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#you get details of it from dialogue and journals and stuff

saccharinescorpion · 9 months

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the writing of Pikmin 4 is very interesting to me. the plot is extremely straightforward and simple, but there’s a surprising amount of side chatter (i’ve played over 50 in-game days so far and i think i’ve only gotten a single repeat of the-end-of-day dialogue between the crew). more than that though, there’s a lot of in-universe writing. there’s the Rescue Journal, which ostensibly is supposed to be a How To Play guide, but also includes Captain Shepherd’s diary which gives some surpririsng depth to a character that’s mostly comic relief. similarly Olimar has his voyage log, which from a gameplay point of view are meant as a guide for the player to how to approach certain areas and obstacles but also details his melancholy recollections of home

there’s also the in-game encyclopedias for monsters (the “Piklopedia”) and treasures (the Treasure Catalog), which have a description for every single entry, each written in the unique voice of their respective in-universe writers. but (spoilers) once Olimar is rescued he contributes his own entries to both encyclopedias, and an interesting dichotomy appears between the two. Olimar goes into a LOT of detail for his entries for the Piklopedia (which by the way already provided in-universe family names and scientific names for each creature) using a lot of real world biology terms the average layman probably wouldn’t know (notochord, protochordate, ambisexual, to name a few) and i can’t imagine the average 8-12 year old being familiar with. then when you move onto the Treasure Catalog a huge chunk of his notes are just him thinking about his wife and kids. it’s very cute, but there’s also a surprising amount of very mature musing-- stuff like thinking about getting older and the importance of self-care not for vanity’s sake but for the sake of your loved ones, thinking about how being ambitious in your career means exploiting those under you, thinking about the interactions between child and parent and how they change with age and perspective. thinking about fruit. thinking about his wife, son and daughter. a lot. it’s very, very cute

i know it’s trite to joke about how Pikmin, with its morbid premise and punishing gameplay, doesn’t seem like its for kids, but i really do wonder how kids react to it. can they understand the ruminating about responsibilty and adulthood? what do they think about all the melancholy and the bittersweetness? its hard for me to imagine children really connecting to something like that... but i think we underestimate children a lot. in any case, i’m glad they get the chance to play something this offbeat and thoughtful, and i’m glad i have the chance too! this weird somewhat sad atmosphere is one of things that has really endeared me to this game, and i’m glad i gave it a try

other than all of that, the character relationships are mostly pretty barebones. i did enjoy the minor subplot regarding Dingo the Rescue Corps ranger abandoning Bernard the pilot only for Bernard to return and slowly drive Dingo to madness via passive aggressive psychological warfare

#pikmin 4 #why did i write so much about this #i mostly just wanted to think about how Olimar is cute #pikmin

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loregoddess · 1 month

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not a whole lot of observations before I go and fight the final boss (who I think I'm gonna curbstomp anyhow despite not fighting the superboss first and not having yet used any nuts, I guess lv 70 which is my default "this seems like a nice level to be at for endgame stuff" is high enough to kill minor bosses w/out them ever getting a chance to attack once), but I did notice a few things while playing though the final chapter stuff since I decided to actually walk around instead of fast-travelling like I did my first run...

you know that kinda creepy girl who stands outside of the inn in Crackridge at night who, if spoken to, runs off in the direction of the Fellsun Ruins? Yeah, so turns out she is not there during the final chapter sequence at all. I'm gonna head back to Crackridge after kicking Vide's ass just to see if she returns or not.

checked a few of the towns and it seems most of the NPCs don't really...seem to notice the unnaturally long night going on. I mean sure you get some updated dialogue after relighting the Flamechurch Flame from the NPCs, but generally? no unique dialogue. which I mean, it would have been a developmental nightmare to have unique dialogue for every NPC during this sequence, but it's still hmm

ALSO I finally figured out (I think) why Castti is the only traveler to be directly attacked by Vide and nearly overtaken (her and Ochette's crossed paths ch2), and that's because she was the only one of the main characters to have read the Book of Night (when she met Claude with Trousseau when they were in Lostseed). It occurred to me while I was reading Tanzy's journal and Tanzy wrote that she had read the book, and I had gone down the TV Tropes rabbit hole on Octo2 a few nights ago and the people writing those pages seem to think that what caused Tanzy's death was similar to what Castti experienced in the second crossed paths, and so now I'm wondering if the Book of Night has anything to do with Vide being able to shadow-eat people. Like, Hikari's the only other traveler to battle with the shadow, but it's very much something inside him and according to what's been said about the bloodline of Ku, the shadow wouldn't have killed him had it overtaken him, it would have just used him as a puppet. So yeah, maybe there's something here...or maybe I'm overthinking it.

I absolutely annihilated the Grotesque Monster and Arcanette battles both in three turns, neither got a chance to attack, Temenos dealt 86k+ damage in one. This is why I think I'm gonna waltz through the Vide fight again, esp. since I know the battle gimmicks and am preparing accordingly

I have this theory brewing that D'arqest may have been stopped by eight travelers during his time, based on some things said by the Moonshade Order major villains (Arcanette mostly), and bc I took a good look at the "beginning of Ku" mural again and counted eight red squares gathered around the image of the Flame, and what Hikari said about the first ruler of Ku, and the implied history of the Lumina clan having once fought against the darkness, and a few other details I'm not recalling at the moment, but it would be very hmm-worthy if it pans out for anything. CotC lore implies Beowulf had probably seven other companions and traveled across Orsterra, so it would be an interesting recurring Octopath Theme if it pans out in any way.

everything about Ori in this part of the game still gets me like, even knowing what was gonna happen, I was still like, "holy shit." Love Ori, but damn girl.

actually despite there being very little writing overall for the final chapter sequence, I just really love this part of the game. Like it's not even that I think it's well-written or challenging in an interesting way or anything, I just love the vibes a lot I guess. Absolutely haunting story segment for me.

#I am once more rotating Ori slowly in my head...#but also I love this section of the game so much #kinda sad it's so short but also I know from a development standpoint it would have been hard to make significantly longer #oracle of lore

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moonmanatee · 4 months

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hi! for the EOY book asks: 3 and 4?

hey! thank you for this :) i answered 3 here, so i’ll take this as an impromptu fic rec opportunity!!

here are 5 of my favorite fics from this year. there are so many more, this is just what’s coming to mind at this moment. here we go:

Harry Potter Gets a Job, by dustmouth, from this year’s Career Fair. every dustmouth comic is so full of expressive detail, and this one is funny and tender and delightful. the characters and settings are so alive and so full of heart. this story has made a permanent home in my chest.

Proven Lands, by @oknowkiss, an incredible archipelago of microfics that loop together into a story that’s visceral and quiet and will leave your heart trying to escape from your chest.

Designate/your love as fate by @elskanellis, from Wireless - the clarity and honesty in this story’s dialogue blew me away. they bare their hearts so simply and it feels vast, like an ocean stretching to the horizon or a field of flowers as far as you can see. I love all of the meaning-making, as they build a marriage ceremony that's very Official but in exactly the way that is meaningful to them.

The Earth From a Distance, by @andthepeople, which I consumed probably without looking up from my screen a single time. this fic will take you by the belt loops and spin you around and shake you up and down and drop you onto your back so your breath gusts out above you and you'll say. again. please. fascinating worldbuilding and gorgeous characterization, just completely captivating.

Lover, Where Do You Live, by @dodgerkedavra, also from Wireless. the force with which harry and draco collide, here, is so powerful that the gestures of their care for each other, both tiny and huge, make such an echo. and everything vibrates with it. these last two both feature one of my absolute favorite dynamics, which is a fast sexual burn in which they see each other so deeply, which is incredibly hot, and then they go around the rest of the time pining as though they’re not completely in love and already fucking about it. good stuff.

4. Did you discover any new authors this year?

Looking through my book journal I realized I read a lot of already-beloved authors, but there's a handful of new ones! Simon Jimenez, Neon Yang, Sabrina Imbler, Everina Maxwell, and Jocelyn Nicole Johnson were all first time reads for me.

Ask me about my year of books!

#fic recs #and book recs kind of #thank u again!!!

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commaclear · 4 months

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Holy crap???????

I very recently started reading (most?) of the stories you have wrote on Ao3 and I'm in love. Marry me?? I'll give you a plastic spider ring I got for 25 cents.

Anyways, I aspire to be an author and was mostly wanting to know, how do you continue??

I have so many little ideas that float in my mind and I don't know how to keep writing after getting through one paragraph.

