randum-famdoms

[randum-famdoms]

Testing out the new stardew update and tried to make Mereoleona Vermillion from black clover...it kinda worked..? Sorta

I tried my best! I got the hair wrong though and can't fix it now :'D

Had to look the character up because I haven’t watch the anime (I have heard good things, even watched the first episode, but then I forgot lol. I should tho! Especially now that I have a cat named clover, lol). I think you did fine! Hair could use some work tho, lol. She’s still cute, and that’s what is most important (at least in my opinion, but then again I get upset if my fanart isn’t 100% accurate so I almost never draw fanart, so who am I to talk).

I tried playing stardew valley once but it stressed me out too much. Ironic, right? I suck at games like it, though. I hated trying out animal crossing, too. I cannot handle the idea of adhering to a calendar in real life, so trying to do that on a video game? Hell no. Not gonna happen. Just give me a gun or some magic powers and release me into the world to kill demons, thanks. That I can handle.

To be fair, though, I suck at any video game that isn’t Diablo 3. Never finished any other game. Ever. I’m being serious, here. Unless you found WoW, but that isn’t exactly a fake you can finish, is it? I don’t think it is… but if I’m wrong then I’m still proving my own point, so.

I am gonna try to finish p5r by the end of the year, though. Winter break is coming up, I should have time then. I can add it to the non-existent list! Once upon I time I planned to play the game twice, and also vanilla twice, to get the ng+ experience in both.

Maybe that might happen by the time I’m 80. That would fit my current track record.

I’m getting off topic again, though. Very cute avatar! That’s always my favourite part in any game where you can make an avatar. Unless you can also decorate a house or room. Then it would be my second favourite!

[randum-famdoms]

You know, fair. Very fair. Tbh I made this poll in like 2 minutes after a debate with my dad, I didn’t work on it all that much so there’s probably even more things I should’ve clarified than this. But eh, it’s a tumblr poll, no harm no foul.

Also, you like wendigoon?! He’s one of my favourite YouTubers!!! I especially like his videos about ARGs and found footage horror on YouTube (mostly because that stuff terrifies me way too much to watch myself but I still find the concept and storylines fascinating), and the sex raft video is one of my favourite videos to put on when I feel like shit and need a laugh.

I actually don’t love many horror movies myself. Mostly the scream franchise and and ready or not, because they both have moments of comedy to take the edge off. Really any horror movie that has comedy in it is right up my alley. (Comedy movies with a horror coating don’t count imo. Like, Shawn of the dead is NOT. Horror movie, at least imo). Maybe that makes me the wrong person to decide whether horror movies are Halloween movies, but whatever. I’m the kind of person who has an opinion on literally everything and is fully prepared to give a spirited (ha) debate on anything at any moment, things i an unqualified for included.

Yeah I think got your point about horror being year round, I was mostly trying to say in my own reply that that doesn’t mean it can’t also be a part of the Halloween-movie umbrella. But maybe I was misunderstanding your point about how it being a year round thing affects its Halloween-y status! I, too, am neurodivergent and oftentimes dense as a brick!

Your point about horror coming from how the viewer views it is FASCINATING to me, though. I do still think horror movies fall under the Halloween umbrella, but man(gender neutral) that really made me pause for a moment and reflect. I feel like I could read a solid scientific paper about that. The inherent separation humans have from one another due to our own contained minds and inherently unique perceptions of the world and how that affects the ways that we interact with each other and the world around us is something I think about for at least an hour every day, but I never considered how that would affect the ways in which we perceive horror and the things we fear never occurred to me until now. It’s wonderfully existential! I myself find it interesting, but when I speak of it with others they sometimes say it’s terrifying, and isn’t that just nifty? The inherent separation of minds and opinions strikes again, a constant even in the discussion of itself! The fact that everyone is forever alone in their own minds, unable to truly connect with anyone or make anyone understand exactly the things they think and believe due to the inherent filter of their audience’s experiences and beliefs, is horror to some, and to others is not. Just like how horror movies are not scary to everyone. And just like how the creators of the movie all had their own ideas about it, it’s an amalgam of beliefs and experiences and minds, one of the only true ways we can connect - even if we ourselves may not understand what our fellow creators think, the creation does, even if it has no mind of its own, because it is made up of those minds, and we the viewer get to experience that amalgam, tasting a fraction of it even if we can never understand ourselves, restrained by our own filter of existence. It’s darkly beautiful, is it not?

And now we are here, feeling it again, in this prison of lack of connection and understanding, not quite grasping the other’s intent. Forever and eternally trapped and alone. Never, ever, truly knowing.

We yearn for connection, yet are forever doomed to never quite grasp it, eternally hidden behind a filter of two curtains - our own perception, and others’. The intent seeps through, but it leaves something behind while gaining something else. Becoming just that slightest bit different. An eternal game of telephone.

I see it as fascinating. Others call it horror. And what is that, if not the whole point of this poll? Is that not my answer? That I am not wrong, but nor am I right? My opinions are tainted by my own mind, by my idea of what everyone else has ever meant to mean, rather than what they actually meant - that which I will never know. My dissenters are also not wrong, nor are they right, inflicted by the very same curse.

