ripplestitchskein

[ripplestitchskein]

I’ve been learning a ton the past few weeks as I work on Myrth, primarily that I really rushed the first chapters. I found myself editing and re-editing chapters over and over every writing session where, if I had just taken the time to start with the first arc, edit it until it was complete and then go forward from there there I think I’d have been much happier. It really became apparent when I started recording and I’ve been spending the past few weeks really honing in on this first arc and getting all the chapters into a spot I am proud of and that reflect my writing.

So I’ve pulled down the original versions. But those few of you who read and enjoyed them FEAR NOT, they will be back better bigger and better than ever and with accompanying audio versions.

The biggest thing for me is that I keep figuring out what works, what doesn’t and keep it true to my vision for this project. I’ve been working diligently behind the scenes to make it the best I can, and I’m so excited to share this world with you in the weeks, months and years ahead of us.

[ripplestitchskein]

Sorry the new chapter isn’t out. My brain decided I needed to invent an entire language for this scene.

[ripplestitchskein]

So working on the website and adding in the first piece of artwork today and I realized that, social media PR genius that I am, I never fucking mentioned the original artwork for Myrth I’ve been working on during the periods of time where my writing brain isn’t cooperating but my art brain is?!?!

I don’t have the chops for a full comic, these take me an insanely long amount of time to do and my artistic skill is still in the baby stages, so quality and consistency will vary but the intent is to intersperse impactful moments within the chapters as a sort of illustrated web novel.

So yeah! Surprise! I’ll be sharing those as I complete them and adding them into the scenes where they go on the website.

Oh and another thing I just never fucking mentioned: I have audio versions for each chapter coming soon too! It’s a bit more theatrical than an audiobook but I’m a one woman show so not as well produced as a podcast and it will take time to get them out. The plan is to release them chapter by chapter as they are complete, just like the written chapters and the artwork. The first chapter is coming in the next couple weeks. Please be nice about my voice acting, I’m doing my best 🥺.

Working this way, on so many facets of the same overarching project, has really let me lean into my auADHD tendency to fizzle out on one thing and pick up another thing only to cycle back to the first thing a few weeks later. By incorporating this project into ALL my impulses in little ways I’m able to keep creating, keep moving forward, keep these characters and this story growing in my mind without the burnout or feeling like I’m failing when I have to take a break. It’s been really fulfilling a lot of my overall goals and interests simultaneously, growing my writing, my art style, my love of audio theater etc, even if it’s a slow process, even if I’m not growing an audience because it’s not updating on a set schedule, or if it remains ultimately just something for me. I kind of love just doing what I want with my own little space and inviting people in who genuinely want to be there because they are enjoying it.

I’m so excited for what’s coming.

Here is the first illustration for Chapter 1, Grizzle!

[ripplestitchskein]

Redid the website and it was similar mentally to putting on shoes when you don’t feel like doing something? It just kind of lit up my brain and got it going again. So, I’ll be having a writing day to finish Chapter 10 today if anyone wants to join in!

[ripplestitchskein]

i love ur story myrth ur an amazing writer like idek how to describe ur writing bc it genuiely is so unique and u have an amazing volcabuary

sorry if this sounds rude or my spelling!!! love ur work thoughhh

You are going to make me cry. I genuinely didn’t think anyone was reading it, it’s been on a bit of a hiatus because of work stuff (I applied for a new position, which I got but had to turn it down because it was main corp and they wanted me to change my hair, which is pink, so sadly a waste of that time I could have been writing and not prepping) but I’m posting the next chapter this week!!

Thank you so so much. This really means so much. I thought the only people reading it were me and my one extremely supportive friend 😂 so I’ll try to be better about updates knowing someone is actually into it.

[ripplestitchskein]

Well that certainly was a few minutes of animation.

