#i have. almost mapped the whole story but it's still very basic

[kittensartswriting]

Happy STS! I hope you’ve had a good week :) What is something about your WIP that’s either on your mind lately or that you wish more people would ask you about?

Hi! Happy STS!

I haven't been writing in several months (I've needed to focus on uni), so I have been mainly thinking about worldbuilding. For a while now I've been quite obsessed with figuring out the fashion in far too much detail. It's honestly not that important for the story, but I love dress history so it's just extremely fun for me to come up with a hundreds if not thousands of year of fashion evolution for almost a whole continent. Figuring out Ahinian fashion has been most interesting and hardest part too, because I'm trying to base it less on anything historical and more trying to come up with something different.

I can best figure visual things like fashion out by drawing it, so I started with the royal siblings, Agrippa and Manoheahpi. Here they are showing of court fashions. Black, dark blue, white and yellow are colors of the moon cult and their clan, which is the head of the moon cult. Agrippa is wearing a formal gown and a headdress of the heiress. The extreme sleeves and the ribbon skirt are part of the formal court dress. Manoheahpi is dressed in a casual outdoorsy aristocratic men's dress. He is a sage, hence the tattoos.

I think it's very interesting to figure out gendered clothing because it reveals so much about the gender construction and gender roles of a society. Ahinians have technically five genders, voasin - a woman, deavin - a man, vašáin - a third and separate gender category, voasdár - afab or intersex person, who lives as a man (-dár is masculine suffix), and deavnei - amab or intersex person, who lives as a woman (-nei is correspondingly a feminine suffix). In their culture gender is less defined by the body and more defined by the spirit. Their society is not entirely egalitarian though (even if more egalitarian than your typical patriarchal binary society), since their society is theocratic and gender essentialist, not in biological way but spiritual way. Therefore magic is very gendered. They are matriarchal so women hold most of the political power. This is reflected in dress - upper class fashions are more feminine coded, lower class fashions more masculine coded, and religious attires are vašáin coded because they are traditionally sages. In more formal setting aristocratic men too wear long gowns, and lower class women also wear shorter gowns.

I'm still figuring out the details of vašáin dress, clothing of lower classes and ceremonial dress. But I do know that very warm layered clothing is considered finer and more upper class, since the climate is very cold and the upper classes live in large castles, which can't be warmed to very comfortable temperatures. On the other hand lower classes live in small log cottages that are filled with hot smoke that even in very low temperatures keep the cottages in near 30C temperatures, so their indoors clothing are basically one layer, which they see as underwear. So even in hot summer upper classes dress in a lot of layers for formal occasions, the layers are then just thin and made of silk, linen and/or nettle. They don't wear crowns, but they wear elaborate hair jewelry indoors (with caps when it's cold indoors too) and elaborate hats outdoors. Lower classes also wear more toned down and more practical hair jewelry, but mostly caps and hats.

Also this all applies only in the agricultural area, which is along the Vuolhú river (the area marked in the map). The societal structures are very different outside it (so most of the country) where agriculture is not possible and people are herders and hunter-gatherers and quite nomadic. Population density is quite expectedly much higher in the agricultural area, so people wise, it's most of the country.

#sts #storyteller saturday #art #fantasy #worldbuilding #my wips #bcc #bcc worldbuilding #bcc art #answers

[hxnguxng-jxn]

Hello! May i ask for a Jealous/protective Bingqiu x male reader scenario? Someone is flirting with their husband relentlessly despite knowing he's married to them and is making the reader very uncomfortable. How would they react? Thank youu.

Writer's Note(s): Oh BingQiu, my guilty favorite of the MXTX main couples! (/▽＼*)｡o○♡ I absolutely would love to do this for you Anon!

Info on Reader: Reader is intended AMAB, and uses he/him. I'm ambiguous if Reader is a fighter/strategist/et cetera of the Sects. Reader has been with them nearly the whole SVSSS story but I left the romance timing ambiguous.

Timeline: Post-canon. Pure and simple this time! I also made the flirter a lady, with plot... and with a soft ending!

Fujoshis and Fem Readers DNI || Please enjoy!

Shen Qingqiu could feel the ravaging eyes of the crowd on his back as he passed by the many foreign stalls and he knew he was picking up more with his two husbands coming in behind him. The town was a part of many of the Western fronts that he vaguely knew about because of PIDW's map back in it's story-based heydays, but this town eluded him today.

It wasn't that his memory was fading or that he was jumbling up cities and towns, but he was preoccupied with the map they were using. Levitating it while comparing terrains was front and center, and he left Luo Binghe as head of the supply gathering.

His other husband was looking for something from a blacksmith, but it seems that the tradesman was harder to find then usual.

He was looking at the map and figured out which mountain they'd have to bypass to get to their destination when he felt a stirring wave of demonic energy behind him. Putting the map away and turning to where Luo Binghe was pushing his way through the crowd to the lip of the alley, he rushes after his husband.

"Binghe! Luo Binghe!" He scolds out as he catches up and matches pace with him. "What's gotten into you? Thieves?"

Luo Binghe is very attentive and hears him over the crowd, but simply continues to push forward towards the street opening, and then Shen Qingqiu hears the small commotion that's happening as they break from the people.

You've found the blacksmith as you said you'd do, but you're also trying to multitask getting a woman off your arm as she leans on your side. From the way she falls on your left, anyone would think you're a couple in courting, and her voice carries to Shen Qingqiu's ears like a bell.

Something about the type of metal you were buying to be smelted and what form the sword was taking, and something about your mission into the mountains.

Shen Qingqiu grabs Luo Binghe's clenched fist and gives him an order. "Let me handle her and you take him back into town, get us an inn." It was gentle for now, but the look on your face was making him feel urgent.

"Shizun..." Luo Binghe sounds almost scolded, but he still looks to hold firm.

Shen Qingqiu holds his large hands and places his own pouch of money there, before gripping it with purpose. "Please Binghe, we have a mission. Stories travel."

It was with reluctant annoyance (thrown at the unwanted fourth party) that Luo Binghe stays where he is as Shen Qingqiu glides over to you and the lady, taking place on your right. Shen Qingqiu was never one without some form of elegance, thanks to playing the part, and opens his fan to wave at your sweating face.

It was the waving fan that gained both sets of attention but Shen only focused on your face as you turned to him. Your handsome face had been contorted in disbelief, but now you just fixed him with a relaxed version of surprise.

Shen spoke first. "Ma'am, I do apologize for the interruption, but I'm this man's husband. I don't want to cause a scene..." He trailed off as he looked at you for assistance.

With a nodding of your head and pulling your arm free, you do back up his statement. "I'm very sorry. This is indeed my husband..." The basic politeness you gave her was purely for the public and you quickly backed up to leave the blacksmith.

She seemed to be mature in all forms of the word, and her hairpieces and shawl were refined with elegance. If Shen didn't know any better, he'd think her apart of a political party or a lofty family. She gave you a respectable bow as she apologized in turn to Shen, the affronted husband.

"I apologize for my behavior. Do enjoy your passage through our town, warriors." She answers, and begins to walk off through the afternoon crowd. Shen could hear some sounds of bells softly clicking as she goes.

Shen questions you about your sword you had commissioned and when it would be finished (tomorrow afternoon), and then asks you about the woman in question. To you, she had said she saw your face and simply wanted to patron a warrior for the cities safety during the Autumn season with all the demons running around.

Shen Qingqiu wished he could chalk it up to simply your face (you and Binghe and your gorgeous faces), but he sent you off to Binghe with a kiss as he rationalized this would be it. They'll be leaving tomorrow after your short sword is manufactured and that was that, he thinks.

As he does the last rounds and energy readings of the road ahead, he feels fatigued... what he'd give to be in bed, sleeping with his husbands and sandwiched between them.

Well, you see Shen Qingqiu...

At the largest inn in town not an hour later, you and Binghe are not exactly sleeping in the room

Binghe had gotten for the three of you. Binghe had been upset at not just the woman making a move on his own husband, but also being unable to do anything but help you flee as best you can.

That and this place doesn't allow outsiders in their kitchen, as it was a tourist spot and anything back there was expensive. Binghe would have made you dinner and locked you both away until Shizun came back, but he had to settle for ordering and waiting in the dining area with you as you both calmed down from the event earlier.

Binghe was not as easily calmed as you, especially not when you smell of foreign jasmine, sweet yet musky, from a cushion away. He can see her again and again in his head every breath he takes that doesn't smell of just you: bosom against your arm in the bizarre, red nails scratching up your arm teasingly, and features not unpleasant trying to woo you. He begrudgingly gave her that, she was pretty...

With his huffing and ignoring his zhajiangmian to stir in his foul mood, you decided to feed the grumpy pup his dinner to take his mind off of this. Giving him a kiss and teasing him to eat the wheat noodles from your chopsticks, you slowly lifted him from his mood as he basically falls in your lap.

Luo Binghe was having a good time for the short while you fed him, peppering kisses to his lips also like your sweetening the deal, before he can smell it again. Jasmine; thick, sweet, musky, and sensual. His mood soured before he even noticed where the offending scent came from.

Behind his husband (his and his Shizun's husband, damnit) was the woman again, saddled up behind you with a miffed look on her face. If you sat back fully on your cushion, you'd sadly be pressed against her chest and in reach of her arms. Luo Binghe, on an impulse he does not regret, pulls you onto his cushion and onto his lap away from her.

"Young warrior, I did not expect to see you here at my inn. I would say it's good to see you, but I'm rather confused." She asks in a measured tone. "Where is your husband in green?"

"Ma'am, hello again, I'm..." You try to greet her, but Binghe grips you closer to him.

Answering in measures to still be civil, Luo Binghe huffs. "Shizun will be here in time. His venerable husband is who you're speaking to. Nothing is amiss."

You freeze and your blood runs cold with adrenaline as you playback what Luo Binghe insinuates with his words. Calling Shen Qingqiu shizun and husband in the same sentence has gotten you three into arguments enough that Luo Binghe has slowly learned to pick one and stick with it. Of course, Shen and yourself prefer if he picked husband but sometimes shizun just falls from his lips. Luo Binghe also seemed to be proud today and called himself your venerable husband, showing you off as his.