Would the creator of horror call it Halloween? Would the creator of Halloween take horror into its arms? I think not, for neither have a creator. Horror is an emotion, with. K creator unless you believe in a god. Or gods, or simply a creator at all. Halloween a ceremonial tradition morphed and twisted over the years by this very peril, this eternal curse of telephone we call existence and thought and perceptions and ideas into something different and new and more and less. But then, is that not horror to some people? The loss of the original, made into something else? Theseus’s ship? So then, to them, maybe Halloween would take horror into its arms. For it is horror itself. But then again, that is simply their perception. Yet another twist in the brocade of Halloween and horror. They are not the only ones perceiving, after all. Others would disagree, call it art and beauty instead. Or maybe something else entirely, something I cannot perceive even in hypotheticals. At least, not without aid. Aid that I can’t perceive as intended, and never will.

But I digress, this has turned onto a philosophical diatribe out of my control. It is late, and I am tired. I get rather long winded and existential when tired. But I fear (ha) that that may have become obvious to you by now, if you even still are reading. I would not blame you if you aren’t, but then, if that were the case you would not see this statement of blamelessness, would you?

If you do still read, and if so I both commend you and thank you, then here, a bit of a treat in thanks. I bestow upon you a picture or two of my cat, clover:

Fun fact: I took that second photo for this post and she attacked my phone for it approximately 1.5 seconds later. Twas adorably destructive.

Anyway, I should probably stop now, no? Or maybe I should have stopped magnitudes of time earlier. That would all be up to perception, wouldn’t it?

For now, I leave you with this: maybe no one will ever truly know what you think, feel, believe, and intend. But that didn’t stop us from learning how to dance with a partner seamlessly, each person feeling, through no truly scientific way, what their partner’s body will do next before they even do it. There is no way to put into words, that intuitive sense of knowing, that instinct that defies all logic and science, and above all: those curtains that hang between our minds. They don’t stop us completely. So don’t let them stop you from trying to connect with others. If dancers can do it, then why can’t you?

And besides, it is my belief that even though you can’t know perfectly, trying despite that means much more than perfection. It means they want to know, and isn’t that better? If you both want hard enough, try hard enough, you may even get close enough to knowing that it doesn’t matter much that it isn’t perfect anyway.

Your mind may be alone. But your soul doesn’t have to be if you let it.

Hey. I need y’all to settle an argument.

POLL: Are horror movies inherently Halloween movies, or not?

(I’ve given more context below)

Argument in favour: horror movies are spooky and scary and involve evil and usually blood and death and stuff. Halloween was originally about warding off said evil, as well as embracing lost loved ones, which eventually turned into something more akin to embracing said scary things themselves. Also, Horror movies almost always come out during the month of October, unless they have something in them heavily related to another season/holiday/event.

Argument against: Halloween movies are defined by the titular characters (vamipures, werewolves, etc), time of year, and vibes. Not being scary and bloody.

I am personally in favour of the always argument. All horror movies are Halloween movies. Not all Halloween movies are horror movies. Rectangles and squares, if you will. Some movies are a nebulous “maybe”, like twilight: it has werewolves and vampires, but it’s not quite the spoopy vibe.

My dad says horror movies can be Halloween movies, but most are not.

So. Help me prove I’m right. (Seriously tho, give your actual opinion. I’ll still think I’m right, but this is for SCIENCE. And to settle a bet, but SCIENTIFICALLY!)

[randum-famdoms]

I am deeply offended! Just because they’re Halloween moves doesn’t mean they’re not watchable year-round!

You see, I am obsessed with Halloween. Devoted, even. Nightmare before Christmas and goosebumps and hocus pocus are movies most agree are Halloween movies. Do I restrict myself, do I deprive myself the joy of watching them during the rest of the year? NO! Horror movies are, by my standards, equally as Halloween-y as any other traditionally Halloween movie. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be watched with equal fervor during, say, April!

Halloween may only be a holiday one day if the year, but the spirit of spooky and scary is not restricted by such meaningless lines as time.

No. I am not the fool, here. It is you who was the fool all along. A disgrace to the school of spoopy and creepy.

Actually tho, Maybe I should have been more clear in my poll. The question is not WHEN horror movies are watched, it is about what their VIBES are. Is the horror genre a subset of the Halloween Movie category? In my opinion, yes. The scary factor nicely slots in with the overall vibes of Halloween. Hence me arguing that them coming out in October is a point in my favour: marketing is about the vibes. People associate spooks and scares with Halloween and thus October. Horror movies therefore do well during that season. Therefore, horror movies are Halloween movies.

Horror movies are squares inside of the Halloween rectangle! They’re a smaller category with its own tropes and rules under the overall Halloween umbrella! Hocus Pocus and Saw are two VERY different movies, yes. They are two different genres, yes. But when has that ever stopped Halloween from taking them both under its umbrella?

Horror movies being Halloween movies doesn’t stop you from watching them during the rest of the year. It just means that Halloween movies can be watched year round. And if you think that you must adhere to silly societal rules like only listening to Christmas music during December or only liking pumpkin spice lattes during fall, then you my friend lead a very sad and fun deprived life.

Hey. I need y’all to settle an argument.

POLL: Are horror movies inherently Halloween movies, or not?