[ripplestitchskein]

Apparently Target is rethinking being anti DEI because foot traffic in their stores has been declining for like 10 weeks straight and their stock has been dropping in unison and listen, I know a lot of this is probably because consumer spending goes down in general when the economy is unstable (tarrifs, mass federal gov layoffs etc.) but I think we should just keep running boycotts of different brands to convince them that they only make money when they're woke. I know we dunked on rainbow capitalism because it was cornball and performative but I don't even give a shit. These companies shouldn't be able to be openly pro-Trump and expect us to ignore it. They should not be allowed to bend the knee to racist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, abelist, generally bigoted culture war bullshit without taking a hit to their bottom line. These billionaire dipshits wanted unfettered capitalism with a madman at the helm and they should not be allowed to enable that without feeling some of the hurt along with the rest of us. Make these corporate assholes think money is stored in the woke

[ripplestitchskein]

I have big feelings about the season finale of Andor. There were some really amazing scenes, there were some scenes that could have been amazing if they’d had some room to breathe, there was one scene in particular that pissed me the fuck off.

The good:

Kleya. What a fantastic fucking character. They handled her development so well, they paced it out perfectly, her conflict was so well done and so well acted and emotionally resonant but you understand her choices and why she’s making them and what the consequences are for herself and others.

Ben Mendelsohn omg. Like I don’t think I have to spend to much time talking about such an icon but he was so compelling and quietly terrifying and just chefs kiss all around. That moment when he is pressing her down under his finger is just so fucking good. Like way to take a small moment and just make it fucking POWERFUL.

The camaraderie. In the scenes where they let them be real people the show always feels very grounded, the interplay between the characters feels very real, the world feels lived in, there’s a sense of community and friendship. I loved those scenes.

The show don’t tell. They did a really good job of not spoon feeding but rather letting conversations be confusing if you weren’t paying attention, letting them be less expository and more true to what a person in that situation would say while still driving the plot forward . However, they did not always do this successfully and I don’t know if it’s just down to different writers and some were stronger than others because there was definitely a sense in some scenes of walking through a video game city and NPCs are loudly and unnaturally telling you exposition.

The not so good:

The structure of this season made it feel very checklisty in a way that is too apparent to the audience. It was clear they had things they wanted to cover and items to get to and it made it feel like “Okay we got that scene done, next we’ll do this one” rather a natural flow of time and story and character driven decisions. The pacing was just off, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow. I think this is a consequence of prequel shows, you know what it’s leading to and we do have to get there naturally but if was particularly egregious this season where S1 felt like a full and fleshed out story that was connected to Rogue One but also its own thing.

Wilmon. What was the point of that character? I still don’t know.

Just missing scenes in general. This again is down to the structure. We can assume time is passing because the years are changing but because there are not many visual indicators or scenes to show that passage of time it makes character interactions driven by that temporal distance feel a bit hollow. Like we just saw two characters interacting, we get a title card showing a year has past but because everyone looks the same, everything looks the same and we have no other indicators other than that title card that time has passed when they act like they haven’t seen each other in forever or like they can’t trust each other because so much time has passed it doesn’t hit the same.

The bad:

Bix. Bix and that fucking baby. We have her leave Cassian and then in the next episode the narrative acts like Cassian is the one who is at fault for not reaching out to her. That entire conversation with Vel made zero sense without some kind of establishing scene because they were shooting for some big reveal “Oh my god he has a baby, that’s so much sadder” blah blah. Like broken down into its smaller parts it just makes Bix a piece of shit, actually. Like I get that she is taking away his choice of knowing his child because she is choosing the rebellion and essentially sacrificing Cassian and their potential happiness for the Rebellion as she believes he is necessary to its success, which is a big running theme obviously but her reason for thinking that is frankly, stupid as fuck and the character suffers for it. If they had worked it into an actual storyline for her rather than just brushing over her shit for the sake of reducing her down to a chosen one baby factory ala Padme I’d forgive it more. But haven’t we evolved from that? Have we not moved on from “Your entire story and essence is now distilled down to the chosen one baby you will produce”

There were good ways to get her there they didn’t take. Like if you are unfamiliar with Star Wars and just watching the show it comes across as “A weird psychic told me my boyfriend was The Guy, so I’m gonna fuck off with our baby so he can be The Guy” when we have nothing establishing that Bix puts any stock into that mysticism. For a show so grounded usually it comes across as convenient shelving rather than an intentional character driven choice.

Other than the “weird psychic” we have nothing establishing Cassian as such an integral piece of the Rebellion that Bix would feel the need to the choice away from him. We have nothing establishing Bix as someone who would make that choice because they didn’t give it to us. We get conversation with weird psychic, Cassian goes on a mission, comes back, Bix drugs him and then absconds and then Vel is telling him to talk to her without any other context given and then end scene baby reveal. That is not a storyline.

