#gotta be the ones with the scenes. So far my absolutely least favourite experience was going to the cinema to see Ready Or Not

[beyond-a-name]

Top five music albums of the 2010's :3

Oh god I have to actually think about what came out in the 2010s. Uhhhhhhhhhh

1. Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino by The Arctic Monkeys: This is one of the first times I really excitedly bought an album and listened to it as a cohesive artistic piece, rather than just as background music or something I got with family. It is one of the few albums I let take up the very limited storage on my phone, and it is the first album I was interested in enough to research its meaning and concept. 10/10

(Uhhh okay I gotta go look up some other albums I'll be back.) [Exit stage right]

[Some time passes.]

Okay I'm back and I have reviewed albums.

2. Unearthing the Sentience by Beyond Flesh: So first off, I discovered this album this year through a friend of mine, and I absolutely love it. It's a technical death metal producer duo that released this and another album (the other one came out in 2020 and so doesn't count for this :/). It is entirely instrumental, but each song is so distinct. It'll introduce a concept, put a few spins on it, then tie it all together in a beautiful conclusion. The songwriting methodology honestly reminds me of Super Mario level design (as laid out by GMTK on youtube) in its expressive focus. Half of the duo, Juan Carlos Hernández, has genuinely become one of my favourite artists of all time. I have not yet had the pleasure of exploring his whole discography, but what I have thus far listened to has been extraordinary. Every piece is an imaginative journey that I delight in being swept up in. If you want to enrich your musical tastes a little more, you can find more of his work spread out across a few different bandcamps (his dungeon synth/ambience/fantasy works, his doom metal project, and his other works) or check out the occasional work posted to his tumblr at @imsobadatnicknames2. The works are entirely prolific and delightful, and this album in particular has been one of few that's started me getting into more metal. 11/10

3. Transgender Dysphoria Blues by Against Me: I also found this one this year, and it was recommended through another friend. Amazing punk music about being trans (and other topics, of course). I had shown great interest in punk culture and aesthetic approaches, but this was a really good deliberate foray into the music itself that resonated with me personally (I'm a trains). The album was released after the singer and frontwoman came out as a trans woman, and it heavily centres her experience in doing so in a way that is really provocative and heartfelt. Some of the songs seem, I guess the word is insecure? In a way I don't really resonate with, but I guess that's the point, isn't it? The first two songs, Transgender Dysphoria Blues and True Trans Soul Rebel, have been permanently etched into my heart. I also really like Paralytic States. Really good to listen to as a full album. 10/10

4. Morning Coffee Chillhop Lo Fi Electronic Mix by Various Artists: "But wait!" I hear you exclaim. "That's not an album, it's just a youtube lofi mix!" Yes. Anyway, this mix has been my absolute favourite since I first heard it, and it really kickstarted my exploration of lofi. Like before this I was checking it out, but upon hearing this, I was well and truly hooked. The first song overlays audio from a tv scene (I think it's twin peaks?) about rewarding yourself every day, ("Every day, give yourself a present,") and it's a lovely sentiment to begin an album a mix on. the use of additional audio throughout is typical for lofi, but it is used to great effect here to elevate the music it's played over rather than obscure it while rendering each song distinct. It was also the first time (or at least most memorable time) I heard something like that. I do not know the name of a single song on this mix, and if I ever lose access to it, I will kill everyone within a five kilometer radius. 10/10

5. Starbomb's Self-Titled Debut Album: This is a comedy album around video games composed of several Game Grumps members, and I bought it as a teenager and listened to it front to back maybe more times than I got a good night's sleep. I'm not really into Game Grumps anymore, and now I kind of tend to skip NSP (other Game Grumps-adjacent band) when it comes up on older playlists of mine. But like, I couldn't un-memorize this thing even if I wanted to, and it is somehow one of like 6 albums still on my phone (Tranquility Base was unwittingly bought on Google Play Music and did not outlast its end) even since getting a new phone. Even the Caravan Palace album, while it's still on my device, didn't soundtrack my teenagedom nearly as pervasively, and it does not stand out as much as the other entries here (you should still listen though). I can sing along flawlessly to every track, and it is lovingly catalogued by that dorky teenager I carry in me as I keep growing through adulthood. It's my alarms sometimes. I want to rate it lower, but I have loved it too entirely for too long. 10/10

Surprise Bonus Play!!!!!!!! (Woa!) (Honourable Mention)

6. Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 by The Flaming Lips: This one is maybe cheating a bit as it's a greatest hits album, but whatever. I initially bought this on impulse as a gift for a friend for his birthday (I bought myself one as well), and I fell in love with how silly the song names and premises were. We all loved it, and had a blast listening to it via his playstation, then later in the car when we went camping together. I genuinely did not realize that it might be a somewhat well-known band before I saw the inclusion of one of their songs in the game Hi-Fi Rush. (Hint: They are very well-known. They have many awards and a long history. Their discography has its own wikipedia article seperate from their main article. I didn't know any of this until I came to wrote this.) I especially like "She Don't Use Jelly," which aside from being very funny, also implies a delicious toast recipe which I wholeheartedly recommend everybody try. 10/10

#also these aren't really ranks so much as the order I though of them in #music #musicposting #albumposting #Asks? Answered.

[danwhobrowses]

Star Wars Visions - Review

So I finally finished watching all of Visions, the ambitious anime project set in a Star Wars loose if at all canon, and I truly had a good time with it, as a fan of anime and Star Wars I was curious how they would deliver.

Spoilers for Visions, watch it then come back here to read what I thought about it. Reminder: This is my own personal opinion

So as I said, really enjoyed this experiment Disney decided to take, the 9 episodes weren't all flawless but they weren't awful either, so I'm gonna go through what I liked and disliked about it.

We'll start with the negatives, since they're few, picky and it gets it out of the way.

What Wasn't Great

Runtime A veiled negative has to be many episode's runtimes being too short, some only lasting 10-15 minutes. Before watching I was expecting all to be at least 30 minutes, so it was a shame that none lasted that long.

Episode 2: Glorified Music Video I think Episode 2 was perhaps the weakest episode of the nine for me, because it was all building up to a song. I think it probably leaned a bit too much on existing characters like Jabba and Boba, as well as Tatooine, to carry interest, so it was a bit of a low point.

Episode 3: Studio Trigger keep their balls away from the wall Episode 3's The Twins wasn't bad, it just lingered a bit too much on the less fun things. Studio Trigger had made a name for themselves for striking visuals and absolutely batshit crazy fight scenes that ignore all manner of physics with the likes of Promare, Kill La Kill and Darling of the Franxx (and kinda Gurren Lagann, the company was made as a result of that so it's like a Studio Ghibli thing with Nausicaa) but The Twins didn't have enough of the major fight scene for my liking, given how most of what we saw was in the trailer. Maybe it's the fault of the trailer, but it did feel like you could just watch the trailer rather than the episode, which is a bad thing.

Episode 7 too, but it also lacks bravery The Elder was also a good episode, but it too lacked in the final fight, the ending being very abrupt. The Elder also had a problem in that they wasted their good characters, but also failed in stakes. Had the padawan been killed instead of simply being wounded by a lightsaber slash to the belly it probably would've worked more, since we were shown that the Elder is precise in his cutting and it would've served to increase the urgency of the master fighting him too. The fight was short and out of the characters we lost it was the most important character that bit the dust.

The Episode Order could've been Better My final criticism has to be that the order of the episodes felt like it could've been better. Starting with The Duel was right but following it up with Tatooine Rhapsody brought the mood down, likewise putting The Elder after T0-B1 was perhaps too jarring a theme switch. The bigger sin was probably ending with Akakiri. Akakiri was good, but it was a downer and you don't really finish a Season 1 on a downer because you want people to feel excited for more rather than feeling bleak about it; with the options of Lop & Ocho, The Elder, The Village Bride and The Ninth Jedi (which would've been my pick for episode 9) it was an odd choice to pace the episodes in such a way - even when knowing that people would binge in this order. FYI if you wanted to know how I would've ordered the episodes it would've been The Duel -> The Elder -> The Twins -> Lop & Ocho -> Tatooine Rhapsody -> T0-B1 -> The Village Bride -> Akakiri -> The Ninth Jedi

This way we start strong with Sith-heavy episodes that grip with combat, we have the Duel to set us off, we show off the Elder to sell the Dark Side's strength, which blends into the Twins and that sibling relationship blends into Lop & Ocho, we use Tatooine Rhapsody as an intermission of sorts but then carry the lighter theme with T0-B1, whose artistic elements and worldbuilding leans into the Village Bride. We make Akakiri the penultimate since we show the Jedi succumb to the Dark for love in contrast to the Elder where the Jedi succeeds by steeling emotions, before finishing strong with Ninth Jedi.

What Was Great

Anime is perfect for Star Wars Star Wars has of course delved into animation before; Clone Wars (both), Rebels, Resistance and Bad Batch, but never like Anime. So Visions was allowed to shine by showing off everything anime can offer which more realistic CGI and live action could not. Bright colour grading, physics-defying movement, as well as unique character and lightsaber shapes.

(Mostly) Not Wasting Time While I have criticized some episodes for not making the most of things, and not having enough time, but many episodes would last 12-15 minutes and still feel like they had a coherent storylines with no gaps in getting to know the brand new characters or a lack of important information and investment. It is a testament to the good writing of the episodes that episodes got so much from such little time.

We're Left Wanting More In spite many episodes' brevity, the good writing also provided us stories with great potential to be fleshed out. Who wouldn't want to learn more about these new characters? See most of their adventures? The franchise potential from certain stories' one episode makes the experiment an unequivocal success.

The different styles add to the story Using a different anime studio for each story allowed each episode to stand out in their own way, and lean on different areas of importance. The Duel for instance applied a Kurosawa aesthetic which made the audience anticipate samurai themes. As much as the animation will get props for its visuals, environments and character design we should also give a hat-tip to the amazing music, especially in The Village Bride, and the voice acting from both JP and EN. We had some recognizable faces on both sides with EN having Joseph Gordon-Levitt, David Harbour, George Takei, Neil Patrick Harris, Allison Brie, Simu Liu, Karen Fukuhara, Lucy Liu and Taemura Morrison reprising as Boba, while on the JP side we had names familiar with One Piece (Zoro - why you gotta be a sith Zoro!, Brook, Tama, Kiku), DBZ (Goku), Naruto (Hidan, Tayuya and if you count Boruto; Chocho and Kawaki), Jujitsu Kaisen (Itadori, Megumi, Nobara) and more. The different styles also allowed a greater freedom to lore between studios, I know the lightsaber colour thing was done in High Republic but I did like how in the Ninth Jedi Kara's lightsaber started out translucent (I actually preferred it that way), while not diverting too far away from the canon.

The Samurai style episodes were the strongest While some episodes leaned on other elements of Star Wars, the best of the bunch kept true with the correlation force users had with samurai. The Duel, Village Bride and Ninth Jedi - alongside Akakiri, Elder and kinda T0-B1 - had strong showings by maintaining their force user characters as samurai or samura-esque, which only added to the themes of the episodes too.

Its success will hopefully entice more Studios and Directors A positive for the future is the fact that there is a future. Visions has plenty of mileage as both a series of one-off stories or stories that can be expanded upon, and its success will mean that more will be on the cards. Imagine now what other studios may want to try their hand at their own story in this universe? And what it does not only for the franchise but also the animation studios themselves, because this in itself becomes a bridge for fans on either side to be introduced to the other; new anime fans, new star wars fans, everybody wins.

Conclusion

Visions provides an alternative in Star Wars media outside of live action but also away from the CGI tv shows, but it has started off strongly almost as well as The Mandalorian and in my opinion better than the Bad Batch did. My favourite episode was probably the Ninth Jedi, but Village Bride and the Duel are close runners up, soon followed by Lop & Ocho, I hope very much that the stories these ones started especially can be fleshed out and maybe even greenlit for their own series, while also curious about what more Star Wars can deliver.

All in all, good job for everyone, they took a risk and it paid off.

#star wars #star wars visions #sw visions #sw visions spoilers #the duel #tatooine rhapsody #the twins #the village bride #t0 b1 #lop and ocho #akakiri #the elder #the ninth jedi

[anguisette90]

2021 AO3 Year In Writing

tagged by: @laurabeatrix

I definitely didn't start this weeks ago when I was tagged and then not get a chance to finish it and completely forget about it until I went to check my drafts for something else. *cough* I'm also incapable of giving short answers, so I decided to do a "read more" and save any mobile users from a ridiculous amount of scrolling to get past my nonsense.

1. Number of stories posted to AO3:

7

2. Word count posted for the year:

260,927 words (though really only around 190K of that was written in 2021, a lot of it was written in 2019 or 2020 and I only got the courage to share in 2021, haha.)

3. Fandoms I wrote for:

The Dresden Files

4. Pairings:

Harry/Murphy, Harry/Lara, & (sigh) Harry/Marcone

5. Story with the most:

Kudos: 80 Floors Up (122)

Bookmarks: 80 Floors Up (21)

Comments: All's Fair(59)

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

Mm. I’m really pleased with how All’s Fair turned out. It’s the first story I’ve ever fully planned out and written methodically, with the knowledge that I’d be sharing it with people and so it needed to do story-y things. This is the first thing I’ve ever written that felt like I really had to work at it, but the end result is something that I feel is actually pretty well polished.

Runner-up shout out to The Detective & Miss Murphy though. I went into it with only the vaguest idea of when the Regency era even was and having precisely zero experience with either consuming or creating Regency romance books/shows/movies. I expected it to be a total disaster, and while it definitely is not the best thing ever written or even the best thing I’ve ever written, I think it’s turned out pretty well so far. Jane Austen I am not, but since @LauraBeatrix’s original inspiration for the conversation was Bridgerton, and Julia Quinn is also definitely no Jane Austen (which I know now, because I’ve read like four or five of those books at least, so thanks for that LauraB :P) I’ll take it. I also genuinely put more time and effort into research for this fic than I did for all of my college classes combined last year (8 of them? 9? A bunch) and while I’m not exactly proud of that fact, I’m not not-proud either.

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

I’m tempted to say 80 Floors Up because it is the fic I have put the absolute least amount of thought or effort into – it was a silly premise that I wrote in a single weekend including editing time. But it did turn out pretty good despite being somewhat ridiculous?

I guess I Caught Fire. Every time I look at it I feel like it’s missing something, like something’s off about it, but no matter how I poke at it I’m not satisfied.

8. Share or describe a favourite review you received:

It’s been a good year for reviews. Honestly, everybody is so sweet and supportive. I started 2021 kind of on the fence about whether to continue posting things and very insecure in my own writing but people have been so nice. I have genuinely cried from comments received several times this past year.

(Not that I have a folder on my phone with screenshots of comments that I flip through when imposter syndrome gets bad or anything. I’m not desperate for validation. It’s cool.)

But my absolute favorite review? Gotta be this lovely gem from @LauraBeatrix:

9. A time when writing was really, really hard:

I hit a snag in The Detective & Miss Murphy for a bit there where I had waaaaay too much planned content to fit into waaaay too few chapters, which was super difficult to work through.

I also have had a few instances (once for All’s Fair, twice for yet-unposted WIPs) where I’ve had to dwell on That Scene from midway through Battle Ground and that’s been a very different kind of difficult.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you:

Harry and Murphy are constantly surprising me in The Detective & Miss Murphy because they never do quite what I expect them to do. I have whole scenes planned out and then one of them just says something out of nowhere, or does something crazy. You know what I didn’t expect at the start of writing a regency romance? That my hero and heroine would have a woman tied up in the heroine’s bedroom to get information out of her. Didn’t expect that to happen. Absolutely insane. I have no control over them.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

This bit for All’s Fair keeps sticking with me and I’m fond of it: “I remembered when she’d been mine and I’d been hers. When we’d professed our love and when we'd acted on it. I remembered when I knew with all of my heart, mind, and soul that I belonged wholly and completely to her, that I would never love anyone the way I loved her. We were made for each other, in the sense that years of shared experiences and friendship had forged us into complementary shapes, worn and scarred but familiar and comfortable, fitting perfectly together.”

