#<- things i have memorized for the bit

[hychlorions]

[spursthatjinglejanglejingle]

[edwinisms]

wait yeah hold on how the hell did edwin open a door from hell to earth? like if powerful beings like the night nurse or certain demonic entities are necessary to open and close doors to other planes (especially hell where souls being trapped there is kind of the point) then what the fuck did edwin manage to pull off? did he somehow trick a demon or whatever into opening one? was one opened for one reason or another– maybe upon a demon’s return from retrieving a soul– and he timed it, booked it, and jumped in? there certainly isn’t just some constantly open ever-accessible door at the top of The Endless Staircase considering that would make hell kind of pointless. did edwin payne manage, somehow, over the span of 70 years, to figure out how to open a door from limbo/the staircase to earth by himself? am i just missing something here?

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 6: Big Beat (Big Boy)

Wooohoooo, Big Beat! Our favourite little "questionable lyrics" album. Anyway, this one's lots of fun. Full of unrefutable bangers and hard rocking that's not like anything else that Sparks have done for the most part (and it's still very Sparks despite that). But yeah, this is a very strange era for them that I find pretty charming actually, and I think that for the full Big Beat experience one must watch the Capitol Theatre concert from this era (funnily, my favourite bit of it isn't even a song from this album... it's Equator, and, well, this is the exact type of theatricality that I'm a really big fan of, haha)

While I undoubtedly DO like this album, there must also be a reason I don't revisit it all that often. And I think, well, is it just just me or are lots of songs here just kind of... way too simple? Musically speaking (too), and while I'm pretty easy to please when it comes to this type of music that's much more on the rock than pop side of things, and my first impression here was very positive, well, afterwards... I either forgot about it altogether or often had a feeling of "can we move on now" when songs from this album came on shuffle and such. Even listening to this album today I had lots of those moments, like it's not that I don't like these songs... I guess they're just less engaging than I'm used to from Sparks (cause I don't want to call them boring, I think it's a bit of a different thing...).

Also interesting, because despite all this, the 21×21 Big Beat concert is actually a pretty big fav of mine. So I guess my thesis for today is that it's the type of album that works better live maybe!

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Big Boy: just a good opener and fun song all around, and here's a fun fact about it: about a half of this song's length is just its title being said. Which means that the song Big Boy consists of 50% pure Big Boy

I Want To Be Like Everybody Else: sadly, a bit of a victim of Spotify Shuffle really wanting me to listen to it over and over and it getting a bit old fast

I Bought The Mississippi River: my fav here by far and also the most interesting and memorable, I really like the call & response part, and the guitar solos, the whole atmosphere is great, reminds me a little bit of High C even now that I think about it... Not sure though, I JUST thought about this

Confusion: one of the only songs here that I could see as part of some other album from around this time without it sticking out too much. Makes sense if we keep its origins in mind...

Screwed Up: it's fun to imagine sometimes that the 60s just happened

I Like Girls: COME ON, GIIIIIIRLS!!!

Tearing The Place Apart + Looks Aren't Everything: I love all the bonus tracks here but these two especially are a nice (and unexpected) return to the Indiscreet style which I really love

[lordartsy]

Octokuber, day 3 - Secondary Rider

always at Mach speed~

Out of all the secondaries I could've picked, I ended up going with Gou because honestly? You don't just walk back an introductory episode like that. Oh, you're just gonna do back flips all over the main character, overshadow him in his own damn show, set up an entire stage with pyrotechnics for your first transformation, and you're just NOT gonna be my favorite character? I don't care how many stupid stunts he pulled in the later episodes, he had me at "Let's~ Henshin!"