Except he was vague about it! It sounded... It sounded... !

"Your... shizun? Your master, and his husband?" She looks you up and down, before something darker passes her face. Something clicked in her head and a flush passed her face. "Ah. I see."

"Luo Binghe! Enough!" You yell at the prideful demon prince as your gut instinct for something evil and dirty rears its head. Your skin feels slimy; she must think you cheap, a user, or worse! Luo Binghe settles in his seat, protective, but silent.

"Ma'am, I should introduce my second husband, Luo Binghe, before we say anything else to each other. I am married to both of the men you have seen me with." As respectful as you can be to even the scummiest lords and ladies, you feel also rung dry of pleasantries.

For a brief moment, you think she's trying to process the fact you introduced yourself as a second husband and not a consort, but she's obviously more inclined to believe you since all of your company is... well, the attractive Luo Binghe. "Luo Binghe, you say? The demon lord who they say terrorizes the 12 major sects nearby?"

Luo Binghe lets out a gruff groan of something dissatisfied, obviously not happy to be referred to by what the peaks spew. But sadly, he'll have to take it for tonight, as you do all the explaining.

For the state of your husbands...

By the time Shen Qingqiu had made his way up to the room you'd all share, he could tell something had happened by the way you both were laying. You were sprawled out on the bed, inner robes all your wearing and your hair loose, as Luo Binghe was resting his red face in your lap. Luo Binghe was similarly in proper nightly attire, but his red face was from the swamp of tears on your pants.

Shen kicks off his shoes to join you quickly before running his hand in Luo Binghe's dark curls, and hushes the weeping demon. "Dearests, what has happened?"

Luo Binghe basically ate up the affection as you answered for the guilty party. "We ran into that lady again as the inn owner, and she assumed myself a consort. Luo Binghe almost ran us into trouble afterwards, but we should have no problems anymore."

When Shen Qingqiu released a breath he didn't even know he had held, his face contorted in many displeased ways as his train of thoughts broke. Finally, he just settled on stating: "When we leave this town, remember to tell me to mark it as unfavorable for now. Rumors spread fast here."

"I will. And I do agree. I don't exactly feel comfortable here anymore as well." You promise, still stroking Luo Binghe's hair yourself.

As he starts to undress for the night, Shen Qingqiu asks one more question that bugs him. "Wait a moment. Where in that story did Luo Binghe find reason to cry?"

As he finishes his ask, your lips curl into a smug smile as Luo Binghe whines in your pants. "After we left the inn keeper and left our food for cleanup, I was upset that Binghe had caused a bit of a scene. I said if any of us was the consort, it would be our dear Binghe."

Luo Binghe whined out pitifully but with pride, "I'm a husband!" And after Shen Qingqiu lets out a laugh at how pitiful it sounds against your thigh, "Shizun, not you too!"

"Hush Binghe, it's past midnight..." Shen Qingqiu hushes his husbands both as he sits on the bed and gives you both a kiss on your cheeks. "You're a good husband. You both are. Get some rest. I found a path through the mountains that should conceal us up our travels."

And rest, you did.

#The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System #Scum Villain #SVSSS #Reader Insert #Male Reader #Shen Qingqiu #Shen Yuan #Luo Binghe #BingQiu #The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System x Reader #Scum Villain x Reader #SVSSS x Reader #BingQiu x Reader #Shen Qingqiu x Reader #Shen Yuan x Reader #Luo Binghe x Reader #BingQiu x Male Reader #Shen Qingqiu x Male Reader #Shen Yuan x Male Reader #Luo Binghe x Male Reader #Shen Qingqiu x Luo Binghe #Shen Yuan x Luo Binghe #Luo Binghe x Shen Qingqiu #Masc Reader #Scumbag Self-Saving System #Scumbag Villain

[kyupidos]

Hello! Never done an ask before so I hope this is good enough. Congrats on 100! Can I ask for the first dialogue prompt with Riddle and Deuce, headcanon? Riddle being the one to not go trick-or-treating in his, and the reader being the one to not go trick-or-treating in Deuce’s?

10/25/23’s delivery 🏹✉️ twisted wonderland

prompt 1 🕸★ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊ 🕸★ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊ 🕸★ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊ ;; summary. ‘what do you mean you've never gone trick-or-treating?!’

100 follower milestone event homepage <- ! | event m.list

characters. heartslabyul : riddle rosehearts , deuce spade ( separate ) ;; romantic . 🕸️ tags. reader is gender neutral ( you/your ), reader is yuu, romantic fluff

📞 _a/n. hi anon! you did this ask great <3 thank you for the 100 congrats!! hope you enjoy ^-^ !!

r. rosehearts

— you’ve been in twisted wonderland for quite some time now, long enough for months to pass and holidays to come. so, in plain curiosity, you ended up asking riddle about how halloween in twisted wonderland worked. to be expected, it varied, and riddle explained it thoroughly, to the point you were sure it was the only information you would be able to recite—though, of course, the conversation led to the inevitable topic changes, and you figured you’d asked a very simple question, “in that case, how does trick-or-treating work in twisted wonderland? is that different too, or is it basically the same?”

— it was at that point riddle hummed awkwardly with a thin lipped smile, trying to explain that he didn’t really have experience on the matter. “well, i’ve never been trick-or-treating before, but from deuce and ace’s stories—“ “you’ve never gone trick-or-treating?!” it was a quick interjection from you, and riddle quickly accepted his fate that stemmed from your curiosity. he knew from then on, it was not about the differences in halloween celebration; it’d all be about the collecting of teeth-rotting sweets from strangers despite the equal likelihood of a trick. his expression warmed as he listened to you describe your experiences with trick-or-treating, and all the costumes you’d worn each year. he couldn’t lie, it sounded like a fun experience—he only wishes he didn’t have to miss out on it.

— though, he felt a surge of almost out of place excitement, that he accepted that he’d almost get used to when the source was you, when you held his hands in yours, “doesn’t matter! it’s never too late to go trick-or-treating! and with halloween week, we’ll already have costumes to wear!” and that was how he learned that, indeed, trick-or-treating was no easy feat, as you’d explained to him before. he watched you sketch out a map of the isle of sages, rambling to him the importance of how to know which houses were giving out candies just by their exterior, and which were likely giving the best. he had to say, it was fun. he’d like to get used to experiencing this, at least.

d. spade

— “hold on, so you’ve really never trick-or-treating before?!” you nodded with a somewhat confused smile on your face, unsure of exactly what the big deal was about. since you hadn’t exactly a clue what the deal with halloween week was, deuce had taken the opportunity to explain to you it all, which eventually evolved into his attempt to explain to you what halloween in twisted wonderland was like as a whole. “yeah, it’s not really that big of a thing back in my world, or at least it just went out of popularity, i guess? it just doesn’t really happen anymore, y’know?”

— deuce only let out a sigh of pitiful acceptance, before you continued, “but hey, the halloween discounts were still fun.” you may have just been trying to look on the bright side of your trick-or-treatless life, but from the way deuce’s eyebrow raised by ever the slightest, you could tell it wasn’t exactly a help. his expression lightened back up within just moments passed, though, and asked in a spurred manner that you had half a mind to ask him to repeat himself, “in that case, do you want to try trick-or-treating this year? we can go together!!” you had to think about it for a moment, because you weren’t sure if you had a costume considering that, unlike the other dorms, you didn’t really have a set costume for yourself and you weren’t planning anything.

— but, in response to your worries, deuce reassured you that though admittedly it was less fun, a costume in fact wasn’t necessary to trick-or-treat. actually, at the mention, he began to describe you a year in particular where he was in his younger years, and was so convinced he needed a costume to trick-or-treat, that when he’d forgotten to tell his mom what he wanted for costume and ended up too late, he wore a shopping bag and pretended to be a ghost. you had to admit, it was a rather funny story, and you had fun just imagining the scene described to you. so, in the end, you accepted, and deuce passionately told you that he wouldn’t let you down on your first official halloween.

#🦢 swan signed ! #kyupidos #twst #100 follower event 🗞️ !! #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #twst x gn reader #twst x gender neutral reader #twst fluff #twst hcs #twst headcanons #heartslabyul #twst heartslabyul #book 1 #twst book 1 #riddle x reader #riddle rosehearts x reader #riddle x gn reader #riddle rosehearts x gn reader #deuce x reader #deuce spade x reader #deuce x gn reader #deuce spade x gn reader

[all-hail-the-witcher]

questionable government spies but better written and five years late: a newsies multichap coming tonight, july 2, 2023 EST

hi hello. it’s me saph. back at it again.

the title is exactly what this looks like.

for those of you that were familiar with the first iteration of this story, welcome back, i’m so happy to have you. for those of you who are not, welcome to my long anticipated spies fic. this was originally published under the user @/suddenly-im-respecsable in about 2018-2019 (there is the early version still floating on tumblr but i have changed my url since and it’s not easily findable) and was cross posted on ao3 but was taken down

the basic gist of the story was that race and albert were fbi agents and were field training jack. they get summoned to nyc (where they were trained) to deal with some super hard gang case that no one can crack. in the process they meet spot who is working for said gang and wants out. davey jacobs is the head of the nyc branch of the fbi and hates race and albert because they almost blew up his weapons lab.

i think i got through 14 ish chapters before realizing the whole thing was badly written and in order for it to be what i wanted it to be i needed to redo it. and then i graduated high school and started college and changed fandoms and started dating my boyfriend and there was a global pandemic and then i graduated college and all of that.

and now, 5 years later, i am back on my bullshit, this time with a creative writing degree under my belt and @ainti-pretty to force me to finish what i started. the plot is all relatively the same, just a little tweaked. i never got to the point of all the plot twists so if you read the original version you have no spoilers besides some background knowledge that i am changing around a little. im working entirely off of my original hand written outline that is on the back of my notes from my 11th grade english class

and what motivated me to do this now you may ask? well i’m interning in nyc over the summer and can do irl accurate location mapping lol. that and i made a tumblr to literally post this story and i never finished it so i figured that i should probably do that. and if you’re doubting that this will get finished, which, fair, @ainti-pretty and i are literally living together next year and i am certain that i will be hounded about this every day of my existence

i am tagging people who i remember being very excited about this back in the day. if you want to be tagged in future parts of this please let me know. if you don’t just feel free to ignore :) @sun-kissed-star @getchapapes @jack-kellys @spot-conlon-king-of-brooklyn @fairly-awkward-trashcan @ritsunaru @heller-obama @turtle-steverogers @boygirlctommy @newsies-trash-queen @telling-tragedy @alberteatsglass

and since i have every ounce of this planned, here is my casting if you are interested:

92sies: mush, blink, davey

obc: spot, crutchie, smalls, medda, pulitzer

toursies: specs

proshot: albert, romeo, elmer, buttons, jojo, (anyone else i’ve forgotten is probably proshot)

uksies: jack, finch

race: weird combo of btc and giuseppe bausillo

katherine: a literal tiktok girlie

i am cross posting this on ao3, the tumblr version will all be tagged under #spies 2.0 and it will all me master posted and pinned on my blog.

im so excited :)) this fic is my baby and i want to thank everyone who has read it previously and everyone who will this go around. let me know if you want to be tagged !!