12. How did you grow as a writer this year:

I have definitely gained a lot more confidence in myself. Two years ago, getting an even vaguely critical comment on something would haunt me for weeks and make me question whether or not I should continue posting. Even at the beginning of last year, I frequently questioned whether or not I should bother sharing what I wrote, if I was just being stupid and arrogant to believe that other people would want to read it, etc. I'm not saying I've magically become immune to criticism or anything, but I'm at a place where I can get a negative comment, process the feedback (if there actually is any), and move on with my life without losing sleep over it. Which is progress.

13. How do you hope to grow next year:

I want to put more of a focus on original work in 2022 than I did last year. I still expect most of what I write to be fic, but I'm starting to entertain the idea that 15 year old me might have been right after all and I should try to become a published author.

I also want to invest more time in actually learning how to be a better writer. I've listened to TED talks and interviews and things like that here and there with authors I respect, and sometimes I pick up good advice, and sometimes I think the advice isn't for me, but I want to spend more time doing that this year. Writing, like any art imo, has a large instinctive component, but that doesn't mean you can't better hone your instincts with training.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc):

Last spring I stumbled across a post where some total strangers were discussing wanting to see fluff of Harry/Murphy. One person in particular had a specific request, I think she said she wanted to see Harry at another Murphy family reunion? I don't remember now. Whatever it was, I had this fic that had been sitting in my drafts since 2019ish and it sounded like just what she was looking for. So even though I thought it was kind of a poorly-written fic, I posted it on AO3 and shared it here, hoping maybe one or more of these people would see it. Even if it wasn't very good, I figured not-great content is still better than no content, right?

That very particular stranger was @laurabeatrix, who did see my fic, and had a ton of kind things to say about it, and has basically not stopped saying nice things about my fics since. She is my biggest cheerleader/muse/emotional support beta reader/tinfoil hat co-conspirator/3 AM rambling thought sounding board/all-around wonderful person. I can honestly say without exaggeration that at least half of what I've written this year wouldn't have happened without her, or at least wouldn't have been posted. Also, she made art for a fic that I wrote. Art. Like for real fanart. It's been months and I'm still kind of freaking out about that because seriously how cool is that?

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

No current events from my life, though I've definitely drawn from my life experiences. There's a scene in Paper & Jewelry where Harry's watching Murphy use a step ladder to try to put baubles on the Christmas tree, which was directly inspired by my wife watching me nearly break my neck several times trying to string the lights on our tree a few years back.

Also, not sure if it counts but most of the time when I choose to set a scene in a specific place in Chicago it's because it's a place I've been and often have pictures I can reference. Several of Lara and Harry's dates in All's Fair are locations the wife and I have also visited together. Really wish we weren't living in plague times, because it's been way too long since we had a chance to get out there and I'm itching for it.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

Share what you've written! I don't care what you've written. I don't care if its an obscure ship from an obscure fandom with a weirdly specific set of tags that you think only you could possibly care about. Someone wants to read it. You think it's bad? It's probably amazing, but even if it isn't, to be honest, who cares? If you liked the idea, or the dialogue, or the setting, or whatever enough to write it, someone else will like it too. It's easy to get caught up in the number of kudos, or the number of comments, but honestly, even if there's just one other person out there who reads it any enjoys it, you've still made an impact on the world, you've made that one person's day better for a few minutes (or hours, or if you write as much as I do maybe days) just by sharing your ideas, your art. Don't second-guess yourself.

And if you're writing for one of my fandoms, this goes doubly for you. Odds are if there's only one weirdo who is going to like your fic, I'm that weirdo, and I want to read it, lol (But seriously, you're better than you think. How do I know? Because I've never in my life met a writer who was as bad or worse than they thought. We all think that. It's okay. Just share anyway.)

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

Very close to finishing Detective and Miss Murphy which is both exciting and sad. I'll miss it but I'll be glad to have it wrapped up too.

After that, I've got a kind of dark post-BG longfic I'm working on, which will let me play with myths and deities, some of which we haven't had a chance to see yet in canon, and I'm both nervous and excited for that prospect. We'll see how it works out.

As always, I've got about two dozen other misc WIPs too, most of which aren't ready for me to talk about them yet, but I'm sure there' will be plenty of forthcoming fic for 2022.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read:

As usual I'm not directly tagging anyone because I don't do that, but if you're reading this and you would like to provide your answers, consider this me, tagging you. I'd love to read your thoughts!!

[neverxalone]

———  basics! ♡

NAME! ♡       Yoo-sook

PRONOUNS! ♡     Hehehehehehhehehehehehehheehe

ZODIAC SIGN! ♡     Virgo

TAKEN OR SINGLE! ♡     Attack on Taken 

———  three  facts! ♡

1! ♡   I’ve been called “Ms.” and “Ma’am” in real life more times than I can count the times I was called “Mr.” recently. I find it flattering. Ah yes, the perks of skinny jeans, wolf cuts, and overall androgyny    

2! ♡   I play all the instruments and do the vocals for my metalcore/black metal band Escapade To Serenity. Here is my favorite song I’ve made so far: link

3! ♡   I’m Straight Edge, there’s a huge drinking and smoking culture here and everywhere else I guess, and I’m not up for it-- especially in the metal and -core scenes. I’m not the militant/policing type of Straight Edge follower though since I believe everyone has a right to do what they want to do or consume what they want to, but if there’s a chance for me to promote or encourage others to try Straight Edge, I’d take it. I gotta say I’m not so good at convincing though xD

———  experience! ♡

PLATFORMS USED! ♡     I started off RPing on Facebook in 2011, then moved to Twitter for a  very brief period in 2012 or 2013. I found the text limit on Twitter to be very restraining since one would have to make multiple tweets if they were to continue a long reply to a thread, and that kinda broke the pace for me. I don’t remember how I thought of Tumblr or came across it, but I moved here in 2013 and have preferred this as my RP platform ever since! I love how customizable the whole experience can be here. 

———  muse  preference! ♡

GENDER! ♡     I started off writing male characters, but as of late, I’ve found myself writing female characters more often. I guess I relate to them more than I do the male characters in the shows and media that I am exposed to. 

LEAST FAVOURITE FACE(S)! ♡   I don’t know and I don’t mind what people use. 

MULTI OR SINGLE! ♡      I’ve almost always did single muse settings. I remember trying dual muse blogs for my OCs in 2013 and 2014, but it was hard to keep track of two muses at once, so I just opted for my single muse blogs. I find them easier to manage.

FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡    okay let’s do this.

FLUFF :   FLUFF GOOD. Especially when done with characters and muns who are totally down with the ship, or if there is a natural chemistry that just makes you go “THIS IS IT, THEY ARE PERFECT”

ANGST :   So.... coming from a person who listens to Linkin Park and MySpace Metalcore on a regular, dare I say, daily basis, I absolutely DIG angst! Some of my muses have sad and angsty backstories as well which helps in the drive for that particular genre, but there are times that I also feel sad for my muses... Like I just want them to be happy as well, you know? 

SMUT :   I feel comfortable with smut if the characters have chemistry and the other mun is okay with it as well... Although I feel like I am somewhat lacking in some aspects because I have a rather straightforward way of writing. A lot of smut I’ve come across are quite detailed and dramatic, I’m not sure if I can write like that. 

PLOT / MEMES! ♡     I like memes for interactions and then we plot along the way! That usually works for me. Plots are also good for more in-depth interactions and starters. I am fine with either since I believe they can be done simultaneously. 

tagged by:  @tigrextoque ((Thanks a lot, my dude))

Tagging:  @perfumednightingale @mcmcntomorii @riverofsymphony @whitx-dxath @hirako5hinji @florabloomings @ryusxnka @akanoluna​ @akarxuu​ @praedulcis--helianthus​ and everyone else who wants to do this! Please tag me if you do~

#((This was quite fun to fill out!)) #Munday #((I guess it counts?))

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

Realm of the Quarantine Reread End-of-Book Questionnaire: Assassin’s Apprentice

Any differences between your first/previous reading experience and this one?

Uhhhhh yep!! I can’t even believe how different it was. Every scene has taken on an entirely different colour and flavour in my memory. I skimmed far too much the first time, yes, but also I just went into it with the wrong framework. I think I’ve mentioned this before but my mum recommended me these books on the basis of my love of A Song of Ice and Fire. She directly compared them and said how similar they were. Because of RotE’s length I had been putting it off for years, and only finally picked up Assassin’s Apprentice because I was itching to do an ASOIAF reread but was (and am) trying to wait until Winds of Winter to do it. 

So you can imagine the difficulty settling into a book like Assassin’s Apprentice when you’re expecting Game of Thrones. I remember my overall impression on my first read being that it was a pretty standard fantasy novel with the only really exceptional thing about it being the characters and their relationships. Characters are always my top priority so it was enough to keep me invested and progressing onto the next book and the rest of the series, but I did so not having absorbed nearly as much as I should have from the first book in the series.

Now, just from revisiting that first book, my understanding of Fitz and the world he operates in has exponentially increased and I know that will transform my experience of every book going forward. I really made sure to make myself slow down and read every word; absorb descriptions and just be in each moment without racing to the next one. Overall this book (and all the Fitz books) are much more concerned with the human condition and the effects of abuse and trauma and deep loneliness than being an epic fantasy. In fact it barely reads like fantasy at all; it’s incredibly grounded and focused. Of course the elements are there, but while Assassin’s Apprentice may not be as subversive as the rest of the series, it is certainly not generic fantasy. This book just feels alive to me now in a way it didn’t before against the rest of the series. I can regard it as a beautiful piece of the puzzle in its own right instead of just the setup. I wanna reiterate I always really liked Assassin’s Apprentice but it just paled in comparison to my unholy obsession with the rest of it. Idk this reread just really shifted a lot of things into perspective for me and I’m excited!!

Something you can’t believe you forgot

So so much but most ridiculous GALEN IS QUEEN DESIRE’S BASTARD am I dumb??? I didn’t even remember until it was explicitly stated lol

Favourite character introduction moments/scenes

It’s gotta be a tie between the Fool, Kettricken and Patience (realising there is a common theme here of Fitz making an idiot of himself). I genuinely was laughing so hard when Fitz is like, actively making himself smaller and so pleased with himself trying to help the Fool, and of course the Fool’s iconic “listen you idiot” ugh it’s just chef’s kiss baby, that’s what we in the biz call a meet-cute! (I know they have seen each other before, but this is the first time the Fool talks to Fitz). Then of course we have Kettricken who poisons Fitz at their first meeting, and Patience who Fitz continuously embarrasses himself in front of before even realising who she is. The fact that all three of these people end up being some of Fitz’s only genuinely loving relationships makes it even better.

Favourite character arcs

I think I’ve gotta go with Verity and Burrich. Verity goes from kind of a bloke’s bloke (he was so different in the beginning than I remembered!) to being a proper King-in-Waiting. He is self-sacrificial but not for pride; he genuinely cares deeply for his people, as a whole and as individuals, and will do anything it takes to protect them. He is far from perfect, and he could have done a lot more for Fitz when he was younger, but once Fitz is in his eyeline and he is confronted with the life the boy has led he seems suitably shamed and tries to do his best for him. He’s a good boy and I love him!

Burrich of course is just. unlucky. His health deteriorates due to injuries. He gets saddled with some kid and is burdened to bring him up to an impossible standard he has set himself (to not shame a man he has an impossibly high opinion of). He’s deprived of a job he loved and was good at, and most importantly he’s deprived of his boyfriend I mean lover I mean “master”.

His arc is not a happy one at all but it is compelling, and I can’t help but love him and feel for him despite also disagreeing with him on almost everything :)

Favourite quote/s

Unfortunately I don’t have any tabs atm so I couldn’t really keep track, but my heart exploded when Fitz said to the Fool after going into his room, “I wish I had a place that were as much me as that place is you.”

Favourite relationships

Fitz/Fool obviously. Even though they don’t have that many interactions in this book I loved every single one of them. The Fool volunteering to care for Smithy after Fitz has endured a long day of horrendous abuse is just!!!!! Kindness! What a concept! I could really see why they develop such a deep bond so quickly.

Fitz/Burrich is just so real and so compelling and it hurts me but I love it. Fitz/Chade breaks my heart bc Chade is manipulating his way into Fitz’s heart - I think without realising it a lot of the time bc he is lonely too, but the power imbalance is not okay when he is the centre of Fitz’s world for a long time and the closest thing he has to a friend. Knowing how Chade behaves not too much later just makes it even worse when he is so nice in this book because it just shows why Fitz has such a hard time being his own person and saying no to Chade ever.

Fitz/Verity for obvious reasons. Fitz/Hands!! They’re cute but it makes me sad that Hands betrays him in AQ. Weirdly I liked Fitz/Molly way more this time but more their friendship than anything. And next is Royal Assassin and their deeply toxic romance soooooo.

And Fitz and his puppies BUT WE DON’T TALK ABOUT THAT.

Favourite setting

Do yourself a favour and read the description of the Mountain Kingdom and specifically the palace. It is STUNNING and something I completely skimmed over the first time cos I’m a dumb idiot bitch I could have been picturing a city of huge colourful tulips all this time but fuck me I guess!!

Favourite chapter

As a rereader I think I’ve gotta say chapter one. There’s just so much to pick apart all crammed into one chapter. It still holds a lot of mystery even when you’ve read the entire series.

Most loved character

At this point I’ve gotta say Fitz. That’s who my heart is with during this book and he NEEDS IT

Most hated character

Okay I found Regal a much better villain on this read and hated him A LOT but whomst I despised even more w the very fibre of my being was Galen bitch disgusting!!!!!! Verity was so like, smug?? when he killed him and it was so satisfying. It’s what she deserves!!

Raise your hand if you’ve been personally victimised by Robin Hobb (most heartbreaking and/or visceral moments)

Literally this whole book was so harsh and I was perpetually emo throughout but off the top of my head, Fitz’s depressive episode after Shrewd and Chade test his loyalty fricking broke me, as did the entirety of Galen’s abuse/training; since I was paying so much more attention this time it hit a lot harder that he is an absolute textbook abuser and the psychological torment he inflicts on Fitz is just. deeply upsetting to say the least. It really got under my skin.

Details, observations, spoilery notes made with the benefit of the full picture

Okay this is where I just dump all the notes I took while reading that don’t fit anywhere else. It’ll be long lol so strap in.

- It’s never not funny to me that Narrator Fitz comes across as like a hundred years old when in actuality he is like twenty. Also that he looks back on himself with such a sense of wisdom and superiority, yet we know there is dumbarsery aplenty to come. Amazing.

- I’ve never really registered that for the first six years of his life Fitz had a mother who loved him and I don’t know how to feel about that

- REVELATION THAT SEEMS REALLY OBVIOUS IN HINDSIGHT: Fitz most likely only spoke Chyurdan when he was abandoned, which would have played a huge role in why he was not only quiet but unresponsive to what was happening around him. He probably didn’t even understand that he wasn’t going to see his mother again until much later, and he didn’t know how to ask questions. When he goes to the Mountain Kingdom and Kettricken comments that he speaks Chyurdan like someone remembering the language he doesn’t comment on it, so it’s likely that future Fitz doesn’t register that he didn’t always speak Six Duchies(?). He mentions in the narration that the memory of being abandoned is incredibly stark but not necessarily reliable, and possibly shaped by the Skill, which to me opens up the possibility that his memory is essentially auto-translating for him things he didn’t understand at the time. We also know that at the time of writing this he’s given up his memories of his mother etc. up to the stone dragon, so obviously his recollections of these traumatic events are going to be warped by that. Anyway thanks to my sister for pointing this out and being much smarter than me.

- According to Fitz’s grandfather, Chivalry always knew about Fitz. Don’t know how trustworthy a man desperate to yeet his grandson out of his care is but there ya go.

- Weird and hilarious that Shrewd tries to see Fitz on the day he arrives but then just like. What? Forgets about him? For years? lol

- Chade literally tells Fitz that he is a king’s man now and that’s the most important thing about him YIKES

- Chade becomes the closest thing Fitz has to a friend for quite a long time and that is fucking depressing

- It’s interesting that Chade had to be convinced to teach Fitz. It’s hinted at that there was an ~incident~ the last time they tried to train someone, followed by a long period of Chade being left to rot in the walls.

- Not to be out here diagnosing fictional characters but like.Fitz. Literally has depression.

