#I also quite frankly don't know how to start on a project like that myself and have minimal experience with actual concert going

[vagueconfusion]

y'know when Sleep Token debuted their new masks one of the theories was that the next album would be overall heavier in sound and while I'm up for whatever they decide to do I half hope it is just so that more people going to the rituals get the hint that they want pits and such at them

[imagitory]

I've never been more heartbroken in my life.

I was gobsmacked in 2016, don't get me wrong. I was devastated and frightened and shaken beyond words. I even had to go behind a wall and collect myself at one point that horrible November 9th, 2016, after colliding with a man wearing a red MAGA hat at work. A good chunk of us at work talked amongst ourselves about it, offering each other comfort.

But this? This is different. I could imagine dumb people making excuses for voting for Trump in 2016 -- saying that they thought a businessman would be good for the economy, saying that they wanted someone who wasn't a "Washington insider" like Hilary Clinton. Sure, it was stupid, but people can be stupid. Quite frankly, a lot of people are stupid, in this country and otherwise.

But now? Anyone who voted for Trump now has voted for a man who not only rounded up immigrants and put them in concentration camps separated from their families; bungled the response to COVID-19 so badly that the American death toll easily surpassed every other country on Earth; has poisoned the Supreme Court to the extent that they overturned years of precedence with Roe V. Wade and has basically given Trump cart-blanche to do whatever he wants while he's president; was the first president in history to refuse to concede on election day; was impeached for crimes in office not once but TWICE; was instrumental to and passionately supportive of the full-on attempted coup at the U.S. capitol on January 6, 2021 that could've very easily resulted in the deaths of his own Vice President and multiple members of Congress; has spoken glowingly of despots like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un and even said he will be "a dictator on day one" if elected again; has both used slogans originally used by modern American Neo-Nazis ("America First") and purportedly told one of his ex-subordinates that he wanted generals like Adolf Hitler's...but also has by the day proven more and more just how mentally inept, vindictive, and mean-spirited he truly is.

And unlike in his previous races, Trump is ahead in the popular vote too. We can't just blame this on the electoral college being antiquated and gerrymandered AF like in the Trump-Clinton or Bush-Gore elections. Even if all of the third-party voters in this country had grown a bloody brain cell and voted for Harris so as to show solidarity against Trump and his form of American fascism, it still somehow wouldn't be enough. We could potentially blame this on lower voter turn-out -- according to what I'm seeing so far, even with all the votes not counted in this race yet, it looks like there were far less votes cast this election than in the last one, though likely still more than the 2016 race. But even so, I don't think that's the only problem. I truly think there were just a lot of people who turned out en-masse to vote for Trump. And all I can think in regards to those people is...

This is beyond stupidity or even selfishness. This is cruelty. This is large swaths of people deciding that they want fellow American citizens to suffer -- because in their minds, if those people suffer, that'll somehow make them happy. This is a large chunk of America saying, "yeah, you know all that crap about 'liberty and justice for all'? Screw that, I want a 'strong man' to bully people different from me for my own amusement." And -- perhaps -- there's also an element of feeling like their vote doesn't really have any consequences for them, so why should they care if the man they voted for is a god-awful person? It's not like that man will hurt them.

I had hoped. I had hoped, seeing the outpouring of support from liberals, independents, and conservatives for Harris/Walz. I'd hoped, seeing how many ex-Trump appointees were standing up against him, how much people were shouting their disdain for Project 2025 from the rooftops, and how many women were protesting in the face of Roe V. Wade being overturned. I truly had started to hope that America would prove we'd grown beyond our country's own original sin -- how our United States preached freedom for all while still being built on the backs of slaves and refusing to grant a vote to over half their population -- by electing a smart, successful, charismatic woman of color who sees our country as great in potential and wants us to pursue that potential as our first female president, rather than backtracking all the slow progress we've made over the last 200+ years.

But now...my hope has faded. My heart is in pieces and the world is so dark. I hardly know how I'll function at work tomorrow, even if I know somehow, I have to try. We'll all have to stand somehow. Somehow, someway...we'll have to find the strength. We'll have to stand, and we'll have to keep moving forward, even when it feels like we're a Little Mermaid walking on knives.

