#And I don't care about worldbuilding

[charulein]

After spending most of yesterday playing ffxiv with my free trial ending and all, I had decided to see how far in shadowbringers I can get and...

It's not looking good lads

Look, I love G'raha - I mean the Exarch, as much as anyone, right, but after sitting through what felt like hours of exposition and worldbuilding I was exhausted. Picking up Alisae was at least a little reprieve from all that, with more emotional beats to it, though of course the one character I actually start liking dies to show us what the deal with the sin eaters is...

Then came Alphinauds exhausting exposition bonanza, and at this point I just read the dialogues and clicked on to be done as fast as possible - Norvrandt isn't particularly pretty and extremely depressing, and the music too dissonant and eerie to want to listen to it longer than is absolutely necessary.

Then you get inside this filthy kingdom blablabla king bad blabla alphinaud sad blablabla

At least the dungeon broke up the tediousness. I think it was pretty decent, the battle music went off, and I can't help but adore the visual design of the Sin Eaters - eery and statue-like, with eyes of bleeding darkness. Since my friends weren't around, I did it with the npcs and I have my complaints, but that system isn't really all that relevant.

What is, is the fact that only the Warrior of Light can absorb the light aether, which makes sense with the Echo and all, and everyone acting... Surprised? Like, wasn't that supposed to be the working part of your plan? I also don't particularly like being called Warrior of Darkness, but alas, that's not too annoying in the big picture.

Amd then comes the part that will make or break this expac for me: my beloved Minfilia.

I really hated the matter of factly exposition on her, how she saved this sorry world and keeps suffering for it. Like, i think this would have been a lot more emotionally impactful to experience firsthand, and not for a boring npc to read from a book....... Another thing that riled me up immensely was the twins being more worried about Thancred reacting to the news about Minfilia than the WoL.

It was my impression that during ARR, Minfilia and the WoL grow close, Minfilia even choosing to confide in you personally time and time again - and all this gets ignored by the narrative. Oh the WoL doesn't care, oh the WoL got over it etc. Honestly, the scions don't quite care about Stubborn too much, compared to Aymeric or Hien...

Anyways, despite knowing that this isn't Yucca's Minfilia, I couldn't help but shed tears at the prospect of seeing her again. I really really miss her, and ffxiv just isn't the same with her absence... I know it's not her, but I hope that she can come back home to Eorzea with Yucca, that she can finally see her family again!!!

So yeah, so far I'm absolutely not impressed with Shadowbringers, but I'll continue once I resub in September, so let's see if the writing improves after this ambling introduction.

[thunderboltfire]

I have a lot of complicated feelings when it comes to what Neflix has done with the Witcher, but my probably least favourite is the line of argumentation that originated during shitstorms related to the first and second season that I was unlucky to witness.

It boils down to "Netflix's reinterpretation and vision is valid, because the Witcher books are not written to be slavic. The overwhelming Slavic aestetic is CDPR's interpretation, and the setting in the original books is universally European, as there are references to Arthurian mythos and celtic languages" And I'm not sure where this argument originated and whether it's parroting Sapkowski's own words or a common stance of people who haven't considered the underlying themes of the books series. Because while it's true that there are a lot of western european influences in the Witcher, it's still Central/Eastern European to the bone, and at its core, the lack of understanding of this topic is what makes the Netflix series inauthentic in my eyes.

The slavicness of the Witcher goes deeper than the aestetics, mannerisms, vodka and sour cucumbers. Deeper than Zoltan wrapping his sword with leopard pelt, like he was a hussar. Deeper than the Redanian queen Hedvig and her white eagle on the red field.

What Witcher is actually about? It's a story about destiny, sure. It's a sword-and-sorcery style, antiheroic deconstruction of a fairy tale, too, and it's a weird mix of many culture's influences.

But it's also a story about mundane evil and mundane good. If You think about most dark, gritty problems the world of Witcher faces, it's xenophobia and discrimination, insularism and superstition. Deep-seated fear of the unknown, the powerlessness of common people in the face of danger, war, poverty and hunger. It's what makes people spit over their left shoulder when they see a witcher, it's what makes them distrust their neighbor, clinging to anything they deem safe and known. It's their misfortune and pent-up anger that make them seek scapegoats and be mindlessly, mundanely cruel to the ones weaker than themselves.