- Fitz having to turn down Fedwren’s offer of apprenticing for him is so sad. It’s the life Fitz should have had.

- The Fool’s non-binary gender is mentioned as early as Chapter Nine! (Published in 1995! We have no choice but to stan!)

- “So quickly we were all made accomplices in our own degradation.” OOF.

- I really realised this time that the reason Fitz seems so shit at things he trained his whole life for later is because all that training was interrupted by many months of isolation, deprivation and abuse. All at the age of like 13-14. He got out of the habit of subconsciously acting in a way that Burrich or Chade would approve of. For a long time the only person he needed approval from was Galen, and he became completely single-minded about it because that was his means of survival. And you don’t just recover from that - especially since neither Chade or Burrich would give him the time of day for an extended period *after* his training was done. When Chade did finally talk to him again it wasn’t to recommence training really; he just gave him a bunch of tasks to do. By the time Fitz got to the Mountain Kingdom he was completely out of practice, and still managed pretty bloody well in spite of it.

- Kind of related to the last point: I love that while Fitz isn’t a savant at anything he’s a pretty realistic jack of all trades. He not only has an aptitude for learning almost any skill or subject but a genuine broad curiosity too. It’s one of the few things that is just him, ya know? It’s just his personality and something he can find joy in, even if it does also factor into his being used by others.

- Imagine being Burrich and finding out that your son thought you were a dog murderer for like ten years lol ouch

- Fitz thinks about the Fool soooo often in the Mountain Kingdom, pointing out things that remind him of him, or things he would like. It’s v soft tbh I love them so much!!

- Another dumb thing I forgot is that Regal is convinced that Shrewd had Fitz poison his mother to death, which adds a rather important layer onto his motivations lol

Anyone doing a reread feel free to fill this out! You don’t have to use the tag :)

#rote #realm of the elderlings #realm of the quarantine #robin hobb #this has taken many days to finish bc tumblr has been a bully!!

[thewhaatever]

BE MORE CHILL LONDON

My brain was very bad at processing things that day but seeing the show on Saturday was honestly the best experience of my life and here's why:

First of all: Joe Iconis was sitting two rows in front of me.

I was freaking out a little and my friend was laughing at me but I didn't want to annoy him so I tried to chill

But then he was standing behind us in line for merch (he was buying a whole bunch of his own merch which was kinda funny) and some other people talked to him so I did too and I'm not entirely sure what I said to him but he was SO nice and then I got a picture and... yeah I was just really happy.

Now to the show:

The set was incredible. Absolutely amazing.

The screen was used so perfectly and made everything seem like a videogame, honestly.

It was basically the only set. The only furniture they had was a desk for Jeremy's room, chairs for the school and some other minor things (I have to say it did seem a little bit empty at times and I wish that would have used a bed at least - didn't make sense to me that Jeremy falls asleep at his desk - but I'm probably just too used to the Broadway set)

More Than Survive was SO good! Scott puts so much emotion in his portrayal of Jeremy... I can't really describe what exactly he did but something about his Jeremy felt so real and yeah I might have cried a little... (I honestly think he’s my favourite Jeremy so far)

Also: Blake's Michael is very different from George's but in such an interesting way. I loved him the second he entered the stage. He really did capture the "Doesn't care about what anyone thinks, but deep down he does a little" - Energy.

Play Rehearsal was.... wow.

Miracle's Christine had no chill. At all. She was so unbelievably weird and quirky. (Also, she seemed much colder / not interested in talking about anything except theatre and when she didn't want to talk about something she was really showing that by acting uninterested... I thought that was an interesting take that definitely worked for the character) Every normal person would have been a little freaked out by her energy during the song probably but Jeremy was just staring at her the whole time with heart eyes it was really cute.

Favourite part was how Jake said: "Rich is doing it cause he's MY BOI!"

Squip Song was great, his VOICE!! WOW. I love James's Rich. Like, you could really see that even though he's the school's bully, there's something underneath that's not right. Everything he did felt very forced and I loved it (also, I told James at the stage door that Rich is my favourite character and that made him really happy apparently)

Now that I am thinking about it, I think they changed that scene a little and Rich didn't pee (so that conversation was missing) but that was probably due to the set bc the toilets were just projections on the screen so it would have been weird if he pretended to pee on the screen 😂

Also really loved the use of the screen during that whole scene, it was flashing and glitching when Rich's Squip was acting up

They brought back the bean bags for Two Player Game!!

The staging for this was so cool because at the end when Jeremy and Michael were dancing the screen made it look like they were the characters in the game (but differently than on Broadway) and I loved it (I'm sorry I'm really bad at explaining this)

Also, Blake's 'Is it really true, I'm your favourite person' was so funny, he did like a model pose or something and was sliding off the bag.

Scott was basically sitting on the floor the whole time because he somehow didn't manage to properly sit on that bag

Also, I think they changed the dialogue about Jeremy's mum a little bc when Michael asks him if he's heard from her Jeremy said "A little" and I'm pretty sure he didn't say that before

I feel Blake's Michael is that kind of person who's really bad at expressing how he feels... like, you could see in his face that he didn't like Jeremy's idea about going to the Payless and that he was genuinely scared about being too uncool for Jeremy afterwards but he really tried to say the "will u be to cool for... videogames" kinda jokey and yeah I'm overanalysing but I loved it

One thing in general: Everyone seemed really young on stage, definitely much younger than the Broadway cast. Especially Jeremy and Michael. I really believed that they were teenagers!! And I really love that.

Scott was fidgeting a LOT with his hands and I feel like that was very in character for Jeremy. I thought so often that he would drop things.... (like the money in the scary stockboy scene.. it took him so long to give it to Michael)

Jakes favourite restaurant is Pizza Hut now

When the Squip was activated Scott was screaming and rolling across the entire stage and it would have been funny if it didn't look like he was actually in pain

Because the stage was different the Squip had to walk on for his entrance and somehow that was incredibly funny to me but I can't explain why

Stewart Clarke. Holy shit. I'd totally swallow a supercomputer if it looked like him! I loovveeed his take on the role. I've seen interviews with him where he was talking about how he has to think of so many weird questions like how does a computer act, does it feel, how does it feel etc. And I really saw that he was thinking about those things. At the beginning his Squip was very robot-ish, simply focused on making Jeremy cool, without any secret plan or anything. But throughout the show, the Squip clearly evolved and became more... human, I guess? Like it was showing more and more human traits/emotion which peaked in The Play (later more on that)

In conclusion: I loved the Squip so so much

Squip: "Everything about you makes me wanna die!"

Jeremy: "Uhhhhhh this is intense!!"

The Brooke/Chloe scene in the mall was so funny and the part where the Squip tells Jeremy what to say (u know, in bmc pt.1) might have been my favourite part of the show. Scott looked so awkward and confused by everything but he did his best to mirror the Squip (they did identical movements the whole time which I don't remember from Broadway but my memory is shit so...)

Millie's Chloe was so over the top I love it.

They changed the dialogue a lot here, so that there's no mention of Madeleine at all so Chloe wasn't pissed or anything (I'm not sure if I like that) Jeremy just said something along the lines of "Oh you wouldn't know her because she's French" and that's where Brooke picks up her trying to speak French- thing

I THINK (not 100% sure tho) that Millie said "Jeremy?" Instead of "Jerry" At the beginning of that scene and that Scott was a bit confused for a second but he just continued with "It's Jeremy" and then Millie had to duck away because she was laughing (but maybe she did say it right and was just laughing at Jeremy in character idk)

I loved how Eloise's Brooke was so awkward. From the second that Jeremy noticed her she tried SO hard to impress him and it didn't work very well but it was so cute. Chloe tries to show her the whole time what to do but that doesn't make it better.

During Do you wanna ride, Jermey got so scared of the girls that he climbed onto the table with the t-shirts (actually now that I'm thinking about it he was climbing on things a lot)

Guy That I'd kinda be into was so cute!! I never particularly liked that song but Miracle somehow gave it a very different flair and I loved that. They changed the staging a bit and there weren't other people with hearts (there were hearts on the Screen) but at one point Rich was coming on stage with a helium heart balloon for like a second and then he disappeared again 😂 that was a bit weird but...

now lets get to the Act 1 Finale which was SO GOOD

Okay, so they changed it up quite a lot: After the whole "Eminem is dead?!" The Squip tells Jeremy that Brooke likes him (and Christine doesn't, yet) and Jeremy is so shocked that he turns to Brooke and says "You like me?" And she's like confused but nods and he's like: "Why???" (I loved that, Scott delivered that line really funny) and then Brooke explains the whole thing with Chloe, that she always gets noticed first etc. (That whole scene was really cute Jeremy and Brooke really seemed to actually like each other and I was really able to relate to Brooke - good Job Eloise!)

Then Brooke starts singing the "I'm tired of being the person that everyone thinks that I am" Jeremy repeats it and then she starts Upgrade with the tres magnifique bit. It's like on the OBC until Jake's and Christine's part. They do their verse but run off after "Gotta get an upgrade" (Miracle was singing this up the octave which sounded SO cool) so they didn't have their conversation about Jake's parents (I did miss this a little but I get why it was cut) and then Jeremy ran back on stage followed by the Squip (you can see in Stewart's performance that he's already much more persuasive in a human way than before) who starts to sing the aggressive "C-c-c-come on Jeremy can't you see we got a plan, now be the man..." From the original cast album (I loved this SO much). Everyone came on to sing the "Christine" part in that and was surrounding Jeremy. He then shouts "Arghh too many voices in my head" the Squip leaves, Michael comes on, they do their "Jeremy that's amazing" dialogue, the Squip explains optic nerve blocking and says that he has to cut Michael off if he wants to be popular (Squip: "Cut your ties... or you'll both drown" I remember that because it sounded so unbelievably dramatic), Michael asked "Are you coming" and leaves the stage for Jeremy to sing Loser, Geek, Whatever.

I loved all of that so much because Scott puts so much emotion into this song, it nearly made me cry!! He really conveyed Jeremy's inner struggle without making him look like an asshole, more like a stupid kid that's going to make a really stupid decision

The second verse and chorus of LGW were cut (the "Dad taught me follow your instincts..." part) which I really liked (I never enjoyed the chorus of this song tbh).

"THE PROBLEM HAS ALWAYS BEEN.... .... me" the way Scott sang that truly broke my heart.

AND THEN (Loved this SO SO MUCH) after "ever agaaiiiiinnn" He went straight into that part that I guess you could call an Upgrade reprise from the Original Cast album ("And I wasn't sure before but now I wanna go all the way and more so give me that upgrade" etc.) AND it tied in so perfectly with Michael then asking again "Are you coming" and "Optic nerve Blocking on" and as much as I loved the "I'm tired of being the person that everyone thinks that I am" chorus, this was SUCH a great way to end act one, I might even prefer this.

I just love how they mixed in the old parts from this song that I was really missing on the OBC.

When the Squip came out in his first dress (is it a dress?) Costume people were cheering, loved that. (I mean that costume IS gorgeous and Stewart Clarke looks absolutely fabulous in all the costumes)

That was Act 1!! (I am so sorry if you actually read everything up to this point...)

Act 2

Halloween had such an amazing energy!!! The dances!! Ahh

At his "I don't have a machete but a loaf of bread will do" line, James threw the bread up in the air but didn't catch it and just hit his head as he went to pick it up as if he was blaming his Squip (not sure if that was supposed to happen but I loved it)

I loved how the Squip joined the dance, it looked so fancy with his costume 😂 I know he did this on Broadway too and I never really understood why (the others can't see him after all) but there it kinda felt like it was hinting at the fact that the Squip was becoming more human-ish??? (I'm definitely overthinking this) Like he was having fun maybe??? Idk

Millie's Do you wanna hang was so hilarious!!!

Like I said they didn't have a bed so she was just dancing around him (which looked good but I missed a bed here tbh) and they added a bit of dialogue (I think, maybe it was in the Broadway version) where Jeremy asked her "Are you jealous of Brooke??" And she was like "I'm not jealous I just don't understand why everyone likes her and no one likes me." (Or something like that) and the way Millie delivered that line really gave Chloe a whole lot of character depth. She sounded so heartbroken, I just wanted to hug her.

When the Squip shuts off (it looked really funny), Stewart just trust-falls backwards off stage and someone has to catch him and I was just thinking what if whoever catches him forgets about it??? 😂😂 (No seriously, dear catch person, don't forget this, ever... we need him as a Squip)

And now, the moment we have all been waiting for. MITB

Ahhh I was having so many feeling during this scene. I already told you that I love Blake's Michael and I really loved how rational and smart (?) He sounds in the scene before the song compared to Jeremy who kept insisting that the Squip isn't bad.

They added a bit of dialogue here too I think, because Jeremy said something along the lines of "You said technology isn't dangerous-" "Yeah unless someone uses it like you do!" (Something like this), really loved that as people somehow keep insisting that this is a show about the dangers of modern technology (It's definitely not).

Blake and Scott both did such an incredible job in this scene (and overall obviously), you just knew something bad was about to happen...

At the "Leave me alone" (not sure if that's what he's saying) line Jeremy steps reaaalllyy close to Michael (like there noses were almost touching close) and he looked so intimidating towards Michael and Blake sounded actually a bit scared when he says "Or you'll what?"

Then they just stand there for some seconds, not moving, before Jeremy says the "Get out of my way, loser" and Scott says this with so much hatred, my heart was actually hurting. Michael then just steps away and he looked sooo sad I almost cried.

MITB was absolutely amazing. Again very different than George's version but with just as much emotion and Blake's voice was sooooo beautiful, I can't!!

He sang the last "Michael in the Bathroom by himself" a bit different (can't really describe it but the note on "bath" was higher than usual? I don't know much about music sorry) and I loved loved loved that

The scene with Christine and Jeremy was so sweet. They were so unbelievably weird, I love them.

When the costumed person between them leaves, Christine pulls Jeremy across the stage by his legs and places them on top of hers (like in the promo pic) and it looked so cute!!

After that when Rich comes on and says the "I'll burn you out" I was soo sure somehow that there used to be a voiceover of his Squip but I can't find it anywhere so idk I'm confused... But it's definitely not there anymore.

Smartphone Hour. Holy shit, that was SO good. Renée Lamb's voice OMG!! Absolutely incredible.

(I just had to notice once again how much I hate the costumes in this scene... like the colours are great but what teenager wears THAT to sleep???)

The screen was so cool here again!! It obviously showed Jenna's selfie with the house (which I want printed to hang on my wall tbh) and then at the end it was full of fire that changed its colour and all of that was so fitting for the colour scheme!! The entire set design is just so incredible.

Also, Brooke is eating a banana when Chloe calls her and when she tells her about the fire Eloise just yeets it across the entire stage

They all looked like they were having so much fun!!

Back to Jeremy: For the scene with Mr Heere, Scott was switching back to total asshole mode... Internally I was like "Uhh that little shit" but yeah, great acting!!

I LOVE the pants song! It's so underappreciated!

The "You're burning incense" line got a lot of laughs

"Say it like you're in the army!"

"NO, SERGEANT, SIR!!!" *salutes*

Loved that

Pitiful Children was actually SO intimidating!! The use of the screen here and in The Play was almost overwhelming but like in a good way, I really felt the seriousness of the situation.

Again great acting skills from Scott and Stewart. Jeremy was so torn between giving in and knowing that it's wrong and the Squip really felt humanly evil at this point.

Renée Lamb's riff!! Omg! She did it very different than in the press videos but it sounded so cool!!

Also, I felt so bad for Jenna. Her "No one's ever asked me that before" really hit me.

"Michael makes an entrance!!!!!" was perfect, I love Blake!

The fight between Jeremy and Michael looked SO violent 😂 at one point towards the end Jeremy punched him and he was just lying there on the edge of the stage for some minutes and only woke up to join everyone screaming at the end.

I loved how everyone acted when they were squipped!! They were very obviously not themselves.

Especially Christine was acting very very differently. Her voice sounded completely different and you could see that Jeremy made his decision to give her the mountain dew red the second she opened her mouth.

Jake's "God I love me!" Was just really wholesome. He sounded so surprised about that.

They didn't have the "My Squip says I can go all the way to Broadway" :((( but I can live with that...