#saphie scribbles #god havent used that one in awhile #newsies #newsies au #newsies fanfiction #newsies fanfic #newsies fic #racetrack higgins #albert dasilva #jack kelly #spot conlon #spies 2.0 #ralbert #sprace #yay #its happening finally

[haunted-xander]

Fontaine, as a whole, is a nation I feel was so nearly perfect, but also just... somewhat unsatisfying.

Like, the exploration is nice, the puzzles and mechanics are fun, but... it's so easy. I have the entire map 100%. I didn't use a guide for most of it (only for Special Stuff like the treasure maps and foggy branches), nor did I have the treasure compass. All I had to help me was the hydroculus resonance gadget. The only regions in the game I got to 100% without any guides before was Galesong Hill (which, tbh, most ppl probably have at 100% or close %), and Hypostyle Desert (simply bc the underground ruins were so much fun to explore). Everywhere else I used a guide for at some point. During 4.0 I literally felt like I had to hold back on exploring just to not finish it too quickly. Yeah.

The world quests have a lot of interesting stuff going for them, especially the Narzissenkreuz questline and the ones in/around Merusea Village. But... they feel like they're missing something. I don't feel like I'm properly done with any of them, even though there isn't really anything more to add. The Narzissenkreuz quests had a very strong start, I cared about the characters involved and the lore they're a part of, and having it be 3 questlines that combine into one comprehensive story was really fun, but the ending feels... unceremonious almost. I can't pinpoint what's wrong with it, it answered what it needed to and it made it clear what everyone was doing going forward, but... it feels off. Anticlimatic, almost, despite it having the climax it needed. The world quest I was most satisfied with was the Questioning Melusine And Answering Machine quests, and it's a largely self-contained one. Everything else feels... unfinished, almost. But also not.

And the Archon Quests are so so good, but also... weird at parts. First of all, Childe's out-of-nowhere traumadump early on is jarring, especially since... they didn't really follow up with it properly? Like yes, the Narwhal and Skirk ended up relevant but... not to him, for the most part. The important questions this conversation prompted wasn't elaborated or followed up on, which is what could've justified including it at all. We still have no more clues as to why the Narwhal connected with him, we don't know what caused his restlessness or why his vision messed up, and Skirk was kinda just... there. She loredumped and that was that.

There's other oddities too, like Traveler getting upset at the twins for hiding their Fatui affiliation. Traveler has every right to be upset with them in that moment but... not for that. They should be upset because they lied about the magic show, not about being Fatui. Like, you literally called Childe you're friend just the other day! And he's literally tried to kill you (well, okay, not "kill", but he was still an enemy)! And later on you're suddenly fine with Arlecchino, a person we have seen time and time again is an absolutely terrible person? Because, what, she cared about this one specific problem that affected innocent lives? Really?

Furina and Childe not getting checked up on by basically anyone at the end of 4.2s AQ feels not only out of character (you're gonna tell me Traveler isn't gonna check on them after all that happened? Really?) but also just... very shitty. The only one who seemed to even care was Neuvillette, everyone else just kinda... forgot about those two. Despite the fact that 1) Furina was a well liked public figure who, even after the truth was revealed, people very much still cared about, and 2) Childe literally saved the entire nation but stalling the Narwhal for over a month. Even Neuvillette couldn't so much as deter that thing until he got his full powers back, and you're telling me nobody, not even the people who where directly saved by him, even wondered what became of him? Really?

The characters are fantastic here, don't get me wrong, everyone is lovely and I adore them all, but the way the story handled certain things is just... not great. It's unsatisfying. It feels like there were things they wanted to do but either chickened out of or simply didn't get to include. It's so jarring.

#i didnt mean for it to get so long but oh well #fontaine is so so good but just. somewhat off. and unsatisfying #also when i was going through the narzissenkreuz line #during 4.0 i felt like the cut-off for the next stage(s) of the quest for 4.1 was this... awkward cliffhanger #like yes ofc i understood they had to cut it off so they could continue in another patch #but the way they did it felt so weird and odd #and the cut-off for 4.1 to 4.2 was even worse #because not much even happened there other than caterpillar getting introduced and included #the story didnt really... progress #and then when it did conclude in 4.2 it didnt feel good #it was odd and unsatisfying #even though i dont know whats missing #i realize i used unsatisfying to describe it a lot but #that is what it is #unsatisfying #maybe the interlude chapter will help improve it #or maybe it wont #sigh. i miss sumeru. it had its own issues but the writing and exploration was peak #and the lore! the lore was amazing! #i miss sand. i want to explore the desert all over again it was so much fun #4.2 spoilers #childe #tartaglia #ajax #genshin impact #xander rambles

[stierhai]

Thoughts on: The One Within the Villainess

Manga: The One Within the Villainess

Amount read: Up to chapter 12

Impression: Middling positive.

On genre:

I'm not an Isekai person. I don't find wish fulfillment to be compelling in media. I don't care about game mechanics. I don't like characters going into the narrative with all the answers already and just needing to wait to put them into effect. Isekai may run the gamut of tones, with there being as much seinen edgelord bullshit as there is cute reincarnator sidesteps the plot of the in-fiction original work, so I won't say there's never conflict in isekai but... none of that does anything for me. With rare exceptions, the conflict almost always feels extremely shallow to me even when the stakes are high.

This is because they don't typically feel like they're about the characters, so much as they feel like lore infodumps and following a road map. Then top that off with a main character that has either a narratively convenient power that typically is powerful enough to overcome all conflict by default whilst requiring a lot of info-dumping— or the power is skipped in favor of short-cutting straight to the power being a lore and plot dump... they feel less like stories in and of themselves and more like reading a tabletop corebook. Lore is, in my mind, meant to be the stage upon which we tell stories, not the story itself— and I just don't think the stage can stand all its own and pretend to be a competent story.

And that is even assuming the stage was competent to begin with. A lot of Isekai also are very tropey and reference not just the broad strokes of other fantasy settings writ large but other isekai.

And there is no place this is more exemplary than the Villainess subgenre of isekai works.

They've all got this same basic framework: girl dies somehow and wakes up in an otome game she either played or knew about in her old life! However, she isn't the protagonist of the otome game, she's the villainess: an odious character who existed just to obstruct the heroine's chosen route in the game!

But here's the thing. I play otome games. I'm maybe not an expert, but I do have a casual acquaintanceship with the genre. The villainess rival plot that's endemic to this whole-ass genre? It stems from one of the earliest otome games ever, Angelique. However: it's not a trope that actually stuck around in otome games. To the point that Angelique's own sequels and spin-offs also didn't have the villainess rival. Similarly, the idea of the grindy items or whatever-- most modern otome games are not "dating sims", they're visual novels. You can think of them as choose your own adventure books, way more than a grindy dating sim where you have to raise stats, repeatedly talk to the dating options in certain areas on certain days, or give them items. The last set of actual popular otome games that had those elements is probably the [Heart/Spade/Diamond/etc] no Kuni no Alice series, I'm pretty sure? Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But either way, I can say pretty confidently that Persona 5 is more of a dating sim than most otome games.

The fact is, these manga and light novels are all cribbing notes off each other, not otome games. So I have a grudge against them for that, first and foremost. It's like, okay you're talking shit about the problems and how terrible it is for the villainess to have to suffer just because she also liked the guy and her life is ALSO BAD and it's like. This is just not a thing. These works exist as critiques of a phenomenon that just isn't widespread and barely exists at all. You are all still just mad at Angelique-- or rather, because they don't know their "source material" at all, they're just empty shells of someone else's subversion of an extremely old game. And the subversion of ACTUALLY THE VILLAINESS IS FINE is also eroded even further by the fact a lot of them just decide to have the plot be actually the heroine is the real bad guy. Look at that hussy, chatting up these dudes above her station and stealing someone else's fiance. The issue isn't that the original plot of the game set up these girls as having their own happiness achievable only as mutually exclusive, implying women are all enemies competing for men, the real issue with the initial story is... genki girl bad, elegant girl good. I'm hating on a few specific manga here, but I'm sure there's more than that out there that have pulled that particular twist.

They have nothing to say. But when the framework of the story is we're going to fix the shit that went wrong in the original... it reads like they're trying to be commentary on the original genre. Which just falls so, so flat. Thanks for the commentary on a thing that isn't even a problem with the genre and also your commentary sucked.

So, enough generalities. Onto The One Within the Villainess.

The Plot:

The basic rundown: The villainess, Remilia, was replaced out as a child by Emi, a Japanese girl who was familar with the game Remilia is from. Emi did all the usual villainess isekai protagonist things-- rescued the male love interests from problems in their lives and came to occupy the same space as the protagnist did within the original game's story. Remilia, from within Emi, watched this and was satisfied because she had lived a loveless life with terrible parents but with Emi's memories of her own family in Japan and the second-hand experience of Emi's new life, she was able to finally experience happiness and became protective of Emi.