There are of course evil wizards, complicated conspiracies and crowned heads, yes. But much of the destruction and depravity is rooted in everyday mundane cycle of violence and misery. The worst monsters in the series are not those killed with a silver sword, but with steel. it's hard to explain but it's the same sort of motiveless, mundane evil that still persist in our poorer regions, born out of generations-long poverty and misery. The behaviour of peasants in Witcher, and the distrust towards authority including kings and monarchs didn't come from nowhere.

On the other hand, among those same, desperately poor people, there is always someone who will share their meal with a traveller, who will risk their safety pulling a wounded stranger off the road into safety. Inconditional kindness among inconditional hate. Most of Geralt's friends try to be decent people in the horrible world. This sort of contrasting mentalities in the recently war-ridden world is intimately familiar to Eastern and Cetral Europe.

But it doesn't end here. Nilfgaard is also a uniquely Central/Eastern European threat. It's a combination of the Third Reich in its aestetics and its sense of superiority and the Stalinist USSR with its personality cult, vast territory and huge army, and as such it's instantly recognisable by anybody whose country was unlucky enough to be caught in-between those two forces. Nilfgaard implements total war and looks upon the northerners with contempt, conscripts the conquered people forcibly, denying them the right of their own identity. It may seem familiar and relevant to many opressed people, but it's in its essence the processing of the trauma of the WW2 and subsequent occupation.

My favourite case are the nonhumans, because their treatment is in a sense a reminder of our worst traits and the worst sins in our history - the regional antisemitism and/or xenophobia, violence, local pogroms. But at the very same time, the dilemma of Scoia'Tael, their impossible choice between maintaining their identity, a small semblance of freedom and their survival, them hiding in the forests, even the fact that they are generally deemed bandits, it all touches the very traumatic parts of specifically Polish history, such as January Uprising, Warsaw Uprising, Ghetto Uprising, the underground resistance in WW2 and the subsequent complicated problem of the Cursed Soldiers all at once. They are the 'other' to the general population, but their underlying struggle is also intimately known to us.

The slavic monsters are an aestetic choice, yes, but I think they are also a reflection of our local, private sins. These are our own, insular boogeymen, fears made flesh. They reproduce due to horrors of the war or they are an unprovoked misfortune that descends from nowhere and whose appearance amplifies the local injustices.

I'm not talking about many, many tiny references that exist in the books, these are just the most blatant examples that come to mind. Anyway, the thing is, whether Sapkowski has intended it or not, Witcher is slavic and it's Polish because it contains social commentary. Many aspects of its worldbuilding reflect our traumas and our national sins. It's not exclusively Polish in its influences and philosophical motifs of course, but it's obvious it doesn't exist in a vacuum.

And it seems to me that the inherently Eastern European aspects of Witcher are what was immediately rewritten in the series. It seems to me that the subtler underlying conflicts were reshaped to be centered around servitude, class and gender disparity, and Nilfgaard is more of a fanatic terrorist state than an imposing, totalitarian empire. A lot of complexity seems to be abandoned in lieu of usual high-fantasy wordbuilding. It's especially weird to me because it was completely unnecessary. The Witcher books didn't need to be adjusted to speak about relevant problems - they already did it! The problem of acceptance and discrimination is a very prevalent theme throughout the story! They are many strong female characters too, and they are well written. Honestly I don't know if I should find it insulting towards their viewers that they thought it won't be understood as it was and has to be somehow reshaped to fit the american perpective, because the current problems are very much discussed in there and Sapkowski is not subtle in showing that genocide and discrimination is evil. Heck, anyone who has read the ending knows how tragic it makes the whole story.

It also seems quite disrespectful, because they've basically taken a well-established piece of our domestic literature and popular culture and decided that the social commentary in it is not relevant. It is as if all it referenced was just not important enough and they decided to use it as an opportunity to talk about the problems they consider important. And don't get me wrong, I'm not forcing anyone to write about Central European problems and traumas, I'm just confused that they've taken the piece of art already containing such a perspective on the popular and relevant problem and they just... disregarded it, because it wasn't their exact perspective on said problem.