The part where the Squip “Died” was SO good!!! This was really the moment where the Squip felt very much like a human being. He was screaming and begging and sounded actually terrified. His acting here was absolutely incredible. I almost, almost felt bad for him a little.

Also, the projections were amazing, it looked like the screen shattered when the Squip died. 

Again, one thing that really bothered me: What kind of hospital doesn't have beds??? Jeremy and Rich were just sitting in wheelchairs which was fine but like... Why no bed???

I loved James' acting in this scene!!! He was a COMPLETELY different person and everyone noticed that right away. Even without the l lisp, you would have noticed simply by the way he was talking. James really did a great job with Rich!!

His "I'm totally bi now!!" Sounded so surprised and got a lot of applause.

Voices in my head is my favourite song and made me cry 😂

Christine's Squip is now Greta Thunberg!!!!

I loved how Jeremy was totally his old self again when he was talking to Christine. He was stammering and fidgeting with his hands a lot and only managed to bring out the "Bowling Alley performance art?" Because Christine kept encouraging him which was so cute. If there are somehow still people out there who think that their relationship is underdeveloped they should watch this version.

The kiss was so cute!! Miracle and Scott have amazing chemistry!

I really think that's all I have to say... It's a lot I'm sorry 😂😂😂 just had to write those thoughts down.. I hope it makes a little sense I was a bit sick in the last few days so excuse me if anything's worded in a weird way...

I loved it so so much and I'm so happy they got the well-deserved extension! I'm definitely going again sometime soon 😊😊

#long post #very long post #be more chill london #be more chill #bmc #scott folan #jeremy heere #blake patrick anderson #michael mell #the squip #i'm sorry i hope this makes sense

[isuzukuretsuki]

Alright I finished Crimson Flower and after letting my thoughts marinate for a bit, I decided to do a very long write up on my thoughts. Despite the fact that I made a beeline for black eagles the moment I got the game because I had an extreme feverish passion for El at first, my thoughts on this route are unfortunately mostly negative. This is the first and only route I played so far, and I know very little about the events that transpire in the other routes.

Five thousand disclaimers that these are just my opinions that may or may not change when I play the other routes and it’s not meant to discredit folks who like Crimson Flower. Also there will be spoilers.

For starters, I think the story does a terrible job at convincing you that Edelgard’s actions are justified or even necessary. This route felt less like fighting to change the world for the better and more like a savage conquest with every chapter being El going like “we gotta kill this guy now” and I’m like “but why” and El’s like “WE JUST GOTTA”. I guess the right way to say it is that El’s route lacked emotional impact. I could not celebrate her victories with her because my only reaction was “was that really necessary” and “buddy why”. It ultimately felt like El was simply solving problems by creating more problems.

Instead of just saying “I want to uproot a societal system from its core so I have to overthrow the Church”, the story opts for El to give incredibly vague and wishy washy reasons on why the Church Is Bad. Something something, they’re not really humans and twist history??? The story forces you to do some crazy mental gymnastics to try and see El’s side of the story when everything just boils down to “Crests are Bad = Church is Bad”.

In Part 1, there was a lot of build up of the church’s obvious corruption and how they’re not to be trusted, but the build up falls flat because the story tries to make the reveal of Rhea’s beast form be the damning thing to convince the player that the church is so terrible that they have to be stopped even at the cost of thousands of lives... and well... in a franchise where almost everyone is secretly a dragon, that just did not sell me. 

We’ve been knew that Crests Are Bad but does that justify sacrificing thousands of lives to upheave the church? I dunno man..................................... the story doesn’t really put much effort to convince you that this is the Only Way and it doesn’t feel like El has put much thought into trying alternative solutions before jumping straight to murder because it was the easiest solution. Which sucks because I think exploring El’s methods and mindset would definitely make for an interesting conflict. The whole idea of if war is never justifiable, is it better to let everyone remain suffering under the status quo forever? El’s belief that nothing will change unless she takes direct action has validity to it, but the game just expects you to agree with her from the get go so El never truly has to stand firm and defend her values.

Edelgard’s decision to unify Fodlan is something I really, really side eye. She’s straight up invading sovereign lands and putting them under her own rule of her own volition. While yes, Church Is Bad, barging into someone else’s land uninvited to dictate how they rule their government and “fix their society” is ultimately something I find incredibly self righteous and arrogant. This idea of “fighting for peace” through not just instigating a war, but going on a violent conquest just seems... disingenuous to me? How does she plan on dealing with the lingering resentment from the folks whose land were conquered? She’s just replacing the crest system with an Empire who will murder anyone who stands against them which... makes her literally no different from what Rhea was.

The above point is mainly due to her whole tirade into the alliance which just felt extremely unnecessary, especially when Claude was trying to keep the alliance in a neutral stance. El’s reasoning for conquering the alliance because “some of the nobles oppose me” was really flimsy like... maybe they wouldn’t oppose you if you just left them alone instead of making them choose between handing over their independence or having their land burnt to the ground. 

Her dialogue with and about Dimitri is ridiculous because she criticizes him for being consumed by hatred and obsession and “losing his path as a king” but...... bruh, you’re STILL invading his country, so even if Dimitri wasn’t a raging murder man, he’d still oppose you because did you just expect a king to simply Hand Over His Land and not defend himself????? 

The absolute worst, worst part of CF isn’t even Edelgard herself but how the other students react to her. It feels like none of the beagles and especially the other house characters except Lysithea have any real reason to side with her, and even if they did (which wouldn’t be surprising because we see how the crests ruined so many lives), these valid reasons are never brought up and it’s overshadowed by almost everyone lamenting “is this bloodshed even necessary?” (news flash: probably not). But why the FUCK are you guys even siding with her in the first place if you're gonna regret it afterwards or don’t actually agree with her? You don’t just side with an instigator of war with half baked resolves, and the convictions of these characters aren’t even quarter baked. 

This wouldn’t be too bad if not for the fact that the beagle kids themselves also seem to have more reasons to turn on El than to fight for her. Especially when Edelgard has done nothing to ever prove herself trust worthy. Hell, CF is kicked off with Edelgard betraying everyone and revealing herself to be the Flame Emperor, which is literal admittance to her association with the slithers. Yet no one seems to put two and two together and just decides to blindly trust and follow her without second thought because... why? Who knows!!! As Sothis so eloquently puts it, they’re all boulders just rolling down whatever hill they’re on, and I could not stand how little agency and independent thought that the other characters showed. It felt like El was the driver while everyone else was just strapped into the passenger seat, mindlessly going along with the ride. No questions, no thoughts, no challenges, and to top it off, it doesn’t even feel like any of them truly believe in what they’re fighting for because they never bring up the validity of El’s ideals or the consequences of her actions. 

The beagles had the group dynamic of a wet paper bag. Lysithea is the one of the only characters who actively shows any real agency for fighting for Edelgard and firmly voices how El’s goals compare to her personal values, which is a stark difference to everyone else who has a "¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I guess this is my life now” type attitude to an infuriating degree. 

Byleth siding with El also has me doing extreme shifty eyes. I can get behind them making an emotionally charged decision to defend her from Rhea but holy crap I saved you from Rhea because I didn’t want you to die, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving you the okay to murder all your classmates!! The game expects the player to take a huge leap of faith when siding with Edelgard, thinking “she has to have a proper explanation for this” and cue.... no explanation ever, until like... five years later. El’s relationship with the beagles felt disingenuous because she actively breaches the trust of others, lies to others, hides crucial information from others (slithers, anyone?), and nobody cares. She straight up lies about the church nuking Arianrhod and it’s never addressed.

The issue with the slithers and Byleth’s dad is even worse because it is never addressed until well into the route, and it’s brought up by not El, but fucking Hubert. Not to mention El is giant jackass to Byleth after their dad died even though he died because of her damn accomplices. We’re supposed to just lie down and accept the slithers’ presence because “well they’re necessary for our plans” even though we curb stomped the entire continent by ourselves, so I dunno why we can’t just shank them now. The slithers literally did nothing aside from chill around, maybe blow up a city or two to spite El. It’s ridiculous how the organization who is directly responsible for El’s abuse and trauma has no on screen resolution when frankly, I think the slithers deserve El’s animosity far more than the church. 

Despite my extreme criticism towards El, I want to stress that I don’t hate El. In fact, I love her character a lot and I think she’s really fascinating. However, I think CF really shot her characterization in the foot because it doesn’t feel like El really grew or developed or changed. She stubbornly believed that her actions were right at the beginning and by the end of the game, she still believes her actions were right because the story doesn’t really bother to try and prove her otherwise. I just think she’s much more suited as an antagonist, and I’m excited to see her portrayal in the other routes. Sorry El, I love you, but I would never in a million years side with you.

To end this salt fest on a positive note, I will say the route had three things I enjoyed: the ending, Mercedes and Jeritza’s support, and Edelgard and Lysithea’s support. Seriously, I would not have so many complaints if the rest of the route had the same amount of emotional tension and feeling as El and Lysithea’s support. I enjoyed the ending fairly much; the final battle in the burning city was epic as hell and so was the final cutscene. The scene where El sobs in Byleth’s chest after Byleth’s heart beat returns was extremely touching to me. So because I liked the ending enough, at the very least I was able to finish the play through on a somewhat content note. Also random side note but Edelgard’s seiyuu is amazing.

Anyway my order from favourite to least favourite beagle kids are Dorothea > Edelgard > Ferdie > Bernie > Linhardt > Petra > Hubert > Caspar.

tldr: my experience with crimson flower

#fire emblem three houses #ellie plays fe3h terribly

[jestdrabbles]

Todoroki Shouto, Joker, Guy from Tales, Toph, Ventus

Oh, so many!! Thanks so much 💜

Todoroki Shouto

do I like them: he’s my best boy and my son whomst i adopted immediately

5 good qualities: his willingness to learn and grow and change, he’s learning to go outside his comfort zones, his faith in the people he loves, the care he has for others, and his passion!

3 bad qualities: he can get tunnel-vision (and especially at the beginning, he only really paid attention to people he cared about), he has a habit of beating himself up over things he can’t control, and while I love and encourage him fighting authority.... it’s not great he called the guy a mutt considering how folks with mutation quirks are treated in that universe oof

favourite episode/etc: Todoroki Shouto: Origin, all the way. I’ve seen that episode over 12 times, and I love everything about it.

otp: izushou

brotp: shou and tsuyu! love the potential of those two

ot3: i can vibe with some todoiideku

notp: tdbk

best quote: “Without knowing his background, some righteous speech from a stranger would just be annoying. Words alone have to be pretty meaningful to really move someone. What actually matters is what the person saying it has done, what they’re doing in life... you gotta back up words with actions, I think.”

headcanon: I have so many, but this is already long,so That boy is Gay.

Joker

do I like them: love that funky crime boy

5 good qualities: He stands up for what’s right, gives courage to others, pretty open-minded and accepting, adaptable, and proficient as fuck

3 bad qualities: Silent Protag DilemmaTM, keeps his pain to himself, and he puts himself into the caretaker role far too much for what’s healthy

favourite episode/etc: Love when he dives out a fucking window, dramatic bitch. But also I love that we get a glimpse of his actual turmoil during the confrontation with Maruki on 2/2.

otp: shukita, shuharu, and shuake

brotp: joker and ryuji (though i also adore his and ann’s friendship)

ot3: polythieves Good

notp: probably him and sumi or him and futaba

best quote: So many dialogue options are golden tbh but I’ll go with “Nice to me-owt you”

headcanon: Working at Crossroads helped him learn more about himself and who he is, and Lala-chan was a blessing.

Guy Cecil

do I like them: how can you not like Guy?? What a bro

5 good qualities: supportive, loyal, empathetic, dramatic as hell (that dude sure loves to flip), and such a strong character

3 bad qualities: didn’t communicate his inherent hatred toward someone he treated like a friend, uhhh tbh i don’t recall him having too many flaws ‘cause he was pretty valid in the things he felt?

favourite episode/etc: GOD I LOVE THE SCENE where Luke makes the decision to sacrifice himself in Asch’s place. He’s so rightfully pissed about the situation because he knows Luke is only a kid, and oh man, the development of going from wanting to kill him to get revenge and then absolutely HATING the idea of Luke dying. Chef kiss.

otp: I don’t ship Guy with anyone tbh he’s just vibin’

brotp: guy and luke are best bros for life

ot3: None, really

notp: Guy and Luke. He helped raise Luke, and he’s an adult while Luke is a teen. Get outta here with that.

best quote: “You’re pretty good at spotting the silver lining so long as it’s someone else’s cloud.”

head canon: He always remembers where they parked the Albiore even if I, the player, cannot.

Toph

do I like them: Hell yeah, love her

5 good qualities: Unapologetically Herself, which I feel sums up at least ten qualities right there, but also her refusal to give up on herself, her desire to bond with others, how she was the first willing to give Zuko a chance, and her refusal to accept bullshit authority

3 bad qualities: She can definitely be a brat (but she’s also like 11), we don’t talk about her in LoK tbh idk what was up with that development, and she can be narrow-minded and selfish

favourite episode/etc: I really loved her introduction episodes tbh!

otp: none

brotp: toph and zuko found-siblings!!

ot3: none

notp: toph and sokka

best quote: “Do you really think friendships can last more than one lifetime?”

head canon: LoK is canon-divergent simply because I cannot comprehend Toph ever having kids, nor can I see her being a cop, but I can see her fucking off to the swamp. I think that’s fair.

Ventus

do I like them: sonboy allowed

5 good qualities: He has so much love in his little body, classic Good-aligned boy, he’s just so excited to experience new things, and he just wants to go to an amusement park with his two best friends he’s such an angel

3 bad qualities: Kinda falls into the “he’s such a good person that he doesn’t really have flaws” issue, naive, and kinda reckless iirc

favourite episode/etc: Any time he’s with Aqua and Terra just makes my heart warm

otp: none

brotp: him and his family :’0

ot3: none

notp: him and his family >:0 or him and vanitas

best quote: “Why am I SO SMALL?” or whatever he says when he ends up in Cinderella world lmao

head canon: He’s not cis. I know it’s not specifically the trans symbol on his wall, but when I originally saw it forever ago, I just accepted that he’s trans, and that’s where I live now.

#hopefully the read more works!! THANKS SO MUCH FOR SENDING #i appreciate you anon i hope you have an amazing day #anonymous #jest answers

[commentaryvorg]

heya, i saw on many of your posts that you saw quite a lot of v3 letsplays, i was wondering if you could recomnend me some of them, the ones you think are the best? i'm having a lot of free time on quarantine and i'd like to watch some, but i don't know where to start.

My favourite of all the LPs I've seen, by far, is by a lesser-known LPer called Version2. They were incredibly insightful, both in terms of interesting observations about the characters and story and in terms of how well they figure out the cases beforehand. They figured out basically everything in basically every case before beginning the trial, even case 5! The only big exception to this was case 1, for rather understandable reasons - but even then, they picked up on what was going on several minutes before the reveal and had the absolute most fantastic reaction to the realisation of the twist out of anyone I've ever seen. A lot of people tend to just get confused and upset and be all "but why, though?", but Version2 immediately understood exactly why and that this was the best thing this case could have done, storytelling-wise.

And perhaps most importantly if you're me, they liked Kaito a lot, to more than just background levels of "eh I guess I care about him because he's important and Shuichi's friend, sure, whatever" that frustratingly many LPers don't ever go beyond. They completely understood his whole supportiveness thing - something way goddamn rarer than it should be, grumble - and they did so from chapter 1, not 2 (including noticing Kaito's similarity to a certain character from Gurren Lagann). They also actually went and maxed his FTEs on their main playthrough, making them literally the only LPer I've seen do this. That should also not be this rare, grumble grumble.

One thing I was rather little disappointed with them on regarding Kaito was them not remotely figuring out he's not angry at Shuichi in chapter 5, something I really expected them of all people to get. While they really appreciate Kaito's supportiveness, they don't seem to realise how much he has going for him as a character beyond that, which makes me rather sad. To be fair, that stuff is somewhat harder to pick up on on a first playthrough, but it shouldn’t be impossible to notice at least some of it! I did, dammit!