We'll have to stand.

[suddencolds]

a personal milestone 🥳 + author's note

i finally made it 😭 (there is probably another 10k sitting in my drafts, but i have always tracked word count for this project as a sum of already-published installments)

also a (somewhat long) journal entry below:

—

This has been the main project in my life for almost two years, now (I started writing on 1.26.2023). It's my first proper attempt at a novel, and it's one of my first times ever posting original work anywhere 😭

It's hard to say how I feel now, perhaps because I feel too much.

Where to go from here? I considered dropping the series entirely before I hit the milestone because I was very tired. In a way, I felt like I had said everything I wanted to say. But I think I also love this series a lot more than I can properly verbalize.

To be completely honest, writing this series was so lonely. To work for so long on something that I could not show to nearly anyone irl (not family, not close friends, not peers, not strangers I met who I talked to about art); to spend hundreds of hours on something that I could only ever post to a small subset of people... all of that was very lonely. I'm sure other creatives have felt this way too.

And at the same time, hearing what people on snzblr thought became probably the most potent source of happiness in my life (is that pathetic? Maybe so.) I don't think this project was self-sustaining at all; I think to some extent, I wrote it because I wanted to hear people tell me that they liked it. I realize this is a terrible and unsustainable reason to create art, but that's the truth.

On some level, though, I kept writing because I loved Y+V. They've been at the forefront at my life for almost two years now 😭 I spent a long time teaching myself how to write them, and a lot of the themes & choices in the series are quite personal. Embarrassingly, I still want to talk about Y+V all the time.

When I posted to ask if I could send my unfinished/unpolished WIPs, some people reached out to offer to read them... and then I never sent anything over to anyone. I think a part of me could not get it through my head that people would be willing to read something completely unpolished, because... well, frankly, a lot of my drafts are just pretty unreadable; I typically only post things that I have already cleaned up. More importantly, I felt like sending my drafts to people—even people who had given me explicit permission to send them!—was selfish and troublesome.

On some level, I also felt the same about asking others to brainstorm with me: I felt like I was asking them a favor which I did not know how to pay back. Perhaps this is just another way in which I have been cruel/uncharitable to myself, but I never imagined people enjoying receiving my drafts. I could never convince myself that for those people, giving feedback/discussing ideas might not actually be a chore. I was always scared to make writing less of a lonely process because I could only think about how easy it would be for me to ask too much.

This is probably the most honest I've been about this particular subject 😭 I am not good at gauging what constitutes 'too much.' I feel like I can get carried away when someone expresses interest, so I try to preemptively position myself as someone who does not impinge on others... I think that even outside of this series, I have defaulted to this pattern of trying to give and trying not to ask. In that particular sense, I am perhaps to blame for my own loneliness.

Anyways! Recently, I've gone back to (tentatively) writing after months of not writing. I'm not sure if I will post another installment here (maybe if the drafts are 'good enough', I will?), but it's nice to write without worrying so much that what I am writing needs to be publishable/presentable.

If you have ever left tags/comments on my work, and you are reading this, I am grateful beyond words to you for keeping me company + for making me feel like what I was spending so much time on was a little more meaningful :') I always go back to reread them when I'm in need of encouragement. Thank you sincerely for the happiness. ❤️

[dalesramblingsblog]

In honour of an episode that seems consciously about the construction of narratives around fundamentally meaningless aspects of the universe, a Twitter conversation with one of my last remaining mutuals to survive the Muskening, lightly repurposed to serve as a singular, narrativised Tumblr post in a way it was never designed for.

Who says art is dead?

73 Yards was strange and haunting and not entirely comprehensible in a way that Doctor Who seldom manages.

I suspect it's one where personal tolerance for that sort of thing will make or break the episode, but I certainly think that, knowing this was Gibson's first filmed episode, she did a phenomenal job.

It was also, for me at least, a more generally successful invocation of the kind of eldritch horror implied by the Toymaker or the Maestro, largely by virtue of it giving itself room to be ambiguous.

I've seen the complaints about stuff like the PM being a blank slate, but I do rather feel like that might be the point. It's an episode all about perception and projection and narrativisation of a universe that can be cold and hostile and incomprehensible.