And I think this homogenisation, maybe even from a certain point of view you could say it's worldview sanitisation is a problem, because it's really ironic, isn't it? To talk about inclusivity in a story which among other problems is about being different, and in the same time to get rid of motifs, themes and references because they are foreign? Because if something presents a different perspective it suddenly is less desirable?

There was a lot of talking about the showrunners travelling to Poland to understand the Witcher's slavic spirit and how to convey it. I don't think they really meant it beyond the most superficial, paper-thin facade.

[thatdustybunny]

spy x family chapter discourse as of late...

[genericpuff]

people kicking and screaming about the cultural worldbuilding in Dawntrail:

people who aren't white redditors:

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

Road To Ruin

start of a postapocalyptic fantasy series set in an Asian-inspired desert world plagued by dangerous storms

follows a courier who transports romantic letters between a prince and princess, who helps the princess escape across the wastes towards the prince’s safe haven

but they’re pursued by bounty hunters, and accidentally uncover some ancient secrets. and also she’s in love with both of them

dinosaurs, magical motorbikes,

bi MC, start of polyam triad

[silverware-is-interesting]

WOE! object show doodles be upon ye!

idk some doodles and some ss redraws of object shows i enjoy

[tumblweeds-omegaverse]

random omegaverse thought:

There must be people who experience specific instinct things with indifference or boredom.

Procreative cycle coming up? "Crap, I've got plans this weekend...stupid skip weeks."

Caught an intriguing scent while walking? "But I need to get to work! Shut up brain."

Had a snap response to a distressed sound? "Who was it?! ...right, it's my day off, I can go back to sleep."

Somebody growled at them? "Kid, I'm not a rival, that's my sibling."

Super cozy cuddle session happening nearby? "I'm gonna pass tonight guys, no social battery left, maybe next time."

Group of friends heading out to flirt and check out other singles? "I'm coming with you but only to make sure you all get home safe."

Setting where fated mates or soul bonds or permanent marks are a thing? "Meh. I don't really want one or care if I ever get one."

People in the actual omegaverse would get as bored of their stuff, as we do of ours, you know? It could be interesting to see that kind of vibe in fics. Biological demands faced with all the excitement of paying bills or doing laundry or tying your shoes.

Even if that kind of energy might not drive a plot, it could be interesting to have as a contrast to the people who do have big feelings about them - good or bad.

There's the friends who can't wait til they have a pack of their own, and the one friend who isn't against it but couldn't care less. There's the group in the office who are all about scent compatibility tests and figuring out one's best match and what sprays most highlight it, and the coworker who has no intentions on putting that much effort in. There are parents who hover and protect their offspring by scenting them multiple times a day, and others who don't see what the fuss is as long as it's done in the morning.

...also: packs with introverts who show care by giving each other space. So often, closeness is depicted through physical touch and tactile affection, but comfortable silence is meaningful too. Knowing people are near, but not having to interact until you're ready. Sitting in the same room doing different things, knowing that all it takes is a "hey, look at this" to share what you're up to. People understanding and accepting each other's differing or fluctuating needs for how and when to recharge. Seeing somebody reaching out or sharing space, beyond what's their norm, as a signal of the fact that they care.

[longagoitwastuesday]

I keep thinking that this Gojo is just like Sukuna. I truly don't see much of a difference between them beyond the human/curse point of view

[xshimaeraxx]

here, take a casino cups au/fic idea (bc i have WAY too many wips in my ellipsus drafts rn 2 make another one):