(I’ve given more context below)

Argument in favour: horror movies are spooky and scary and involve evil and usually blood and death and stuff. Halloween was originally about warding off said evil, as well as embracing lost loved ones, which eventually turned into something more akin to embracing said scary things themselves. Also, Horror movies almost always come out during the month of October, unless they have something in them heavily related to another season/holiday/event.

Argument against: Halloween movies are defined by the titular characters (vamipures, werewolves, etc), time of year, and vibes. Not being scary and bloody.

I am personally in favour of the always argument. All horror movies are Halloween movies. Not all Halloween movies are horror movies. Rectangles and squares, if you will. Some movies are a nebulous “maybe”, like twilight: it has werewolves and vampires, but it’s not quite the spoopy vibe.

My dad says horror movies can be Halloween movies, but most are not.

So. Help me prove I’m right. (Seriously tho, give your actual opinion. I’ll still think I’m right, but this is for SCIENCE. And to settle a bet, but SCIENTIFICALLY!)

[randum-famdoms]

they should make a pill that makes people in their 20s feel good about where their lives are going

[randum-famdoms]

Hey. I need y’all to settle an argument.

POLL: Are horror movies inherently Halloween movies, or not?

(I’ve given more context below)

Argument in favour: horror movies are spooky and scary and involve evil and usually blood and death and stuff. Halloween was originally about warding off said evil, as well as embracing lost loved ones, which eventually turned into something more akin to embracing said scary things themselves. Also, Horror movies almost always come out during the month of October, unless they have something in them heavily related to another season/holiday/event.

Argument against: Halloween movies are defined by the titular characters (vamipures, werewolves, etc), time of year, and vibes. Not being scary and bloody.

I am personally in favour of the always argument. All horror movies are Halloween movies. Not all Halloween movies are horror movies. Rectangles and squares, if you will. Some movies are a nebulous “maybe”, like twilight: it has werewolves and vampires, but it’s not quite the spoopy vibe.

My dad says horror movies can be Halloween movies, but most are not.

So. Help me prove I’m right. (Seriously tho, give your actual opinion. I’ll still think I’m right, but this is for SCIENCE. And to settle a bet, but SCIENTIFICALLY!)

[randum-famdoms]

Oh look yet another reason to continue not reading the new pjo books

Seriously tho, I’m genuinely so disappointed in what Rick had been doing with the Percy Jackson saga in the last several years. I grew up on the original five books, I remember when HOO was still coming out. I remember going to the local Barnes and Noble and buying house of hades with the money I’d saved up by recycling cans.

These characters were my friends. They were my role models. I love them. And it feels like Rick is just… destroying them. Like he doesn’t care anymore. Like he has forgotten everything that we loved about these characters.

Okay so like, I just spent the last 45ish minutes ranting in a pseudo essay about the ways that the PJO saga has changed in the last many years, and it got fucking LONG. So uh. Click the read more at your own risk, I guess?

Heroes of Olympus had red flags, for sure. A lot of things in it felt like a complete 180 on character development *cough* Nico *cough*, but there was still enough remaining of the original characterization that I could look past it. Yeah, Annabeth seemed just a little too serious when joking that Percy isn’t the smart one in the relationship, but it was still a joke…. I think.

But that isn’t my main point here. Heroes of Olympus was the beginning of the end. The turning point where, in my opinion, Rick started caring more about sales and playing into fan ideas of characters than what would actually benefit the story and character arcs. And it shows.

Now I’ll give my fullest transparency here: I have not read the solangelo book, just large excerpts. I haven’t even touched chalice of the gods (is that the title Percy college books? See, I am not even sure on the title, I’m THAT removed from it). I have read all the Trials of Apollo books, but the last two were…. Forgettable, to say the least. I kinda can’t remember much after the frank tunnel fire scene. Or much before it. Tbh that whole series felt very mid. I have read all of magnus chance and Kane chronicles, and remember both very well.

But I’m rambling again. I think you can see a very clear trajectory throughout the saga, in publishing order. Say what you will about the quality of kane chronicles (I’ve found it’s a very controversial trilogy, as far as reception goes), but Rick didn’t really seem to care about much besides what the story was intended to be. The characters are distinct and consistent, even in the short stories.

Magnus chase on the other hand, feels… odd. In my opinion, it’s the middle point. I personally love the trilogy, it’s easily my second favourite series in the saga (the og 5 being the first, obviously). But that doesn’t mean it’s… good. It’s unique, it’s fun, and it’s got a lot of strong points. But it felt clumsy, at times. The handling of gender fluidity was frankly not great, and while I am far from an authority on Islam, I’ve seen members of the faith say that its portrayal wasn’t the best (particularly Rick’s understanding of hijab). It felt a bit like Rick decided he needed more representation, and picked things out of a hat rather than actually writing what he knew or felt confident in learning. Additionally, not every major character felt like they got a complete character arc. Which in my opinion is kind of VERY IMPORTANT.

And yet, despite all that, the trilogy still feels mostly competent and sure in itself. And, not to be conspiratorial, but I assign that to it being in first person. Rick only needed to fully understand ONE character’s brain. Yes, knowing all of them is important, but only having one character you know every single thought of is pretty damn helpful. And Magnus is a white American guy, something Rick is familiar with.