(And frankly, I'm starting to suspect that the whole of RTD2 might be about that on some level. "We see something incomprehensible and invent the rules to make it work" and all that. It's audacious and bold in a way that Doctor Who hasn't been in half a decade.)

And as someone for whom those themes really hit home a lot of the time, yeah, I loved it. I know I probably sound like a broken record but I am genuinely just having a blast with this latest series.

The worst thing Doctor Who can ever feel like for me is an obligation that I only keep up with out of a need to stay relatively current in writing about it, and that was what the Chibnall Era often boiled down to for me.

Part of the reason, in hindsight, I poured so much of myself into my book reviews was that the show itself was simply failing to excite me with the level of regularity necessary to keep me engaged.

Knowing that I can put on Doctor Who on a Saturday night and be reasonably well-entertained and intrigued is, frankly, enough for me, but I do think there are enough aspects of genuine quality that I'm not just blindly worshipping at the altar of a false idol or w/e.

I dunno, I think at the end of the day I'm just a big sucker for TV that makes sense to me on an emotional rather than logical level. It's why I'm a big fan of Twin Peaks, or the second season of Millennium, or hell even Masks over on TNG.

The episode had the general feel of one that will be quite important to the overall themes of the season, so I can't imagine it will linger in *complete* ambiguity forever (though honestly if it did I would kind of love that).

Like I wouldn't be surprised if we're building up to a similar time loop reveal wrt Ruby's general existence. The fact that we've now got at least three instances of her timeline being haunted by mysterious old women cannot possibly be coincidence.

(Well, it can be, but that way lies goblins, as we know.)

IDK, there's a strangeness to Davies' acknowledgments of mediality here that goes even beyond Moffat's usual tricks. Casting a recurring actress by the name of Susan Twist while conspicuously mentioning Susan for the first time in forever feels so on the nose that while I initially suspected we might be building to the return of Susan, I now feel like we're instead headed for something much weirder.

There is so much going on and so much to unpack and frankly I don't have any idea how it could possibly tie together but I'm fascinated.

And again, the fact that this episode was almost explicitly about the process of fans theorising as to what the hell is going on with the season makes me further suspect a rebuttal of theory-focused cult fandom is in the offing.

When I first watched Once, Upon Time in 2021, I commented that it felt like Chris Chibnall's attempt to do a big, bold, incomprehensible piece of television, something almost in the vein of Twin Peaks: The Return, Part 8 but for Doctor Who.

But it's revealing that the only thing he could really think to do was dump a bunch of Doctor Who lore and simply edit things out. He's a mystery writer in the most tediously literal sense of the phrase, creating gaps that feel like they were made with a hacksaw rather than feeling like any sort of deliberate lacuna.

And I'm sorry Chibnall fans, there are some Thirteen episodes that I do like, but when I look at an episode like 73 Yards... whatever its faults may be, and I'm pretty confident I don't actually believe it to be perfect, it is bolder and weirder than anything Chibnall ever wrote. This is the kind of television I want to watch, and I make no apologies for that.

It's a rare piece of Doctor Who which comes close to capturing that sheer, terrible splendour I felt watching a slow zoom into an atom bomb explosion while being serenaded by the Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima. And sure, it's still very far out from being quite that strange, but it retains a curious power nevertheless.

What a show.

[genericpuff]

Winter is Coming - Rekindled schedule adjustment and plans for next year!

So it's that time of year now when conventions, markets, and expos for next year are rolling out their submission periods. So far I've gotten accepted to attend the Atlantic Entertainment Expo again (both venues so two shows), MiraCon, and I'm gonna be attending not one, not two, but THREE tattoo expos ! Which is definitely a lot, but I'm excited, it's gonna be good publicity and good money :' ) I'm also gonna be applying to HalCon, Geekquinox, and Animaritimes again, I didn't get in on HalCon this year and didn't find out about Geekquinox until submissions were done (and I only got in on Animaritimes at the last minute when they were looking for people to fill in) but if I do get into any (or all) of those, I'll have to play the fun game of "make sure none of these events land on the same weekend" LMAO