in the isles, the age of legal majority, is, for reasons that only God truly knows*, 26. due to this, the fact cuphead and mugman, a pair of 18 year olds with a very, very dead legal guardian, are living alone is… troublesome (and that's not even getting inta the fact that they're working a job, and while that ALONE wouldn't be illegal, the fact that they're doing it to keep themselves from bein' caught by CPS most definitely IS. Why else d'you think they're working at a place they died at likely over a hundred times?—it's LITERALLY the only job that'd take 'em, bc every other one called cps on them when their old bosses inevitably figured out they were 17 / 18; devildice, however, just don't fucking care about the fact they're 18, on the run from cps, and technically currently using the identities/credentials of their very, very DEAD bio-parents to get food & yk, Live Life Like A Fucking Normal Person so long as they do their jobs well. sure, it means they have to periodically dye their hair (humanised au my beloved) dark brown, and sure, it means they have to hide their straws & their tails & their ears & just themselves entirely, but it's better then bein' stuck with some random stranger they don't even know. fuck's sake, they fought the devil and WON, if any pair of so-called "kids" deserve to be able to live like a normal person, it's them.***)

so, of course, once devil & dice find out 'bout this little problem of the siblings' after they start workin' at the casino, the next obvious solution (not, it's batshit inSAN- gets shot) to this problem is for the siblings to let devildice. adopt. them.

for some godforsaken reason, the siblings, when devildice proposes this solution, simply look at each other, have a silent conversation that lasts about, oh, 4-5 minutes, and then "oh, fuckit, it'll solve our problem, and it's not like we ACTUALLY consider our the two idiots our fam'ly, so why not?"

but then. then the siblings start to consider devildice family. and that's when things start getting complicated

* (the reason is because inkwellians, unlike normal humans, don't truly mentally mature 'til they reach the age of 31 (bc God's a control freak, inkwellians are his favourite subspecies of humankind, & so He projects that need for control LITERALLY onto the way they grow and mature 'n such 'n such) but having 26 as the legal majority was already very much pushing it w the way the OutsidersTM's law-makers and governors were eyeing them, so 26 it stayed.)**

** fun fact! the whole "aren't truly mentally mature 'til they're 31" thing? doesn't apply to cups 'n mugs, bc they're descendants of the calix animi, to whom God allowed a biiit more leeway w the whole "bullshit biological / mental maturation" thing. shortly put, it means that they would actually be completely mentally mature at age 24ish, but THEY don't know that. no one, in fact, but their ma and elder kettle 'n chalice did. :3

*** (can you tell they have parental / daddy / mommy issues? can you?)

[elbiotipo]

I'm not asking for lack of violence in videogames though. There is much one can criticize as playing as the 'hero' in a videogame who wields violence, but the thing is, the hero stereotype is not going away as long as humanity exists. In fact, being 'heroic' in many contexts didn't even mean 'a good person', it meant someone who experienced extraordinary stuff and did great feats. Videogames allow you to replicate that. And they are art forms, so they should be analyzed and criticized, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with say, a videogame that allows you to rescue a town from bandits or slay a dragon. Those are things I could not do in real life, and they are fun to experience in a videogame.

What I do not find any enjoyment is in mowing down hordes of nameless enemies in an RPG. I do not mind violence in videogames, and I don't even mind playing as a bad guy. What I think is that if you're just giving me endless low-level enemies to kill and kill and kill, especially if they're people in the lore, I don't enjoy any of it. It's no longer the 80s where you get a better score by destroying enemies in a 8-bit game. I don't feel like a hero by killing Bandit 146, Raider 321 or Wolf 812. I feel like someone who did something extraordinary when I slay a dragon, or defeat an enemy army as a result of my skills.

What I want, in a roleplaying game, are roleplaying choices. If I want to play as a pacifist hero, I should be given the choice, and the choice to fail it. No, perhaps you could not negotiate with the leader of the pirates. Perhaps it's a bad idea to walk to a dragon lair equipped only with your knowledge. You were given the choice. But it also might work in many other cases. You might change things with your words. That's extraordinary too.

There is a lot of truth that many RPGs, from D&D onwards (and let's face it, Dungeon and Dragons looms large over everything) give you violence as the main gameplay, and other things as options. RPG videogames have replicated this once and again. Videogame design assumes leveled enemies, grinding, and combat-centric design as essential for RPGs. And I again, I don't mind combat. I just wonder, why it sucks so much? What pleasure is there in mowing down hundreds of wolves or bandits? When I play an RPG, I play it to be someone extraordinary, or someone regular in an extraordinary world, and I think games would be better if they focused on making an extraordinary, well crafted world where your choices make sense, and then make the gameplay fit around it, instead of endless grinding fights.