-Turtle-shell anon.

Oh dear, unfortunately I'm sworn to only marry Danny Devito...

Okay, I've got a lot to say abt this apparently. I was originally just gonna write some quick tips and it somehow turned into a full essay lol

#5 is my top suggestion for anyone who's feeling uninspired or stuck. Stories are driven by their characters, so let them lead the way!

1. Write your ideas down as soon as you have them

I've got about five or six tiny notebooks stowed away in different places (purse, desk, bedside table, etc.), and as soon as I have any kind of story idea, I start writing it down as soon as I can, otherwise I tend to lose it or lose my enthusiasm abt it, and it's harder to keep steam later on. I do this with ideas for future stories, ideas for dialogue five chapters from now, random descriptions of scenes, just literally anything that pops into my head.

Like dream journaling makes your dreams more vivid, the more you write down your ideas, the more ideas you'll start having! It's like unclogging a dam.

Also, physical writing is always better for me than typing when I get stuck because kinetic movement engages the brain more, so I have a few full size journals too to write longer ideas in.

2. Start stories even if you know you won't finish them

Writing is like a muscle. The more you use it, the more stamina you build up. So starting on stories, even if you don't know where you're going or know you won't finish is still productive because you're exercising that muscle and making it stronger. And who knows? Maybe you'll come back years later and finish this story brilliantly!

3. Download WriteorDie2

Write or Die is a horrific torture device for writers, but it is genuinely helpful for me to power through pointless writer's block or procrastination stints. Even when I feel completely uninspired, suddenly I find I'm full of ideas when threatened with screeching violin spiders.

4. Get a hype man

A big reason writers lose steam on projects is you start listening too much to the internal critic, and you end up hating your own project when you've barely even started. The best way to combat this is to get a non-writer friend to read your stuff and tell you everything they like about it. Ask them to say specific things they liked, not just vague "Yeah, it's good!" because specific positive feedback is always more encouraging than generic platitudes.

5. Do free form character PoV word-dumps

Get out a journal. Set a seven-minute timer and start writing in the voice of your main character (or whatever character is most relevant), like they're making a diary entry or giving a soliloquy. Your pencil cannot stop moving until the timer ends. Just keep writing and ignore any spelling or grammar mistakes.

Have your character dump out all their thoughts and feelings and insecurities, have them rant and cry, have them giggle and blush and kick their feet, or maybe they're still masking their feelings and trying to be strong. Just write in their voice, and you'll be surprised by what they have to say.

6. Explain your story to a rubber ducky

If you're stuck in a plot and don't know where to go, explain your whole plot to a rubber ducky. Make sure you go into all the intricacies and details, explain all the side characters and background lore, tell that ducky where you want your story to go next and why you're stuck.

8 times out of 10, simply talking out loud through your plot will get you thinking differently, and you'll unstick yourself. And it doesn't have to be a rubber ducky; it can be literally anything with a face, but trust me, it is important that is has a face, and you need to be talking out loud, even if it's just a whisper.

#anons my beloved #comma gives advice #writing advice

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inkdragonworks · 1 year

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The big work on this month was creating an object that could handle auto-tiling collision blocks for me. I spent around 2 weeks on it but it’s managing to cover a lot of the stuff I want, albeit there’s still fine-tuning with slopes. Ended up making a lot of the tilesets meant for chapter 2 based around it. I’m pretty satisfied with it since it helps prevent what could be 1-3 hours of manual work, and instead doing it once the player enters the room. That leaves details like walls and decorations to figure out.

A lot of parallax assets were finally taken from concept art to sprite assets, which you can see a few of in the first gif. There’s still some left, like this minecart rail I want to put in:

I also spent time making more journal/shop menu assets, representing items you can buy and equip at different points.

The auto-tiler and more bug fixing ended up taking a lot of time for me, so I really didn’t get that far with making Chapter 2′s level art. There’s just a lot of small decorations I’ll have to make on top of more bug fixing and editing more dialogue/cutscenes to be shorter. My intention is to continue on those things, as well as ironing out more of the auto-tiler.

However I’m considering taking a break this month to pick at a different idea for a bit, so I don’t get burnt out on PnJ. I’ll have to wait and see though.

#poppin and jupa pocket adventure #monthly updates #game dev #dev blog #metroidvania #indie game #indie dev #gamemaker #my stuff

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author-morgan · 7 months

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Hello! I'm currently reading through your amazing backlog of fics, and you are such a compelling and excellent writer. Fan fiction writers add an air of anachronism to anything historical that generally disrupts the flow and takes the reader out of the story, but I never get that when reading your work. As someone who wants to get into writing AC fan fiction, do you have any tips for maintaining historical accuracy? I tried using the games for details but found their info to be lacking. Thanks!

Thank you, thank you. ❤️🥺🥰❤️🥺🥰

Not to sound like a broken record, but research, research, and more research. I won't sugarcoat it because it takes a lot of time to dig around for good sources about certain historical periods, and more often than naught, I find those in scholarly journals or historical texts themselves. Find historians who specialize in a certain period of history. I like Roel Konijnendijk for Ancient History, and, for example, I’ve read the Histories by Herodotus for my Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey stories, especially the long fics. (Just ask @mrsragnarlodbrok, she knows how crazy I can get when looking into historical stuff for fics, even if it's literally almost a PWP, lol.)

Watch documentaries and listen to trusted podcasts about history! You'll absorb a surprising amount of information just by listening (I often have some sort of documentary on in the background when I'm working from home—the HistoryHit YouTube and related channels are all great places to start looking, especially for Greek-Roman stuff).

Even though it is difficult to remove the influences of modern morals, standards, and ethics from my worldview and writing, I try my utmost to be true to what would have been commonplace for the societal views and standards within the respective eras — that means someone living in Saxon England is more than likely going to be a Christian and live by what the Church says until the plot potentially demands otherwise!

It's also vital to understand the limitations of the knowledge and technology of the time you're writing for. One of the most egregious faux pas I can think of in this respect that I’ve seen repeated (whether it be for historical fiction or fanfiction) comes with wound treatment and care — in a world without proper sanitation and antibiotics, things like gut wounds would almost always be fatal.

Speaking of wound care, look for old medical books and accounts of battlefield treatments (e.g., the American Civil War era) to know how things would have been treated. Looking into the native vegetation from an area and digging around for any medicinal properties can help you construct your own types of authentic (perhaps not accurate, though) cures. This plays into my next point, don't be afraid to make reasonable extrapolations!

Diction! Language matters. Modern language and slang will distract from the overall authenticity of the story if not done with moderation or intent. Sure, you don’t have to go back to Ye Olde English, but make sure you’re picking words that fit, especially in the dialogue, and that there is consistency. Something that helps me write for the Gilded Age (late 1800s) is reading letters people used to write one another. In general, I feel tossing in a few swears (like fuck) now and then won’t kill the mood so much, but if you can find period-appropriate swears, then even better! This is a case where reading historical documents and texts can help.

Don’t overlook the small things! The small things can help create a sense of authenticity. This can be something like understanding the fabrics and dyes available during a certain time period and the style of clothing that was common (and how these differed between classes). A commoner in the Viking period wouldn’t have silk pillows or “mounds of silk” on their beds. Are certain foods available during the time period you’re writing for? Potatoes are probably the worst offenders for this.

One last thing is just watching historical/period films and TV shows. Often, there are common bits of misinformation or tropes you can start to spot once you start researching that don't really fit—once you spot those, don't do it (unless there's a very good reason for it)!

I’m sure I’m just scratching the surface, but these are the key ideas and philosophy that guide me when writing fics for historical (and fantasy based on historical eras — Game of Thrones) times. In the end and given the nature of the fandoms I write for, I personally strive for authenticity over true accuracy.