However, a fellow isekai'd girl has taken over the role of the game's protagonist. Pissed off that the villainess has changed the plot, she plots Remilia/Emi's downfall. Emi suffers the same fate as the villainess in the game, and retreats within herself. Remilia, back in control of her own body, swears vengeance and to make herself happy to fulfill Emi's wishes for her. To these ends, she does some bog-standard villainess things. She takes control of the land she's exiled to, begins doing damage control to her reputation, saves some poor people who were neglected by fate in the "original" timeline, teams up with a demon lord, and kills god.

I won't say the plot is anything special. A lot of the plot points I have read beat for beat in other manga. It also has the issue of not being very familiar with otome games— aside from my usual otome games almost never have a villainess issue, the whole subplot about the shop shows that the writer is thinking of the mechanics of a mobile game. And granted, I've never played a mobile game otoge, maybe they really are like that. But with the genre as a whole taking cues from a very old otome game, it is weird to see the very modern cash shop mechanics thrown in there. It feels like indiscriminate cribbing off the notes of other isekai that just accidentally took something from the wrong source material-- that any one isekai is as good as any other to crib from, overlooking the thing that's supposed to make the subgenre distinct. Which makes sense-- if you don't play otoge, you wouldn't know what the mechanics were like so you probably wouldn't see an issue with a cash shop existing as a plot point and as a major part of a subplot.

Thus far, this review has mostly been negative. But that's because I've focused on what it has in common with most other villainess isekai— a genre I started with saying I don't like. So, next: what sets it apart and what it does well within its trappings.

The Art:

The art fucks /pos.

Manga is a visual medium, and having good art isn't a must persay, but it does a lot to influence audience perception of characters, setting a mood, and just the overall enjoyment of a series. Characters in this manga make great fucking faces. The otoge heroine just runs around making the shittiest faces, the clearest faux-cutesy but complete scumbag expressions ever. They're great. Emi and Remilia technically have the same face but they're very well distinguished by light shines and make-up, sure, but also the kind of expressions they make— Remilia playing at Emi is also distinguishable from what we saw of Emi. Things are telegraphed really well-- you can see the people around Emi being affected by the heroine because they also begin making shitty smug faces (though not to the same degree).

Also, about selling a mood: killing God isn't an exceptional plot point in a JP fantasy series. It's every JRPG I played growing up, it's my beloved Angel Sanctuary, etc. So how do you sell the audience on the gravity of killing this God that was only recently introduced? Radical art style shift from villainess isekai to surreal high contrast Madoka witch labyrinth was the answer this manga landed upon and damn if I can't say it doesn't work. That sequence was great. Excellent choice by the artist.

The character designs are also pretty good. Remilia and Pino Blanchet definitely pass for the villainess and heroine isekai tropes. The demon shopkeep also looks like a minor NPC that for some reason has been taken out of a minor role and been given a more major one, whilst also making sense with the larger world set-up as we get that. The demon king looks like a boy you might romance on an otome route. The gods have weird inhuman forms. The dwarf girls both look like dwarves, in a western fantasy sense whilst still fitting into an otome game! I'm not sure any of them really stand out to me as like damn good job, but I think as a whole they do help get across the setting-- both as a fantasy in its own right outside the "game's plot", and as an isekai into an "otome game".

Emi and Remilia:

Okay. Listen. Listen. I grew up in YGO fandom, alright? Bodyshare romance is peak. And I've got a thing for unrequited love, tragic loves, dead girl haunts the narrative she can no longer directly touch but everyone around her is still impacted by the hole she left. And, to clarify, that isn't what this manga is— I do not think this was written with the intention of being read as hot girl doppleganger ghost romance— but it's got the vibes. That even if that is not the intended reading of the text, it has an appeal that people into that could appreciate.

So, Emi is not textually dead, aside from the whole reincarnation thing. But she is functionally a ghost in the story. After she fell into despair, she retreated within herself and Remilia retook control. In-character, Remilia believes that Emi is as she was— alive, and now merely watching from behind the scenes. With this belief, she seeks to make Emi's ideal world so she can emerge and live happily again, just as she did before. There is no sign of Emi stirring, but Remilia is motivated by her memories and ideals, by what she gave her and honoring her memory. The Remilia the audience knows is a person changed, but not by someone who is in the story any longer. In this way, Emi "reads" as a ghost, haunting the narrative through her effect on Remilia. Dead girlfriend vibes, is what I'm saying.

There's also something to be said for the dynamic necessitated by the bodyshare where despite being deeply invested in the other's happiness, they do and do not have any personal relationship at all. They both know intimately and have never met the other person— we see Emi playing Remilia's game and crying over her; we see Remilia watching Emi living her life on a flat-screen television window in their mindscape. Without direct interaction, they nontheless are invested in each other, their highs and lows, their success and happiness. They're the other's biggest fan, but not in the sense that we usually think of in the modern era when someone says Parasocial. They are aware of each other, and both is individually important to the other. Whilst the situation is fantastical, it comes out feeling like an early internet friendship with both girls lurking on the other's blog, more than it feels like the relationship between stan and oshi.

On Female Characters:

So, this manga is guilty of the whole villainess isekai trend of actually the game heroine is the bad one! twist.

I forgive it.

The most important relationship in the manga, the fulcrum upon which the whole manga's storyline sits, is the one between Emi and Remilia. They're both full characters in their own rights, even though Emi exists only in flashback. Meanwhile, of the major side characters the ratio of male to female characters actually favors women. There's two men, whilst all the other major side-characters with personalities are women. So, Pino being shitty is just like, oh okay she's just a shitty person, not that this author has kind of an unfortunate attitude about women. Also, Pino's character flaws of being incredibly selfish and focused on romantic feelings without caring about the target of her affections as a person-- it rather neatly echoes the evil god featured in the manga as well. The two of them echo each other, so considering we see the exact same flaws in evil incel god and the main female antagonist... Yeah, I don't see the way Pino is written as a problem here.

The Demon King:

So, speaking of side-characters. The Demon King Angel is supposed to have been a secret route from within the game. And while I think this manga gets a lot of shit wrong about otome games I will say this for it: Angel absolutely feels like a true/secret route character. Gorgeous character design, genuinely tragic backstory with a good reason for him to have been an absolute bastard within the story. . . nailed it. Good job. A++. More than anyone else here, I actually buy him as an otoge character.

It's a little bit unfortunate for him that Remilia is only interested in Emi and making Emi's ideals a reality! That just makes him feel like he's properly executed even moreso though, and really drives home that this manga is about the relationship between Emi and Remilia more than any thing else though.

post also available on dreamwidth

#manga review #the one within the villainess

[moonshine-nightlight]

I've caught myself numerous times wondering what would happen after the events of Don't Shoot the Messenger. Do you think messenger would be able to keep her anonymity after getting in a relationship with Satrasi? Would she still be able to do her work as a messenger if that was not the case? Did they try start of their relationship in secret in order for messenger to keep going with her job? Or did she get a more prominent job within the organisation instead? Or maybe I'm overthinking it and the two are descreet enough? Would love to hear your thoughts on this! (And have some secret hope you'll write it down as a follow up story one day😆)

@paleoverthinker

So, to answer your last question first, basically no. i sort of have an idea for another story in the DSM canon but it would be relatively short and feature Wicklow and a demon lady pirate (and would mostly be an excuse for smut). Satrasi and our Marlin would be there briefly, but otherwise not be prominent players.

I'm really happy with DSM as a whole as it is and have been trying to work on writing short stories--and this one's still over 30k which is very diff compared to a lot of other writers in this space on tumblr at least lol. I don't have any concrete ideas for where their story would go next and since I have a billion other separate ideas on my backlog, I'm trying not to think about it--although if I ever write that Wicklow story, who knows what'll creep up on me.

Now, that doesn't mean i haven't thought about the answers to your other questions already. Satrasi and our messenger are very interesting because they are both discrete and very... not at the same time. For things like the briefing depicted, where Marlin is officially reporting as a messenger--they are picture of professional, couldn't tell a thing between beyond perhaps that they have worked together for a long time.

The rest of the time though? Extremely obvious, they do not try to hide anything. They are pirates and do not give a fuck who knows. Marlin kept to themselves before all this and so are almost nondescript when in uniform so to speak. Marlin does take off their marlin specific coat and is more likely to have their hair down (Satrasi likes to play with it) when with Satrasi off-duty so to speak. So often people do not recognize them when Marlin is just straight up curled in Satrasi's lap while random pirates discuss idk maps with him.

There are plenty of rumors about the Admiral sleeping with one of his messengers, but that's all most of the world knows. There are so many crazy rumors about Satrasi, that one barely rates. (Did you hear he has an army of sharks that follow his ship around?) The majority of his fleet are extra nice to the messengers because which one is it? Fuck if I know (the other messengers encourage the confusion so they all get good treatment lol) And the crew of the carrier know exactly who it is and knock a lot more now. Marlin loves being a messenger (doesn't want diff role) but does know more secrets because they are just like, around Satrasi a lot more than before.

And while people never really tried to cross them before (except, uk that one time), they really, really don't now.

#story asks #writings asks #don't shoot the messenger #admiral satrasi #satrasi #marlin #bad enough my friend has convinced me to write more in the sacrifice universe #got plans for three more deities and a final other story with Tai #can't hav Satrasi also getting more to it lol #do i need to post sneak peaks of everything else i got planned? #my folder of ideas is so big for both short novellas and for other long form stories lik Dale #also keep an eye out for the conclusion to Selfish like today or tomorrow #trying to finish that smut up now #but taking a break to grocery shop

[waywardsalt]

Hi! I hope you’re doing good in life.