[your--isgayrights]

Outside of Lee Seolhwa and Lee Sookyung, do you have plans for any other character outside of Kim Dokja’s primary companions (like Gong Pildu or Han Doonghoon) for your soulmate fanfiction? Constellations like Persephone or Uriel or Sun Wukong probably wouldn’t make sense to exist in real life but maybe characters such as Han Myungoh/Han Dareum or Jang Hayoung could fit? If I recall correctly, Jang Hayoung in particular is the one responsible for the title of the fanfiction, right? I feel like she alongside the Unidentifiable Wall and the Fourth Wall would be so thematically appropriate but I couldn’t imagine how you would do it if at all. I also want to say that I’m impressed how you managed to seamlessly incorporate so many references to the original ORV into your work. It must have required you to reread and recheck the wiki.

Yess, I'm glad you asked this anon bc literally I just threw in a little reference to Han Doonghoon and Lee Sungkook in the 4.4 update and got worried people would think they had to remember the characters well to understand the surrounding plot point better than Kim Dokja does. But I think I should trust the reader a bit more lol.

Unfortunately my inclusion of Aileen and Jang Hayoung isn't going to be as big as the other kdjco members, but they're sort of already set up in the fic and have a role in chap 5. I think JHY doesn't appear directly bc to me the relationship between her and KDJ is harder to make 'real,' though I have some ideas depending on how much I decide to include in chap 5. In my plans 5 will have a gaming tourney featured, so other big 'wos players' may be referenced further there as well.

Of course like you mention the fic title and many of the chapter titles are coming directly from the mouth of Jang Hayoung, so in that way she is constantly being referenced, haha.

Han Myungoh and his daughter are referenced earlier in Chapter 4. It's sort of a drive by.

I do make use of the wiki (bless the editorsn🙏), though mostly just to check dates, numbers, and spellings of names. I like to think of myself as someone with a pretty decent memory tho, so a lot of the more specific story references are definitely just me pulling in stuff I remember from my novel read throughs. Like I might have to look at the wiki to remember Han Dareum's name, but I'll never forget Han Myungoh's entire Male Pregnancy that he had like that was a crazy random W to me on my first ORV read through I was like hello??? Also that being around when JHY was being confirmed trans haha. I think I was only out for like a year or so before reading orv so the little gender fucky moments really stuck out to me.

Sometimes rereading my old work I also remember things I forgot happened in ORV. I think part of the reason I'm struggling so much with chap 4 and onward is that now that the wall fic characters have sort of developed to where they are some of the scenes I had in mind are less 1 to 1 with the OG. For instance, I'm trying to rewrite a scene I have of YJH and KDJ having a rooftop chat that like parallels the one back before the seoul's strongest incarnation arc in the novel, but it's a bit difficult. At first I wanted to include a lot more of KDJ interacting with the rest of YJH's team, but the rooftop Scene makes more sense to put a cap on the themes explored in chap 4. But when I first wrote this scene it was less specifically addressing that theme, because it was in the outline of like right after I wrote chapter 1, so it was kind of just the OG ORV scene with the flavoring of my AU on top. A lot of the little things they do and say in the OG novel would have to be quite finagled to fit anymore, so reworking it is the big task rn.

Anyway I'm really appreciative of people like you who take note of these small details <3. it's kind of helping me remember and appreciate a lot of the parts of me that were behind a lot of Wall fic originally if that makes sense? I am like reintroducing myself to him and giving him a hug instead of running away cringing just because it's me lol.

[paimonial-rage]

The biggest recommendation I can give on writing dialogue that sounds in character for the character to say is, not to read the quests they are in, but to listen to the English dub whenever you get the chance. This may seem difficult especially if you are used to playing it in another language, but listening is key to getting the vibe of a character down. What you pay attention to is, not what they say, but the cadence in which they say it. Pay attention to the emotion in their voice, the speed at which they say things, the volume, etc. Once you get this down, it becomes easier to get an idea of what “sounds” right and what doesn’t. Cadence is an especially powerful thing. By training your ears to a character’s cadence, you can get a better idea of which words they would prefer to use, the lengths of their sentences, and things of the sort.