I dunno, maybe I’m not deep enough in the Star Wars lore to get it but that’s kind of my point. You shouldn’t have to be for characters to make decisions that make sense with what you’ve established within the story you are telling.

[ripplestitchskein]

Promise I haven’t forgotten or abandoned anything, between Easter and Mothers Day and trying to get as much established as possible in the garden before the big heat sets in as well as prepping for my technical interview Thursday I’ve been all over the place.

[ripplestitchskein]

I am enjoying the second season of Andor, not as much as the first, but there were some really well done episodes and I am of course always going to fuck with the central theme. Because of the structure though they do have to do more with expositional dialogue to catch you up to what’s been going on, which can be done well but in some episodes just felt like we were checking story beats off like a todo list without any emotional impact or resonance.

I am not, however, enjoying what they have done with Bix. And to a smaller extent Wilmon but with Bix it’s like they couldn’t be bothered to actually come up with something for her to do? And the one storyline they were kinda focusing on, her trauma from the mental torture, they speed ran it as an after thought and without any type of satisfactory resolution. I had no idea she was going to even go kill the guy until she was walking through the building I don’t understand how she got into and walking back out like nothing happened. The drug thing was such a nothing burger I’m still like “Why was this in there? What was the point?” Did I want a storyline where a traumatized woman is mentally tortured and near raped and loses her entire life and turns to drugs to cope? Not really tbh, but they set it up so what was it for?

She’s spent a majority of this season just waiting around for Cassian making sad and scared faces out of windows and doorways and then left him for the dumbest reason I can think of when there were many and numerous reasons for her to do so that would make a ton more sense. I get that they needed to get Cassian to Rogue One but there were so many ways to do that where she is still interesting and impactful without it seeming like it came out of nowhere. She had so many possibilities and they took none of them.

I’m just bummed, like they didn’t fridge her but what they did wasn’t much better.

[ripplestitchskein]

This week’s chapter will be a bit late, I need to work in my resume for a job opportunity I was encouraged to pursue and am kind of excited about so I want to put in the extra effort.

Wish me luck!

[ripplestitchskein]

Garden tour! We are growing for the first time here so I dunno what I’m doing but I’m doing my best.

[ripplestitchskein]

Fell down a Jiang Cheng/ Nie Huaisang rabbit hole out of nowhere 😂. Like I was going through LZ/WW tag and clicked on Four Days in Lanling and now my brain is at full alert like a hunting dog.

Definitely a dynamic I’ll be filing away for my own machinations later.

[ripplestitchskein]

I honestly think this is down to people being “Cliche/Tropes” = Bad/Cringe instead of realizing that literally everything is a cliche/trope on some level,nothing new under the sun etc etc.

I’ve seen this come up a lot with Viv shows that she just writes fanfic and cliches and that it automatically equals “bad writing” but the show goes out of its way to show it’s celebrating tropes, reveling in them almost like “Hey, it’s FUN TO DO THIS THATS WHY ITS SO POPULAR” and doing classic tropes with complicated characters and interesting world building rather than what we’re used to seeing rather simple characters, mundane worlds, working through a subverted or dressed up trope to make it interesting.

Like it’s still a damsel in distress story if the damsel is like, rescued from a symbolic allegory for capitalism and oppression or whatever the fuck but VivziePop team opted to go “Hey let’s just do the trope as written, big dragon, knight, sword, etc” and that makes people uncomfortable because they’ve been told enjoying simple tropes is too cliche, it’s not unique, etc,

There’s a reason so many people like fanfic and why you see the same tropes over and over. They fucking work and they are enjoyable as fuck but people are so afraid to just like enjoy basic shit or shit “teens” like as adults they need it to be couched in layers of symbolism and metaphor to feel like it was cerebral enough.

I totally get everyone has preferences and their own likes and dislikes, but it still baffles me when people say the Andrealphus fight was their least fave scene in Sinsmas and some even wish it wasn't in the episode at all....

Like, respectfully disagree /gen, but that is literally my fave scene in Sinsmas (at most it's tied with the balcony dance) on top of Sinsmas being my fave episode in the entire show and I can't think of a single scene in that episode I genuinely didn't like.

What can I say, I'm a simple girl. I see a damsel in distress getting rescued by their knight in shining armor as they kiss while falling through the sky and I fold!