But even then, still probably the best response to Kaito I've ever seen in an LP (man I wish the bar was higher than this), and from a less Kaito-centric standpoint, still a very high quality insightful LP that figures so much stuff out and has all sorts of interesting discussion about the themes and things, do recommend. (And as you might be able to tell from the pronouns I've been using for them, the LPer is queer, and they talk about things with a queer lens quite a bit, which is refreshing when LPers overwhelmingly tend to be straight dudes. Maybe that's a plus for you as well.)

I don't really have any LPs that obviously stand out to me as being my second favourite below that one. Quite possibly that second-place spot will be claimed by Lucahjin, whose LP is currently ongoing and in the middle of trial 3, so it's hard to say for sure yet when she’s still got the best parts of the story to come. As long as you're willing to put up with someone who's as innuendo-happy as the Danganronpa writing itself is, Lucahjin is a generally lovely person who gets very emotionally invested in the characters and the things that happen to them and is very enjoyable to watch react to games like this.

I had selfishly hoped she'd care a little bit more about Kaito outside of his explicit relevance to the story than she's been doing, but she likes him well enough and has at least shown more signs of being likely to notice his vulnerability than Version2 did, so I'm hoping that'll be a thing as she gets into chapters 4 and 5. Maybe she'll even claim the title of second LPer I've ever seen who actually figures out Kaito isn't angry at Shuichi in chapter 5, that'd be nice. [Update from the future: no, she did not, and I am disappoint. Sigh. I really thought she might have been able to pick up on that.] Maybe she'll give me what I've been so desperately craving from a blind LP, which is a reaction to case 5 similar enough to the one I had on my first time through that I can finally relive that experience vicariously through someone else. That one's looking like a bit of a long shot at this point, though. Why is it so rare for Kaito to be people's absolute favourite. He is the best. He should be so many people's favourite. Grumble.

(If anyone at all does know of a LPer who has a blind reaction to case 5 similar to the one I described myself as having had, and of a similar sort of intensity, please tell me, oh my god, I’ve been wanting something like that since the second time I ever watched that case and couldn’t have the same experience again.)

I suppose, since this is such a big deal to me, that I should also give an honourable mention to literally the only V3 LPer I have seen so far who considered that maybe Kaito isn't angry at Shuichi in chapter 5, namely Rose Matter. Really she only deserves partial credit on this front, because it took her most of early chapter 5 to even think that, and when she did it was a very tentative "eh, I feel like there's gotta be more to this, probably?", rather than just being immediately sure Kaito wouldn't do that like it should be perfectly possible to be even on a first time through. But that's still better than literally any other LPer I've seen, geez. Rose Matter's LP is otherwise not necessarily anything special - she tended to take most other things at face value and not have that much meaningful insight or be that impressive at figuring things out, but she had fun enough reactions and generally cared about all the characters who deserved to be cared about. (Still no actual hanging out with Kaito, though, grumble.)

But even aside from my personal recommendations, since your tastes in what you enjoy and what you're frustrated by in an LPer are likely different from mine, I'd just say check out lots of different ones to find one you think you'll like! You don't have to watch the whole LP if you don't like what you see; you don't even necessarily need to start from the beginning to get a sense of if you'll like one or not. Something I often did when finding new LPs to watch was look through someone's playlist and just watch specific scenes that would allow me to get a decent sense of whether they'd give me what I wanted in a V3 LP based on their reactions to those parts. In my case, this obviously involved a lot of scenes related to Kaito, but in your case this might be something else entirely, depending on what you most want to see someone caring about as they play through the game.

#danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #reply #thanks for asking! i'm happy you care about my opinions on this #(whoops this sure was a lot of grumbling about kaito not being as appreciated as he deserves to be) #honestly me not getting what i'd been craving from blind LPs was a lot of why i started this commentary #part of that was all the kinds of stuff a blind LP could never pick up on of course #but part of it was also me wanting a playthrough in which it's simply inconceivable to not love kaito #so dammit i created one myself #Anonymous

[babblish]

1, 22, 25? for writer asks

1. Favourite place to write

On top of my bed with the laptop on my lap, and several enormous pillows for back support. I can’t concentrate with the television playing and people moving around and doing things, so my bedroom is the only place I can comfortably write with minimal distractions.

22.  How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?

Euuuuugh, I feel like I’ve given a long winded answer about this before but the tdlr; is around 4 - 8+. I’m really picky about turns of phrases and typos and stuff other people probably don’t even care about, and sometimes if a scene isn’t working you just gotta rewrite the whole arse thing. It takes me a long time but I find something that bugs me and it doesn’t get fixed it will haunt me until I do something about it. Tbh this is probably why I prefer writing fics and publishing on AO3 because I can easily go back and fix it, whereas hard print press if it’s done it’s done, no takebacksies.

25. Linear or non-linear, and why?

This is complicated because I struggle so much with consuming non-linear storytelling because my understanding and perception of time is shaky at best. For example, I figured out that the reason I dislike/struggle with present tense in prose is because that genuinely isn’t how I experience time. My processing speed is such that something has either happened a while ago, a couple seconds ago, or will happen in the future. Likewise with non-linear storytelling I miss so many cues that I just end up getting confused and have no idea what’s happening or what the plot even is. 

However, whenever I’m writing I tend to write all over the timeline because I’ve already worked out most of the broad strokes of what’s happened, what’s going to happen, and have spreadsheets, timelines and scene summaries to refer back to. Which in practice means I tend to write when inspiration for certain scenes strike = all over the timeline. I try to keep things slightly contained, for example with changeling fic;

I have the first arc already completed, about half of the second arc, and absolutely nothing of the third and final arc of the first story, which is subtitled as ‘The White Rabbit.’ So far it’s shaping up to be the biggest story because it’s setting up an event horizon that will only work if I’ve successfully earned emotional investment from the audience in the MC, my interpretation of changeling culture, and at least this one changeling OC.

The second story, called ‘The Daughters of Magic’ has around 3 major scenes already written, not consecutively, and is approximately only 1/8th done. Pretty much all of this writing was done because my muse made me inspired, no, compelled to write these specific scenes immediately. 

The third story, called ‘The Pursuit of Stone’ has around the same amount of words as the Daughters of Magic, but the scenes are actually completed, not left trailing mid-sentence. I wrote these not so much in an inspired flurry as a palate cleanser after working on The White Rabbit for weeks in a row. (The exception to this is the very first scene I wrote in December 2018 which was actually an expansion from a specific moment from chapter 23 of Whispers Within, the memory that opens with “It had been a novel sight.”)

The final? story is tentatively called ‘The Bridge to Yesterday’ and is intended to be a canon re-write/switched perspective fic, and as of the moment is completely unwritten. My plan is to leave this until last because it’s going to be the least bullshittingly of the stories and I’m going to need the Pursuit of Stone finished before I have anchor points to build the setting from.

So while I am writing non-linearly, the actual progress is still building up in a near-linear fashion? So while my planning process is rigid and linear, and my progress tracking is rigid and linear, I essential design a garden where it’s ‘safe’ for me to chase (scene) butterflies without risking confusing myself and not knowing where I’m going with everything.

#ask meme #writer meme #my fic #whispers within #changeling fic #still needs a better tag

[drink-n-watch]

Hello everyone. Please bear with me this week. I am still in the midst of a huge cold and even watching Psycho Pass was a bit of a challenge. Matt, I’m going to have to rely on you for the deep insight even more than usual this week. Oh and if I say anything that makes no sense, please assume it’s the cold medicine talking.

Oh boy, this oughta be a fun one! Strap in guys and gals!

First let me say that to my eye, it seems as if last week was a blip. This week’s episode was largely back to normal regarding character model consistency and art quality. I really didn’t notice anything off. Of course there’s no way I trust myself in my current state to make that assertion so Matt, what did you think of the visuals?

Much improved, not sure if that was because they were a bit smarter with shot composition in this episode–favouring still frames and off-camera dialogue over low quality mid and long shots–but whatever it was worked well for the visual fidelity of the episode.

I thought the episode would have mostly concentrated on the undercover infiltration of Heaven’s Leap and I was excited about it. So it was a bit disappointing to me to have the narrative swing back to Arata and the rest of division one that quickly.

This episode was jumping around a lot, in spite of what people may have thought this episode would be, I’ll elaborate on that later though…

Although I was amused by how sly Kei is. He’s like an ogre, the boy has layers, and it’s slowly winning me over.

A ‘Shrek’ reference? In 2019? For shame, Irina…

The story does indeed seem to be continuing its exploration of the plight of immigrants in a Sybil controlled society and the plot is thickening on all sides. A deep conspiracy is going on with most of our key players missing for unknown reasons and still no explanation for the acts of terrorism all pointing back to the church.

It does appear that a powerful organization is using immigrants to reap chaos and perhaps in other ways as well but so far, I haven’t gotten a handle on why. I’m not sure if it hasn’t been revealed yet or I just missed it, but the end goal is still fuzzy as far as I’m concerned.

From what I can gather, Bifrost (the three people who talk cryptically in that extremely detailed 3D room) are all ‘congressmen’ who have power on par with the Sybil system and can drastically affect anything going on in Japan; from the allocation of public funds to different projects to the plotting of needlessly complicated conspiracies involving religions, kidnappings, and all manner of mischief. Basically, they are demi-gods, playing with pawns in the shadow of the absolute god that is the Sybil system.

Well yeah – I mean I got the basics down, I’m not that sick. I just don’t quite know yet the point of holding Roundrobin games. Is it a purge tactic, simple entertainment, modern day gladiator games? Bifrost is like an evil Sybil computer right? Why is it holding the games in the first place?

Because ambitious people will always want to have power over others and Bifrost is the end goal for such ambitions maybe?

One thing I would love to get more information about, is the larger context of Japan on the international level. I know I say that a lot simply because I think it’s really interesting to see how Psycho Pass’ specific version of authoritarianism would play out when confronted with other governments. However, in this particular case, I think it could help us appreciate the story more as well.

I’m sure they’d get along fine with the US in its current political state. Ohhh~ spicy!

Like I mentioned earlier this season, I was pretty surprised there even is enough immigration into Japan for the possibility of racial/cultural tensions to rise. I would have thought it would be too chaotic and unpredictable a situation for Sybil to allow.

Regardless of how Sybil feels about it, I’m also super curious why anyone would want to immigrate to Japan. It’s an island country so it’s not mere convenience. These people went through effort to go there specifically. That’s a bit unusual especially in the case of hue compromised immigrants which seem to be not uncommon.

What is happening in the rest of the world to make Japan that attractive?

It’s gotta be the secret porn doujin underground, right? I mean that’d be enough to make me risk a clouded hue to live in a Sybil-controlled Japan!

You may have chosen the wrong show to watch Matt…What I mean is considering the danger, why would someone chose Japan? I know Kei mentioned fighting in his home country but his home country is Russia. They aren’t exactly strangers to warfare in our world…. Do you know anything about this?

Do I know anything about what? About Russia, or about Kei being Russian? Or about Kei fighting in Russia? Or warfare in general? Because as far as I know, war… war never changes…

Did season 2 give us any glimpse about the state of international matters?

I try to block season 2 out of my memories… but no I don’t think it did.

Another aspect that would actually change things quite a bit is the emigration policy which I don’t think they’ve discussed yet. For instance, let’s say that Hue determination is based on some super secret set of calculations (like the google algorithm) and no one can know their own hues until Sybil assesses them. Can you show up in Japan, find out that your one quarter stuck in the bubblegum machine away from becoming a latent criminal and just decide to leave? Is there anything keeping you there outside the financial burden of travelling?

If Japan is letting so many people in you figure they would be letting some out as well to avoid overpopulation but we never really see that. In fact, most people don’t seem to have even travelled outside of Japan (which would make sense) so how does that work?

I think you’re trying to apply too much logic to a show (and by extension its writer) who just wanted to tack on some buzz-worthy topics like ‘immigrants’ and ‘housing crisis’, etc to the world of ‘Psycho Pass’ without you thinking too much about the nitty gritty details. Or maybe the writer is a genius and he’ll answer all your questions in time for the finale!

I don’t know. The writer is probably smarter than me. Besides what I do know of this franchise has always been very nicely constructed. None of these things are essential to understanding the story of course. I just think they’re interesting concepts and would add some nice world building to a season that’s been mostly plot driven.

As the episode came to a close, things were looking pretty dire for Kei. Just as I was starting to like the guy too. And I mean very dire. It strikes me that Psycho Pass may be the type of show that does not shy away from killing off main cast members and now I’m really worries. I will personally be bummed if anything happens to Kei. Maria will be devastated and I don’t know if Arata would even survive it….

Matt, tell me it’s going to be ok!

I mean, Maria got kidnapped to, things are going from bad to worse before our eyes, Irina!

Oh also, Bifrost is deeply involved with Heaven’s Leap. Of course. I don’t even know why I felt the need to throw in a spoiler like that…

Well I mean corrupt religions and corrupt politics go hand in hand, just look at the US… Oh! There I go again being ~spicy~!

So Matt, what did you think of this episode. Is last week still your least favourite?

This episode felt needlessly, almost combatively confusing, presenting itself in a fractured narrative that cut between story beats and flashbacks in such a way to keep itself ahead of the audience as if obfuscation passes for complexity. There was nothing specifically I disliked about this episode, there were some great scenes but they were presented so hurriedly and so disjointedly that on the whole it was hard to fully enjoy the experience. Even though this was a 45 minute episode, not only did it feel like a bunch of plots and subplots were simultaneously emerging, converging and diverting but it also felt like it was rushing for the sake of being compelling but instead ended up just confusing. This’ll be the new least favourite episode (so far). What about you Irina, can you blow past your cold and give us your verdict on it? 

I’m neutral on it. I found it less confusing than past episodes in that motivations were much clearer and I have no issues with intertwining narratives, in fact I often like them. However to me here are a lot of interesting themes being laid out but they are presented in a fairly dull way, in my opinion. So it evens out?

Psycho Pass s3 ep6 – Friends and Strangers Hello everyone. Please bear with me this week. I am still in the midst of a huge cold and even watching Psycho Pass was a bit of a challenge.

#action #anime #Collab #crime #drama #Psycho Pass #sci fi

[relishredshoes]

Interview given to The Severus Snape and Hermione Granger Shipping Fan Group.  (sharing here Admin approved)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/199718373383293/ Hello CRMediaGal and welcome to Behind the Quill, thank-you for letting us get to know you a little better.

Many of our members will know your Unquestionable Love series. 

We’re grateful you can spend some time with us today. 

Okay, so let's jump into it!

What’s the story behind your pen name?

CR is an abbreviation for “cracked rendition” and that comes from the excerpt from a poem I’ve loved since I was young. Years ago, to help put myself through art college, I did web design on the side and called my little company Cracked Rendition Designs. When I created my pen name, I combined all of these elements together to make CRMediaGal (for some illogical reason I thought it was a solid name at the time lol) and, to this day, I still think about changing my pen name altogether.  I figure it’s too late for that now, though. 

Which Harry Potter character do you identify with the most?

Luna Lovegood. I wish I’d had her self-assurance and confidence in who she is at that age but, that aside, I identify with how she’s a bit of a loner, an oddball, and tends to be left out (or does until she finds her Hogwarts friends). I’ve really struggled with being an outsider most of my life, so it’s comforting to see that representation in literature but through a young woman who possesses the self-confidence people like myself often lack. 

Do you have a favourite genre to read? 

I tend to love period dramas, so a lot of the classic novels are my favourites (i.e. Austen, Henry James, etceteras).  

Do you have a favourite “classic” novel?

The Portrait of a Lady is one of my favourite novels.  I reread it every couple of years.  

At what age did you start writing? 

I’ve been writing since I was very little, so probably seven, eight, nine-ish? I used to be much more of an artist/sketcher than a writer, so I’d make up stories and write and sketch and staple them together all day long lol. 

How did you get into writing fanfiction?

After watching Deathly Hallows: Part 2 at the cinema in 2011.  Severus Snape’s death hit me hard all over again (I hadn’t read the last book in a few years), and I decided that I desperately needed to change that for myself lol.  Unquestionable Love is the first fanfic (SSHG) I ever wrote and it’s become an ongoing series, so I’m grateful to have gotten the “spark” to write fanfic from somewhere around that time.  I decided in 2011 to try my hand at “fleshing out” my little Snape family that had been mucking about in my head for much longer than that.

