other and stop fighting.

#I feel bad but now I want to write fic where Nadja and Guillermo are actually conning Freddie and Guillermo's a honeypot #I'm sorry Freddie I just don't know you and I have no loyalty to you and I do not care about your emotions #but the idea of Guillermo stringing a guy along for months just to rob him makes me Interested #nadja and guillermo have always been my two favorite characters and I'd love to see them wreak havoc together #replies #wwdits #wwdits s4 spoilers

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weekend-whip · 2 years

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I am so confused and in shambles dude. From what I've read so far (haven't finished the first book yet) your worldbuilding and characterizations are immaculate! How do you do it?? How would you recommend improving on that type of stuff?

(skdsfjdkjgj my own rewrite is just a mess of random stuff I have no idea how to write characters or properly worldbuild)

Aww thank you!! I dunno how to recommend straight up improvement when everyone’s got different approaches to how they write and how they want to write, buuuut this is kind of my thought process when approaching a project a big as a rewrite that you could try. *-*)9

...this also got a bit long, so I’mma gently tuck it under a cut:

-All those random tidbits you’ve already got, anything at all? WRITE EM DOWN, keep ‘em stored somewhere easily accessible! I’ve currently got like four pages dedicated just for all the small stuff I want to eventually include/scenes I MUST write. It’s good to have a few bare basics to look back on or reference when you’re not sure of how to tackle a scene or what direction you want to take a character/plot.

For example, maybe you want to demonstrate how Kai gradually grows to accept help over time: in what ways does he start to become more comfortable with his team? What moments will stand out as turning points? Or it could even be less specific stuff like “Scene where Nya talks to Zane”. At what point in the plot would that be good to insert? And what would have led up to that moment? Thinking about stuff like that from the get-go will always give you a place to start from, and keeps the ideas flowing. You can always change and tweak later as you develop!

-Outline a general direction of where you want to take the story overall! It can be detailed right down to every paragraph of every chapter, or just simply a “this is how it starts, this is where the middle is, and this is how it ends”. Just give yourself somewhere to start, then figure out how you want to get from Point A to Point B, and it’ll basically write itself! And then if you happened to get stuck going forward, it becomes easier to see where you’re stuck at. Sometimes you’ll have to cut something out because it isn’t flowing, sometimes you’ll have to add more because things aren’t making enough sense! Either way, doing this makes it easier to see potential problems in the plot before you write yourself into a corner (...which I have done a few times).

And if you do find yourself scrapping something, don’t get rid of it completely! Hang onto those ideas/scenes you once tried to include—there’s a good chance you may find another opportunity for them later down the line! It makes it so much less stressful than trying to rewrite from memory too. (Especially in the case where you find yourself overhauling an entire chapter...which I have done. Many times.)

-Make a master timeline of events! Extremely helpful when referencing things that happened in the past, and to sort out potential time-related plot holes before they can occur! (especially in the case of something like Ninjago). Knowing exactly how long ago something happened or how long an event goes on for will do wonders for maintaining consistency. Highly recommend. (I’ve actually got two documents for my timeline because it’s a LOT to keep track of)

-As for actually doing some world building, I must confess, a lot of mine didn’t even fully pop up until I actually began writing the sequel ahahaah. I just knew I wanted the ninja to be aware that their elements were inherited from the get-go, rather than all the way into Season 4...which then spawned the idea for the eye colors, and why it wasn’t common knowledge, and then the entire Elemental Compass came along (which I conceived on the fly, lol, all of that was not in my original design AT ALL), and then how the Guardians were involved, and then how the FSM played into all of that...and now I’ve got a baseline of lore to play with. I guess what I’m trying to say on this front is that sometimes, you don’t have to think so hard about the world-building until it becomes relevant, or until you’re forced to answer a big question like “Why is this the way it is?”