[deoidesign]

Can you make a tutorial on how you world build and make ocs? I can't seem to make any people in my brain, but then when I try to come up with environments jobs, beliefs and little details to slowly come up with someone, I think: well I don't really know how people have influenced the world- it's a weird loop

To be honest, I don't think I can! Writing is an extremely personal process. The way I write is directly related to how I process things, what I find important in stories, years of my own analysis of my and other's writing, etc... The way you write will be unique to you, as well. But I can explain how I personally think of it.

The short answer:

Write. Write anything and everything, it's a tool to explore your ideas. Analyze your own writing, and write more. Then, as you discover which ideas you want to develop, write more to explore them more. You won't know what you want otherwise!

The long answer:

I think this kind of loop is common. It's easy to feel like everything needs to be done "at once," because our job as writers is to make elements logically fit with each other for our readers. But as you've discovered, developing multiple elements simultaneously isn't really possible, or at least is extremely difficult.

Personally, when I think of writing, I break it into three major elements; characters, world, and plot. As much as possible every scene explores one or more of these, and as much as possible these three things tie back into what I personally consider most important: theme.

Everything I do is in service of the themes I want to present. Without them my events feel aimless. It can take a while to discover them, but they're the core of my work. You will have to discover what you feel is the core of yours. Analyzing other media helps with this too.

Concepts in your brain exist in a state of infinite potential. But when you start writing you have to start making choices, which removes potential as you move forward... But you have to move forward anyways. If there's ideas you want to explore later, you can always explore them later.

What this ends up meaning, to answer your question, is that I don't think of my characters as "people in my brain" or my worlds as something people have influenced... Not at their core, at least. They are tools that I use to represent specific ideas. Obviously they're also my blorbos, but mostly they're serving a specific narrative purpose.

So above all else... Write. Write, and discover what you're writing about, and then start over and write with that in mind. Keep doing this. But you have to write!

[leescoresbies]

if it's of interest to anybody at all, here's my big picture review of veilguard after my first playthrough! it's not all negative - i think there's a lot of gameplay reasons to really love the game but it also lands overall as a weirdly disjointed, sanitized, and at times soulless followup to a game series that's known for being kind of messy, polarizing and opening doors to argue about inherent contradictions and bad decisions.

i'm a dai HATER so the things i loathed about that game i loathed here too, including a very hateful and lazy engagement with oppression, history, religion & cultural connection, & everything to do with modern elves engaging with their past.

good things: combat! maps, just pure enjoyable playability, scenery, the home base setup, companion banter and some of their relationships, at times the protagonist.

things i hated: immersion, commitment to the bit, an almost dismissive attitude about previous lore and worldbuilding, how all the lore reveals are pulled off, a fear of anything challenging or crunchy that ultimately just pissed off players who love the "argue about inane nonsense" part of da games!

under the cut for spoilers

the good stuff is GENUINELY good. i can tell a lot of focus and time went into elevating some of the clunky parts of previous da games. the character creator! the HAIR! it's so genuinely beautiful and at times breathtaking in its design (realizing that mountain is a titan??) and deeply enjoyable to look at. i LOVED the combat playing as a mage, and loved being able to respec any time to try things and experiment. flexible, entertaining, flashy and fun. inquisition's actual gameplay was such a slog for me as someone who isn't motivated by minmaxing combat strategy in any way, so i loved this.

a lot of people are comparing it to the two new god of war games - for good reason! i think it took a lot of positive notes from them, which is one of the reasons why it's so darned fun to play. it moved away from the party mangement rpg setup of previous da games and, while i do miss that and also understand why people might be frustrated by the change, i think it resulted in a game with compulsively playable combat and a navigable world that's a lot more constrained and exciting - both bigger than origins and da2, and more locked down and specific than dai. this was all a major win, with a few art design things i did struggle with (like the outfits? why? and the fact that you can't preview fits when you buy them from vendors?) i think this let the environments shine, and exploring them was so exciting.

however -- the comparisons to god of war reveal what my fundamental biggest problem with the game is. the GoW games are beautiful, thrilling to play, full of epic fights -- but for me anyway, at their core they're so good because they're a deep dive into a really complicated relationship between two people. they focus on a very specific story, and let that story unspool as you move through the world. the environment supports the story, not the other way around. characters fight and scream with each other, and have friction in their worldviews, and make decisions they regret badly. and the story is linear enough that there's nothing ambiguous or loose about any of it. sure, mainlining those valkyrie fights is fun but the games are incredible because they let the characters really have space to develop their points of view, make hard decisions, get pissed at each other!