What's the best theme you've ever come across in a fic? Is it a theme represented in your own works?

I’m a total sucker for the brooding, self-loathing male who thinks himself unworthy of love and redemption and the sunshine, kick-arse lady, aka Centre of His World, who loves him back to life. #GimmeMorePleaseandThankYou

What fandoms are you involved in other than Harry Potter?

I’ve written fics for Star Wars (ReyBen/Reylo is another one of my favourite ships outside of SSHG), The Hobbit (Thranduil/Tauriel), and Les Miserables (Enjonine). 

If you could make one change to canon, what would it be? Do you have a favourite piece of fanon?

Severus Snape’s death (he’s NOT dead! #nope #denial4ever). 

My favourite piece of fanon is probably Severus being Draco’s godfather. Regardless of where it originated from, I’m all for it. 

Do you listen to music when you write or do you prefer quiet? 

I used to need complete solitude and quiet to write, but nowadays I can write with some instrumental music playing in the background.  It depends on where my headspace is at. 

What are your favourite fanfictions of all time? 

I don’t read much fanfic anymore, as it’s hard enough for me to find time for my own writing…but off the top of my head, I’d probably have to go with a “classic” - The Tattered Man (SSHG) by Aurette.  It’s gutting and heart-wrenching and doesn’t have a happy ending, but it’s a hauntingly beautiful piece that stays with you. 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? How does that affect your writing process?

I’m somewhere in the middle. I tend to plot out certain points I want to hit from chapter to chapter (if it’s a multi-chapter fic and heavy on plot, for instance), but writing is an organic process and I enjoy allowing my muse to surprise me as well.

What is your writing genre of choice? 

A good mixture of Angst and Fluff (and nearly always with a HEA!) 

Which of your stories are you most proud of? Why? 

I’m proud of all my stories for different reasons, mainly technical milestones I was able to achieve with the writing or the emotional attachments I had to them at the time that I wrote them.

If I had to choose one (or two because I gotta cheat here haha!), I’d go with either Unto Their Own (SSHG) because the subject matter was so dark and took me to places mentally that were very tough for me to navigate (the fact that I finished that fic is an achievement for me because it could have very well been abandoned at various points in the story); or Unquestionable Love (SSHG), both the original and the series as a whole, because that story has my heart entirely invested in it.  That precious family means everything to me and the story, from beginning to present, is my headcanon for the SSHG pairing.  I really can’t see them any other way, though I’ve written other stories where their lives turn out quite differently. 

Did it unfold as you imagined it or did you find the unexpected cropped up as you wrote? What did you learn from writing it?

Sticking with Unquestionable Love here, the original story came together mostly as expected, though there were a couple darker turns the fic was supposed to take that I didn’t have the heart--or the stamina, I suppose--to end up developing.  

One of my dear OCs/one of the daughters was supposed to die at one point in the story and I realised that doing so would have ultimately changed Severus’s fate, as well as the entire course of the storyline.  (There is just no way that UL!Severus would survive the death of one of his children, so I guess I’m no JK Rowling or any other esteemed writer who can just ruthlessly kill off their characters haha!) I’ve learned through writing this series that I can tackle subject matters that are very emotionally tough for me and that’s a good feeling.  

I’ve also learned that I have something to say, even if it’s not much heard or well-liked, and that that still makes my storytelling worthy of being out there in the fandomverse; or, at least, I try to remind myself that it’s okay to exist.

How personal is the story to you, and do you think that made it harder or easier to write?

It’s intensely personal in some respects and those aspects are difficult for me to discuss.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready to talk about them in depth, but I will say a couple scenes in the latter half of Unquestionable Love were incredibly trying to write due to personal experience. I pushed through those moments, though, and I think that, because of that therapeutic exercise, I’m able to tackle other tough subjects in my stories more easily. 

What books or authors have influenced you? How do you think that shows in your writing?

I admire various writers, mainly for the love of the language that’s reflected in their writing styles.  Anne Rice immediately comes to mind.  If I had an ounce of her talent, I’d write with so much confidence lol. I don’t think writers like her necessarily affect my writing style, but they’re certainly people I aspire to write more like.  

Do people in your everyday life know you write fanfiction? 

Only more recently.  I haven’t really allowed any of them to read my work, as so much of it is deeply personal, but just being upfront with my closest friends and family has been a nice development.   

How true for you is the notion of “writing for yourself”? 

I think this is something, as a fic writer, that’s essential.  However, I’m also of the mindset that fandom is about community, and fanfic writers want to engage with their audiences.  We want to feel less alone in these wacky and often times complicated scenarios we put our characters through, and we want people to respond to them...hopefully, with a positive reaction. 

That’s what it’s all about--interaction--and it can be rather heartbreaking, as a writer, when you don’t receive engagement because maybe your headcanons or takes on characters aren’t popular or are considered outside of the ‘norm’. 

For me, I find it too crippling anymore to continue sharing my stories with the fandoms I love when they’re met with silence or hate.  There’s nothing more soul crushing than just being dismissed or disliked or not accepted...and that’s why I’ve chosen to post my stories privately (for now, at least).

How important is it for you to interact with your audience? How do you engage with them? Just at the point of publishing? Through social media?

It’s pretty essential to me to be able to engage with readers.  I absolutely love it and I wish it happened more often haha.  I used to run polls and interact with readers on my fanfiction.net and AO3 accounts (both now inactive) and through my still active Tumblr account (http://crmediagal.tumblr.com/ ).  I now have my own website - www.crmediagal.com - where I can fully control the flames and negativity. 

It may be temporary but, so far, it’s working out pretty well.  It’s made my readership a lot smaller but, at least, I know the people who are there genuinely want to read more of my work and won’t leave me hate comments.  That’s so comforting and encouraging.  

What would you most like your readers to take away with them when they've finished your stories?

A powerful message of some kind...remembrance...perhaps, suggest one or two of them to other readers and shippers out there.  

That’s the only way our stories survive, really. 

What is the best advice you’ve received about writing?

That you need to protect your “voice”, no matter how unpopular it may be, and that there is no one else who writes like you and that you should take pride in that.  

I try to remind myself of these important pointers when I’m feeling particularly down about my storytelling abilities. 

What do you do when you hit writer’s block?

Watch my favourite films or television shows to help re-spark my creativity.  I come back to the writing when it ‘speaks’ to me.  I no longer press myself to push out writing because, more often than not, the result is going to get tossed and reworked anyhow.  

Has anything in real life trickled down into your writing?

Yes, certain experiences and people I’ve encountered in my life have definitely wound up in some of my stories.  

Many of my OCs in different stories are examples of that. 

Do you have any stories in the works? Can you give us a teaser? 

I’m working on a new SSHG story that’s based off of a fun prompt from a dear, long-time reader.  

It will start posting at my website - www.crmediagal.com - in the coming weeks/months, so if anyone would like access to it, you can contact me there.  

Here’s a short excerpt:

Cradling his head in his hand, Severus stomped to his front door and opened it a crack, jostling the handle loud enough that it caught three people’s attention, the woman firstly before the others.  

“What’s the bloody idea?” he snarled, shouting above them.  

Each individual—two wizards and one witch—went mute and turned to stare from the neighbouring sidewalk.  

“I’ll have you know that this is a quiet street!  And I was sleeping!”  When the guests next door to him, who were just towing the property line and about to get themselves knocked out, offered no response, he prodded, grinding his teeth together, 

“Are you daft, you fools?  Do you not comprehend?  HEY!”

The two gentlemen, who appeared to be fresh out of Hogwarts—or maybe they hadn’t gotten that far in their magical studies, judging by the stupidity on their expressions—startled and nodded in unison.  

“Yes, sir!”

“Oh, my...” the witch, in turn, murmured, seemingly more to herself than anyone else.

Severus identified her vacant, open-mouthed expression at once: she recognised him.  As of yet, he had little recollection as to who she might be and didn’t give a damn.  He kicked his door open the rest of the way with his boot, jostling the three near trespassers backward a few more paces, and stalked down his steps and onto his sidewalk. 

That was when he finally understood the reason behind all of the commotion: one of the branches to the old oak tree that shielded his stoop, and had been there since the earliest days he could recall of his childhood, had crashed onto the pavement, cracking the sidewalk in half. 

A part of his iron fence, too, had crumbled under the weight of the broken branch, and there was an assortment of boxes, some severely banged up, scattered across his property. 

“What the...?  That’s my tree you idiots hit!  And my bleedin’ fence...!”

“I - I’m sorry, sir,” stammered the witch with wildly curly hair and worrisome brown eyes, hastily stepping forward to intervene.  

“I’ve been trying to figure out how this happened—”Severus turned his glare on her.  

“And who are you?”  The seemingly thirty-something woman blushed to her roots, which he couldn’t account for, until she spoke in a faint, insecure whisper, 

“Um, Hermione, sir...  Hermione Weasley.  Oh, gosh, I mean, I - I was Hermione Weasley until...”  She cleared her throat and attempted to reintroduce herself, flushing in such a manner that it flaunted dainty-looking freckles that dotted her cheeks and nose.  Had she always had those?  Severus couldn’t remember.  

“Oh, bother!  It’s Hermione Granger, Professor.  Surely, you...you remember me?”Severus went as rigid as a column.  

“Oh, for fuck’s sake...” he blurted aloud before he could stop himself. Hermione blinked, taken aback.  

“I’m sorry?”Severus’s shock morphed into a tight-fitting sneer.  

“I thought I was done with the lot of you.”

Any words of encouragement to other writers?

Try not to get too discouraged by lack of reviews or not making the recommendations lists.  Keep persevering and know that someone out there, even if it’s just one reader, will love what you have to share with the world.  

Thanks for spending some time with us today CRMediaGal, we’ve enjoyed getting to know you.

#fanfiction #fanfic #pro snape #snamione #sevmione #snanger #hermione #hermione granger #snape #severus snape #snape community #writing

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #461

Top Ten Good Things That Actually Happened in 2020

Well, thank God that’s over, am I right?

It feels kinda weird to be sitting here looking back over the wreckage and general weirdness of 2020, a year that pretty much defines the word “anxiety”. I have a lot to be thankful for: none of us died, for a start; we all seemed to avoid The Plague in its entirety for the whole year. We still have a house, we still have food, we always had enough toilet paper, and above all we had each other. It was hard, it was long, it sucked a great deal at times, but there are substantially worse hands to be dealt all things considered.

Anyway, amongst all the crap, there were some good things, too. And I don’t mean the end-year highs of them finding a vaccine, Biden beating Trump, and us narrowly avoiding No Deal by eating a ton of rotten mud instead of actual shit. No, throughout the year, there were actually some things that happened that were genuinely good; great, even.

And so once again, with no further ado, here are my ten favourite things. Like usual, these are, y’know, things that I watched or played or whatever. I don’t go on about my great kids being great, or the fact that I finally finished writing and formatting enough children’s books to start showing them to agents. But my kids were both elected their respective class’s reps to the school council, which is pretty badass. Here you go. Ten good things. Watch them on catch-up, or whatever.

Mega Mando: without a doubt the best “thing” that I saw was the second season of The Mandalorian. Managing to be both an event-of-the-week show (a heist! An infiltration! A siege!) as well as a long-form narrative; feeling distinct and its own thing but tying into so many aspects of Star Wars; full of absolutely excellent scenes and direction and performances; and holy crap what an ending. When you watch a few of these kinds of shared-universe genre shows, this sort of thing is a rarity to the point of my never having seen it before. Seasons that are too long? Filler episodes? Disappointing lore? A “thirteen-hour movie”? Mando swerves all of these things and – notwithstanding my love for The Last Jedi – emerges as possibly the best thing Star Wars has done since at least the classic LucasArts games of the late nineties.

Series SeXy: finally the new consoles came out, and I got an Xbox Series X. It was quite a ride for yours truly: I managed to successfully pre-order one from Microsoft directly; it turned up on the day of release, except it was late in the evening and the kids were around so I couldn’t open it; then, after briefly testing it, I shoved it back in its box till Christmas. Honestly, you wanna talk about anticipation much? It was literally in my house and I still didn’t properly set it up till the evening on Christmas Day. Anyway: it’s great. It just works, y’know? It’s a beautiful boxy delight, with its chunky green holes and its shiny edges. It makes all my games look amazing, it’s so fast and buttery-smooth. It’s like upgrading a PC, but far more successful and expansive an upgrade than I was ever able to do when I was actually upgrading a PC. Anyway, it’s great. It even runs Cyberpunk 2077.

Lockdown Crossing: Animal Crossing: New Horizons arrived at exactly the right time. Lockdown was starting, everything was darkness and fear, people were dying, we needed distractions, and here was a game about being happy and friendly and doing up your house and digging up fossils. It was perfect. It was also a great social game, with my kids loving sending presents to each other, or meeting up with their uncle (who they literally saw only once this year). A great game at just the right time.

The Stream Where it Happens: Mando might have been my TV highlight of the year, but film-wise my favourite new movie was not only not really a movie but was also several years old. Hamilton popped up almost by surprise on Disney+, and it was the first time I’d been able to experience it – and it was just as good as I’d heard. At this point you don’t need me to rhapsodise about the lyricism, performance, staging, and West Wing references; I think you either get it or you don’t, and I got it big time. Weirdly, experiencing it at home made some kind of perfect sense, and it made up for missing out on the big cinematic musicals such as In the Heights and West Side Story.

Fantabulous Harley Quinn: Harley rocked on both the big and the small screen this year. Birds of Prey, or whatever it ended up being called, was actually the last film I saw at the cinema before the Big Shutdown of 2020. It’s not perfect, sure, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun; Margot Robbie is a blast, it’s really funny, and is edgy in just the right way, rather than feeling like it’s trying too hard. I was more sceptical going into the Harley Quinn animated show (starring Penny off The Big Bang Theory, for goodness’ sake!), as “sweary adult Harley Quinn cartoon” is pretty high on my checklist of “things that are trying to be edgy”, but I’m glad I gave it a chance, because it followed a very similar line to the movie. Hilarious, violent, filthy, but also offering a subtle unpeeling of Harley’s psyche and giving her more character development than she gets in most of her comic appearances. It was a great year for Harley. Just wish they’d show the second season of her show.

All This Plus Disney: yeah, I’ve already singled out Mando and Ham (great unmade detective show, there), but I’ve gotta say Disney+ in general has been a huge highlight. From getting all yer Marvels and yer Star Wars in one place, to a wealth of preschool and middle-grade shows for the kids (my youngest mainlined Vampirina this Spring), to being a home for loads of high-quality family films from years gone by (it was the prime destination for many a family movie night), to, well, the future. WandaVision launches in a couple of weeks, followed by dozens of great shows and movies; not just ones about sad superheroes, either – personally I can’t wait for the likes of Chip & Dale. I’ve gotta say, I’ve been really impressed, and once they roll out the sexier, swearier Fox stuff later this year, it’ll only get better.

A Schitt Year: we got into Schitt’s Creek rather late (like many a sitcom – I think we only discovered Brooklyn Nine-Nine and The Good Place in the last eighteen months or so), but it’s truly sublime, and it only got better and better as it built towards it joyous climax (ewww, David!). It was a great show about a family of people who were kinda arseholes, but were really very nice underneath it all, and how this town of people who were sorta idiots but kinda nice underneath it all brought out the better natures of everybody. It was, basically, a show about the all-encompassing power of being Nice. I’m so, so happy that it achieved huge success in its final season, winning literally all the Emmys. Hot Schitt.

Top Trek: 2020 was bookended by the two newest incarnations of People Boldly Going, Picard and Discovery. I was super excited to check in with Jean-Luc and pals nearly twenty years since we’d last seen them; although the show wasn’t a Best of Both Worlds-style masterpiece, it presented a believably fractured vision of the Federation, and a sadder, wearier Picard. It got a bit bogged down in Borg stuff, and I wasn’t totally sold on the ending, but I’m very, very eager to spend more time with these characters in future seasons. Discovery, meanwhile, flashed forward, with a season set about 900 years after Picard, and gave us what amounts to the closest Star Trek gets to a dystopia. It took its time settling in, but by crikey it pulled its threads together for a great run of episodes as we gear up to the finale later this week. I’ve very much enjoyed Star Trek on TV this year, and I’m really looking forward to whatever comes next.