All that's to say, it's gonna be busy next year! (and all of those are the ones I actually decided to apply to, there are ones I did this past year that I'm not planning on doing again because they just didn't turn out to be as good as I had hoped). Thankfully, none of this is starting up until spring, so I'm gonna enjoy the winter off and get to work on new stuff to sell. I'm really eager to get through the rest of [AFTERBIRTH], it's still got quite some time until it's done but my plan is to pitch Thread of Fate to publishers once [AFTERBIRTH] is finished - and if it's not able to get in with those publishers, then I'm gonna pursue other means in getting it published, either digitally or traditionally. Time Gate is a series I've been working on for well over a decade of my life, and it's not something I want to keep throwing to the wolves of free-to-read platforms like WT. As much as I love being able to offer it for free, I want it to be taken more seriously than being just another free to read comic and that starts with me and how I choose to distribute it.

Right now working on all these things is sort of limiting due to the fact that I'm stuck on my iPad, but I'm making it work as best I can and I'm hoping to have the new PC setup going by the end of the year running with a new tablet (currently shopping around between an XP-pen and Huion, I don't want to get a Kamvas 22 Plus again if it's gonna shit the bed in 2 years like this one did, apparently this is a common problem from what I've seen :/)

So yeah, with all that in mind, I'm planning on adjusting Rekindled's update schedule. While I did initially want to offer a poll for y'all to choose between "shorter updates once a week" and "full updates once every 2 weeks", frankly I'm erring more towards the "every two weeks" one because it'll give me more actual time and room to work on everything else. Not to mention (and I'm sure you've all noticed by now) that I have a very specific way that I structure many of these episodes so making them shorter would sort of ruin that rhythm. I don't want to be sacrificing the comic's quality, pacing, or narrative progression for a schedule adjustment.

This isn't going to be an immediate change, I'm thinking of doing this sometime in December so that y'all can have a decent amount of heads up before the switch. I know it's gonna be a little painful to go to a slower release schedule but ultimately I think it's the best way to go so that I can balance all of the projects I have going on without sacrificing quality. Rekindled may be a free to read non-profit project, but I still hold myself to high standards and I want to do my best to deliver on those standards !

Thank you all so much for your patience and support. It seriously blows me away to see all of the wonderful comments, asks, and support for what I do here every day. I'm gonna do my best as well to respond to asks in my inbox as they come in, but please just know I get a LOT of them on a regular basis, it's sort of a Hydra situation where I respond to 1 or 2 and then get 4 more LOL That said, rest assured that I do read and appreciate each and every one of them <3 That also includes essay posts about LO, with LO returning in November I'll surely have more stuff to say about it so I'm gonna try and keep up as best I can :' )

On a final note, we're coming up to the one year anniversary of when I started posting actual episodes of Rekindled!! I'm so excited for this, I can't believe it's been a year!! And I have so much awesome stuff planned for the story that we're gonna see throughout the next year, I can't wait! Thanks so much for being a part of this project with me, I couldn't have asked for a better audience <3

(P.S. everything I have lined up for next year is lining up with the dry period for FF XIV between Endwalker and Dawntrail so I won't have distractions until the summer LMAOO)

[phantomspren]

Okay so now the question is how long can I hold out before starting to listen to TMA for the third time.

I just finished relistening and I. I love it so much.

And I don't think I've mentioned this before, but I think I'm going to switch my major from anthropology to media production. Because of this podcast.

My end goal has always been to write. Since I was like eight. That's what I've wanted to do. But you gotta have a day job! And unfortunately I am not interested in anything that would make any money so I decided to major in anthropology.

And I genuinely love it so much.

I've also been working as a stage tech for the last year, and love that as well, I love the technical aspect of performances and things like that. I genuinely would not mind doing that for a living. (I mean it's a lot of moving furniture around but it's also super cool beyond that.)

But. I was listening to the Q&A episodes this summer at work. And they were talking about sound design and the production of the show. And I thought that sounded. Really fucking fun.

And I've. Done sound stuff for live shows. I know the basics of that. I can set up mics and know the basics of how to make them work good! I love it.

I think I'd love audio editing.

And if I went into audio stuff. I could work on all sorts of things. There's audio in everything.

It would also be a much better way to get into a writing gig of some sort. My backup would be directly related to what I want to devote myself to. And if it didn't work I'd still probably love it and get to work on cool things.