DAV does none of this. offers no friction that isn't surface level, gives its characters no space to have contradictory or complex political opinions, and does not touch its own thorny and convoluted worldbuilding that's built on fictional oppressive systems (that are allegorical for real oppressive systems!) there is no discussion of slavery, even though the companions include a tevinter mage and two elves and your character can be an elf, a freedom fighter, or an ex-slave (which i discovered in one-off banter between laidir and taash?????? what?). there is no religious friction between people of different backgrounds. there is no depth or history or context.

the only time the game tries to think about its oppressive systems is when its telling the story of the ancient elves (powerful elf mages oppressing other elves), and has its elven characters (marginalized in the world they live in! they are forced to live in slums and work as servants or be enslaved, or else abandon society to hold onto their fractured history! hello!) APOLOGIZE for the decisions of their ancestors. the moments where bellara or davrin or the veil jumpers discuss how their people's lost deities returning (people who, again, have been slaughtered over and over and over by fantasy catholics for believing in them) and, surprise!, being power-wielding evil aristocrats who enslaved them are few and far between. it's disrespectful and dry and so, so, so boring.

as an example: lace harding (red head, white, grew up on a farm, follows fantasy catholicism) gets a whole moment where the player can lament in her feeling her religion's truths have been turned upside down. you can also say you're a fantasy catholic! bellara and davrin (both a fictional minority in the game, both represented by real-life minorities) are never given that space. and neither is rook.

there's no space for any of the characters to wrestle with those contradictions! to draw connections between themselves and solas, for good or bad! to hold him accountable! there's a reason so many people were expecting a game about a slave revolt in tevinter in the last ten years, because at some point we expected these things to come to a head and explode, changing the rules of the world. that would have been satisfying! leveling a city for no reason with no narrative impact is not.

at the end of the day, i wasn't convinced by the elven god lore reveals -- this is true about DAI too, and i hated it at the time. i wasn't convinced that anything world-shaking was actually world-shaking. i'm a serial RPG character repeater (i've played every background for dao at some point but have settled into a character i love and will play her over and over and over again) and it took me hours and hours to connect with rook because i was so disconnected from her background.

essentially i feel that: this group of writers have inherited a universe with a TON of baggage (racism, sexism even though they say there is no sexism, confusing lore, many worldstates, etc etc) and a ton of possibility. rather than embracing any of these things and trying to commit to saying something, even imperfectly, they ended up saying very little. being scrappy and caring for your friends is good! being evil is bad! there's nothing along a sliding scale of those two opinions that might present itself, and no space where somebody good might also hold opinions that harm somebody else.

the thing that makes da2 so beloved, even though it's repetitive and kind of ugly and at times a bit half-baked, is that the characters hold their own, dig into their opinions, evolve as their circumstances evolve. and so does hawke! i actually wish DAV had just given us a true background for rook and let us play their story, because trying to do everything has resulted in a game that says almost nothing, and seems almost disinterested in the fact that it's a dragon age game at all.