Netflickin’ Ass: on the one hand, it was quite nice to see streaming services picking up the slack during the cinema closures, with many films winding up on Prime Video or Netflix or wherever; there were also those “Premium VOD” options, such as Trolls World Tour or Mulan, but I never quite fancied parting with so much cash for a rental (“Only if it’s Black Widow or Wonder Woman,” I said… so, yeah, see you later this month for the latter!). One trend I did notice, however, was Netflix also picking up the slack of “big Hollywood star-driven action movie”. Y’know, the stuff that had Van Damme or Seagal in it in the ‘90s, before everything became franchised (Mission: Impossible could almost fall under this banner, but Cruise became too huge and the series itself eventually was the draw, I’d argue). Anyway, these sorts of films nowadays are low-rent DTV fodder starring slumming former megastars, so fair play to Netflix for resurrecting the genre and giving it a fresh coat of paint and lease of life. Stuff like Extraction and The Old Guard weren’t exactly masterpieces, but they were solidly entertaining with great central performances and some nicely turned-out action. Looking forward to more of the same – bigger, better, and with more people getting killed with rakes!

A Summer of Anticipation: it was a weird year – well, yeah, of course it was, you know, you were there. But one of the things that was weird was that so much was going to happen. I mean, there were loads of things I was looking forward to as the year began; from the MCU and Star Wars shows to big movies, smaller movies, and – of course – new games consoles. And as the year went on, amidst the angsty real-world wait-and-see, there was also a steady drip of news and non-news as we held on to find out which films were pushed back, which were skipping the cinema, and mostly what the games would look like on the new consoles. Barely a week seemed to go by without new rumours, new stories, and new leaked videos or imagery. It was maddening and infuriating but also, weirdly, glorious. This strange ongoing sense of anticipation and wonder, even if quite often the news ended up being disappointing as more and more big hitters slipped to 2021 (everything from Bond to Halo to pretty much the whole MCU). But like an entire year made up of Christmas Eves, it felt for the longest time that anything was possible… just round the corner.

See? It wasn’t all bad. And maybe this year we’ll get to enjoy all the stuff we thought we’d enjoy in 2020! I mean, at the very least, Trump’s gonna be gone… right?

#top ten #2020 #film #tv #disney #hamilton #mandalorian #games #xbox #halo #series x

[babybahamut]

Games Of 2017

Once again, here is my annual review of the games I played in the course of the year. I usually only include games I haven’t played before, but this year I spent 6 months without a decent computer and therefore it’d be a very short list if I did that. Alphabetical order for no reason. Quick mention to Love Live School Idol Festival which three years later I’m still playing- much less so now that the mu’s story mode has ended (I’ve tried to, but I just don’t care about Aqours in anywhere near the same way) but I still play every mu’s event. Looking forward to what All Stars is going to bring us! I miss my girls!

Borderlands 2

A pretty fun FPS, the randomised weapons keep things interesting. I started off as the Gunzerker but I found myself resorting to sniping 99% of the time so I used a save-editor to change myself to the sniper dude and had a much happier time of it. It got kinda dull after a while though and I haven’t finished it- enemies either stomp you or go down very quickly with no real strategy involved beyond “snipe the head”, and there’s no actual impetus to do well. If you die, you just respawn a little distance away with less money (which you get an abundance of and is also not very useful) and you get to keep all the EXP you’d earned up to that point, so you can just bum-rush a group of enemies and die over and over until they’re done. A LOT of the sidequests also boiled down to “go back to this place you already cleared and do the whole thing again and the enemies are the same so they aren’t worth killing any more in EXP terms but you still have to in order to survive”, which was boring. However, it probably would be a lot of fun to play it co-op with a friend, which unfortunately I wasn’t able to do. The writing is FANTASTIC though, it’s a very funny game and Handsome Jack is SUCH a cock.

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Breath Of The Wild

I mean… I don’t need to spend long talking about how exceptionally good this game is, right? Everyone already knows that. It’s really, really, REALLY good, and lets leave it at that. What I do want to talk about is something this game does that no other game has ever done for me- it made me fear for my life.

Even encountering a fairly simple mob of monsters brought with it all kinds of considerations- is it worth engaging them? Using up my equipment on these enemies when I could just avoid them might be the wrong decision, or do they have something I need? Can I sneak around them or will I be spotted and have to engage them anyway, so should I get the drop on them while I have the advantage of stealth? One of the mob is a stronger version than the rest, can I even fight him without being killed in one hit?

It’s so interesting to me- usually I throw myself into a challenge and if it’s one that I’m not matched for, I just shrug it off and come back later. This is, I think, the first time I’ve ever had that feeling of genuine survival in a video game. Really great stuff.

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Frontier

This space simulator from the Amiga era was an astonishing technical achievement at the time, squeezing an entire galaxy into a single floppy disk. The game presents space in real-world scale and it literally takes days to traverse a solar system (you can increase the speed of game-time though!) and it also observes newtonian physics with the way ships move in space. There’s no goal- simply live your life in space and try to get by. A childhood fave that’s still enjoyable, but it’s gotta be your type of game to begin with.

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Golden Axe

Played this co-op with Ruu! Golden Axe is a game that you HAVE to play with a friend- it’s dull as dishwater solo but with a buddy it becomes a good laugh. Gilius Thunderhead and Tyris Flare killed Death Adder and Death Adder Junior and saved the king and princess!

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Gunstar Heroes

Treasure’s debut is also one of their finest games and a fantastic run’n’gun in its own right. We played this co-op too and had a total blast. It’s one of the jewels in the crown of co-op and if you have someone to play with you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more fun game to burn through. It’s also a lot of fun to play solo, which I did on Hard difficulty for the first time ever. I usually run chaser+chaser, but in Hard mode it doesn’t do enough damage so I opted for fire+laser, which apparently can destroy bullets!

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Hatoful Holday

Played the first chapter of this one- the first game was really gripping but this one didn’t grab me quite so firmly. I want to come back to it though, and I’m sure it gets a lot more compelling later on.

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Iji

I had the sudden urge to play this rad-as-heck indie game out of nowhere to find that after 6 years, it had been updated just a week before I got the urge. Playing through again with the improvements, this is still a great game made even better- it’s a run-n-gun that’s a little bit metroidvania, with upgradable stats, but where it shines is in the writing and logbooks you’ll find within. The world has been destroyed by the alien race known as the Tasen. A team of scientists who survived the onslaught use the Tasen’s nanotechnology to revive Iji, in the vain hope she might be able to save what remains of Earth. I actually think this game will appeal to Undertale fans, strangely- there’s a similar pacifist/aggressor system in place (though not to the extreme of Undertale) that makes playing through in both styles worthwhile. For the dedicated, the game is absolutely riddled with secrets and bonuses to find if you’re wily. Huge recommendation and it’s completely free.

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Ikaruga

2017 saw the arrival of a new friend who surprised me with their knowledge of this game. Confronted with the fact that I’d bumped into someone who knew about one of my favourite games of all time, I had no choice but to play through it once more. It’s beautiful, it’s brutal, it’s smart, it’s brutal, it’s another masterpiece by the geniuses of Treasure, and it’s available on Steam for goodness sake BUY IT.

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Jak and Daxter (+2)

This series is midgi’s special series from childhood, so she had to share it with me. This is the PS3 collection. I finished the first one and played some way into the second which I’m still working on. The first is your standard collectathon platformer fare that was popular at the time- Jak has a janky double jump that was frustrating several times, but it’s fun. The second game I’ve enjoyed a lot more so far, becoming more of a run-n-gun/platformer that overall has a much darker tone. I need to get back into this one but I’ve enjoyed what I’ve played so far.

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Kirby Robobobobobobot

Oh man, what an unbelievably fun and tight game. If you’ve played any kirby game before you know what to expect here, a fun platformer where you can absorb enemy abilities to use as your own. This one has the same puzzle/challenge aspects as games before it, with each level containing 3 Puzzle Cubes to collect, rewarded after solving something a little tricky or out of the way. New to this game is the Robobot Armour, which is so so so much fun to roll around in that I can’t even begin to explain. It’s so satisfying to jump in the armour and just blast through a level, and it’s used really well too- it never feels like a gimmick and you get to use it a lot. The final boss (the final encounter, I should say- there’s like 5 final bosses without including the secret and bonus extra final bosses) is great and there’s one mindblowing scene at the end where I was watching open-mouthed with surprise. Also, the soundtrack is AMAZING- it has one of the most intense final boss themes I’ve ever heard (spoiler free link), and the rest of the soundtrack has a nice crunchy metallic, mechanical sound to it. Huge recommend.

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The Last Of Us

Bloody hell, it’s grim isn’t it? I enjoyed it though, the story doesn’t have many smiles but the gameplay is a lot of fun. Stealthing around and sniping jerks was the best, but the game seems to send more enemies in out of nowhere if your stealth breaks which means you can get blindsided from an area you just cleared, which is irritating. It’s very good at making ammo feel scarce but giving you enough you don’t feel like you need to conserve everything, which also rewards exploration.

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Love Nikki

F2P mobile fashion dress-up game with a bewildering array of options, there’s literally 1000+ items in each category to choose from and the art is SO PRETTY. It’s not just dress-up, there’s a story mode to play through and events to unlock more outfits, plus clothing item “evolution” (collect X amount of one item and you can spend them to upgrade it). There’s a lot to do here!

-

Pikmin 1 and 2

Playing them both together 10 years on, I definitely would say the first game is stronger. The second added a slew of new features and QoL upgrades, but the lack of that 30 day timer really changes the feel of the game. That little bit of pressure in the first game was just oppressive enough to make you plan your movements and constantly re-evaluate your priorities, all of which was missing from 2. People considered it better back in the day to be without the timer, but I disagree.

-

Pokemon Moon

I was entirely ready to declare this my GotY until Pokemon Ultra Sun/Moon were announced, and now I kind of feel like I got stiffed with half of a game. But, evaluating it on its own merits, this is the best pokemon game I’ve played. I’m not entirely sold on all the new ‘mons (but Decidueye is AWESOME) but I appreciate all the ways this game finally breaks the constraints that the series has had since gen1.Major criticism I have for this one is the dull soundtrack- considering Gen5 and 6 had great OSTs it was a real disappointment.

Later on, as part of my Gym Leader Umi challenge, I came back to play the game in a more competitive way (or at least, I built a team that had competitive viability) and it provided a very different experience. It’s not quite as friendly to this style of play as Gen6 was, but breeding is quick enough and thankfully you don’t need to level your team up to 100 to use them (as online will automatically level them up to max). Nintendo’s online is still janky as heck, but this is the best it’s ever been, and I had a lot of fun playing the game in a different way. (Again, USUM tempered this by adding a slew of new stuff and rendering all my work to have been in vain, because now people only play the new games… and they aren’t compatible)

-

Super Mario Odyssey

Only played it VERY briefly cos we wanted to finish BOTW before jumping into this, but I’m impressed so far. I really like how it doesn’t tutorialise much- you just find stuff and interact with it and it WORKS and it’s cool.

-

Super Mario World

Timeless, flawless, 2d platforming perfected. Can’t be beat.

-

Snakebird

Bloody wars, this puzzle game is HARD. I didn’t want to just use guides because then what’s the point, but I definitely used youtube thumbnails of guides to see what kind of situation I needed to get my snakebirds to halfway into the level so I could work my way through from there. This game isn’t gentle at all, recommended if you like brainbreakers.

-

Sonic Generations

Like Sonic Adventure 2, this game feels janky and a little broken, but still manages to be a great deal of fun to play. I actually finished it to 100%. Contrary to popular opinion, I found the Modern Sonic levels to be better overall than Classic Sonic, but they’re both good. Some of the bonus challenges were bollocks (screw you Vector The Crocodile!!!!). The soundtrack though, hoo boy, Sonic games never fail to provide an excellent soundtrack and this one plays with the nostlagia of the older games but does enough of its own thing to be worthwhile in its own right. This rearrangement of City Escape made its way to my playlist.

-

Sonic Lost World

Aaarrrrrrgggghhhhhh… there’s so much in this game that could be SO COOL. There are so many great ideas and genuinely awesome fun gameplay hooks that are wasted in this game. It’s not at all BAD, but it’s frustrating to play it. I really enjoy the cutscenes between levels, they have some funny moments and good writing. I just… I want to like this game, the snowball level is smart, the under-ocean railgrinding level is so much fun, but for every great moment there’s another enemy or death pit hidden just out of view, or wonky wall-jumping section, or gameplay mechanic that is actually just broken (it’s a Wii U port and there’s one special power that utilised the second screen to play a sort of rhythm minigame- rather than replace it, they just removed the minigame altogether and you can spam the button as fast as you like with no rhythm consideration and it BREAKS). Soundtrack, again, is the saving grace.

-

Starfox 64

Childhood fave, its still the best Starfox has ever been. Great fun arcade-style into-the-screen shooter, very fast and fluid, branching paths through the game so you can see new levels each time you play. I adore this.

-

TF2

I think…. I’m at a place where I’m ready to say goodbye to TF2. The changes to matchmaking honestly took everything I enjoyed about the game away, and although the base game is still a lot of fun, it’s just not the same. The new contracts and weapons are enjoyable to play with and I wish Pyro’s jetpack had been added three years ago so I still wanted to master it, but it feels like an old friend whose path has diverged from my own now.

still not interested in overwatch though lol

-

TMNT

The SNES one, another co-op with Ruu. This one was his pick as I’ve never played it before! It was definitely fun- I feel like I didn’t really have much clue what I was doing but the combat is satisfyingly crunchy and enemies crumble in an enjoyable way. But, damn, what a rocking soundtrack!

-

Touhou 16

I will say I liked TH15 more, but this one is a great time. I actually liked the Extra stage better than the main game (complete opposite to TH15 whose Extra stage was balls). In terms of the main game, there’s really no reason not to use the Summer power- the others might have Releases that clear the screen or make your shots stronger, but only the Summer power lets you Release a single Option at a time. Losing all your Options every time you release is just too crippling, plus you then can’t do it again for a long time afterwards. Extra’s a blast though, with the backwards-facing shot making you play in unconventional ways.

-

Unreal Tournament

I had this on another of these lists, but when I got my new PC I wanted to test something. 200 bots on Hall Of Giants, all with instagib rifles. It ran smooth as silk and was complete and utter chaos. Great fun!

-

Wonderboy 2

Master System version, for reference. This is one of the very first games I ever played, many moons past. It’s still fun, but the decision to include the timer from the arcade version is baffling. The final boss is a little bit BS and game over means start from the beginning. I dunno if I’d recommend it to a newcomer, but if you’re used to the foibles of retro games it’s a good one.

-

Ys 1 and 2

Played through these again while on midgi’s laptop. The second game is much much better, but they’re kinda two halves of one whole so you need to put up with the first game to get to the second. The maps are confusing, but the combat is fun. Soundtrack is the reason to stay.

–

That’s my lot of the year! Let me know if I played anything you played and you disagree with my opinion or you have any recs for 2018!