Not to mention it ends with Octavia being a total badass! And then it goes right into heartbreak, ahahaaaa... I'm fine.

[ripplestitchskein]

I really want to do an audio version of Myrth, and while I think I can do the voices and stuff if I record it myself I don’t really have a good audio setup and that is not my strong suit, nor do I have a particular passion for recording or acting really. I also don’t know anything about it and learning a whole skill and wasting time on that labor, when I want to be writing and creating instead seems like a no brainer for outsourcing.

I can’t hire voice actors for a project that is free however, it’s not a money making endeavor it’s just a thing I like to write and if people want to tip they can feel free to do so. I am extremely poor so I don’t have extra fun money to throw at it either.

So I’m looking at ElevenLabs to do an AI audiobook but I feel ehhhhhh about it. I like that you can like determine how it says things to get the tone and everything right, you can control those aspects of production like a producer would, and you can have different voices for different characters and sound effects etc, and it seems like the voices were ethically obtained. I had it do a sample chapter and it did a good job.

But I also worry about the long term effect on the industry. I don’t want to contribute to something that hurts others. But at the same time I’m not a potential source of income for the industry anyway, if I had money I’d hire an actor over an AI, but I don’t and it’s unlikely I ever will so it’s hard not to take it for the accessible alternative it is.

But it also goes against like, my general principles. I’m a software engineer so AI is a really weird area for me. I think it’s dangerous and will lead to a loss of soft skills, real talent, and creativity but it’s also inevitable and can be a really useful tool for certain situations where my AuADHD needs someone to step in for executive function and doesn’t want to be a burden on those around me.

I’m mostly just looking for opinions on this, like I’d prefer if you weren’t like judgey or like super intense, but I welcome all opinions.

[ripplestitchskein]

I’m with you 100%. They’ve never been great at marketing imo. Their marketing/PR is so merch focused but not really show focused if that makes sense.

Fans have to scramble to glean clues from merch drops that ultimately don’t mean anything and they have little to do with the show unless it’s a product directly from an episode. Even during the season they would go months and months with total radio silence and just drop the episode with little fanfare, when there are so many non spoilery hints they could drop along the way from stills, storyboards, out of context dialogue etc.

We saw the entire big song moment of Full Moon and did that diminish fan excitement one bit? Fuck no.

It is not a bad thing if your audience pieces together parts of your story from clues, especially if it gets them excited and engaging with it along the way. You can be strategic about it. They spend more time addressing anti bullshit and defending themselves rather than just keeping it moving and engaging the actual fans with stuff to ruminate and flail about while we wait.

And honestly, it’s an animated show. They are 2D drawings. Go back to the instagrams and drop canonical background stuff once in awhile and make it a part of the story, part of the world building, etc. Use it to flesh out your characters in places where it wouldn’t be worth it to animate and give them greater depth. Take like a week, sit down and plot it out and then have like one or two artists who just do illustrations for that during the hiatus. Occasionally work in little nuggets does stuff to come, give little clues hidden in the illustrations, fucking give fans something to do with your story over the wait.

And like I said, it may be me, I have a bad brain so secrecy and silence and vague negative comments to me equal “You are going to be upset so to prevent backlash we’re keeping it secret” which may be the total wrong way to interpret that, probably is, but if all I’m getting is “it was hard for us to get through” and just dark and negative stuff during the big hype event of the year that’s how I’m going to feel about the show for the entire hiatus, which frankly, does not make me want to watch it, rather the opposite.

I dunno, it suck’s. I’m bummed. Maybe it will turn around as they get further along and we’ll get some stuff but if I were polled right now “Are you excited about S3 after LvLUP” I’d say no.

The difference in vibe in the tags between last years LvlUP and this years for me cannot be understated. Last year there were clips of panels and fun clips and everyone was super stoked and posting and like super thrilled and we were getting good content to be excited about and flail over. I’ve been checking in all weekend trying to find even the barest crumbs 😭.

This year it’s “The song contest was fun” “Yay a new short” and “The Prime deal we knew was coming is official”

Was it really as bland as the tags are making it seem, or is it just that fun and exciting stuff hasn’t been posted by attendees yet??

Am I in the wrong tags? Was there anything to discuss I missed? It’s killing me some generous soul please give me something to be excited about.