gurlgallade

[gurlgallade]

"As we read a story (let's imagine) we're dragging along a cart labeled 'Things I Couldn't Help Noticing' (TICHN). As we read, we're noticing--surface-level, plot-type things ('Romeo really seems to like Juliet'), but quieter things too: aspects of the language, say ('Tons of alliteration in the first three pages'), structural features ('It's being told in reverse chronological order!'), patterns of color, flashbacks or flash-forwards, changes in point of view. I'm not saying that we're consciously noticing. Often, we're not. We're 'noticing' with our bodies and our quality of attention and may overtly 'notice' only afterward, as we analyze the story.

What we're adding to our TICHN cart are, let's say, 'non-normative' aspects of the story--aspects that seem to be calling attention to themselves through some sort of presentational excess.

If you closely observe your reading mind, you'll find that as you encounter an excess in a story (some non-normative aspect), you enter into a transactional relationship with the writer. When Kafka writes, 'Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams…changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin,' you don't say, 'No, he didn't, Franz,' and throw the book across the room. You add 'impossible incident: man just turned into bug' to your TICHN cart, then enter a period of 'waiting to see.' What's Kafka going to do with that? Your reading state has been affected. You are, let's say, 'beginning to resist.' You have 'registered a mild objection.' But we readers will tolerate all kinds of reading states, even negative-seeming ones: periods of boredom, of perplexity, periods during which we are really hating Character X and wondering if the writer knows just how much. What we are saying, essentially, is: 'Well, Franz, that bug thing is excessive but I'm going to allow it. Proceed. What are you going to do with that thing I couldn't help noticing? I hope you're going to make it pay off.'

When a writer subjects us to a non-normative event--a physical implausibility, the use of markedly elevated language (or markedly vernacular language), or a series of lengthy digressions in a Russian pub in which the people keep freezing in midaction for several pages so that each can be described at length, in turn--he pays a price: our reading energy drops. (We get suspicious and resistant.) But if it doesn't drop fatally, and if, later, we see that this was all part of the plan--if what seemed a failure of craft turns out to be integral to the story's meaning (that is, it seems that he 'meant to do that')--then all is forgiven and we might even understand the profitable exploitation of that apparent excess as a form of virtuosity.

The goal is not to keep the TICHN cart empty and thus write a 'perfectly normal' story. A story that approaches its ending with nothing in its TICHN cart is going to have a hard time ending spectacularly. A good story is one that, having created a pattern of excesses, notices those excesses and converts them into virtues."

George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, pp. 84-85

[gurlgallade]

my god she would have to stand on her tip toes to [REDACTED] and she wouldn't even REACH. absolutely no shade to xochiquetzal whatsoever. there may be many fish in the sea but i would also devote myself immediately to this emotionally distant goth salmon with legs for days. and never move on ever

[gurlgallade]

Now that the pilot’s out…

[gurlgallade]

HMMMMM I WONDER WHO ILL PICK?

[gurlgallade]

Smithy has a few things to say about Fierce’s sword

[gurlgallade]

top 10 anime betrayals

[gurlgallade]

[gurlgallade]

think fast, stardust!

[gurlgallade]

occurred to me while listening to DECO*27's latest release that i don't think i posted this one either shadow x vampire ♡

[gurlgallade]

Pros of re-reading your own fic

a good time;

Has exactly the tropes you like and the characterization you want to read;

Gratification: yes you did finish a thing and yes you did do good;

just a very fun time all around.

Cons of re-reading your own fic:

Is that another TYpO

[gurlgallade]

Is Odile on a path in the woods? Is a cabin at the end of that path? Is a Princess in the basement of that cabin? Is Odile there to slay her?

Odile is on a path in the woods.

[gurlgallade]

So I made a model of the Four Sword again! Last one was this one I made back in August 2023!

Also made that greyscale version the Four Sword image since I like to imagine Shadow’s Four Sword is just the Four Sword but in greyscale. It just feels more, him, to me! 🖤

Also here’s some WIP pictures I took while working on it! In the pictures with two swords my old Four Sword model is on the right.

I tried to get the shape of it as accurate to the manga as possible! Though I did end up giving the unsplit Four Sword a black gem when it’s actually a green gem. I like it having a black gem more though, that just makes more sense to me personally. Green already has a green gem on his Four Sword after all. 😅

[gurlgallade]

iii / vi / vii / ix

[gurlgallade]

goofy fs emotes i drew in 2022 that i don't think i ever posted anywhere for some reason

if anyone wants to use them for discord feel free to! -> gdrive

[gurlgallade]

I think my favorite thing about slay the princess when it comes to the princess herself is despite the fact she is undeniably warped and changed by your/TLQ's perception of her, the princess herself does have an interiority that i DO think is consistent even in its inconsistences.

it was probably really really hard to write like 12-15 extremely different versions of this one character who are all believably permutations of the original core instead of "15 different women we are telling you is the same being". thats two distinct scenarios. i think

i think shifty's line about being a chorus of contradictions applies here. Princess is just such a fun character.

does this make sense can anyone hear me.

[gurlgallade]

the "of" in "of the Devil" is short for Overwhelmingly Fpositive

congratulations nth circle on your glowing steam debut <3

[gurlgallade]

goodness gracious this took far too long. anyways, the rest of them :]