For example, reader asks Zhongli to dinner and he accepts. How would he respond? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so I accept. Thank you for the invitation.” But that doesn’t sound right, does it? Is Zhongli the type of person that uses many contractions? I don’t think so, so let’s fix it. “Hmm, I am not busy this evening, so I accept. Thank you for the invitation.” But would he say “I accept?” Perhaps, but it still doesn’t sound right. How has he accepted proposals in the past? A bit of research shows he has said “sure.” How can I mix that in? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so sure. Thank you for the invitation.” But hmm… the second sentence doesn’t sound right. What else could he say instead? “Hmm, I’m not busy this evening, so sure. It would be my pleasure.” That sounds a lot better.

Some people may ask why you can’t do these things while listening to another language. Personally, I don’t believe you can. If you are not fluent in those other languages, your ears are not properly trained enough to understand the nuance of the ways they speak. The correct emotion and tone will come through, yes, but you still won’t be able to intuitively know what sounds right and what does not. You only will get this sense by listening to it in the language you choose to write in.

The only downside to this is that your writing will become based upon the English translation of the game. As many people know, the portrayal of characters in English often does not completely match the portrayals in Chinese. This is especially so for characters like Zhongli, Xiao, and Kaeya. A lot is lost in the translation and dubbing process. Characters do not vibe the same. Thus, your portrayals will be more true to English, but not how it technically is “supposed” to be. Personally, I don’t necessarily believe this is a bad thing. However, it is something that can bother people. The only way I can imagine getting around it is by playing the game with the Chinese dub and by following accounts that speak Chinese and can give insight on the literal translations and what they mean and imply.

[maryellencarter]

you know, the preamble to the (us) constitution is by far the shortest piece of english writing i've ever failed to memorize

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The Crimson Crown

sapphic high fantasy

in a world where witchcraft is outlawed by the king, a young witch from a coven masquerading as a convent is struggling to come into her powers, and live up to her mother’s expectations after her older sister died

when she discovers a way she could possibly bring her sister back, and prove herself to her mother, she travels to the palace and quickly gets caught up in politics, along with the ex she hasn’t seen in years, who has her own agenda

snow white reimagining, villain origin story

[kryaaas]

Jean is bad in sex because he always wishes he could have mustarbated alone instead (masturbate with mustard)

[too-many-paper-cranes]

oh hey the video is public now so i can post on tumblr about this without sounding insane! anyway everyone should go watch me and a few other speedrunners hunt fire for sport (randomizer edition)

[thepandalion]

not to be annoying or anything but it's been 9 years since the release of indie game undertale

[chiropteracupola]

regular achievable plans (what if we learned a language simply because we wanted to get better at cataloguing different versions of johnny has gone for a soldier/siúil a rún...)

[sonknuxadow]

the person running the artfight tumblr account is so brave because if that was me i would have turned into the joker by now with the way like 60 percent of the posts ive seen from them are them answering questions that have either already been answered a million times on the blog before or is something the sender would probably know the answer to if they read the rules . or both

[red-dyed-sarumane]

people who think the only series songs are the ones directly tied to aru sekai shoushitsu by title are so funny. theres 11 songs and the same major motif is in all but 3 of them. but they dont have a certain kanji in the title so they must not be related right. "marshall maximizer & kanon are their own side thing" "kugutsu ashura isnt a series song" fascinated by this world view. kugutsu ashura is the outlier here so i'll get to that in a second but

aru sekai shoushitsu is the starting point & the reason we can pick out its a series & theorize about where its going. most people can pick out that kyuuyaku hankagai, shuuen touhikou, & oumen mokushiroku are series songs based on the fact their titles start with the same kanji that are emphasized in lines in aru sekai shoushitsu. which is true and great.