Trials of Apollo is in first person perspective, too, though. And it’s not the best, not by a long shot. here is where my biggest argument comes into play: the magnus chase trilogy isn’t just good because of it being in 1POV. It’s good because there were no previous expectations for any of the characters. They were all fresh and new, hell even the pantheon was new. Rick didn’t have any fan perceptions to meet or play into. He only could lean on himself (and editors and such, but whatever). And that, my friends, is everything.

Rick had a plan. He had a story. And he wrote that story, with no other expectations or fan ideas affecting things.

That’s why pjo worked. It’s why MC and KC worked.

It’s why HOO, TOA, the solangelo book, and the college series just… aren’t.

Fans tend to boil characters down and simplify them, so that then they can apply new ideas onto the simpler base. It’s how headcanons work, it’s how fanfiction works, and it’s how our brains work. It is NOT how canon works.

Take, say, Leo for example. One of the few characters in HOO that I think is amazing. Because he was new, with no previous ideas to corrupt him.

In HOO, Leo is mischievous, a bit more impulsive than the average demigod, a little chaotic, and a lot hyper. He’s incredibly creative, he understands machines more than even most of his cabin mates - he can talk to festus. A machine. He gave or returned sentience to festus. He’s quit witted. He hides from people. Not because he’s scared of them or hates them. But because he’s terrified of himself. He is terrified of hurting them. He doesn’t understand how to interpret the emotions and actions of others. He’s terrible at it. But he cares, a lot. It’s why he hides. It’s why he makes jokes instead of being honest about things. He would do anything to save those he cares about - and he doesn’t let others close easily, but he does care easily. He is deeply traumatized by what happened to his mother, and he never connected to much of anyone after that, thus having mostly forgotten what having others to rely on is like. He does it all himself, because it’s all he knows. He feels like he is incapable of ever truly connecting with people. He feels like a permanent outsider. He is the class clown, yes, and sometimes it’s genuine. But a lot of the time it’s a mask. He is easy to get along with, but he’s hard to know. Because he won’t let you close.

I could keep going.

In the fandom, Leo is one of the favorites. He is also misunderstood quite a bit. His chaotic, hyper, jokester nature is dialed up at least ten notches. His reasons for why he does things are often turned into either “he’s just silly like that, obsessed with tinkering and machines!” Or him simply not wanting to be around people, instead of him being scared. He’s a jokester, not because it’s his way of hiding his true emotions, but because he’s just like that. He’s the class clown. He gets along with everyone.

And that’s fine. It’s fanon. It doesn’t matter. You aren’t wrong for thinking of Leo like that. My own interpretation of him is likely not how Rick envisioned him. It’s impossible for two people to see things the same way. It just isn’t how our brains work.

But do you see what I’m saying? The pieces all have a clear link to the canon, but they’re simpler. Less dynamic. There’s less room for growth, unless you add something new.

And this is what has happened to the original characters - Percy, annabeth, Nico, even Rachel and Clairesse and Thalia, the list goes on. Characters from HOO have sometimes even faced the same. Reyna is different in TOA, for example.

Nico in HOO is the biggest example of this. In PJO, he was originally hopeful and innocent, then consumed by rage and guilt and grief and blaming Percy and isolating himself and of the idea he had to fix it all on his own. Then he learned to trust again, and work with others, and make real human connections.

And then in HOO suddenly he lost every single bit of that character development, and he’s back to guilt and rage and isolation and deep distrust of others doing it all on his own. And we barely even know why.

“It’s the internalized homophobia” I hear you say. No. Rick could have included that arc in a way that didn’t reverse all the growth Nico went through. He’s a better writer than this. He could have. But he didn’t.

And I think it’s because the fans dubbed Nico a tsundere and Rick decided to run with it, damn the consequences.

Annabeth in hoo has lost much of the grown she went through to learn to listen to and work with others. She treats Percy as the actions and battle guy, rather than the street smart and creative thinking guy like she had grown to by the battle for Olympus.

Percy is more impulsive in hoo. Yet he is simultaneously more prone to wanting structure. And also less serious. Percy in hoo is a walking bundle of contradictions. In pjo Percy is sarcastic, fiercely loyal, determined, and always ready to switch plans at the drop of a hat - but he DOES have a plan. They just aren’t rigid. The plan is “dodge the Minotaur” and then the horn breaks off and the plan is “use that horn to stab the minotaur” they aren’t big plans, but they’re plans nonetheless, and they’re easy to pivot from by nature. He isn’t book smart, but he is still smart. He’s good with people, too. He thrives in situations where he can just do his own thing, even if others might not understand what he’s thinking at any given moment. He always does things for a reason. That reason may be “I want to mess with clarrisse” but it’s still a reason.

In hoo, he’s much more impulsive. He doesn’t always have a plan. He’s more of a prankster. He doesn’t work as well with others. He’s more prone to anger and arguments. He’s headstrong. He has a bit of an ego. He isn’t as good with people. And yet, he sees new rome as an ideal, as better than camp half blood, for some reason. Despite camp half blood being the place where he thrives, where many thrive. It’s baffling.

All of this, all this analysis, and I haven’t even touched TOA or the solangelo book (which looks worse and worse with every new thing I see about it) and the college series.