What do you think of a phantom hourglass remake? Tbh I don’t know how they could remake it without basically remaking it from the ground-up. It would probably play more like windwaker, which I see as a both a good and bad thing. On the one hand, if it was more like windwaker a lot more people would probably play and it would be more popular since I know the touch controls were a turn off for most people for both Spirit Tracks and Phantom hourglass. But on the other hand, remaking it to be more like windwaker would make the game lose some of it’s previous identity. Like, Phantom hourglass was so unique because of the touch controls and the puzzles you can make and solve by having two screens and touch controls. And it was so nifty and handy to be able to write notes on your map. Idk, I still would like it to be remade in general even if it ends up a basically different game, but I wouldn’t change the story or the characters, especially Linebeck. The only other change I would make is the music. Phantom hourglass had rather weak themes, mainly because they re-used the same theme for the islands and the dungeons. The only songs that were really good were the few orginal tracks made for the game, so Linebeck’s theme, Oshus’s theme, both Bellum boss battle themes and the and that music that plays when you first follow the Ghost Ship. But what would you want out of a phantom hourglass remake?

Hey, I’m doing good, and I hope you are too!

I’ve thought a bit about a possible Phantom Hourglass remake, but not too much recently. I don’t really know if I’d want one, since you’d lose a lot of what really makes it special, and you can still play it through other means. I’m personally fond of the graphics and the music- yes, even the dungeon theme has grown on me- so I don’t really want a remake too badly, especially since I fear any additions/changes they might make with story or characters in a remake. The touch controls make it, and playing it on pc recreates that feeling decently well, but I don't think it'll be just the same if you had to control it with joysticks or anything.

Not to mention, there's so much emphasis on having the two screens, too, not just for map stuff, but almost every single boss had a mechanic related to the top screen! I have no fucking clue how you'd replicate that very well on something like the switch without just fucking with the mechanics altogether.

I would kill to hear some of Phantom Hourglasses tracks be orchestrated or otherwise rearranged in a higher quality. I wouldn't want any of the more notable themes altered in any way, no adding or removing of melodies and only very very small changes to the instrumentation, but I think it'd be neat to see what could be done with dungeon themes. I think a while back I had a fleeting desire to write some short tracks for each dungeon, with some ideas like mostly using instruments heard in Bellum's themes for the dungeons while each individual one gets a leading instrument unique to and reflective of the dungeon, while the Ghost Ship maybe gets a song that's a bit of a expanded version of the fog theme, while the Temple of the Ocean King could have slightly different themes the further in you got, starting with instruments more common to Oshus's theme or the great sea theme, while the further in you got the more instruments from Bellum's theme would be heard, plus some harpsichord thrown in for the hell of it.

Leave the original dungeon theme for stuff like the minor pyramids and some larger cave areas, idk. It's grown on me.

I think the only story rearranging I'd want is mayyyyybe unfridging Tetra? You could very easily shuffle some things around with her and just not damsel her for the whole game and honestly it'd still go off perfectly without a hitch. But you'd still have to deal with the World of the Ocean King being a whole other world, so either bring her and her crew in and have them as wandering ship npcs (the better idea) or just leave them out (not a good idea) but either way it's better than what they actually did. I just don't think I'd want it to switch to Tetra being a major reoccurring character tbh, the main character dynamics in PH are good as they are.

I think I like Phantom Hourglass too much as it is to really want a remake at all. I'd rather we get something like an anime adaptation. That's what I think about more. Give me animated Phantom Hourglass with some fun takes on the dungeons and fights and some fun slice of life stuff with the group between the islands what I want is a Phantom Hourglass anime

#asks #zeldanamikaze #salty talks #loz #legend of zelda #phantom hourglass #kinda just boils down to like. i kinda want it to remain untouched with nothing added or removed if that makes sense #different themes for the dungeons would be rlly cool. harpsichord for deeper ocean king temple floors bc its where you meet linebeck #also vague foreshadowing? as an aside how many other loz songs have harpsichord in it im very curious to know #also. i say i dont mind the dungeon theme while also not really minding my tinnitus so also take that in mind maybe. brain go brrrrrr #i think adding tetra in to the main crew of ph would kinda be a bit much and also maybe not add very much. fyi i have not played ww #but i feel like it'd almost be adding another ciela cuz shed support link and be more barbed and bold with a side of less morally upstandin #so i dont really think she'd being much new to the ph crew table and i wouldnt want her there in a remake cuz they might pull the #goddess blood card and i really really like how ph has fuck all to do with hyrule or any of that nonsense #sorry this took so long btw. i dont think much abt a ph remake so i dont have a lot of notes #additions? idk add more rooms to linebecks ship. let us poke around in a few areas. maybe potion storage. give link a room #let us poke around in linebeck's room when possible. put smth fun in there. pull a wilds era and give him a journal for us to check out #what they did with tetra kills me (but not too much since i dont rlly have thoughts on tetra) bc you could just remove her entirely #and the story would still work really well anyways. holy character fridging batman #idfk. give us a silly loz dating game. make linebeck an option. thats what i wanna see

[tomsfoolery]

born to make maps forced to 5,000 word essay (I’m an English major)

map for my oc lore :] the continent (or two continents idk one flood and that little strip is GONE) is called Deoskrotia

rip the korosian empire you wouldn’t have loved the 30 year war over oil between you know who and Norway (I love my lore)

I’ll add the capital cities when I actually name them LOLZ

But korosia’s capital was called Vriqal Spires and it’s mostly abandoned now

and Corvus’s is called Auratovus

ramblings v

uhh Korosia operated under the belief that their land sat atop the slumbering body of a great dragon (save me vaguely dragon shaped continents save me) so they were very environmentally conscious which is why Corvus magically nuked them and destroyed their environment

Belraine used to be a part of Korosia but they broke off thanks to my bg3 durge who is also in my oc lore bc…yeah…and Vael happened to be like the vessel of a god (not Bhaal) so the empress at the time decided it wasn’t worth fighting the god she worshipped over belraine so

Korosia & Belraine are almost entirely inhabited by tiefling/tiefling-like individuals, Korosia has a lot of dragonborn and half-dragons as well tho bc dragons are very important to them which is ALSO why Corvus stole the dragons as their symbol

Dragons & any draconic or reptilian species are very important to Korosia so they have a lot of respect the more scales or wings you have so…y’know

ummm the whole deal between them is Korosia worships the creator god (who actually made most of the stuff) Ilya and Corvus worships Sycorlan, who is also a creator god but didn’t make as much. Ilya & Syc had a falling out over a misunderstanding and Syc basically rewrote history to paint Ilya as evil bc Ilya represents a lot of life cycles n stuff?? Like death must happen to make way for new life n stuff, so Syc used that against him and then beat him so bad Ilya basically died and is forced to reincarnate into vessels that are growing increasingly independent of his wishes. Which is where the lore picks up?

Kosorvo was the ATTEMPT between Korosia and Corvus to get along but Corvus pressured them w/trade embargoes into allying with them so

Nuevas Cantaras isn’t actually a country anymore, but they used to be a very long time ago. Back when the gods Ilya created were still in power Nuevas Cantaras was a huge hub for worshippers of the fire snake god Feu-Ra, however aftee Ilya’s fall he could feel his power corrupting and his control slipping so he trained the daughter of the new fire god to take his fang and slay him which created the Eye of Fire that’s been passed down quite a lot to the other main character in my story (who cannot tie his shoes)

Ilya, after spending several eternities having his name slandered and countless wars, is not nearly as benevolent or kind as he once was so his vessels usually aren’t happy.

Vaelkas is actually the only one of these vessels to break himself away from Ilya and still be alive and it’s because Astarion (yes I yoinked him) found a way to drain him to where he’s almost dead and simultaneously perform a ritual to expel Ilya.

Vyserion was the vessel prior to the one in the main story, he died during the final war between Corvus and Korosia that got Korosia eradicated. Tbh he just wanted to retire and go live on his estate in peace. Now he’s a ghost who bullies/advises the new vessel occasionally and also is currently trying to stage a coup in hell!

Aaaand the current vessel is named Ser and he was rushed to be made (?) bc Ilya wanted him to be the child of the lady who killed Vyserion just to make her go insane so naturally that childhood went very well for ser

And naturally he grows up during a war between Norway & the U.S. over oil reserves (blah blah his “mom” moved from Deoskrotia to earth blah blah) so what better way to avoid being the tool of the god than to be the tool of the military!

Ser is struggling so hard trying to live with a foot in both worlds he is losing his mind thank goodness he has a loving husband (he gets kidnapped) (and slowly falls out of love with Ser bc man’s cannot find his marbles)

#oc #oc lore #maps

[muzzlemouths]

Hey Muzz, the first three are for Dead Mall Dare, and the last one is for basic/canon FNAF: Security Breach! :3

🎭 - Tell us one cliche/trope you love in AUS and one you dislike

✔️ - Tell us a random fact about any of the characters in your AU

🌒 - Do you prefer Sun & Moon to be separate animatronics or share the same body?

🌻 - Who are your favorite FNAF characters, aside from the DCA?

Almost forgot about these oops

🎭 - Tell us one cliche/trope you love in AUS and one you dislike

Truthfully, I love most tropes and hcs this fandom has come up with. I'm particularly fond of the autism one for entirely unbiased reasons wink wink (especially Sun hand flapping and Moon verbal stimming -- OGH that gets me good). You'll see both of these pop up in DMD, as well as some moments of OCD with Moon. As for tropes I don't like...I'm struggling to make a list because, like I said, there's really not much I disagree with. A single trope does come to mind, however, and that's the infantizing of Sun. I don't mean woobifying him (please, by all means), what I mean is when people write him like a literal child, when all he does is throw temper tantrums or appear so innocent you'd think he was in kindergarten. My sun is clever. Sure, he's got his moments of pouting, but if he's acting dumb it's all part of the game, it's because he wants you to think he is, not because he genuinely can't tell left from right. The trope just really gets to me lol

✔️ - Tell us a random fact about any of the characters in your AU

Here's three (3) random facts!

Sun has something of a vanity problem. Not to say he isn't incredibly kind and generous, but he's the type to spend an hour using glass cleaner on his rays until they're sparkling just right. Or, at least, he used to. When there were still people to see them.