#sierra replies #anonymous #writing tips #also just practice practice practice #the more you write the better you'll feel #and like for me i absolutely stink at writing anything post Edwardian era

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motto-chanto-itte · 4 months

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i spent the whole of the late afternoon and evening today cleaning my room and im so tired but it was so worth it, it's the most organised it's ever been and i even made a lil shelf in the cupboard (that i didn't even have to organise) dedicated to my animanga and genshin merch 👍

now i have a conducive environment to study in from tomorrow onward! yay! i should be revising stuff from last year right now but i'm feeling lazy ngl. merely stepping into a new time frame that we created (talking about 2024) isn't able to get rid of all my flaws :( either way this is the last time i'll be able to rest before witnessing the Horrors of all my new subjects and teachers and classmates tomorrow (we didn't have any lessons today) so i'm going to take this opportunity to not do math thank you very much

i also started writing in a diary/journal again, i found one of my old ones from when i was 12 while cleaning my room and i used to write every detail of my life down to the dialogues, and honestly it was pretty fun to read lol. hopefully i can devote myself to filling up at least a page every day (and hopefully i have enough time to everyday with how busy my schedule potentially will get)

#willow works on herself #not sure why im subjecting you guys to this but hopefully i will have more of these in the future #and that i do continue to work on myself

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pikapeppa · 1 year

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This ended up being longer than I intended but I'm going to send the whole thing anyway

I have spent the past 3 days reading "Becoming Whole" because I found the post where you put an excerpt of the prologue and was like, "ah, hell yeah, this is the kind of fic I love." And now I'm on chapter 26 and absolutely loving it, but what I am enjoying the most is how good your characterizations are of all the characters. The interactions between characters are SO GOOD and the dialogue all flows so well and I am enamored with the little GAIA gang conversations. Also I love how you write the action scenes, the domestic scenes, the questing, and the sexy stuff all at the same high caliber. Also, I legit cried when Aloy was doing Kotallo's hair by the waterfall and realized the depth of her relationship with Rost, I was WEEPING and it was THREE IN THE MORNING. It was SO tender and emotional and sweet and such a lovely contrast to the previous scene (which was then contrasted again with the following scene 😉), and it was also such a nice injection of character development for Aloy, which we all love and crave constantly.

Like, you are writing things about Aloy in this fic that I debated at length with my college roommate back when the game came out (we are also both fix writers) because we wanted Aloy to be able to work through her trauma and everything that happened to her and yet couldn't in the Zero Dawn narrative. And here you are, making her work through them and giving her so much support from both the other characters and from the narrative itself, morphing the original game storyline and details into something so rich and full. Its everything I could ever want in a fic AND THEN MORE, and i am having such a good time reading it and I NEVER return to fics, but I am genuinely going to re-read "Becoming Whole" when I have finished this first read.

Everything about this fic is so good and I especially love the art and screenshots you include with your chapters. Thank you for writing everything you have written. Literally thank you for being a writer and deciding to write fanfiction. Your writing is so good

OKAYOKAY BEFORE I REPLY: I can't ignore the fact that this is the first BEAUTIFUL installment of a magnificent two-part ask:

Me after part 1:

Me after part 2:

OKAY BUT FORREAL let's see if I can reply now in a semi-cohesive way via point form!! 😂

I'M SO THRILLED that you're enjoying the characterizations!! One of my biggest goals in writing fanfic is for the characters to feel true to their canon characterizations, so I am genuinely so thrilled that you feel this way and that you're enjoying all the interactions among the GAIA Gang!

omfg Aloy getting to process her trauma and everything she has seen/heard/gone through: PLEASE 😭❤🙏 I think every Horizon fan I've spoken to has said that they deeply want to see her get that space and time to process and grow in a safe and supportive environment, and I just want to give that to her 😭❤ I'm writing the GEMINI chapter now and it's about to go to angst-town about THAT whole can of worms, so I can only hope that I continue to do our babygirl justice in dealing with all of That™ 😭

I'm so thrilled you're enjoying the art and photomode shots!! I actually ADORE photomode and I have a lot of unused shots stored up on my PS5 and computer that I've been too busy/lazy to share, so I will try and add more when appropriate to the upcoming chapters! And there is a beautiful piece of art coming up that I can't wait to share ❤

And then you sent Ask #2 AND I JUST ABOUT LOST IT. YOU WENT FERAL😂😂😂 But honestly, all the things you mentioned? Fashav's journal, the GAIA and Lis conversation, the Shrek song, the PINING from afar over your new love?? All things that make me weepy to so HEY WE CAN CRY TOGETHER IN HELL

Honestly though, THANK YOU for sending these asks. Thank you for the care and thoughtfulness you put into them -- it means the world to me, TRULY. I am so thrilled that you are enjoying the fic this much and I hope you'll continue to enjoy it as you read on!!

For anyone who is curious as to what we are going on about: Becoming Whole is here on AO3! Aloy x Kotallo, almost 600k words, rated E for smut!

-- love from your friendly neighbourhood Pika! xoxo

#kotallo #aloy x kotallo #aloy/kotallo #kotaloy #hfw #horizon forbidden west #kotallo x aloy #kotallo/aloy #fanfic writer's life #pikapeppa writes #THANK YOU SO SO MUCH

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canmom · 1 year

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a journal type post

i visited some of my grandparents today. I'll give their names, Jenny and Rick, since i doubt that's enough to be PII and it's hard to talk otherwise.

i haven't been able to see them in a long time, thanks to the pandemic. Rick is... likely pretty close to dying, and Jenny is also definitely struggling at this point.

of my four grandads (lots of divorcing and remarrying on both sides of the family) Rick was always the one that i had the hardest time with. he would be brusque and overbearing at the best of times, and cross lines at the worst, and the older i got i felt like he really stifled my granny, in their very traditional middle class marriage. but he's mellowed out a lot (both of them have really), and i found it much easier to spend time with him today, despite a ton of other stuff weighing on me.

we got to talking about books. it's funny, this is something I've never thought to connect with him on, even though he evidently reads a lot. he was very happy to tell me about his favourite authors, in a way that was so sweet and like. i honestly quickly lost a lot of that resentment i had felt towards him in the past. so i went home with my arms full of RF Delderfield and Barbara Erskine, and this prompted my granny to add on her favourites by Katherine Lynn Davis.

they're all historical novels of one sort or another, a long way outside my usual zone of literature. Delderfield writes about long duration social history revolving around the British people going through social change, his central character usually a young man returning from a war. at my age, my grandad had just left the RAF - i don't believe he fought in WWII, it might have been the period when National Service (conscription by another name...) was still in effect after the war and the UK geared itself up for the Cold War, but he stayed in for twelve years, apparently not enough to get a pension, leaving due to some kind of complications around a divorce that I didn't quite follow. he became a salesman - selling cardboard boxes I think? there's a lot I'm vague on. anyway, he's very fond of Delderfield, and it has something to do with Delderfield's prose, the particular feeling of Englishness it gives, but also the historical details - one of Delderfield's series charts the rise of motor transport in the UK, which I won't lie, I'm easily enough of a nerd to be curious about.

Erskine's books seem to follow a different template. just going by the blurbs, the general structure seems to be that a young woman in modern England is haunted by a connection to another woman a thousand years in the past, suffering under court politics or the witch trials or similar. so again, the theme of the past bearing on the present. Davis, i only have a couple of books so can't generalise, but this one's about three women from different parts of the world (Scotland, China and India) drawn together for a lot of high drama in the 1800s. the sequel seems to be about their descendants. it could be really cool or it could be awkwardly racist or it could be awkwardly racist but still interesting as an artefact of a time (...the late 80s), who knows. and this is all just... cursory examination of the blurbs.

all of these books are full-on doorstoppers. they're also... completely unknown to me, which is probably an indictment of how narrowly i tend to stick to my genre. not that there's a moral obligation to read widely, but it's good to be aware at least. anyway...