(I mean most people who see this have probably seen me talk about it on Discord but I just want to talk about it cause I'm thinking about it and have started classes and stuff.)

So not only is this a top tier piece of media for me, but also it may have just totally changed my career path. By pointing out something I already enjoy and saying "you can do this with stories, not just concerts and lectures."

I'm taking some intro journalism courses this semester (the journalism program at my school has a film and media production emphasis), and at the moment it's really rough. I love social sciences and am quite frankly really good at them, so it's a total shift from taking a 400 level anth class last semester as a freshman to intro writing classes as a sophomore with a bunch of freshmen. I'm really going to miss anthropology. (I also switched schools so that's impacting things.)

But I'm looking at the media production classes and the script writing class and podcasting class that I can take in the future and I'm getting so excited. I'm also considering taking an acting class next semester, which I never would have done before I considered the fact that I could make my own projects. I am not limited just to writing.

It's been wild.

I'm hoping I get through this semester alright. My creative writing class will keep me sane, hopefully. :p

But yeah.

Yeah.

I'm excited. :)

Also ERKJHSEKLRJHSELRGHSLEKRJGESRHKLJSGH MAGNUS

Protocol finale on Thursday too, it'll be fucking wild.

Also I'm cosplaying season two Jon at FanX on Friday and season three on Saturday so I may post pictures of that if it turns out alright.

Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

[authoralexharvey]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @andromedaexists

Who You Are:

Andromeda || He/they

I am a student in undergrad with a Classics major and two minors in Latin and Attic Greek that likes to write!

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Fantasy, Horror, Tragedy. New Adult and Adult

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

Tragedy 100%

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

High Fantasy. I do write fantasy, but the world of high fantasy are just something that I cannot figure out on my own. I'm also very particular on what high fantasy I will read because of how hard it is for me to keep everything straight.

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

I think my ideal target audience is the social outcasts. I write for the queers, the country folk, and disabled folk. Honestly now that I put it like that, I write for myself and people like me. People that have been overlooked for far too long in media in my opinion.

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

I focus a lot on expressing emotion and anger in my writing. My stories tend to revolve around characters who are angry for one reason or another. Icarus is angry about his abuse under the ATLAS program, Kit is angry about the lies that the church has spread for centuries and the fact that they kept a God chained in the basement, Ash is angry that he opened himself up to love only to have it taken from him too early. These themes drew me in and kept me captive for so long now that they became my home. I think it originally started because I am autistic and was raised without that knowledge. As a country kid who doesn't quite grasp what's socially appropriate, you end up being pigeon-holed and told that the only appropriate emotion is anger. I have spent a long time unlearning this, but good lord is there a lot to be angry about in life and this is how I get to express it. Anger and hatred run rampant in my stories alongside other themes and tropes. I am quite fond of found family and every piece of writing I produce does contain that to a certain extent.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

I cannot stand the common trope of older person with a barely legal lover. It is very 'popular' in literature right now and I just cannot stand it. It creeps me out, frankly. Like, why couldn't they find a lover their own age? Or, better yet, why not just write the older lover as someone with a reasonable age for the main character? Why does he have to be hundreds or thousands of years old? Why couldn't he be in his twenties, too?

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

I have a couple projects under my belt at the moment. My biggest project is Call Me Icarus, the book that introduced me to the writeblr community in the first place! It is a tragedy following Icarus as he takes a look behind the curtain of the Elysian Program and sees the disgusting framework that he was disillusioned to. Now the only thing on his mind is bringing down the program and the entire ATLAS corporation. Will he be able to when the world seems set against him? Who knows! I sure don't, I haven't written that far yet😅 My next project is Desecrate, a novella exploring the idea of a slight change in history and the creation of the Catholic Church. Basically, what if there were two gods instead of just one and we chained the God of the Material in the basement? My final project is just a collection of short stories. I plan on writing a short story every month this year to just keep myself writing. So far, I have Death Comes For Us All, a short story about grief and losing a loved one. This month (February) will be a retelling of Orpheus & Eurydice's myth!