Moon has the mall entirely mapped out and memorized. The mall blueprints are uploaded to their system, so that's a given, but I mean to say that he knows the exact amount of steps between the candy shop and the start of the food court, for reasons not yet disclosed but which are heavily plot relevant.

y/n is directly related to an old (and frequent) customer of the mall from its glory days. Too bad they haven't the slightest clue!

🌒 - Do you prefer Sun & Moon to be separate animatronics or share the same body?

Depends on the AU, really! They share a body in ICFY because that fic is very canon compliant, whereas I chose to have them be separate animatronics in DMD because I thought it just worked better, story wise. I like them both ways, so personally, it just comes down to which better assists the narrative as a whole!

🌻 - Who are your favorite FNAF characters, aside from the DCA?

Bonnie my beloved 🥺 I've always had a soft spot for them. I like Freddy, too, (maybe by default, or simply for nostalgia's sake), but my favorite is and has always been Bonnie, with Ballora taking a CLOSE second.

#ask games #thank you for asking these Bug!! #they were a lot of fun to answer hehe #dead mall dare au

[hypothesis-hobbyist]

I'm a little sad that almost a year in Splatoon 3 still feels like a lesser game than 2. A lot of this is Octo Expansion raising the bar for atmosphere, storytelling, and character development such that 3's story mode going back to being 1 and 2 was always going to be a letdown. I'm troubled that we know basically nothing about Deep Cut except bandits, big Marie fans, and that Frye has some kind of ADHD going on after watching Pearl and Marina get developed into compelling characters on their own, but maybe that just needs time.

BUT. 3's other problem is splatfests. Some of this is coding/matchmaking, in that you can get mirror matches for a majority of a fest and, it turns out, be on a minority team. Money recently won the popular vote, but I tracked my matches and half of all my open/pro matches were love/love mirrors and fully 2/3rds of all tricolors I was in were love/love/love, so it should be no wonder that people are claiming a rigged result. I don't think it's rigging, I think Nintendo has bad netcode and trying to leverage it for a three-way fest model is producing a lot of negative results. It's always more reasonable to assume incompetence over malfeasance.

Tri-Color itself is also a problem. The Zelda fest was the best so far, in my opinion, because the devs made substantial changes to the map for it instead of shoehorning a 2-sided map for a three-way match. This makes tricolors sometimes very frustrating and, honestly, FAR inferior to the old Shifty Stations, which both kept things fresh and interesting during a fest that could otherwise become boring AND were built around the gimmick. The late-2 shifties were amazing. The ones that progressively locked you out of parts of the map solved Turf War's biggest weakness, in that it made the whole match count and not the last 30 seconds.

So, where do we go from here? Hopes/suggestions:

- Side Order needs to be more like Octo Expansion in terms of storytelling, atmosphere, character development. The trailer certainly seems to suggest that, but it needs to be said.

- Tricolor should be made part of the regular fest rotation when three teams are available, otherwise you get a non-mirrored 1v1 match. This would a) Make Tricolor special and b) Make Fests feel less like meaningless effort.

- Either:

Tricolor maps need to become more different from their base maps. Right now Tricolor always feels like a worse version of the base game.

OR

Bring back Shifty Stations. They really made the 2 Fests worth playing as much of as you could, a supposed to today where I grind to Ruler, make sure I got enough catalog levels to finish before the season ends, and tap out so as not to do more mirror matches.

- More frequent updates. I know that the season model is what other big games do but honestly I miss the occasional random new weapon/item cropping up. Right now there's no reason to go to the shops anymore.

- More character content. We know you have the power to do this, Nintendo. You've got a team that loves to do little bits of lore and world building wherever they can. Add more dialogue for your idols! Tell us more about splat bands! Why is Paruko working retail???

-Final, wishlist item: more song variety during Fests. It would be amazing if there were, like, an actual setlist on rotation in splatsville.

#splatoon #splatfest #never gonna get most of these #Please god let Side Order be good I couldn't handle it if it were bad

[imagine-a-sanctuary-like-this]

Thoughts on AUs in fanfiction and why they may fall flat

So the other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about fanfic on ao3 and shared some thoughts on a very good SteveTony AU I'd read recently on ao3. We talked a little about that, and I was surprised to discover that my friend didn’t enjoy AUs because he felt that they defeated the point of writing about those specific characters. For him, an alternate universe (not canon-divergence, I mean like a serious AU that changes the setting completely) is more like an original work thinly veiled with the names of characters from fandom. Out of their specific stories they become something else - i.e., they are no longer the characters they are claimed to be, but simply OCs.

As someone who loves all kinds of AUs and who regularly filters by the Alternate Universe tag on ao3, I found this idea interesting. It got me thinking about the kinds of AUs I find successful and those that I feel fall flat, and in the end I came to the conclusion that it’s absolutely possible to write an AU that is wildly different from canon but still tells a story about the same essential characters. Since I've been reading a lot of SteveTony recently, I use Tony's arc (the MCU one) as an example here quite a bit, but you don't really need to be in the fandom to understand the point of the post.

Before all that, though, a quick poll:

Okay, so with that done...

I’ve decided to post my simple musings here, where perhaps other people would like to contribute to the discussion. I know many people enjoy AUs like me, and I always like to hear their reasoning for things like this.

Character Essence

First I guess we have to think about what makes a character who they are, since this is what the whole issue seems to hinge on. I’d imagine if I were asked to loosely define a character, I would say that broadly speaking they are a person (not necessarily a human person) in a work of fiction. This is good enough in that it seems to capture what I think of as the concept of 'character', but it's not helpful in so far as it gives us nothing to really differentiate one character from another.

So maybe what distinguishes a character from others is their personality. But if this is the case, it certainly does not encompass the whole idea - otherwise we would have no real way of distinguishing between characters who are as people the same, but end up in different circumstances that force them to act differently (an example of this would what I call type-b parallels within a same story, where characters with the same essential personality are thrust into different circumstances, probably to highlight their differences or make a thematic point). Probably a bigger issue here is that characters personalities change, sometimes almost to the point of becoming unrecognizable, or at least significantly different as a matter of personality (Jaime Lannister in season 1 vs season 4 of Game of Thrones, Bucky Barnes compared between Captain America: The First Avenger and Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Powder/Jinx or Jayce over S1 of Arcane to name a few examples). Still, we would generally consider someone whose arc includes a strong change ‘the same character’, even if they are not the same personality.

Obviously things like ‘character name’ or how they look don’t really seem to work on a fundamental level. I think a little closer to the mark is something like ‘the story the character goes through’, i.e., the events that happen to them or action they take over the course of canon. These define the arc, because you bounce the character off the events around them to form an image of how they change (or how they stay the same, in the case of flat arc. Basically imagine this as mapping their internal journey as a function throughout the story) or a deeper look into their psyche.

I think this is where me and my friend would diverge, because while I think characters’ specific stories and events are important, this view sort of misses why they are important.

Why tell stories?

The story is about something. I suppose the conventional term for this ‘about’ would be the ‘theme(s)’. The story - and therefore the character’s arc - has some essential components that align with the theme, or else act as a mode of its expression. What I’m saying is that in terms of narrative layers, the theme is probably the most fundamental. What comes on top of that - places, names, specific events - map onto the theme and all those core ideas underlying the narrative, usually in a way that follows ‘narrative beats’ (in that, moments in the story that are significant to the theme) that are usually not one-to-one specific to that situation. Often these involve exploring questions about human nature, psychology, morals, etc., which don’t in themselves require a specific context to be followed to a T.

By the way, I’m not saying it’s just this that differentiates a character, that would probably be too reductionist, but at least for me when I analyze a story, this is mostly what makes a character ‘who they are.’ Themes, beats.

Which is why I think AUs have great potential to be fully in-character and in line with ‘who the characters are’ in canon (if that is indeed the goal. To be honest though, I don’t always see the point of writing strong OOC on purpose because here you’re certainly not writing about the canon character anymore) while also adding fun new elements and worlds into the mix. This way you can change events dramatically, but as long as they have the same thematic relevance or fulfil the same beat in the story as in the original, it is hardly out of character at all.

Compatibility

Of course this works better for some universes than it does for others. Some thematic beats are simply too fine-tuned to the story - for example, I have trouble visualising a drastic AU of something like Better Call Saul that keeps up with even most of this stuff. ‘A drastic AU’ here would be something like removing the ‘lawyer’ element from the story completely. I mean, one of the other reasons you probably couldn’t do that is because ‘law’ is among the themes of BCS. Some themes necessarily imply certain content, so you can't really write about these characters without writing about the law somehow.

On the other hand, other arcs are very adaptable to this kind of AU-fication. An example that springs to my mind is the MCU (not 616!) Tony Stark’s arc. It’s fairly complex, but after some reflection - and drawing on a LOT of SteveTony AU fics done well - I've found the themes are very ‘universalizable’.

To illustrate, here are the main things Tony's story is about: sacrifice/selflessness, redemption, purpose (very big in Iron Man 1), moral choices like security vs freedom (Civil War), identity I guess (big in IM3), security taken on its own (obsession with extra-terrestrial threats after what he saw in the wormhole in Avengers 1 is the cause of PTSD in IM3, creation of Ultron in Age of Ultron and the whole thematic thing they did with Thanos in Infinity War), dealing with strong emotions (Civil War)…

So there’s a lot to draw from. And what I mean when I say this kind of arc is 'universalizable' is that a lot of these can be mapped onto other stories without losing much of this meaning. This is coincidentally why I believe AUs “before ‘modern science’ was a thing” still work for Tony, because nowhere in his arc is Tony necessarily a scientist. I see it more as a tool for these themes than a theme of its own. It seems there are many beautiful AUs out there where Tony is not a scientist/engineer, yet remains in character (though I guess if you consider it a necessary part of his character, he isn’t in-character, and my argument is circular. I don't think it is though. I might make a post about this sometime...).

Anyway. That's some stuff in favour of AUs from a the story structure standpoint. They can be non-OOC.