I kind of wear on my sleeve that my feelings about "Englishness" and "Britishness", the egregore, the entity that lays claim to me, are very negative. today I also watched an episode of the new BBC show about the founding of the SAS, with snappy action movie dialogue and expensive CGI and a pointedly anachronistic classic rock soundtrack, with the depressing feeling you get when you watch well executed propaganda. hard not to think about the release of this piece about the sacrifices of a roguish, brave, witty SAS coinciding with an ailing farce of a Conservative government and the death of the one (inexplicably) well-loved symbol of the British state, all that jazz. (coincidences - this had to have been in the works for some time - but still).

anyway. so... the idea of the spirit of the British people is liable to make me break out in a rash. don't tell me about that, tell me about the idea of "britishness" being replicated forcefully through history, imposed on successive generations, an eternal reproductive futurism motivating all manner of atrocity. so i feel like... if what people say about Delderfield is true, I might find it... challenging.

i am nevertheless curious about all three of these authors! not just a way to connect with my grandad in what could easily be his last year on this planet, though there... there is that. but also that social history angle... for all my bluster about how much I dislike this country, it's more that I dislike the idea of countries altogether, and having to belong to one. and on some level, a severe case of don't-lump-me-in-with-them-ism. knee-jerk anti-patriotism.

but reflexive loathing is no more revealing than comforting fantasies of national character. both of them assume a 'thing' into existence. finding loopholes to be like... well i like such and such British author but I have a defence of how they're acceptably critical of the country so it's ok, that's cheap.

what I do like is having at least some idea of how things got to be the way they are. I can't help being from here, so I could at least stand to understand 'here' a little better. around a decade ago, I walked back from Exeter's gender identity clinic with an older trans woman who could tell me when a bridge was made by looking at its materials. that's so neat that I still remember it! in the garden of the shared house in London where I rent a room was a stone disc with icons of the USSR on it. why was that there? the weight of the machine of history is overwhelming, Marx was right to call it a nightmare, but it is interesting. you can't just stop at 'this sucks'.

so if the ways of thinking that prevailed in the past were very different, they certainly aren't unrecognisable; it does no good to try to set myself above them and imagine I'm more enlightened. and like, that's just all my baggage anyway. i don't want to be unfair to any of these authors, and miss what my grandparents valued in them. (I'm too tired to look up Engels but I recall he had something interesting to say about a well written bourgeois novel.)

anyway, like i said, they're doorstoppers, and i still have like a third of Worth the Candle to read, so don't expect detailed comments for a little while. but it was eye opening in a way, it's too easy to remain blinkered in your little corner and box off the rest as something you'd have no interest in. i know where I'm at with sff and comics, but on some level i find the 'general fiction' shelves intimidating, with no idea where to start or the codes being deployed, and that's limiting. anyway I'll let you know what i think. eventually.

#books #introspective nightposting #novels

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sirnavergi · 5 months

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Just discovered your blog and

First of, WOW YOUR ART STYLE IS SO COOL. I ESPECIALLY LOVE THE VIBRANT COLORS YOU CHOOSE. ABSOLUTELY STUNNING

Second of, if it isn't a bother would you mind telling me more about your pjsk OCs? Cuz they look so cool and I love their group energy on the group drawing. I wanna know more about them

OH MY GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! OFC!!!!

I actually have 2 groups!!! One of them is called SILamENT_ and the other is called ChromaChronicles

ChromaChronicles is a group I share with my friend @starbiistruck on instagram!!! :3 The redhead Ryoichi Yoshino and Mion Nakabayashi are from this group! They’re fairly new characters and we haven’t gotten the chance to work on them much yet, but the idea is that they play shows with stories behind them, kind of like musicals but instead of it being like one story per show, ALL their shows and music are connected to some story? With characters and stuff. 2 of them sing as narrators while the other 2 sing as characters.

Their sekai is like an 80s mall,,, and the genre of music they focus is synthpop/new wave!!

SILamENT_ is a bit more developed as I’ve had them for longer! The group consists of Eihi Mizano (red-black hair), Machi Mizano (light grey-red/grey streaks), Michika Neji (Blue), and the unit leader, Yuika Fujita!!(purple)

Eihi and Machi are twin siblings and go to Miyamasuzaka as second years! The other two go to Kamiyama. Yuika is a first year while Michika is a second year!

Eihi, Machi and Michika knew each other as kids, because they all used to attend ballet classes together! Unfortunately after a while, Michika decides that she no longer has fun doing ballet and it’s becoming too stressful for her, and stops coming.

While this is happening, Eihi gets scouted to be a model, and after a while she finds it hard to attend to everything and also drops the lesson.

Machi attends by herself for a while before also dropping it as she’s left all by herself now.

I think they keep in touch,, but they’re definitely more distant after they stop seeing each other frequently.

Yuika transfers to Kamiyama a little late than the beginning of the school year!

Yuika composes music and also wants to make short films !

She has a run in with Michika, they end up talking about their interests n stuff and Michika offers to help Yuika make a movie!!

Michika now makes,, scrapbooks and cool journals to set the vibes for their movies I think.. But yeah, she mostly wants to help with the direction but not act herself at this point. So they’re kind of stuck with no actors.

A lot of details r actually rlly fuzzy bc I barely work on these guys n im actually making up some stuff as I go… Michika sees SOMETHING with Eihi on it, as she’s still working as a model right now. And is like, hey. We used to be friends (we still are?? Kind of. I think) I’ll call her (Machi too) up n see what she thinks about helping with the movie.

Turns out, Eihi doesn’t really want to do modeling all that much from the beginning. But got pressured too much from people all around her who were “worried about her future” and decided to stick with it because she understood that sometimes in these industries you had to take the option that works, even if its not what you want truly.

Anyways, these all meet up n they discuss how the movie will be. Yuika actually doesn’t want to make movies with dialogue! Just movement and music. (So I don’t think they actually sing too much in in-universe content they produce, but I do still have voice hcs for them all obv.)

Anyways machi also,, I think she’s kind of shut in now bc she feels betrayed by her sister? They grew up doing everything together and one day she just starts doing her own thing n now they barely see each other or do anything together. N she resorts to some kinda I dont need you anyway🙄🙄 mentality to get over it but she is kind of sad about it inside😞

So the whole making movies together yippee thing gets her an opportunity to do something with her sister again like in the good old days so shes . happy (tho she tries to hide it)

yuikas just happy she found people who are willing to help make her passions reality!

and michika is happy her friends r reconnected after a few years of very awkward,, are we still friends or was it just a casual-we only spoke bc we existed at the same place at the same time and now that we dont we aren’t friends anymore- kind of thing.

Their sekai is a kind of minimalist modern art museum !!! And the main genre of music they make is,,, idk what to call it tbh? It’s atmospheric.. but its also inspired by those beep bops that u get from hooking plants to those machines that convert the waves into sounds ???? this is definitely not the right terminology for it but my main interest is maths n physics idk this stuff much

i have a very makeshift not SUPER accurate but accurate enough spotify playlist for them..

i havent designed any virtual singers yet…

other small things i can add are,,,

yuika is casual with Michika but speaks more formally with the twins in the beginning (which gets confusing sometimes bc they have the same surname obviously) after a while she does start using their names to save everyone the confusion.

yuika also looks up to the twins ! But is a bit more intimidated by Machi at first, but they end up becoming close friends!!

Machi skates! Skateboard and rollerskates i think! After yuika and her become closer, yuika helps her record cool videos of herself doing tricks LMAOO

Machi hangs out in vivid street a lot also! Because Yuika moved from outside the city, it’s likely Machi introduces Yuika to vivid street.

AHHH i cant think of anything else right now thank u so much for the kind words n reading :33

#project sekai oc

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yallemagne · 1 year

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The people few loud ppl calling you a "victim blamer" for writing a character as the zealot that he was (and god forbid characters make mistakes they then learn from!) are weird af. As a Renflied stannie who likes him as he is for both relatability and writing reasons I don't wanna associate w/ them. He's an ol' gay obsessive but sympathetic and heroic man who sometimes did fucked up things and not a 100% hapless victim. And if they disagree fine but they're being so damn weird about it, like I love Seward and Van Helsing and you've depicted them say/do unpleasant things that weren't shown in the journals -but still are in character- and I strongly prefer Mina getting the blood ceremony, but I don't go around shittalking you wtf. Sorry you have to deal with that.

I think there are just some people who are very insecure to the point that if a character they identify with has flaws they perceive it as a personal attack against themselves. I hope they get better.

The only way to make Renfield a 100% hapless victim is if you went with the adaptations where he replaces Jonathan as Dracula's solicitor or was a previous solicitor for Dracula... But that interpretation doesn't gel very well with the fact that Renfield was friends with Lord Godalming. And if a previous solicitor came back from Dracula's place completely insane, I don't think they'd send another, younger, more malleable solicitor in his place.

This was a rich man who, because of some catalyst in his life, decided he wanted to try for eternal life. He sees a man who can grant that to him and decides to serve him. At first, he doesn't care who has to suffer/die for him to get what he wants, but when he speaks to Mina and realizes that not only is Dracula feeding on her, but he also doesn't intend on giving Renfield what he promised, he fights him.

I think the people obsessed with Renfield are also the ones who despise Seward (and probably to a lesser extent VH), so either it just doesn't connect in their minds that other characters are also depicted with negative traits (so I'm not solely attacking their man), or they're just deliberately ignoring vital details. And of course, I depict them saying and doing stuff that is not in the book. Am I supposed to copy-paste the entire novel into a word doc? It's fanfiction. If someone wants to read original book dialogue and book events, they can read the book over and over again like I've been having to do.