we also have the "nami no ne no yume wo miyou ame hodo no uruoi wo" melody that appears in most major & side songs & ultimately serves to distinguish which characters maintain a self of self and get to live and try again and which dont (those that lack the melody in their respective song.) it initially shows up as a repeated line in aru sekai shoushitsu & basically describes that whole concept of getting to continue or "being reborn" that it symbolizes. and then its in kyuuyaku hankagai at 4:51 mixed into the instrumental behind the vocals and more notably at 5:16, shuuen touhikou during the chorus at 1:20 2:34 & 2:47, oumen mokushiroku which is also the Only song where its sung & not apart of the instrumental aside from aru sekai shoushitsu itself at 2:30 & 2:51, unplanned apoptosis at 0:46 (very hard to make out because of the vocals if u listen to the instrumental only u can pick it out easier) & in the chorus at 0:57 1:07 2:17 & 2:26, marshall maximizer at 2:23, kanon at 2:19, and kannagi at 3:31 & 5:45.

that's of course not the only melody to denote a connection between songs there's also rute furute woa which is used exclusively in songs that happen in the past. it's in kyuuyaku hankagai behind the fractal wa kurikaeshita lines at 2:24 4:33 & 5:01 and more notably at 5:30, shuuen touhikou at the whole most of the song when theres not singing& also in behind the chorus at 1:06 2:13 & 2:22, kannagi as a lyric at 1:30 3:00 4:31 & 5:01, POSSIBLY oumen mokushiroku at 1:42 and POSSIBLY kugutsu ashura at 2:47 as the melody for the initial parts of those lines* *saying these two are possible because i know these parts sound like a series motif but its just different enough to keep me guessing. i'm continuing my research as we speak rest assured

and then there's not so much a melodic motif but the inclusion of a singular glass breaking noise thats a bit of a niche thing to notice & it creates a timeline for everything that happens after oumen mokushiroku, with the exception of unplanned apoptosis. marshall maximizer has it at 1:41, kanon at 0:22, laboratory at 2:42, and yamete kudasai at 0:00. oumen does not have this sound effect at its that song's events that break the glass (as told in kanon) and unplanned apoptosis does not have it bc the art implies it to being happening after the glass has already broken.

which leads us to only kugutsu ashura which lacks any immediately obvious motifs and yet is still a series song. it does not have the nami no ne no motif because thats reserved for characters who live or in series terms are "reborn with the next world" and she as both ashura and a puppet lacks her own "self" and her actions are not for her own gain or purposes. i do not believe its intended to be a future/present/modern song & is otherwise a bit estranged from the group that has the glass breaking noise in their songs so it makes sense that wouldnt be in the song. the only remaining thing would be the past motif & due to other details (how the lyrics are written, strong ties to shuuen touhikou & kyuuyaku hankagai, a few other minor things) it does seem to be intended to be a past song but the only place the motif could possibly be is in the last lyrics particularly the ugate ine sono rensa/ yagate mitsu sono koe wa/ mukae rinne sono mei wa/ ata e urufu sono sei wa parts sound a bit like a fragment of the rute furute woa melody. and in the event thats just me making things up because i have listened to every single one of these songs several thousand times without exaggeration, ignoring literally everything else the very last line in the song is mata ibuku you ni literally "so we may breathe again" which is a direct parallel to part of the lyrics in the nami no ne no part in aru sekai shoushitsu "umareyou mou ichido nakusedomo nai keredo/hodo ni" or "let's be born once more though there's no way to lose life/as though life can't be lost" which is a strong enough point to claim its a series song on its own. not to mention if u actually want to go digging into the wall of text that kugutsu ashura is (i dont. i did i once and keep putting off going thru it again even though i really need to) there're more connections to be made to other songs.

this isnt to say every hiiragi magnetite song is a series song because thats also not true. a lot of what makes series songs series songs is the wording; they have a lot more precise words to describe things & usually end up sounding odd if youre thinking of them as stand alone songs. compare to uni for example that, yeah sure it does talk about the rain which is also a series staple & major symbol, but its not a series song. its just a fun little song with comparatively simple lyrics that happens to take place when its raining.

[unopenablebox]

restless and bored :/