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

I write because I want to. Honestly, I write because I had an idea for a story I'd like to read and realized that no one else was going to write it. When I tell you that I am going to read and re-read Call Me Icarus so many times when I publish it. I am so excited!

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

I have been writing on and off my entire life, but once I entered high school and college it switched strictly to academic and scientific writing. As far as creative writing goes, I did Power of the Pen in middle school (A competition where we had an hour to hand-write a story from scratch). I didn't pick up creative writing again until last year when I started Call Me Icarus.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

I get inspiration from everywhere. I like to write about the modern times, and take my inspiration from wherever I can. However, the way I do this is through a lens of the past. With my major being in Classics, I tend to read a lot of ancient stories and documents. These tend to give me interesting ideas and perspectives on today's issues that I end up putting on paper!

What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?

I am extremely proud of Call Me Icarus so far. It has been a roller coaster, but I am extremely proud of how well I am managing to get down exactly what I am thinking. As far as actually published works, I am proud of Death Comes For Us All. IT is a hard read, as it is supposed to be, but it is written well and makes you feel. Do I know what it makes you feel? No, I can only speak for myself. But more me, I am able to feel Ash's anger and sadness when I read the story.

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

Kinda? I put Death Comes For Us All up on my Ko-Fi, but it's technically not publish truly yet. I plan on publishing it officially in an anthology at the end of the year. I do want to be published. I was looking at Nathrheim Publishing here on Tumblr as a home for Call Me Icarus since it would fit well there, however I am now looking at other publishing houses. I want to traditionally publish, but I am also open to self publishing if I can't find a home for my works for any reason (the trans main character. That's going to be the biggest hurdle). (ALEX: It's been over a year since I collected this interview and now CMI has been published!!)

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?

I am looking forward to the design aspect. I have ideas for what I want the cover of CMI to look like, but I am obviously no artist. I am really looking forward to what an actual artist can do with it! I just really love the idea of giving someone my book and being like "what visual image to you think encompasses this story". I wanna see what all people come up with! One the other hand, though, I am not looking forward to editing. I tend to become… set in my ways. I like what I write and don't take criticism well (unless I specifically ask for it). I know this is something that I will have to get over and deal with, but I have heard horror stories of editors basically changing a story through the editing process and I Do Not Want that.

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

Ironically my favorite part of the writing process is editing. Like, everything is down on paper and I get to polish it and make it into exactly what I want! What isn't there to love about that! Going in hand with that, my least favorite part of the writing process is the writing. I have a thing where my brain gets really upset if what I write isn't perfect right out the gate. This makes it difficult to just get the story out! Some recent advice that I'm trying to take to heart though is the idea that the first draft is just to get the idea on paper, the second draft is to transcribe it into your language of choice (for me, English).

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

🤣 now that's a funny question, Alex. My writing process is "Open Scrivener and stare at the same three words until I get tired and go to bed". I am trying to establish a better process, but it's really hard. I have a tendency to actually write when I'm not supposed to, so I keep Scrivener open now and write in the down times between classes or during 'mandatory meetings'. As far as a setup goes, I've got it good. I have three monitors and a laptop as well as a desktop (thank you work). I have Scrivener on both, so I can type in my good good work setup as well as anywhere else I wanna write. In the warmer months I tend to sit out on my balcony and write or take my laptop with me down to my little nook on the river. It's wonderful! I feel like "Writing in pure chaos" is the perfect way to explain my writing method. As you know, one of the quotes I live by is "Be the Chaos you wish to see in the world" and my writing is no different. I live and thrive in chaos!

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

I have been in writeblr for about 6 months. I originally joined when I asked my at-the-time studyblr if I should write a novel. From there, writeblr found me, abducted me, and bribed me to stay with good company and amazing reads!

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

oooo there's so many! Well, first on the list is you! You were one of the first writeblrs to find me and actually talk to me and I will always appreciate that! I'm going to do this sort of rapid-fire, because there are so many wonderful people I have met on here! let's start with @writingpotato07, who is just so kind and supportive all the time! There's also @crypticcodexcreations, @smol-feralgremil, @writteninstarlight, @lockejhaven, @inkspellangel, and @witherednightmare who I would describe as my closes friends on this side of the internet! There's also @wildjuniperjones (one of my writeblr parental units), @the-finch-address (and fleet two, both of y'all are amazing and great to have as friends), @artbyeloquent, @howlingbreeze, @flowerprose, and so many more! honestly too many to list out!! A lot of these people found me first, and all of them have amazing wips and great personalities that keep me following them!