#update #people ask me things

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princess-stabbity · 1 year

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the main reason i haven't been posting much lately is i got pathfinder: wrath of the righteous for my birthday and it's eaten my brain. i suggested amy play it, and offered to compile a mini guide, based on the immense amount of walkthrough reading and trial-and-error i have endured to get the most out of this clunky but enjoyable game. this is that guide. feel free to read or reply with your own tips, tho technically i'm just posting this here so it won't get lost in our messages.

in order (so you can know where to skip to) we have

general tips

mods

combat tips

crusade tips

general build tips

party build tips

chapter 1 tips

chapter 2 tips

chapter 3 tips

chapter 4 tips

general story tips

the secret ending

general tips

if you want a more detailed and spoilery guide, check out neoseeker or search the pathfinder_kingmaker subreddit (which is the main source for neoseeker's guides). the wiki kinda sucks.

the toybox mod is highly, highly useful. it's basically a dozen mods in one: it lets you get achievements with mods enabled, changes the dumb alignment system, allows polyamory, lets you cheat stuff into your inventory, respec characters on the fly, hear dialogue interjections from absent party members, etc. i strongly recommend it.

save like crazy. good god, the backtracking i have done.

owlcat's sense of pacing is real weird. like apparently in kingmaker they completely reverse the usual rpg logic and you need to do main quests before you can kick it with side quests (...usually). wrath of the righteous is a little better, but still kind of weird and uneven. i'll try to give headsups in the story tips section, but if in doubt, check if there's a lil red hourglass symbol in the journal. that means you need to do that before the main questline is done. they also usually warn you if a main quest is a point-of-no-return for the chapter.

the alignment system is...pretty dumb, imo. as i understand it, "good" and "evil" choices actually pull you towards neutral good and neutral evil, so you can end up like a guy i saw on the subreddit recently, who ended up losing his paladin powers while being explicitly praised by an angel for "pleasing heaven." bc it knocked him into neutral good. anyway, this is why i strongly recommed turning on toybox's "fix alignment system" setting, which should make it work the way you'd expect it to.

have at least one companion with high perception (pets are great for this, and every character rolls independently so more is better) and keep your finger on that tab key, brother. there are hidden shinies every goddamn where.

the puzzles are plentiful and most of them are very bad and annoying. i don't recommend bothering trying to figure them out yourself, just look up a solution. i say this as somebody who usually rawdogs bioware's tower of hanoi obsession.

while resting in the field, there are roles that call for one character to have high lore (religion), one to have high stealth, one to have high knowledge (world), one to have high knowledge (arcana) OR (iirc) lore (religion), and two to have high perception. one character can't fill multiple roles at once. that said, the knowledge rolls are optional (crafting/buffs), and the perception roles won't be needed if stealth does well enough. main takeaway being: try to keep at least one character with you that has a high religion score, and one that has a high stealth score, so you can rest peacefully.

if you see a nice item in the shop, it will probably be available in later acts. i busted my ass trying to buy shit early, in case i lost access to the vendors who sold it, but i've found most things are available again later from a different vendor. there are exceptions, but like. don't worry too much. the main upside of buying stuff early is that in some cases, it allows you to get two. main ones to look out for, off the top of my head, are the icy protector and red salamander rings. you can get two of those. broadly i'll say that, if you're debating what to buy in chapter 1, start with hawke and joran's stock.

when you leave an area, a prompt comes up that allows you to snag all the loose gear left on the map. you can sometimes use this to get around weight limits by dropping stuff and picking it back up via this menu, right before you leave. that said, buy bags of holding as soon as you find them.

"bulk selling" allows you to gather all the vendor trash in one go, which saves a lot of time and helps show what is, in fact, vendor trash. which is smth i struggled with a lot, early on. sell those giant spider legs, they ain't used for shit in this game.

in general, if it ain't unique and you're not using it, sell it. i've even sold some uniques i know i'll never use, like that diadem only usable by kineticists.

mods

unity mod manager

toybox. strongly recommend turning on "fix alignment," "allow achievements," and "no jealousy"

modfinder. a tool that lets you browse, search, (un)install, and update mods from both the nexus and github quickly and easily.

won't bother linking them all (should be able to find them in modfinder if you're interested) but for extra subclasses, feats, etc, i use tabletop tweaks, expanded content, and tome of the firebird. i find it kind of tricky and glitchy, but visual adjustment 2 allows changing portraits and character models. respecmod allows you to fully respec characters, rather than being restricted to respeccing them from the level you recruited them at (e.g., you could make seelah not a paladin, or choose new hexes and spells for ember's first 3 or 4 levels).

note that when updates hit, your mods may need to be updated, and since they get baked into your save, you can be SOL if a mod you're using is broken by an update and been abandoned by the author. so maybe don't be like me and download like 4 different class content mods. (that said, in my experience so far, mod authors have been very fast at updating for patches. the toybox dev in particular is quick as hell, thank christ.)

combat tips

the difference between life and death in this game is buffing. try to get a grip on what buffs do or do not stack, and which ones can be cast in advance so you don't have to spend a turn on it. some good ones in my experience: mage armor, protection from alignment, resist/protection from elements, all the stat buffs (e.g. cat's grace), magical vestment, barkskin, haste.

pets are god. dogs, wolves, and velociraptors are especially great, because they can trip enemies (w/o needing to select the "trip" feat), which makes the enemy lose a turn (they have to spend it getting up) and opens them up to bonus attacks from all party members in melee range (attack of opportunity). mounts (esp horses) also rock because their AC and health essentially act as a barrier, so make 'em as chunky as possible. investing in better stats (via the boon companion and/or mythical beast feats) is recommended, esp if you're multiclassing.

don't forget to buff pets! i give them all mage armor and magical vestment, just as a baseline, and if a tough battle is coming i also use bull's strength/cat's grace and uh. animal embiggerer. whatever the name is, i forgot and don't feel like looking it up. both camellia and nenio should be able to get it. oh, barkskin is good, too, i have lann cast his on his pet, since he's rarely on the frontlines and has great AC. magic fang, esp the improved version that lasts for hours, is great.

scrolls are fun and easy to use. they can fail if your character doesn't have a high enough "use magic" skill, but there's no skill check if it's a class spell (i.e., one their class can learn, not necessarily one they already know). this basically means you get a free casting of that spell, no spell slot required. arcane int-based casters can also learn spells from scrolls (tho you lose those extra spells if you respec and will have to learn them again).

scrolls are also good for having access to cures for some of the nastier debuffs, especially in chapter 1, where you don't have access to a cleric unless you rolled one yourself or specced lann into it. buying some emergency remove blindness and restoration scrolls are recommended.

potions can basically act as a free spell, just like scrolls, but with the added bonus of not requiring any "use magic" skill. so have your fighters and rogues etc glug away

crusade tips

the key is to recruit either chief ageboya or setsuna shy as your general (and, if you create a second force, recruit whichever of the two you didn't pick first). place melee units to stand guard in front of archers, and use the archers + your general's scorching ray/fireball to wreck the shit out of enemy units before they can even reach your melee lines. once they get healing spells and some ranks in master of maneuver (+1 unit per army) shit really pops off.

don't accept heavy losses. reload.

never feel like you have to fight an enemy army that isn't marked green. just wait.

bite the bullet and give irabeth that 7k for extra soldiers, it's worth it.

my fav units so far are hellknights, clerics, shieldbearers, and any kind of archer but especially marksmen and mongrel archers. pick up more of these units often.

army get strong from more guys + the general leveling up

it can be difficult to figure out a good rhythm for moving your party vs moving your armies, but you pick it up after awhile. basically, have your army move until they run out of points, then send your party wherever they need to go. once the clock at the top of the page hits midnight, take control of your armies again to hit "continue" so they continue moving. switch as often as necessary to get everybody where they need to be.

when building outposts, start with the engineering workshop (lowers costs for all subsequent buildings), then start placing a supply cart in basically every outpost you've captured. inns can generate income, but only if you place them before/instead of garrison buildings.

i would also recommend saving the left block of space in drezen for the 4-square buildings, and building stuff like hospitals and apothecaries in the lower block of space, leaving the main block for military units and buff buildings. but that's just me.

don't feel like you have to wipe every enemy off the map. due to the way morale mechanics work, it's good to spread battles out a bit.

in chapter 3, it's better to spend funds on buildings and mercs than trainable troops (e.g. footmen, archers, light scouts). try to have a decent number of forts built up by the end of the act.

save a few decrees that boost morale for a rainy day. just in case.