And every time I hear about them i am more disappointed.

Every new piece of writing I see feels like a slap to the face. The characters I know and love are reduced to caricatures, hollow shells of their former selves. Actions that don’t make sense, arcs and growth spat on and disregarded, entire chunks of characterization burned to ash.

Annabeth was freedom. Percy was loyalty. Nico was learning to trust. And now Annabeth is rigidity. Percy is reckless confidence. Nico is tsundere.

Because that’s what the fans made them - not out of malice. But because that way they could create something new, something more.

But Rick doesn’t seem to understand that fanon and canon should stay separate. He takes what the fans see, and he incorporates it into the next book. And over time, it slowly turns them into new characters wearing the same face and name.

Of course annabeth and Percy love new Rome. It’s who they are.

It makes perfect sense, because these aren’t the same annbeth and Percy.

It doesn’t have to be a bad thing, not necessarily. They can still be fun stories to read, if you’re okay with disregarding previous canon. Like enjoying the movie, while understanding that it is a fundamentally different story than the book. It’s still fun to watch.

But it will never not feel like a slap in the face to me. Rick doesn’t seem to care about loyalty to his characters, only the fans.

And I would be a hypocrite to say that he’s appealing to all the fans. On the contrary, it’s only the young fans, for the most part. Because no matter what, this is a children’s series meant for middle schoolers. There are a lot of older fans. I’m actually near the middle of the spectrum. I’m not even 20 yet, but I know other fans in their early 30’s.

It’s inevitable, if Rick listens to the fanbase, intentionally appealing to the younger end as his target audience, that the characters will warp. They’re young. They don’t have the life experience and tools to fully grasp the depth that the characters are supposed to have.

I loved the original books. You know why? Because it didn’t dumb things down. The characters had flaws. They had growth. They had depth.

I was young when I first read it, so I didn’t see everything correctly. Annabeth was my favorite, yet I misunderstood her. I didn’t understand that basing your self worth on your intelligence and achievements isn’t necessarily a good thing. You can take pride in them, but other things should play into self worth. Namely: that you will always be worth as much as anyone else. No matter what. Because you are human. You’re alive.

But I didn’t get that. Because I was a child. That’s okay, but if that kind of understanding of characters and flaws and traits is what is influencing Rick’s writing, then that is a fundamentally flawed way to write.

They still have depth, but it is inherently warped by this approach. It will never not be, unless Rick stops doing this and just writes on his own merits.

He is an amazing writer, pjo is clear evidence of that fact. But it’s almost as if he lacks confidence that people will read what he writes unless he plays into their expectations. In doing so, he alienates all his readers who possess the mental acuity to actually analyze his work.

And the thing is, it’s working. Reviews from fans who are younger for the solangelo book were glowing. And this ties back into the magnus chase series: the fans specifically praised the book for shining a spotlight on a queer relationship. The diversity. Just like magnus chase. Reviews for that trilogy from younger readers also praised the diversity, both for poc, queer, and minority religions. Even though the portrayals, while not negative, did misunderstand fundamental parts of those identities and communities. Alex, a gender-fluid character, is called what can only be described as a slur throughout the books with little to no push back. They are also a child of Loki, who is canonically genderfuid and also the main antagonist. One has to wonder what Rick was implying, even unintentionally. As a non-binary person who read the trilogy when I was still a young teen (as in late middle school and early high school), I didn’t fully understand those things yet. I just knew I finally had a character, a main character at that, who was like me, in a book by an author I loved. And that was all that mattered.

I can’t help but think that these positive reviews for the solangelo book come from a similar place. Any quality or consistency with previous character arcs isn’t what is important. What matters is seeing a gay relationship between two main characters in a book by an author you love. What matters validation.

And I can’t condemn that. Representation in literature is on the rise, but it is not the norm. Representation in youth literature is even less common. Representation in youth literature by well known authors that you will find in most book stores and libraries? Well, now you’re hunting for gold. Rick is that gold.

It inspires a lot of loyalty. Rick becomes infallible, in impressionable minds. It takes a lot to dissolution that kind of worship.

I would know, I used to be one of those kids. I still am, to a point. I can’t assume Rick is doing this out of laziness, or malice. I can’t believe the he doesn’t care. I still genuinely love him, in a distant “I’ve never met the guy” kinda way.

But there are better ways to go about it. And it hurts, because he is an adult. He should know better. He should know that separation between the author and the fans is important. Taking popular headcannons and incorporating them, things like an Apollo kid getting plague or sun powers due to Apollo’s domain, that’s fine. Normal, even. It’s fun for the fans, it’s fun for the author, no harm no foul. But changing entire characters and disregarding growth and established traits because that’s what that character is like in fanon? That is something I can never get behind, as a fan, as an author myself, and definitely not as someone who loves this series down to the very core of my soul. No matter how much I like rick, no matter how much I respect his talent and his dedication to his fans, I can not hold his current attitude towards his work in high regard.

Of course, all of this is conjecture with no basis in proof or evidence or fact. It’s simply an analysis I’ve built up over the years, comparing his writing and how it has evolved over the years to what I have seen in the fandom interpretaions of characters, specifically the younger fan base (which i personally define as any fans who are under the age of 18, with an emphasis on fans who have said in their profiles that they have not graduated high school yet).