Now, of course, an AU is not bad if it isn’t in line with what the original story was about. Well, okay, firstly there’s probably gradations of how close you are in terms of loyalty to the shape of the original story. Some AUs are almost one-to-ones moved into a different setting, some are a little more vague but follow with the general idea and map onto the most important things in the original story. If your criterion for a 'good' AU is just characters staying in character (which in my view is a little... shallow) then I guess you have a way of differentiating between fics. Personally, I think a lot goes into a good AU, and being in-character or OOC is just one factor (though not a small one).

Interpretation

There's just one more thing to talk about, and that of course is the matter of interpretation.

Different people may interpret what a character's story is about very differently. This is a complicated question that tracks back to the nature of truths and all kinds of things that are beyond the scope of this post, so I'll only touch on this briefly. Coming back to the Tony Stark example (I swear I have others, but months of reading SteveTony are... showing). I have seen people claim that Tony's arc is essentially about him realizing that 'making weapons bad' and finding ways to right his wrong and become a better person. I don't think this is... entirely wrong. That does happen in the first Iron Man movie.

But the broader point is: the people who claim this and me have looked at the same material and drawn different conclusions. Is either of us mistaken?

I think the answer in this case is yes. The reason is evidence. There is a lot more evidence against the above statement than for it (this doesn't mean my vision of Tony's arc is accurate, mind you, only that this one is inaccurate) which I think resolves the question nicely.

Some people think that discussion about literature consist of nothing but opinions, and evidence is... irrelevant. I disagree. Value-statements are certainly opinions, but examining a character's arc is not entirely a value-statement, a lot of it is working with material. The material is the story, and a lot of it can be used as concrete evidence - events, things characters say or do, things they think even. These do form a picture, and while it's sometimes hard to find a single thing they point to, it's usually pretty easy to weed out things they definitely don't point to.

Now of course, I think some variation will exist without any statement being correct or incorrect, but most of the time for the fundamental ideas in stories there will be a bunch of clearly wrong interpretations, and very strong - true - evidence that shows why those interpretations are wrong.

Endnotes

Anyway, wrapping up, that’s my thoughts on AUs and why some of them may fall flat for people like my friend. I think for a guy like him, the reason he hasn’t read many good AUs is that he hasn’t read many in general, so there’s not a big sample to draw from. And then once you’ve made a judgement about a kind of fic, you don’t try it again, so you never really end up changing your mind even if there is a chance that it might be.

If any of y’all have thoughts on this (you like AUs/dislike AUs, maybe your ideas about what makes a good AU) I would love to read them. Drop a comment!

- S

#character writing #tony stark #mcu tony stark #MCU Tony's arc being used as an example #because I love it #I could write an essay on it #literature #marvel #reading #books #fanfic #fanfiction #fanfics #ao3 fanfic #fanfic writing #ao3fic #ao3 writer #ao3 #archive of our own #ao3 stuff #thoughts #AU #alternate universe #alternative universe #my polls #tumblr polls #polls #late night thoughts #stevetony made its way into this post somehow #long post

[paramouradrift]

If you're still doing the wip ask thing the zukka pirate au 2023?

So, there are actually two, and one of them is a barebones outline along the lines of, "at 13, Zuko decides finding the Avatar is too hard, and insists on becoming a pirate; at 14, Zuko's ship is attacked and sunk by the Southern Raiders," etc. Not very interesting.

The other one has a complete plot and chapter outline, and a whole rising and falling action, but its dark origin is that I was playing around on chatGPT one day doing things like, "hey, idiot, give me a table of contents for a story with these parameters," "hey, give me a crew list for a pirate ship of this size and era," "hey, generate a port city that might exist in this canon." It was instructional with regards to the overall quality of AI-generated content (poor), but also it did get my creative juices flowing enough that I took the scraps and made them into something half-way decent.

It's a tale in four acts.

Act 1 - Air. Zuko and Sokka are pirates captaining different ships. They're after the same prey one day, but have to join forces to repel a Fire Nation anti-piracy patrol. They part ways after victory at sea, and later at port the two engage in a drunken tryst.

Act 2 - Water. Zuko leaves Sokka twisting in the wind at a dangerous moment, but later apologizes and makes a peace offering: a treasure map to a long-lost mountain of gold. Sokka accepts the offer, and the two embark on a quest. Unbeknownst to them, they are being followed by Admiral Zhao, who wants the treasure for himself.

Act 3 - Earth. They arrive at an island where a spirit that knows the real treasure's location resides, and she tests their bond of love to almost the breaking point. In the end, she gives up the location of the treasure, but extracts a terrible price for the knowledge.

Act 4 - Fire. Turns out Zuko had a deal with Zhao: treasure for amnesty. Sokka is furious, but the treasure happens to be located on an island currently contested by the Fire Nation and Earth Kingdom, and he suggests that the Earth Kingdom would be better to beg for amnesty from. A pitched battle at sea ensues, and Zuko turns on Zhao to save Sokka and the others. It ends with the Earth Kingdom granting Zuko and Sokka both letters of marque and reprisal, and the two joining forces to sail off into the sunset.

I'm eliding a lot of details with this summary, but that was the gist. I never did much more than some basic logistical note-taking and fleshing out the table of contents. I was, at the time, too busy working on J&R. It might be interesting to take this up again when I've got more of that monster slain, but for now it sits in my WIP folder, abandoned.

WIP game master post.

#atla #fanfic #zukka #zuko is a gay pirate #wip #wip game

[arkiwii]

Rambling about Il Siracusano event - a subjective review

Il Siracusano event having been out for an entire week now, and with the survey Yostar gave us about the event, I would like to ramble a bit about the event and what I thought of it; of course, this is mainly going to be something subjective, so not many might agree with it, feel free to give out your opinions in reblogs/comments! I'm very open with it, no problems at all!

So, warning, small spoilers about the event, long post and probably bad english, I'm doing my best

What I liked about the event

Map design and layout

Of course, I think this is very original to have a direct map of Siracusa as a field of exploration, and more than all, having not only the stages, but different places; it really makes Siracusa feel real, realistic, almost like a real city, rather than "just some stage levels"

Some events have been pretty original with their map, like Maria Nearl's map looking like a tournament, or Mansfield Break looking like the prison's design, or the amazing Stulifera Navis's map, but none were as elaborate as Il Siracusano

We can see a lot of worldbuilding and originality from it, and it's very pleasing to see! The only small downside I can see is that when we first open the event's stages, there's no indication to where to start - of course, by looking around and clicking on everything, we can find our path, but it's slightly overwhelming at the first glance and we feel a bit lost

Characters and story

No surprise, Arknights characters are very attaching as always, and even side NPCs have been really amazing in it, may it be Giovanna, Sicilla, Agenir, but even less remarkable characters like Danbrown and Ben - who thought an event would have made me feel attached for a carwasher guy? The little side quests where we follow each of the main's characters in the city was really interesting, because we could experiment their point of view and life outside of the main story, making them feel human and alive

The whole story about the influence that the famiglias occupy in the city, making it an anarchy where each decide their own rules, and the only law being the one brought by the Judges, yet their power is still meaningless, was really great

It really takes us away from our sense of morales by showing us a place where crimes are casual, and a day without blood flowing sounds like more of a surprise than a day without; the characters all have a different way to react to this life, some decide to live with it without complaining, some decide to oppose to it, and some prefer to go away

I rarely pay attention to events stories, at least, not if I'm not interested in the characters; Texas and Lappland being not the characters that I'm the most attached to, I could have just ignored it, but yet I still felt taken in the story

Side note to la Critica Artistica, some reviews are truly funny and the winks to the event's main story are awesome

Rewards and event shop

Are you telling me there is a stage with guaranteed orirock clusters? For real?!

The entire's event rewards are truly great, may it be the rewards given by the side quests or the event's shop, we really have nothing to complain about - we literally can get 600k LMD from the shop alone, not given all the LMD given by the side quests as well; this event allowed me to promote three six-stars in a single day

And of course, not to mention the free six-stars operator given out, Vigil, even if a Tactician Vanguard is not the most ideal in the gameplay, and apparently the character is not the best gameplay wise, it's still a good gift for new players

What I did not liked in the event

Complicated dialogues and foreign language

Of course, a common criticism about Arknights in general is how complicated it is to understand what is going on; the whole plot often revolves around politics and other complicated subjects, it's difficult to grab a hand on what is being told if we don't have a basic knowledge on the subject

While the event was slightly easier to understand, some details went above my head easily, - but it could be fault to the fact that I am not a native English speaker and also cursed with ADHD - the dialogues were still very long and if it's not about the characters we care about, we quickly lose interest or barely read it; you know the rules, thirty or fourty minutes of cutscenes, and in the end, not even five minutes of gameplay

Not mentioning the characters using Italian terms; it's not the first time that characters use their native language in a media, Pokémon and Disney movies being good examples, but there is a fine line between "using local expressions time by time" and "using key terms in this language" - I have to thank myself for being French, since the languages are quite similar, I could guess what some words meant, but sometimes I really had no clues. Having important terms like Il Signore dei Lupi can be confusing, and we miss some important points or small details, and not many enjoy playing with a translator open near them

Complicated politic talk is already confusing, complicated politic talk in another language is even more confusing; I think it's an important role of a translator to know how much they should remove, and how much they should keep, to have dialogues that we can understand while showing the cultural references used behind

Way too easy

I'm not a new player, nor an old player, I already have a bunch of six-stars, and very good ones, and Elite 2 characters; but for having done almost all Side Stories/Intermezzo in the course of the last weeks, I can definitely tell that even at my level and with the units I used, some were seriously challenging, and I'm not talking about the ex stages, but the main ones

Yet, I have never seen an event as easy as Il Siracusano; the new enemies were nothing challenging, sure, the debt progress was an original adding, but the challenge was not that complicated - not only there is no downsides in letting civils die (while in other events, you would lose a life point), but the enemy that appears when the debt is full is not that bothersome. It could be for the first stages, but later, with a good defender and good healing, it can be really easy to counter it

And here comes the final stage and boss; annihilated. I never cleared a boss stage this fast ever, and I had no help or anything, it was all improvised and a surprise - I don't even know what the final boss's ability was, as I killed him before he could even use it, and no support unit were used