there's a limit to how many forts and bastions you can have, so think strategically about which ones you want to upgrade. having the ability to teleport to different parts of the map can really help cut down on travel time (assuming you want to).

you can save while on the world map (tho only one save per in-game calendar day for some reason), and it's a good idea to save before entering drezen, because often scenes in the citadel will trigger automatically when you load in.

general build tips

i recommend tabletop tweaks and respecmod. the former adds some good content from tabletop (the pet feats in particular are great), and respecmod allows you to fully respec your companions (goodbye, subpar class choice and un-respeccable character levels!) or respec your main character without having to fully remake them from scratch and lose their 'biography' section. i can grab the relevant settings for you if need be (took a lot of trial and error to get a handle on that).

dexterity is king. high dex builds are generally much sturdier than armor-based ones. part of why cat's grace is arguably the best of the stat buff spells.

point-blank + precise shot are basically necessary for everyone except strict melee characters. even spellcasters have to take these as soon as possible, because many spells count as ranged attacks and frankly you don't have enough slots early on not to use a crossbow anyway.

due to an exploit, lots of people take the crane style feats to buff AC. it goes dodge -> improved unarmed strike -> crane wing/riposte/etc. i don't really think they're necessary on normal difficulty (and tabletop tweaks might remove the exploit by default? haven't checked) but it's good to know.

another very good feat chain is weapon focus -> dazzling display -> shatter defenses, especially if you decide to go with the trickster mythic like i did and get the persuasion 1 trick, or have a skald or dirge bard in your party.

the outflank teamwork feat is also fantastic. mostly for melee fighters, but if you have a feat to spare on a ranged fighter, you may as well (iirc they can proc but not benefit directly from it). make sure to get it on pets, too, including mounts (they count as being in range with their rider at all times!). pets need 3 int to choose teamwork feats, so either give them all a boost to intelligence, or wait until you have a +2 int tiara and keep it in the inventory to put on them for levelups (as i do).

archmage armor and abundant spellcasting are very good mythic abilities for spell casters. you probably want to prioritize them. note that archmage armor only works if YOU cast mage armor on yourself (e.g., don't have a party member do it for you), but the bonus still applies if it's via potion or scroll.

cleaving shot is a great mythic ability for ranged characters. it's free AOE.

if you get tabletop tweaks, there's a short feat chain that's smth like nature spirit -> animal companion, which is a pretty low-cost way to get an animal companion without multiclassing. go wild. who needs to fit thru doorways.

combat reflexes and ever ready mythic ability are excellent choices for melee units, especially with trip and outflank. extra attacks of opportunity basically let your melee units say "oh no you don't" when enemies try to run past them to hit your ranged characters.

if you want to plan future builds, you can always save, then use toybox to grant yourself full levels to plot out the possibilities. i did that a lot.

party builds

seelah: a lot of people say seelah is a mediocre tank, but there's actually a pretty easy way to fix that: a tiny dip in oracle. i leveled her up as a paladin until 5, when she gets her horse, then took a level of oracle and chose nature mystery, which gives her access to an ability called "nature's whispers," which lets her use charisma rather than dex for AC. ta da! as a bonus, there's an "extra revelation" mythic feat option, so i also grabbed her the one that gives boosts to nearby animals. now she's one of the strongest members of my party. for the oracle curse, most people would rec wolf-scarred face, but i don't like that for story reasons, so i chose the one that affects her movement speed, because she's on her horse 24/7 anyway. "pranked" is also ok. if you don't use tabletop tweaks (or turn the fix off in settings) you can also take a dip in scaled fist monk, to stack the charisma AC bonus (i didn't).

camellia: pretty solid all-rounder, generally best as off-tank and skill monkey. i recently respecced her original subclass from spirit hunter to shadow shaman because i think it makes more sense, and paired with a two level dip into alchemist vivisectionist, i think i've finally got her in a good place after trying out a pretty subpar build. that said, straight shaman is not bad for her; general strategy is to give her iceplant hex and the icy protector ring to boost her armor early on, then have her slap on some buffs and go melee with her rapier.

lann: i recommend either giving him only one level of his default class, or, perhaps better yet, fully respeccing him into crusader cleric and/or demonslayer ranger and/or wandering marksman hunter. it makes more sense in-universe imo, and it's more useful (zen archer monk has some abilities that are kind of neat, but by endgame they have accuracy issues that weigh them down). i went ranger and it's been pretty swell, but i think next time i'll make him a cleric and give him "impossible domain: animal" ASAP so he can get back the sweet, sweet velociraptor buddy i gave him (true MVP of the party).

wenduag: sadly can't give too much advice here, but i've heard that mutation warrior + throwing axes turns her into an absolute beast. (note, however, that it takes a stupidly long time to get good throwing axes 💀 baby need CARNAGE)

woljif: haha sneak attack go brrrr. generally focus on self buffs (e.g., mirror image) and stuff like grease and haste and he'll do just fine. as long as another character is flanking the same enemy, or he's behind his target, he can dish out good damage, and sense vitals can fill the gaps in-between. that said, despite the name, i don't rec having him go arcane trickster, they're more of a blaster class. "slippery mind" rogue ability is a good idea, along with sneak attack debuffs.

ember: my baby. my joy. light of my life. against murder but very good at it! i personally leveled her as a mystic theurge (YOU get to be an oracle! YOU get to be an oracle! everybody gets a dip in ORACLE!!!), but that has devolved into a very delicate balancing act of spell selection, so you'll probably just want to level her as a pure witch, or witch with a minor dip in loremaster (so she can get, say, greater command, a spell available to oracles and clerics). pop that ring of the red salamander on her, give her weapon focus: rays and a few fire-based feats, maybe some enchantment ones to give her some very in-character non-violent CC options, and she's good as gold. pay attention to the description of hexes. some of them, like evil eye, are reduced to a single round if the enemy saves...which means, if you follow it up with a cackle each round, you can keep them debuffed forever, save or no save. protective luck and fortune are also great if you use toybox and toggle the option to have cackle extend for 10min out of combat. you can have ember buff-cackle-buff-cackle each party member to get universal advantage for hours.

nenio: ok look. scroll savant is not a bad subclass, i am told. but i highly recommend instead fully respeccing her as an arcanist brownfur transmuter. it makes just as much sense for her as a character, and they truly are the best buffers in the game. i am terrified to go anywhere without her now. she can juice all the stat boost spells, AND she can share "range: personal" buffs like shield or hurricane bow (tho i've recently learned seamantle doesn't work, i assume as an oversight 😑). she's effectively a spontaneous caster but can also learn spells from scrolls. as with vanilla nenio, all her lore and knowledge scores are crazy high, she can use basically any magical device (hello, spare wands!), and can take feats/gear to boost her illusion caster level to "fuck you, die." i'm telling you, brownfur transmuter nenio is the blueprint.

daeran: the king of healing. also an extremely solid buffer. honestly just go full oracle, maybe give him a second mystery. i went "bones" because, as a dhampir, i need the mcfucking help. it turns out animate dead is great for throwing meat(less)shields to buy time and protect squishy caster types. truly the backbone of the party.

sosiel: i used "impossible domain: animal" to give him a nice horsey, to keep him safe, since he is basically a dex-free tin can. "community" is also a very popular additional domain choice for him, since "guarded hearth" is apparently a good buff (can't say, have only remembered to use it once). keep him with glaives, there are a lot of good ones and the specialization is free, so...

regill: this little man slays. that said, you're way better off leveling him some more as an armiger, or dipping into cavalier, than giving him more levels in hellknight. i gave mine beastrider so i could put him on a smilodon, purely because that's fucking metal, and he rages around murdering shit. generally you'll want to give him two-handed weapon feats (to continue specializing in his weird hammer thing) and finesse stuff, tho you can compensate for his low strength pretty easily with the "enlarge person" spell, if you want to skip weapon finesse.

arue: honestly op. unless you really wanna try respeccing her from start as a bard or smth, just let her do her thing. "instant enemy" and "ranger's bond" or w/e it's called let her give good damage buffs to the whole party. ranged dps queen.

greybor: personally, i lightly respecced him to use throwing axes, but if you want to go vanilla, crpgguy on youtube has a solid build to check out. if you want to go with my build, keep him a slayer but choose ranged perks (except manyshot), two-weapon fighting, and weapon focus/specialization throwing axes. oh, and same recs as woljif for rogue abilities. i recently got him the ability to damage constitution with his sneak attacks and it's glorious.