(...and ALL of the above snowballed for me JUST because I had to explain away why the general public and even the Ninja themselves wouldn’t have taken interest in Lloyd’s green eyes when they otherwise should have)

....but fi you’re looking for a more concrete answer, or just want some lore ready from the start, consider how society is structured in your universe. Is there a currency system, or do people barter for goods? Is there one collective language, or is there several, and why? What’s the geography like, is there a reason more people live in one area over another? Figuring out “base” things like that will help you maneuver the characters in the world you create. And in the case of Elemental Powers, well, I suppose that’ll depend on how deep you wanna take your rewrite. Is there an entirely new system for how it works, or are you going to pull from what’s already established (as tangled as it is asdfghj)?

-Characters are a bit trickier; for starters, I’d recommend rewatching the show (for the umpteenth time) to really get a feel for the characters’ mannerisms, speech patterns, and what they’re most likely to do in any given situation. For example, Zane’s obviously got a more posh and concise way of speaking, while Jay and Kai are far more casual and less direct (and the difference between those two is that Kai will often make the situation relevant to himself while Jay’s more prone to go off on a tangent about literally anything). Cole’s speech patterns, meanwhile, depend entirely on the current situation: he’s more firm when in the midst of a mission, but far less formal while chilling around.

Or, another interpretation of mine: when tackling a situation, Kai will almost always act on instinct, which can come off as impulsive depending on what it is. He only stops to think things through when he realizes he’s got the upper hand. Jay will tend to hang back until he sees an opportunity, then drives for it with all he’s got (or he’s otherwise forced to act). Zane will analyze a situation before making any big moves at all, and will adapt his strategy from there (and tends to be caught off guard often because he’s thinking too much). Cole will normally try to assess a situation if he can, but if he’s emotional to any degree, can prove to be just as impulsive as Kai or thought-distracted as Zane.

Something you could do to practice all this, or to find your own ‘flavor’ for the characters would be to write imaginary dialogue between them in any random situation you can come up with–what would they be saying to each other during a chase scene? Or around a dinner table? Or when they’re trying to comfort somebody? How would Kai approach the problem compared to Zane? How’s Jay going to react to it compared to Cole? They’re not always going to agree on everything immediately either, so how would a potential argument go where no one’s really in the wrong? It’s those little nuances that can really make characterization pop, and a lot of it happens subconsciously!

Another thing you can do is read, read, READ other people’s stories! Getting a feel for how others interpret the characters can give you some ideas too (or give you an idea of what you DON’T want to do, lol). But reading does help make it easier to envision a character’s voice when applied to the written word, so that way when you’re writing and trying to nail their nuance, you have something of a baseline to compare to. (A lot of my “baseline” so to speak comes from @/lloyd-skywalkers’ amazing fics and The Fantastic Mr. Walker, actually)

When it comes to applying these characters to your own design though, you’re going to have to extrapolate: you’ve got the basics of the character right in front of you, but there’ll be a time when you’ll have to put them in a situation they’ve never been in before, or feel emotions they haven’t shown a lot of on screen. For example, you’d think Kai would just be a constant ball of rage and frustation and yelling, but I personally have a tendency to make Kai cry far more often. Not as some ooc-replacement for his anger, but precisely because he’s so angry at things. It stems from the insane amount of pressure, standards, and expectations he puts on himself, and the results of how his life had been prior to being a ninja, and because of how much he just wants good things for the people he cares about (and yet, bad stuff just keeps happening). And that makes a least a little bit of sense, right? Technically nothing is out of character, as long as there’s a character-driven/related reason for why it’s happening. So my advice here is, don’t be afraid to see how far you can push with a character. You can achieve a goldmine of character moments by doing this!

AND....uh, I think that’s all I got, for now! Hope this helped even to the smallest degree, and good luck with your own rewrite!

(And if you’re looking for more general writing tips, check the tags! I’m not going to get into that stuff because fanfic allows us to break normal writing conventions and you can be free to explore whatever works for you!)

#legogeek33 #time to take my own advice and finish the sequel adsfghj #ask from nice people

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