Of course, there is a true debate about if the main stages of an event should be easy or complicated; on one hand, if they're too complicated, new players will struggle to finish the event, or even not finish it at all in due time, and even old players might have to use a guide or playthrough to know what to do; but on the other hand, if it's too easy, old players will find no pleasure in playing the stages, and with the dialogues being way too long, it really is "95% of cutscene, 5% of gameplay"

I think it's something that the game still has to work on it; of course, I would like to have stages I can clear without having to use Deus ex Ch'alter and our Savior Kyo, but I would like them to be challenging enough to not clear them in a blink of an eye; it's a true balance that still needs to be found, something not as complicated as SN-10, but not as simple as IS-10, and finding balance in a gacha - so a game with a lot of units, each with their own abilities and strength, and allow every player to be able to use who they like - is the most challenging

What I would love to see in the future

"Showcase" stages of new operators

A very good idea that I loved in An Obscure Wanderer was the stages with given operators, and more than all, Mlynar himself; it was a very good introduction for the players to directly test out the new operator's ability, and if it was not for these stages, I would not have been convinced to roll for him

May it be Texalter, Penance, Vigil and Lunacub, we did not had any stages where we could use the operator or see them in battle directly; not a lot of players might feel comfortable enough to test out the character as a support unit, since it's a bit "testing new waters", and three new six-stars can feel imposing

But I feel like if there's some special stages - those "tutorial stages" that costs no sanity, and with no rewards, or at most just one Originite Prime, would help to test the true potential of the character in a given stage where the operator would have a perfect niche, to help the player how to use them, but also to convince them to roll the character

Lore guide and event sum-up

For people who have a hard time focusing on the dialogues and just what is going on in general, I think that a lore guide and sum-up for each event would be truly useful; quite like the small lore hints given in Chapter 10 and 11, but more elaborate, probably without rewards, but a new page at each stage and cutscene cleared

The lore guide could introduce each characters with their name, role, affiliation, and small profile, an introduction to the place where the event take place, and a sum-up of the important events and key points of the event, in an easy language; and why not use this guide to translate/explain cultural references used in the event? It could be interesting, not only to educate us, but also it would allow to have characters speak in their native language without making it hard to understand since there'll be an explanation given

Alright, so that's it with all I can come up with! I have no idea how pertinent it is to put my review and opinions on Tumblr, cause the chances that a personal of Yostar comes by are very low, but we never know!

#arknights #il siracusano spoilers #rambling #long post #I have no idea if I got characters/mechanics/foreign terms right I don't have my game open near me and I'm waiting at my therapist's

[sanctamater]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍.

— BASICS! ♡

NAME: claire PRONOUNS: they/them/theirs ZODIAC SIGN: aries, insane edition TAKEN OR SINGLE: wouldn't you like to know, weather boy?

— THREE FACTS! ♡

i am a weird little bilingual canadian but not the useful sort - i grew up speaking a really weird dialect of german that isn't really spoken any more. it's the danube swabian dialect and is a whole mishmash of things. i'm currently enrolled in a goethe institute to get a hang of standardized german as aside from speaking it with my family i am completely illiterate in my second language and would like to be able to speak, read, and write in the language when i go visit my cousins in germany.

i once accidentally climbed half a mountain and only stopped when we hit the snow line and realised we were WOEFULLY underprepared to hike a mountain pass. in our defence the park's maps were not the best and signage left. a lot to be desired... and it was unseasonably cool that year. we also almost hit a moose driving back from winnipeg to southern ontario in one go. would not recommend. we almost saw jesus.

erm... i make historical clothing in my spare time. not right now tho bc my flat is too small to house my fabric, machine, and dress form. :( i also collect antique textiles and have a decent collection! most of what i collect is from 1901 - 1922. :)

— EXPERIENCE! ♡

PLATFORMS USED: youtube. proboards. do not ask me how we roleplayed on youtube. it is a long and convoluted story. but that is life.

PLOTTING / WINGING IT / MEMES:  i have a hard time with plotting because i have no braincells at any given moment.... i like seeing where things go but having slightly set beats in the plotline we hit at some points or having a vague idea of a timeline. but i like things growing on their own. as for memes.... lmao. i'm so sorry to everyone still waiting on a meme reply. it will happen. eventually. i swear.

— MUSE PREFERENCE! ♡

GENDER: doesn't matter. i gravitate towards more feminine muses but i had a really fun time writing media who i interpreted to be genderfluid and writing them as a more masculine character and figure was amazingly fun.

MULTI OR SINGLE MUSE: i am not strong enough for a multi muse. god i wish i was. i have tried.

LEAST FAVOURITE FACECLAIM(S): i am so sorry everyone but i do not like natalie do.rmer.

— FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡

FLUFF: depends? it's all about the dynamic and the characters - i wouldn't call it fluff so much as i would call it domesticity. small things, intimate things that are... mundane. i like doing that. i like writing that with amelia since she yearns for it but doesn't often get that intimacy and normalcy.

ANGST: i love angst so much.... i love it. i love inner turmoil, i love conflict, i love crying, i love yelling, i love screaming, crying - and with amelia it's just delicious (but also oh my god so tiring i do love angst with her but also I WANT HER TO REST) given her own flaws and the way she interacts with others. i love forcing her to come to terms with things and others in her life. it's just. so...... mwah.

SMUT:  i love smut but only on discord. i will be sacrilegious and horny on main in a fade to black here tho LMAO. but in all serious i don't mind writing it and i think it is a very interesting way to explore compatibility for muses, further their relationships, change dynamics, and to just have fun and be silly lmao.

#🕊️❝ out of redemption ( ooc. ) #i stole this. <3

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: Too Like The Lightning

Author: Adrian Tchaikovsky

Rating: 5/5 stars

Just finished reading this book, and I couldn't put it down.

It's a story told in first person by a person named Boltzmann from a society who are biologically/emotionally similar to humans, but have been isolated from other humans in their society's cities for tens of thousands of years, and live in the ruins of their home cities where many parts are still covered by jungle and have remained basically unchanged for more than a century. (So it's not too surprising that we have basically no idea what their society's culture, politics, or religion are like.) Their society has a class-based social structure, with Boltzmann (who is from one of the city's higher classes) serving as its de facto spokesman and "leader," but the real decisions and activities of his society are conducted by the priesthood of the highest-ranking sect of their religion, who live underground, having developed their own "science" that is similar to the one we now have but with some important details altered, to be as hard-to-understand by Boltzmann as possible.

Boltzmann's story is that of a man whose life experiences have made him despise most people, especially the other members of his class. They are boring, short-sighted, and incapable of thinking about anything beyond their own self-interest. They have no appreciation for the wonders of the universe or any deeper connection to it; they are completely absorbed in the superficial world of appearance and social status, and see life as a series of meaningless distractions, and can't imagine why anyone would bother with things like art and ethics and spirituality -- or indeed, with doing anything, with any sort of personal goal at all. Because of this attitude, they're almost blind to the possibility that Boltzmann might have interesting or unusual thoughts and feelings -- this is the sort of society where the highest status thing to be is not a "doer" or "shaker-of-the-universe," but someone whose mind is well-mapped, and whose ideas are widely accepted as "important" by some people.

So Boltzmann has lived in this society since birth, and by now he is the most extreme outlier that exists in this society -- his mind is not well-mapped; he spends his days exploring ideas no one else thinks of, reading difficult texts no one else knows how to read, and pondering questions no one else finds interesting. His experience has been that he has been, at best, gently corrected by people who knew more about the issues he was thinking about than he did -- his fellow human beings, the people who really are like him, are a relatively small group, and while he's aware they're different from him and "weird" in ways that matter to him, there's very little that he can do about this -- his own life experiences (and the knowledge he developed as an outlier) are too unfamiliar to him for him to trust them.

His story ends with a confrontation with his childhood friend Boltzmann, a different outlier who does believe in the things that Boltzmann considers basic, and who tells Boltzmann that he can leave the society of his birth but not his home city, which is where the majority of his memories are located. They head out into the wilderness -- and the reader, who has spent the past 100 pages in Boltzmann's head, is treated to a long sequence in which Boltzmann reflects on this and comes to believe that his society has something that humanity as a whole does not -- that in fact there is an essence to humanity that all his own thoughts and feelings about himself and human life miss, and which he must find elsewhere.

Tchaikovsky writes in the "first-person" mode that I really like. It gives the reader an easy handle for understanding the viewpoint, yet (unlike a lot of first-person books) it doesn't stop you from making your own decisions about what to think about a person -- you get all the same information about the world but then you get to decide for yourself what it means, and how to apply it. And you get to make these decisions as a person who's really like the character -- and you're not in the character's head, looking at the world through their eyes, but seeing it directly, experiencing it. It's not as strong a feel as some, but then I think it's the same reason I enjoy science fiction, as opposed to a lot of "hard sci fi." There's a sense here that all the characters' experiences are real and authentic, as you imagine them.

I feel a bit uncomfortable saying I've gotten attached to a character, because I don't feel I have much right to do that -- my own experience of life is really only a small subset of the experiences of everyone, and it's hard for me to judge anyone else's life or experiences. But I am attached, I think, to this fictional character, and by the end of the book felt that I wanted to hear more from him. That wasn't always the case at the start -- his story didn't grab me right off the bat; the parts I read of it I felt were meandering and "boring," like the parts in some novels I just don't enjoy. But Tchaikovsky builds him up, the whole time, in a way that finally convinces me that I have to finish this book, which I might have otherwise been put off by -- the first parts I read were clearly an effort to sell me on him, to get me to like the book and want to keep reading. This book is a first-class novel, and it deserved my initial reservations -- if anything, it's an even better book than when I started it, if that's possible.

It's also kind of funny, in a way, that I've got so attached to this character who is so fundamentally out of place in the world we're now familiar with, that he is alien to us as a species (and thus we have no concept of his experiences and can't really imagine what he would be like), yet at the end of the book I'm emotionally attached to him, and want to see more of him. We have a lot in common, in a way, and some kind of connection there which has only just come to light. I can't help but think we're a little in love with one another.

As you might guess, I really enjoyed this.