chapter 1 tips

when you get to kenabres, an invisible timer starts counting down to a big, tough battle. you'll want to a) put it off as long as possible, and b) prep for it. online sources and my own experience leave the exact mechanics of the countdown kind of a mystery. best guess is that it relies on number of rests, so try to go as long as you can without them. some quests fail or change if you don't do them first, so try to do the following before the battle procs:

recruit woljif in the basement.

recruit ember in the market square.

scout the tower of estrod and kill the enemies there, if you can. this may or may not buy you time, i'm not sure.

meet prelate hulrun and settle the issue between him and ramien (i suggest showing hulrun the sword, and strongly suggest bringing ember).

go to the burning library (there's checks here for perception, lore (religion), and persuasion (diplomacy) you'll probably want to pass.)

as for prep: generally gain as much experience as you can so you'll be as strong as possible before it procs. grease and to a lesser extent create pit are useful for choke points and are available to both woljif and nenio, and can be bought or crafted into scrolls beforehand if need be. just remember you have no access to selective metamagic yet, so try to keep your own guys from slipping around all silly by either having them attack from range behind the trap, or stand in front of it (i went ranged, even for seelah). besides the very obvious chokepoints the game makes you aware of, you can also lay these down at the enemy spawnpoints by the ladders (though you will affect the allied soldiers, too, so keep that in mind). focus on the alchemists; every other enemy is secondary. kill or disable them as quickly as possible.

chapter 2 tips

if you saved the disciples of desna in kenabres and sang along with them in act 1, then solve the (pretty easy) puzzle at the altar of desna at the base of the lost chapel, you can recruit a very useful companion early. look for them in the drezen prison.

chapter 2 is less time-sensitive than chapter 1, but you get a lil reward if you finish it within 2 months. not too hard, imo

try to put off moving the camp to just south of drezen, because a whole bunch of shit kinda pops off at once.

pay attention to nurah. pop into her tent a few times. a high perception skill will get you far.

the only things really worth grabbing in leper's smile are the robe of silky veil (you can use savescum with quicksave to look for it without losing time) and the halfling in the crevice.

honestly i recommend cranking down the difficulty for a lot of the lost chapel quest because the game is keeping track of npc casualties and those motherfuckers pop like grapes if you don't nerf the shit outta enemies, even on normal difficulty. one fight in particular i kept having 3-4 out of 5 immediately die in the first round, even when i got a good initiative roll and came out the gate with controlled fireball. very frustrating experience.

to stop the constantly reviving undead in that one cave, you need to grab the interactable object near the center of the area.

chapter 3 tips

at the beginning of chapter 3, immediately head south, towards the chapel, and keep going until you get two not-so-random encounters.

then head towards molten scar (just south of greengates) with seelah to get a time sensitive quest done.

take arue to wintersun. (probably take someone with a good lore (nature) skill, too. and somebody with fire spells. dear god. you will need so much fire.) don't feel like you need to complete the whole map in one go, you WILL have to come back at least once for one of the side quests.

blackwater has a lot of tough combat. prep for electricity damage.

chapter 4 tips

still in it, so my advice at this point is just to start with battlebliss. the story flows more naturally that way, tho they don't tell you that.

you can turn the fleshmarkets into a tarantino movie, but buy the shit you want from the vendors first. or don't, and cheat it into your inventory via toybox. up to you. if you need the funds, returning to the midnight isles dlc can help.

as it turns out, you only get the one chance to free suture, so if you wanna do that, don't be like me and go "oobh i got plany off time"

general story tips

don't be a buzzkill at daeran's party by making him work. try to keep things fun, and tell him you think he can change or that he can trust you. he likes it if you banter playfully with him, and will interject during a lot of quests (i particularly enjoyed his comments in the grey garrison).

lann's mostly straightforward from what i can tell, but you can miss some of his content annoyingly easily. :/ make sure to check in with him every now and then (i feel like his dialogue updates more than any other companion so far, but there's no notification from the game when that happens, so you just have to swing by and talk to him to see). and take him camping with you, if you want to romance him. there's also no indication of this from quest markers or anything, but at one point he'll ask you to meet him back at your home base, but when you arrive, there'll just be a note in his usual spot. look for him by the local tavern. (not sure if this is romance-specific, but just in case)

wenduag has a massive humiliation kink

don't be judgey of greybor, and pay him what he's worth (or more, if you've got the money and are feeling generous, like i was). make sure to have at least 12,500 gold on hand when you go on the hunt with him, or you'll lose the chance to recruit him permanently.

bring your favs to the desolate hovel! the combat isn't hard, and there are some juicy character moments. kicking myself for not bringing ember, because i bet hers is great (thanks to toybox, i did get to enjoy a cute bit of dialogue between her and daeran).

the secret ending

i'm gonna try to lay out the requirements with as few spoilers as possible. if you don't wanna know, just skip this. i may be missing some stuff, or including some stuff that isn't strictly required, but this is my best understanding of it, distilled as much as possible.

note that unlocking the secret ending does not mean you have to actually choose it.

choose the crossbow in the prologue

keeping the purple stone knife is advised but not required

pick up every midnight bolt you see, and only use them against demon lords. (if you don't get a "new" crystal, you wasted the bolt on an invalid target and need to reload.) apparently if you use one on the big bad himself, you need to grab the crystal as quickly as possible or it'll disappear?

finish your mythic questline all the way through. don't choose the "legend" mythic.

help the storyteller collect elven notes

don't reject the idea of learning from demons

do not enable auto-crusade

research the sword of valor (first available in chapter 3), the crystals (first available in chapter 5), areelu's drafts (not sure, probably 5), and the records of pulura's stargazers (maybe as early as 3 for angels, 5 for everybody else) via crusade management

grab the book, accept its power, find a way to put it back together

have high perception, ask areelu about suture (not an option in the first convo with her, i think this is in chapter 4)

tell hep she shouldn't have trusted her dad

in the secret lab (not on the first visit, since they weren't there when i got there), click on the crib, drawings, and textbooks in that order, which will give you gloves. take said gloves.

pour the secret sauce over the summoning circle in the lab. kill the demon outside the summoning circle for convenience's sake

save the library

the ending date is important. enter the final area between 16 and 21 gozran. doesn't matter what year.

don't waste time examining areelu's wards, launch directly into "stop! listen to me!"

#i say 'mini guide' but actually this is very long! don't say i didn't warn you!

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screechthemighty · 1 year

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Okay so because I've seen people talking about these books and it seems like there's an influx of new fans/creators into the fandom...hi, this is just my opinion, but here's whether or not I think you should spend your time/money on certain tie-in works for the Norse cycle. Under a cut due to length, and there may be some stuff I've missed, but here's my assessment of the stuff I have consumed!

God of War: The Official Novelization

Pros: There are some nuggets of new information here, some of which are pretty interesting. Alistair Duncan AKA Mimir narrates the audiobook, which is the sole reason I got the audiobook lmao.

Cons: I'm gonna just say it: it's not a good adaptation. Any new info isn't worth sitting through a story that seems to fundamentally misunderstand the source material. I tagged my liveblog posts for it as "screech listens to god of war" if you want to see all my complaining, but there's something that's just...off about it.

Conclusion: If you can get the audiobook for free and you like listening to Mimir talk, may be worth it. But don't pay money for it.

God of War (comic) and God of War: Fallen God

Pros: Some of the dialogue is funny in an inadvertent way. The first God of War comic is a historical document because it was, up until two months ago, the closest thing we had to seeing what Faye looked like IRL and not as a drawing on a wall. Atreus is in the first one and Fallen God has a Hippo Kaiju. So that's cool.

Cons: The first comic is mid at best and Fallen God actively wasted my time by being the same conflict repeated over three issues with one (1) interesting issue to start. They're also basically the same plot (Kratos doesn't want to be a rage monster but life keeps forcing his hand) and Ragnarok explored that concept way better. For real, Fallen God pissed me off so much I actively re-wrote it (the fic now known as "Firestorm"), so that's the level of spite I'm operating at. The first comic just didn't do anything for me besides baffle me as to why Kratos was written Like That.

Conclusion: Save your money and pray they give us better comics one day.

Lore & Legends:

Pros: Okay this one has two really interesting chapters of Atreus journaling before the game and during Fimbulwinter and I actively enjoy both of them. They expand on his viewpoints, his psychic abilities, his relationship with his parents, etc. so those parts were cool. The art is neat, there's a timeline for the events leading up to the game, and it's a good reference material overall.