I do not know Rick. I do not know his writing process. I do not know why he does the things he has and is doing. I almost certainly never will.

I can only point out the patterns I am seeing, and draw conclusions based on them. But it isn’t a fact. It isn’t really even a theory. It’s a hypothesis, one that defies testing.

But I’ve read many a fanfic written by young authors, and I’ve read books in the saga published around a year after those fics, and I can’t help but notice that the characters act and think more like they do in the fanfics than they did in the previous canon books. And I’ve seen this repeated over and over again throughout the years.

And I can’t help but think that it is a worrying pattern to find.

But it’s also a pattern that explains a lot.

we often talk about how out of character new rome is for percy but it is so out of character for annabeth too. annabeth who spent several formative years cooped up at camp half blood, “the real world is where you find out if you’re any good or not” annabeth, annabeth who’d rather hear the sirens than safely plug her ears, annabeth who brought four people on her quest despite dire warnings against it, annabeth who constantly takes risks for what she feels passionately about. you’re telling me that that annabeth wants to leave everyone and everything behind to hunker down and hide from the world

[randum-famdoms]

Finally caving and no longer using Google docs (mostly, probably will still copy and paste the first drafts of chapters in there for my beta reader to go over since that’s what she has)

Gonna start writing via ellipsus now (@ellipsus-writes is their tumblr account, if you wanna check it out). The following is gonna basically just me squeeing and how amazing this thing is, as well as a few cons I’ve noticed, and it’s long. So I’m adding a cut for people who don’t care.

I’m so fucking excited to no longer have to manually add in all the html in the ao3 text editor, you have no fucking idea. That step alone takes hours, double that if something glitches. And I can still write on my phone!!!!!

First downside I’ve noticed so far is that it doesn’t include my preferred font for writing (trebuchet ms if anyone is curious). It DOES have a comic sans sibling tho, which I can use for now. If it annoys me over time then I guess I’ll put up with Inter, even tho I hate most mono fonts. And serif fonts. I’m really picky. Serif fonts me flashbacks to grade school 5 paragraph essays in mla style. And mono fonts just… idk they look weird. Not creative at all. Very corporate.

Another bonus I’ve noticed: it includes open dyslexic as a font!!! I don’t personally need it, but having that accessibility is amazing. HUGE props to the creators.

Also love the interface. Very nice, user friendly, intuitive, looks good, 10/10.

There’s a light and dark mode choice on install, and I chose dark of course.

The editor settings are cool, allowing you to turn on and off different features like seeing other editiors’ cursors when typing, avatars when they’re viewing the document (tho it says draft there, maybe it doesn’t work in the main doc and only in drafts? If so, that’s odd), certain formatting things like dashes combining into an emdash, Ellipses (idk what that’s supposed to mean since there’s no elaboration), quotes (again no elaboration), markdown shortcuts (idk what those are, maybe it’s about coding?), viewing the word count automatically in the top bar, the desktop formatting bar, and the theme (light vs dark).

AND STRIKETRHOUGH IS RIGHT THERE! Right next to bold italic and underline. I always forgot the key shortcut to it in Google docs (why is it three keys???? WHY???? It’s so inconvenient!) and you gotta navigate through like three drop downs to reach it in the menu bar. This is so SO much simpler. I use strike through all the time to denote thoughts the pov character is repressing, and considering Akechi is a pov character that’s pretty damn often.

Omg and having an easy button so see all the keyboard shortcuts???? I love the creators so much????? There’s so many I would never have known otherwise, and they’re all so useful!!!! Aaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

I love the drafts feature, it’s so nice having my notes and outlines and such all right there.

I do wish the spell check feature was better about recognising foreign names, but since I can just turn it on and off I don’t have to deal with constant red lines like with Google! I do wish there was a way to add words to the program’s dictionary, so that it doesn’t flag names, abbreviations, and slang. (For example, it doesn’t like fic, fanfic, lol, dashes like -- or - for some reason, or really any of the character names. the list goes on.) and I can’t just add in Japanese to the accepted languages, because I’d have to choose either that or English and then every single other word would be wrong. It does give options for which regional English variant you want, so I can choose British English! Which is nice. Google does it too, but you never know with beta versions of programs.

You can choose whether text is normal, a header (which subsets if headers), a caption, a quote, etc. I like that, since it’s directly tied to the outline and the different headers show up in there tree-style, but you can’t just have some text within a category be different. For example, say you want some of your paragraph text to be one font and then a different section of paragraph text to be another. You can’t do that.

I also haven’t been able to find a way to change text colour, or to highlight text. Which is annoying. I use highlighting text a lot when editing, so loosing that is a problem. Not the end of the world, but definitely one of my biggest gripes with Ellipsus so far.

There is a commenting system, but it ONLY works in drafts. I do not like that. In fact, I kinda hate it. A lot. And I definitely prefer the way comments work in Google docs, at least its desktop version, where they show up right next to the text instead of you having to click on the text with a comment to see that comment. At the very least, you can see all the comments in order of where the text is in the draft, with any replies, all in one place in the comments tab. However, you can’t just click away from the text to leave that tab. You gotta manually navigate back to where you were in the menu.