#BBs Retro/Gaming/VGM/Etc Culture Tag #BBs Do A Thing Tag

[lameunknown]

so i watched tlj

i’m just gonna ramble in long bullet points bc aint no way i’m forming coherent thoughts right now. spoilers ahead, duh. 

one of my fav parts about the experience was how the movie theater was packed full of people just as crazy and excited about this as me & alex. we literally either held hands or hugged tight during the entire movie bc i don’t think we’d survive otherwise lmao. get you a friend who’s not afraid to show support through physical contact. also it was 8 pm so there weren’t that many kids. people clapped several times and when kylo & rey blew up luke’s lightsaber someone yelled “FUCK” super loudly and everyone else agreed

speaking about kylo and rey.....yeah lucasfilm....this is what we’re not gonna do. it scares me SO. MUCH. that even as an avid anti r*ylo i couldn’t help seeing it, and i’m TERRIFIED of ep 9 for that exact reason. the hand touching was disgusting. like all these moments would’ve been absolutely precious if only there was a way to see them as purely platonic, but after these two long years there sadly is not. i really wanted them to work together as PLATONIC PARTNERS and possibly later FRIENDS but i guess not. :( also i hated her parentage so much? like i hope he was just lying to her bc they HAVE to be related. i refuse to believe they aren’t. and if they aren’t, rey better be obi wan’s or qui gonn’s or pure force spawn or some shit, foh with that scavenger bullshit. 

speaking of kylo! these segways are really working out great so far. yeah my boy dumb as shit. like every time i think he can’t possibly do anything stupider he goes and fuckin does it. i guess that’s what the mix of skywalker tomfoolery, solo stupidity and the fact that a powerful dark entity has been fucking your head up since your early childhood does to you, but i honestly can’t with him jesus. supreme leader??? deceiving & YELLING at rey? really kyle??? go to your fucking room boy you got some serious nerve behaving like this after seemingly making all that progress. at least he looked amazing (that cloak moment at the end? come thru!) and i loved that he wasn’t wearing his mask and cloak most of the movie. i love his resting sad puppy face and his gorgeous fridge body. don’t come for me

we talked about kylo so naturally it’s time to talk about hux. can we please take a moment to thank the writers for making fanon hux canon in the best possible way? and in the first five fucking minutes of the movie, too? i was so happy i couldn’t believe my eyes OR ears. seriously, it almost feels as if they went through all of our best fics and fanarts ( @kyleauxwren ‘s ICONIC wine mom hux comes to mind) and decided to just give the gays what they want, and it was a. ma. zing. and what a wonderful surprise it was bc they didn’t give him even a second in the trailer but in the movie we got T O N S of perfectly written, sassy, undereye circles, fed up with all this shit hux. i’m in love. would’ve preferred him slightly more rugged, with some stubble and possibly sipping from a flask, but that’s just me getting cocky. 

you already know. i fucken hate kylux. we didn’t get as much direct face-to-face communication and sadly no catchphrase to top “careful, ren”, but i thoroughly enjoyed the little moments in which they (mostly hux) tried to cooperate? like ngl it was mostly hux trying to make the best out of the situation he’d find himself in and negotiate with kyle and then kyle would just lash out and start banging him around and tbh i felt kinda sorry for him, but i guess that’s life when your boyfriend is an unhinged nearly all-powerful manchild. part of me still hopes kylo calms down at least a little bit and starts appreciating/respecting hux for putting up with so much of his shit (again.......supreme leader is dead long live the supreme leader???? the only thing you are is supreme idiot you stinky) lmao. but that’s irrelevant to the actual canon so imma stop. i gotta point out though, the choking scene does look like a hardcore kylucc shipper wrote it..........i immediately remembered those gifs from crash pad you know which ones.........

luke. can’t say i’m overly surprised/saddened by his death bc it was built up thoroughly and what rey said describes it quite nicely, but i was extemely shocked to find out the whole ben incident. i truly didn’t think luke was capable of that under any circumstances, the dark side or snoke or whatever must’ve gotten to him in that moment. and this knowledge makes me even more uncomfortably sympathetic to kylo, call me a dirty apologist (even though i don’t CONDONE his actions, i just understand his motives and wish for him to get better), see if i care. i do feel incredibly sorry that luke didn’t find it in him to forgive himself and lived with that horrible thought for so long, but idk man, as it’s already been said it’s not like leia wasn’t even more affected? idk how i feel about the whole exile thing. probably same as with everything kylo does - i kind of understand where he’s coming from but it’s not the right thing to do. 

leia. tbh i feel incredibly sad for the entire resistance and i can’t even imagine how one would feel in her place. carrie was brilliant as always, and although i didn’t cry my eyes out every time she came on screen, i felt it in my heart. the scene in the beginning got me hard and i’d really thought we’d lost her, which would’ve been kinda....not really approppriate imo, but then we got to see her use the force, and to which extent! it was a scene we waited for for years and it did not disappoint. her mom moments with poe were also extremely cute. i was kinda bummed out when she didn’t go out to talk with kylo. i wonder why she didn’t, did she really give up on him completely in that moment? i wonder how they’re gonna do ep9 without carrie :(

poe. and finn. and rose. i enjoyed all their scenes immensely but the big hoof kitty chase on that casino planet and finn’s face off with phasma are definitely highlights. poe just kept being poe throughout the movie which is always a raging success in itself but as i said, i enjoyed his mother-son moments with leia so much i was almost moved to tears. not quite, but almost.  finn looking for rey as soon as he woke up was amazing, of course. as well as his interactions with rose. i’ve heard people say finnrey is dead bc of that lil kiss but i honestly don’t see it? i didn’t see any romantic interest from finn, the only way i interpret this as is rose having an innocent crush on a hero and deciding to take her chance before she thought she would’ve died. about that, too, i love my son with my entire heart but what was he thinking flying directly into that thing :( please don’t ever do that again oh my god. 

overall, i liked the movie, even though it left me with some EXTREMELY mixed feelings and shattered perceptions. imma have to watch it a couple more times to take everything i can in properly but i liked it a lot, and not only because it’s star wars and it’s what i’ve been living for for the past 2 years. one of the things i loved about it was the comedy. it was just the perfect amount, at the right time, in the right places, perfect. although if i hadn’t watched th/or 3 before this i would’ve been taken aback lmao, i wasn’t used to humor in sci-fi/fantasy before. the plotlines i feel like were a bit scattered and hard to keep track of sometimes. tfa remains my favourite star wars movie but if anything, tlj was completely original plot wise (you can’t pick a clear match for it out of the rest of the movies the way you can with anh and tfa), even if it led to some confusion and scattering. 

i probably meant to mention something else but it’s 4 am and i gotta go to bed at some point. please talk to me about this movie if you’ve seen it as well, and if you read this far i hope you have the most wonderful day. 

#star wars #sw:tlj #the last jedi #movies #sw spoilers #personal

[tottwritesfanfic]

I was tagged by @humandisasterbuckybarnes (I totally didn’t even notice at first because I’ve been away from Tumblr, sorrryyyy!)

1. How did you come up with your username and what does it mean?

OOH. Well. This actually goes back a long way! The ‘tott’ part of TottWriter is really an acronym for the title of a series of fantasy novels I started writing in my teens. (They’ve undergone a lot of revisions since then.) I picked TotTWriter as a username when I joined a forum in 2006 because it summed up how I saw myself at that time, and it just sorta...stuck. As for what the acronym actually is? Gotta wait and see. 

2. Which fanfic of yours has the most feedback? (bookmarks/subscriptions/hits/kudos).

Ohgosh. Well, I think that one’s gotta be my Digimon fic Hope’s Fire, on pretty much all fronts. It’s my oldest, longest fic, and it’s posted on both Ao3 and ff, so it’s had plenty of time to accrue attention. 

3. What is your AO3 profile icon, and why did you choose it?

My Ao3 icon is a picture of a pen and paper roleplaying character I rolled a few years ago. (And was drawn by @iddstar, not me, because I am Not An Artist and Vic very much is.)

After finishing this I’m dropping the rest of it beneath a readmore, because it got a teensy bit long, and I complain bitterly if these hog my own dash.)

4. Do you have any regular/favourite commenters?

You know, I feel bad talking about regular commenters, given how irregularly I actually manage to post anything these days. I feel like it’s more appropriate for me to grovel and thank those people who have stuck with me this long. (I’m particularly grateful to @ittybittymattycommittee​ because it has been A While. You’re wonderful.)

5. Is there a fanfic that you keep going back to read again and again?

I’m...I mean, there isn’t really a particular one? I have a few which I’ve read multiple times, but I tend to read the really long fics, which make regular re-reads a bit trickier. I absolutely want to go back over fics I’ve loved and enjoyed and experience that again, but it’s tricky when they take so long, and I have so little time. 

...Actually, probably my most re-read fic is a YoI one called Rumble In Detroit. It’s a goddamn masterpiece which appeals exactly to my sense of humour. (Also only 6.4k, so totally readable in one go if you’re me.)

6. How many stories are you subscribed to? How many do you have bookmarked?

I’m really bad at bookmarking. I’ll read a fic, think, “This was awesome!” and then just...forget to bookmark it and pull my hair out later wondering what the hell it was. I scroll through my history to find stuff entirely too often. I have 53 bookmarked fics, and it should be way more. 

Conversely, I am very prone to hitting that subscribe button. I have ten pages of the dratted things apparently, and okay, some of those are now completed fics, but...every now and then I get an update notification and can’t remember what the actual fic was. 

7. Which AU do you find yourself writing the most?

...I mean, angsty ones? I don’t really have a preferred setting tbh, although more often than not there is something fantastical about what I write. Generally with my fanfiction I try to mix things up a lot more than my original fic. I make a point of trying to do as many different types of story as I can. Statistically though, Apocalypse/Dystopia scenarios and (surprisingly!) Soulmate AUs work out as the most common though. 

8. How many people are subscribed and bookmarked to you in total? (you can view this on the stats page)

25 brave souls have signed up for my infrequent update notifications (bless all of you), and the stats page shows me as having 201 bookmarks. 

9. Is there something you’d like to write about but are afraid of people judging you for it? (Feeling brave? If so, share it!)

I mean, I’m pretty sure people judge me for what I already write. I’ve got fics tagged with MCD, after all, and I’m probably straying into shipping wars with at least one of my stories. I’m plenty nervous about the reaction people will have to the end of some of my fics, but I figure...ehh. I write these stories because I love them, and I share them because someone out there is bound to find them passable. 

The only thing I won’t write under this name is explicit NSFW stuff, which is because, hey, I’m hoping to get YA fiction published someday, you know? I don’t want an underage reader looking my name up (see question 1 for why they might know it) and finding something like that.

10. Is there anything you would like to be better at? Writing certain scenes or genres, replying to comments, updating better, etc.

It’s funny, because this is something I technically am better at than I used to be in years past, but the main thing is actually sitting down and writing more regularly. Despite appearances, I’ve actually written a lot of fanfic recently (Secret Santas mostly), but I could have done more than that if I’d been able to manage my time better. Also if Life hadn’t come along to mess up my day, but, hey. Go figure.

11. Do you write rarepairs or popular ships more often?

I guess it’s a bit of both? I never used to set out to write ships at all, because for me, relationships are secondary to plot when writing, but they do seem to happen more than they used to. I’m a big multishipper though so I like to mix it up.

12. How many stories have you posted on AO3 to this day (finished and unfinished)?

I have 33 works on Ao3 in total. Of those...some are oneshots, 12 are in-progress multichapter fics and...um...one is a complete multichapter fic. Whoops.

13. How many stories do you have saved in/with your writing program?

*coughs and moves on*

For real though, I posted about this recently and it’s...including original fiction, we’re talking more than thirty, possibly over 40 by now. I very deliberately don’t keep track.

14. Do you write down story ideas, or just keep them in your head?

It’s a bit of both really. Sometimes I get an idea, and it’s too fragmentary to really do anything with, so I just sorta leave it in my head to fester and ferment. If I forget it, it probably wasn’t worth saving, but if it gets to the mindworm stage I write it down in my nearest notebook at the time and expand on it a bit.

...If it’s a really fun idea, I then track down that notebook later on and copy it out onto the computer where I can actually find it again.

15. Have you ever co-authored a story?

Not for yeeeears! My sister and I started co-authoring a story back when we were teenagers, but we never actually finished the project. I really enjoyed collaborating though - it’s fun to combine forces and see what each person brings to the table!

16. How did you discover AO3?

I honestly cannot remember.

17. Do you consider yourself to be a popular or famous author in your fandom(s) on AO3?

Hahahahaha...no. It’s okay though, I’m not doing this for fame or attention. I just get these stories in my head and the only way to remove them is to write them out.

18. Do you have a nickname or fandom name for your readers?

I don’t! I...honestly can’t think of a name, tbh. Names are my nemesis, why would I add more to my life?

19. Was there an author who inspired or encouraged you to write?

WELL. 

I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. Probably since I was 6 or 7 (I can remember stapling paper together at school to make a “book” to write in). Probably I was doomed from the start, but the works of Tamora Pierce, Brian Jacques, Tolkien, John Wyndham and Sir Terry Pratchett are what shaped me from my teens onward. Those are the books I read which make me want to write my own. 

20. What writing advice would you give to a beginning author?

Look, it’s really tempting I know, but don’t share online just yet. If you’re just starting out, you really are far better off keeping your work between you and trusted friends. I always look back and marvel at how damn lucky I am not to have had regular internet access until I was 18.  

You see, it meant that all my early stories - from when I was figuring out who I was as a writer, and how I wanted to write - are tucked safely away where no one can shit on them. And people do. Not everyone of course, but some, and those first few years as a writer are the most fragile.

Every author builds up a thick skin over time, because trolls are gonna troll. But it’s hard, when you work on something and do your best, and someone leaves a shitty comment about it. To my mind, the most important thing you can do as a beginner is to shield yourself from that nonsense until you’ve found your feet. There will be time yet to post your stories. Wait until you can leave it to one side for a week and come back and not despise it. (Some level of “ohgodno” is expected for your own work pretty much forever, but you should at least feel some level of pride in your work first)

...it’s hard and it’s pretty unrewarding at first, I won’t lie. But think about it like this: beginner violinists often sound awful. No one wants to hear that. But if a musician can stick it through; work past the squeaking and the cringe-worthy missed notes... What you end up with is something which can reach right into someone’s heartstrings and leave a permanent impression. 

And that is every bit worth the slog.

21. Do you plot out your stories, or do you just figure it out as you go?

A bit of both! I have at the least a rough outline (sometimes a lot more than that) for almost all my stories before starting, but I generally add to and amend it as I go. 

22. Have you ever gotten a bad comment on a story? If so, what did you do?

I think maybe once? It really wasn’t too bad though, so I just left it be. I’ve been stupidly lucky with my readers and love all of you.

23. Is there a certain type of scene that you have a hard time writing? (action, smut, etc..)

I was about to say NSFW stuff, and then I remembered confession scenes, which differ from NSFW in that I actually write those sometimes, and they take approximately five hundred times longer than literally anything else, including the smut which I hate writing so bad I practically never do it. Confession scenes are freaking hard.

24. What story(s) are you working on now?

TOO MANY. For real though, I have 3 secret santas, 3/4 active HQ fics, Hope’s Fire, and more which are sorta lurking in semi-activity beyond that. I have zero chill.

25. Do you plan your next project(s) before you finish your current ongoing story(s)?

...I mean it’d be great if I could finish an ongoing story, NGL.

26. Do you have a daily writing goal set for yourself?

Nope! I try to stick to one during NaNo, but outside that life just sorta gets in the way too often.

27. Do you think you’ve improved as a writer since you first started?

I mean, the answer is yes either way, but I tend to distinguish the various phases of my writing? age 6-12 was half-arsed writing. Just sorta jotting down stories and not really thinking too much about them. From 13-16 I was so preoccupied with writing and finishing my novel that I didn’t leave room for such trifles as quality control. 16-24/5 was slow but steady improvements. 

At 25 I realised hot damn, I have a lot to learn, and that is the point at which I consider that I started getting better for real.

28. What is your favorite story that you’ve written?

You know, it sorta depends? Assuming we’re talking fanfic only (or, sorry, but my novel beats them all), I actually...really like the Trinacrifom series? 

29. What is your least favorite story that you’ve written?

It was for a telephone prompt, it’s less than 600 words, nope, I’m not sharing it XD

30. Where do you see yourself (as a writer) in 5 years?

I mean I’d like to say something like “getting paid for it”, but we all know I’m still gonna be here writing fanfic instead of my original work.

31. What is the easiest thing about writing?

For me it’s actually the ideas! I keep getting them pop into my head.

32. What is the hardest thing about writing?

…Actually finishing things.

33. Why do you write?

At this point, writing is a little like breathing for me. It’s my identity. It’s who I am. I have so many ideas in my head and the only way to get them out is to write them, so I do. I hope that people enjoy them, certainly, and I want to think my words have an effect of some kind, but ultimately storytelling is hardwired into me and I don’t know how to stop.

Oh! Tagging. Right, after that textwall how about I pass the buck to someone else, hehe. @draculasstrawhat, @lethesomething, @iddstar and @quinnlocke as well as anyone else...if you wanna, you know? (No one’s obligated tho)

#ask memes #holy shit this got long #I waffle a lot I know #long post