Cons: The book DOES get repetitive when they start touching on creatures, places, and people from the game. Like it's straight up just lifted game dialogue/codex descriptions. So if you're like me and you've played the game for over 100 hours, then yeah, this part will feel a little superfluous.

Conclusion: Worth buying if you're a hardcore fan and want a solid reference book, but the bad news is I think the physical edition might be out of print. :( There's still ebook copies out there, though!

The Lost Pages of Norse Myth:

Pros: It's a podcast, so it's easily accessible and free. The stories are pretty neat (AND two of them made game-canon status!) and the interviews give you a look at the creative process.

Cons: The interviews make up a majority of the episodes so this is really more for people who are interested in details about the game on its own versus the lore goblins. (Not saying one is more valid than the other, but y'know, keep that in mind going in!)

Conclusion: I mean, it's free, so yeah, worth it.

B is for Boy:

Pros: This is it. This is the best one. It's a better adaptation of the game than the novelization. The art style is cute. Kratos is peak tired pop pops energy. This is still my favorite one.

Cons: I'm pretty sure it's out of print, which hurts my heart.

Conclusion: If you can find a copy you should definitely get it, this is my favorite one and I sincerely hope they make another one.

Art Of Books:

Pros: So much gorgeous art and really interesting looks at the game-making process. Not to mention discarded concepts, while not canon, are basically free real estate for fanfic authors looking to spice things up. (I've only just started the Art of Ragnarök but there's some REALLY neat stuff in the Atreus section towards the beginning that I'm sure someone would have a field day with.)

Cons: Art of books are expensive as heck, and again, this is less for the lore goblins than it is the people interested in how the game was made.

Conclusion: Great for hardcore fans if you can afford it (for real why are art of books so expensive. Will this stop me from buying them, never, but ow my wallet).

#god of war #actually if your local library has Hoopla check and see if they've got any God of War content #I know mine does and as I understand it Hoopla content is pretty consistent between libraries #so you might be able to get some of this for free #depending on where you are #also you should support your library in general BUT regardless

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screadingchallenge · 2 years

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Behind the Keyboard: Volume 3

Behind the Keyboard is a series of interviews with different Schitt’s Creek fanfic authors. The series will last as long as there is interest (from authors) and capacity (from me). If you are an author from the Schitt’s Creek fandom who would like to participate, send a DM to this account.

Each author was given ten questions. The first five questions are the same for every author, the last five will vary.

Remember, this year’s Reading Challenge begins July 15, so polish up those MFL lists.

Let’s meet our next author:

Sspaz1000 / @sspaz1000

How many fics have you written?

For Schitt’s Creek only 6, but a few other fandoms have quite a bit more, and a bunch never put onto Ao3 yet (slowly working my stuff over from the days of LJ, lol)

When did you publish your first fic on AO3?

November 12th, 2020

Describe your writing process from “Oh, I have an idea” to pushing publish on AO3

I write notes down, anywhere, and then I probably let it sit for way way too long, and then sometimes I just start writing and see what happens. Hopefully I finish something. Then I freak out for a bit, ask a friend to Beta, and edit and freak out some more. Then post.

Tell me about your most recent fic? What do you love about it? Is there anything you think you could have done better?

Last Schitt’s Creek fic was titled I will help you out, if you let me. Yes a total play on Noah song lyrics. I think I love the title, and I liked that I got into each of their head’s during friends and family episode. What could I have done better? Not use so much dialogue from the show in a short piece? But I kind of had to go along with it. I’m torn on this one.

What advice would you give to someone who’s thinking about publishing their fic for the first time?

Just do it, and don’t give a f*** what people say. Get out of your head and do it. Take Dan’s advice and follow through. Because if you follow through guess what you have a finished product.

What’s one thing that you’d like to say to your favorite Schitt’s Creek character?

David Rose, you are well loved and have a lot of love to give. Let it all out and enjoy your husband.

The beginning, middle or end of a fic. Which do you like the most? Which is the worst?

In writing? I like the beginning, because that’s generally where my ideas are beginnings of somethings. Then actually making the words to fill out the rest of it is tough. And titles making titles is the worst.

Are you interested in writing original fiction?

Yes, you can see on my Ao3 page I’ve posted some old school originals from 2009. I’ve done NaNoWriMo since 2007, only made the 50k words one time in 2012. But I’ve written something every year for it. Most times it’s a combo of fanfic and original. Try to see which idea gives me more motivation or steam. Do I have an outline of a m/m romance story that has been outlined for a decade? Yes. Will I ever start writing it? Someone kick my butt into doing the scary thing.

When did you start writing?

Umm I don’t remember, but I kind of always liked writing, though being told in college I wasn’t good at journalism and stuff took some fun out of it. Fanfic I started writing most likely 2009 with Torchwood fanfic. Though I feel like I wrote stuff for Scrubs (Patrick Drake/Robin Scorpio Drake) on General Hospital before that. (I’m not sure if any of that exists anywhere if I did but definitely they were my first ship)

Schitt’s Creek got me back into writing.

Outlines - yes or no?

As defined by NaNoWriMo, I’m a Plantser. Someone who plans and doesn’t plan at the same time. Like I kind of like having a it starts here, needs to go here, and this is how I want it to end, but I find if I do too much more than that, I get really detailed, and I don’t write anything except detailed outlines of stuff.

#behind the keyboard #meet the authors #sc fic reading challenge #sc reading challenge #sc fanfic #schitt's creek #schitts creek

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walkawaytall · 11 months

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🍉 and 🌈 For the fic writer asks?

🌈is there a fic that you worked *really fucking hard on* that no one would ever know? maybe a scene/theme you struggled with?

People do know because I felt the need to explain the length of time between chapters in my author’s note, but I don’t think they’d know otherwise: Chapter 7 of Collateral took me forever to post for a reason. I had written the two final scenes of it way ahead of time, so I knew the point I wanted to get to and how I wanted to get there, and that I wanted all of it to happen in a Leia POV chapter, but I had a hard time getting it to flow in a way I liked. I rearranged the dialogue in that chapter several times and finally just accepted that it was going to be a good 1K-2K+ words longer than all the others (lol at Past Me who thought people would consider 6500 words just far too long for a chapter). But it got a fairly good response, and includes one of my favorite scenes, so it turned out well.

Also, in general, anything involving an argument that I know won’t be resolved quickly is hard for me to write. I hate conflict and I’m very much a fan of people working together well, so when conflict becomes necessary, I have to take a lot of breaks, especially if I’m going to have someone beloved say or do something that we as the audience know is completely not okay (this happens with Han in chapter 9 of Collateral and, ooooh, it was hard for me to wait to post the final chapter, which explains what the heck he was thinking when he said some of the stuff he did because he sort of sucks in that chapter).

🍉in what ways has writing helped you process trauma and/or navigate through your own life?

Hey, look, this question is about trauma and I’m going to answer it pretty bluntly, but I’m not going into detail or anything. Proceed with appropriate caution, I guess?

Oh dang. Haha…well, in general — and not just including fanfiction, but some of my other writing as well — I’ve been able to write characters who have dealt with similar mental health issues to mine who have worked through their stuff and I think that has been helpful in some ways. My therapist and I have quite literally discussed my first one-shot, Tell Your Sister, because I get, like, disproportionately emotional about a lot of blindly-positive Anakin discourse and it’s definitely not related to projecting personal family baggage on to a dad who has narcissistic tendencies, nope, definitely nothing to see there 😂 (I don’t, like, fault Star Wars for this; these movies are not blueprints for handling interpersonal issues and they generally cover big ideas very broadly and sometimes symbolically on account of being family adventure films and not gritty dramas. But I maintain that Anakin’s last words in their full context are some of the worst things I’ve ever heard that are intended to be accepted as something good and positive). I did have to also explain that pathologizing everything in any of my writing is goofy because generally I write stuff because it’s a good addition to the story not just as an outlet.

And, at the risk of over sharing, I will say that some of the details about blood being cleaned up in Chapter 9 of Collateral is from a personal experience dealing with the aftermath of a traumatic death in my family — an experience I had a really hard time talking or thinking about for quite awhile after it happened, so being able to write about some of it in a way that was more empowering than horrifying was helpful, I think? It at least indicated to me that some healing on my end had taken place because I previously had a difficult time even journaling about it.

Thank you for the questions!

Let’s Get ((REAL)) fic writer asks

#let’s get real #fanfic writer asks #writer asks #diplomaticprincess

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