So yeah the comment feature kinda sucks.

There is also a chat feature? Idk how to properly review it, since rn I don’t have anyone else to chat with in ellipsus. You can use it in non-drafts, but I don’t think you can use it to point out specific text.

You can see word count!!!! And an estimate for how long it would take to read the whole thing! That’s so useful! And cool! You can also highlight (with a cursor, not actual highlight) sections of text and it will show that section’s word count, but NOT its reading time.

The version history feature is a bit slow, but it functions well. Not too worried about it. You can restore old versions as a new draft, though, which is pretty neat.

You can also download the document as a pdf, markdown, share it, and copy it as html, markdown, and rich text, but best of all, oooooo best of all, you can export DIRECTLY to ao3! And it includes all the html in the document!!!! I never have to manually code in html again!!!!! There are no words to encapsulate just how fucking excited about that I am. None. I am vibrating. I’m ahdnfbshsbdbfbcbhcbcnnsdbdbxnxbdmsnddbbdndbdbdbAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

best. Feature. Ever. More than makes up for all the things I don’t like. Amazing. Wonderful. 10/10. Would die for that.

As of right now, I think that’s everything. Overall, I’d rate ellipsus an 8.5/10, compared to Google docs’s 7/10. I really love what they’ve done so far, but there’s some things they could really improve on.

Overall cons:

I really wish you could comment in the main document, it’s a big deal to me. I wish you could see comments by the text at all times, instead of just in the comments tab. I wish there were more font choices, the current pickings are slim at best. I wish you could change the font of specific sections instead of everything under that text category. I wish you could highlight things (even better if you could have multiple highlight colours). I wish you could change font colour. I wish you could add words to a dictionary so they aren’t flagged by spell check.

However, the vast majority of things ellipsus is doing are great. There are a ton of pros to this program, and it’s still in beta. There’s room for improvement, but that’s the whole point of a beta release. Everything I don’t like are things I can live with and work around, too. That’s better than a lot of completely finished games and programs I’ve come across. And it’s free!!! I’m really excited to see how Ellipsus develops, and definitely recommend it to any writers out there - especially anyone who writes for ao3. Seriously, the export to ao3 feature practically sells this thing by itself.

[randum-famdoms]

Small progress update on my mom sold me to the detective prince :)

So, chapter 14 is still far from ready. BUT! I have finally caved and switched to using a different writing program than docs, and in the process I went through the effort of actually organising my warzone of a notes system (which was basically four different notes systems, comprised of comments on the google doc, the bottom ten pages of the google doc, a file in my phone’s notes app, and screenshots from my texts with my beta, and of course none of it was actually organized and half of was no longer accurate to my current plan for the fic).

I also finished a COMPLETE preliminary outline. By which I mean that I have a tentative plan going all the way up to the end of the fic, but it can change at any time if I have a better idea or whatever. Said summary is like, 5k words long. And still doesn’t cover everything (it covers the main beats but not all the fallout of events, like if someone dies then it’s in the summary but the character reactions to said death is not). I gotta say, I’m pretty excited about what I came up with. Now it’s just a matter of getting there…

I haven’t organized all of it into individual chapters, but if I had to guess then I’d estimate the total complete fic will be something around 80 chapters long (mind you, that’s completely subjective to change. In the past one chapter has become three, so. Yeah. Give this estimate a 20 chapter buffer on both ends) and 500k ish words (again a total guess and with a large buffer).

I’m hoping that the writing program switch will make things easier, especially organisation-wise.

If anyone is wondering, I switched to Elipsus, and I am loving it so far. I’ll be making a separate post basically just singing its praises. Highly recommend for any writers out there, 10/10 program.

Anyway, chapter 14 is going to be MASSIVE. Should I probably split it up into multiple chapters? Yeah. Will I? No, because I like how dramatic it is. Think if it like a season finale, 2 hours long compared to the normal 45 minute episodes. It’s going to be the “final��� chapter of the Kamoshida arc - sort of. There’s still the fallout to get through, and that’s going to be just as dramatic, at least in my opinion. Don’t worry though, we’ll be at the second palace soon. Provided my outline doesn’t change, chapter 18 will be the start of Yusuke.

In other news, my schedule has gotten busier. By a lot. School things have come up, and I’m trying to make some money by getting a part time job I’ll still write when I can, but I might need to change the post schedule again. That remains to be seen. Regardless of what happens there, I WILL continue making these progress reports, as well as always posting on the same day, even if the gaps between chapters is inconsistent.

I might make the discord server public on here, before the chapter is posted. That’s only if it isn’t done by the end of the week, though.

As always, feel free to scream at me in asks, comments, and dm’s about whatever you want. If you ask a question then there like a 90% chance I’ll answer (the 10% being if it’s private info about me or my beta). Suggestions are always welcome too!