[thegreatyin]

honestly all things considered, the scoundrel has very mixed feelings on the empire of hands. not because of the soul stealing thing. because of the aspiring to become human thing

[icewindandboringhorror]

I have a big google doc thing where I keep track of media and stuff (putting everything in loosely ranked categories), which is mostly just for my own reference so I know what tv shows I've already seen before, etc. and I never really look back through it, typically just a quick "okay, watched two movie in the past 8 months, need to quickly slap them somewhere in the lists. okay. done. save document. exit". But today I was actually reading through some of the old notes and there are like... MULTIPLE places where my comment is basically "It would have been good if it were about elves" or "I wish there was a fantasy show made in this same style" or "It's well made, but I just keep thinking about how I would like it more if everyone was an elf or was in old 1700s costumes" or etc like...... lol.... Most biased media ranking system on earth blatantly made by someone with an extremely hyperspecific range of narrow interests. It'd be like if a food reviewer only had 5 foods they actually liked, so they'd just go to a pizza place and be like "eh, the pizza was okay, but I just think it would be better if it was cereal instead. :/ ...2 out of 10"

[blujayonthewing]

dungeon meshi's plot and lore get really complex and interesting the longer it goes but my toxic trait is that my favorite thing about the whole series is still the early chapters where it's mostly about diagrams of monster anatomy and explorations of fantasy life cycles and ecosystems

[not-poignant]

!!!

palmarosa and 5, 6, 11 & 12 for the fic ask thingy pls! (If that’s too many questions for one ask then just. Any of those. Ty!)

Re: Palmarosa - okay let's gooooo

5: What part was hardest to write?

So far, the sex scenes (although see below for some of my issues re: behind the scenes researching). They honestly are often the hardest parts to write. But also, Astarion is rather more sex averse than I initially imagined him being, but as I've been writing the more 'concrete' fic, I'm finding he is very sex averse and has a lot of reasons to be, and as a result it's slowed Raphael down. It's not bad, but I already struggle with sex scenes in general just because I want to craft something decent.

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

Mmm. Astarion's a vampire and I actually (can't believe I'm admitting this) don't really love writing vampires! Writing creatures who drink blood to live I think is a tentative first for me, lol. Otherwise there's more similarities than differences. Like, the fandom and characters/pairing are different, but a lot of the themes are the same.

I'd say this is the first world I've written in re: fandom that has this much lore to go through, and almost all of it contradictory in some fashion. So I'm having to do more research kind of like through three separate fandoms to find what I want, or to realise I have to invent something new. That side of things is challenging.

11: What do you like best about this fic?

The crunchy dynamic between a not particularly pure-of-heart vampire spawn and a definitely not pure-of-heart devil. I really enjoy their banter. They're both very theatrical and performative. They both like a good show. They both think elements of violence are fun. They're both not particularly concerned with being good people every second of every day.

I get to have Astarion say some really fun lines, and that gets to be relatively in character. I get to have Raphael say some truly unhinged purple prose bullshit, and that's also pretty in character for him! I think I also really enjoy matching the voices as much as possible. I sometimes feel like I can 'hear' them saying their lines, and that feels really good.

12: What do you like least about this fic?

Probably the lack of easy ways to research the dialogue and world etc. I was very spoiled by like... the Dragon Age: Inquisition wiki, and even the Stardew Valley wiki. They have most of the dialogue and written parts there. The BG3 Wiki is kind of terrible for almost everything I need to know and I'm surprised when it can actually help me. It's also not immediately easy to add to, which I've thought of doing in the past (I have a Wiki account, and I have edited/added to them before - but Fextralife is different). And then also, a lot of it is contradictory.

The game writes pretty significant character growth in many different directions which means you can canonically write Astarion as two completely different characters in terms of morality and it still be...canon compliant. And then on top of that, there's just typos and issues - Korilla is 'Korrilla' in almost all the correspondence and texts, and 'Korilla' in the dialogue. So which is it? Do I just get to choose for fun? (I do).

As a result I've read hundreds of raw datamined dialogue files, and that's just laborious, because 90% of that is irrelevant to what I'm doing. In general, there's not a ton to hook into for Raphael, and some of his best lines are actually written down or transcribed.

I don't think anyone will ever truly know how much behind the scenes research I've done for what is ultimately a very Id/ridiculous fic, but I've done a metric fuckton of it. And when people then go 'oh but actually Gale is an X and you got that wrong' I want to claw my own eyes out, because I've spent at least 50 solid hours researching and compiling a fairly information dense Obsidian Vault for worldbuilding, and when I get basic things wrong it makes me want to cry and then immediately quit, lmao.

(In case anyone wants to see what that looks like so far:

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From this fanfic meme!