That’s it for now, see ya’ll eventually

[randum-famdoms]

Don’t be a coward, it’s the blood and murder kinks too

"why are people attracted to vampires theres nothing inherently attractive about them" we all know why people are into vampires its just that none of us wanna be the one to say it

[randum-famdoms]

[randum-famdoms]

Idk what this means, but I’m like 80% sure that my tumblr experience is approximately 3/8ths of a foot to the left, and that’s close enough, I think

i hate this website like imagine youre reading a perfectly good post and its either super interesting or real or theres a really good setup and then op throws it all away because it quickly becomes obvious that she spends her free time inventing a special glue that lets her walk up everything

[randum-famdoms]

“I very proudly entered the forestry school as an 18-year-old and telling them that the reason that I wanted to study botany was because I wanted to know why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. These are these amazing displays of this bright, chrome yellow and deep purple of New England aster, and they look stunning together. And the two plants so often intermingle rather than living apart from one another, and I wanted to know why that was. I thought that surely in the order and the harmony of the universe, there would be an explanation for why they looked so beautiful together. And I was told that that was not science, that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school. Which was really demoralizing as a freshman, but I came to understand that question wasn’t going to be answered by science, that science, as a way of knowing, explicitly sets aside our emotions, our aesthetic reactions to things. We have to analyze them as if they were just pure material, and not matter and spirit together. And, yes, as it turns out, there’s a very good biophysical explanation for why those plants grow together, so it’s a matter of aesthetics and it’s a matter of ecology. Those complimentary colors of purple and gold together, being opposites on the color wheel, they’re so vivid, they actually attract far more pollinators than if those two grew apart from one another. So each of those plants benefits by combining its beauty with the beauty of the other. And that’s a question that science can address, certainly, as well as artists. And I just think that “Why is the world so beautiful?” is a question that we all ought to be embracing.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, “The Intelligence of Plants”, from the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett (via peatbogbodyhasmoved)

[randum-famdoms]

Okay now I gotta try this for all my fandoms, hold on. (I’m basing my fandoms off my bookmarks btw) (they are in literally no particular order just what I thought of first) (am I doing that exclusively to exclude homestuck? Yes.) (index is number of fics in the fandom divided by number of fics for goncharov - 803 at the time of this post)

It got long so I’m adding a read more cut

Okay so rise of the guardians (guardians of childhood) (don’t judge me it’s one of my comfort fandoms) is 14.984

BNHA is 425.498

Persona 5 is 43.2

DPxDC is 5.603 (technically 5.607 with some more numbers after but we are rounding to 3 decimals here)

Percy Jackson is 74.658

Saiki K is 4.6

Harry Potter is 670.512

Deadpool/spider man (I gotta be specific cause it’s exclusively this ship) is 13.486

Danganronpa 2 is 23.614

Welcome to nightvale is 10.568

Sk8 the infinity is 20.973

The Sandman is 12.161

Good omens is 68.885 (note that it was a lot smaller when I was still active, the show was still airing the first season)

And finally, homestuck (again don’t judge me I am incapable of shame) is 83.054

Now, because I am just a tad bit wrong in the head, I will calculate the mean median and mode of these fandoms.

The mean is 105.121

The mean without BNHA and Harry Potter (which are clearly outliers) is 31.307

The median is 22.244 (technically 22.2435)

The mode is not applicable as these numbers are all different

Also, these fandoms in order from smallest to largest is

Saiki K.

DPxDC

Welcome to Nightvale

The Sandman

Deadpool/SpiderMan

Rise of the Guardians (guardians of childhood)

Sk8 the Infinity

Danganronpa 2

Persona 5

Good Omens

Percy Jackson

Homestuck

BNHA

And, finally, Harry Potter

Some of these genuinely surprised me! Since it’s been so long since I’ve been active in the fandom, good omens is a lot higher than I remembered. Homestuck was a brief flash in my life that lasted like, maybe a few weeks during covid out of morbid curiosity, so I mentally remember it as a lot smaller but tbh its enourmisity doesn’t surprise me given its Past. (Yes that is in caps on purpose, it warrants it and you can’t look me in the eyes and deny it). DPxDC is very low on the list, but tbh it’s a big fandom for being a crossover between two fandoms with very little media overlap (although I could write an essay about how they are unironically accidentally INCREDIBLY compatible fandoms), so I always perceive it as larger than it is.

I would class anything below a 1 on the goncharov index as a Pitiful fandom. Anything below a 10 on the index is a Small fandom. 10-20 would be a Medium fandom. 20-50 is a Big fandom. 50-100 is a Large fandom. 100+ is a Huge fandom.

Maybe my classifications are a tad biased by my personal experience with fandoms, considering my first fandoms were all rather big (PJO was my first, then Harry Potter, shadowhunters, sanders sides, and BNHA in that order) (yes I left out two of those. It was on purpose. I don’t have bookmarks for them because they died with my old account. I didn’t bring them back. That was also on purpose).

Anyway, this was a fun exercise and I’m trying to ignore that I just did math on purpose and enjoyed it.

people trying to insist a fandom is tiny when it /only/ has a few thousand works on ao3 meanwhile my current fandom is a sixteen book series and has several hundred fewer works than goncharov, a movie that, and i cannot stress this enough, doesn’t even exist

[randum-famdoms]

When you’re in the middle of a fic and realise you’ve missed a very critical tag

[randum-famdoms]

this is actually incredibly sweet

[randum-famdoms]

Halloween is still better but this definitely makes the gap a bit smaller

wheres seasons greasons

[randum-famdoms]

*in a rap battle* i wonder who your mother could have been if she never had you