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

I really like the community. I have run into an issue as of late with certain people, but even with that damper the community is still just so accepting and loving. I have met amazing people through here and hope to meet many more in the future!

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

I think we need to work on not attacking each other. I have seen too many people take just one line of a multi paragraph post and twist it to fit their perceived "wrong" and then use it against others. I firmly stand against doing that, especially now that I have been on the receiving end of it. I think we collectively need to do better about reading a person's whole post and understanding that not everything is a personal attack, sometimes things are just worded wrong in the heat of emotion.

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I like to participate in events and send asks to people! I also post my own writing and do my best to reblog other's writing and encourage them. I don't think there is anything more I could be doing, I know there is. I can always be more present and just do better at being here and being happy and encouraging. However, I am just a human and am trying my darndest!

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

Lore posts! I love learning about other people's lore!

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

I like sharing my writing and making shitposts about my characters

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

I am technically on twitter still, tho not really. I do have a tiktok @/andromedatalks that I plan on starting up again! Other than that, not really. i just like my anonymous corner of the internet over here lol

[ode-to-odes]

RPG Review: Journey of 1000 Zips

Well... if it's listed on itch as an RPG, then that's what it is... right?? In any case, this was one of the evenings I've ever had. Truly spectacular.

To play this game, you open 1000 nested zip files. Every file is numbered, so you can see how far you have left to go, and occasionally Elliot (@morebluebs) has left a comment in a file name. It's a dialogue between two people slowly losing their minds, in a way.

I spent two hours of my life on this game, and to be completely honest, I wish I hadn't. I also think Elliot wishes he hadn't made it, so at least all's fair in love and zipped files. This "game" is only for those with immense hubris and a growing to-do list filled with tasks they don't want to complete. That said, I'd rate it a 10/10 if I were a rating type of woman, which I'm not.

In order to keep myself sane, I took notes on the thoughts going through my mind as I played this game. Read under the cut to witness my descent into madness. Perhaps that will be enough to deter you from playing it yourself.

File 999. Let's do it.

950. I appreciate the title. Hoping for more of these as we keep going

900. No, it wasn’t that bad. I don’t know why I’m not listening to music while I do this. Perhaps I intuitively understand that this needs to be done in as boring an environment as possible.

899. okay

819. AH!

801. wouldn’t open. I’ve been opening these within each other, so I assume 200 nested files is the limit on my laptop. I moved file 802 to be by itself in my downloads folder and tried again. 801 opened. Huzzah, and the journey continues.

I also can’t believe this took Elliot over a year to make this. I assume this was a boredom and procrastination project. Kudos for ever finishing it tbh

800. I know. I’m doing it anyway

750. doesn’t have a comment in the file name. I didn’t realize I’d started to look forward to the names ever fifty files. Disappointed, I carry on.

743. I see we’re being unpredictable. Does the creator know that by making the opening of each file a gamble, opening these becomes more fun? Belatedly I realize that the opening of file 750 marked a quarter of the journey. Am even more disappointed op didn’t say anything to commemorate this moment.

700. I lost the ability to quit when I opened the first file. I’m committing to the bit. Fuck you.

650. once again, no mid-hundred title. I’m taking this moment to comment that as I do this, my sister is sitting next to me watching a frankly terrible horror movie. I am, I think, ashamed to say I find this activity more enjoyable.

627. Divisible by three, but not by nine.

608. Huzzah! My sister has decided to skip ahead in her movie because it’s boring her. I cannot do the same for my chosen entertainment tonight.

607 is empty. I tried opening it again. 607 2 is also empty. Migration attempt incoming.

Second migration of the night worked. continuing on. While I can’t say I’m enjoying this anymore, I’m glad that this does in fact appear to be 1000 nested files. I would never forgive Elliot if it ended prematurely

600. Don’t ask me to explain my decisions.

564. Elliot, do you feed on the part of my soul that I’m losing while playing this?

525. What does carpal tunnel feel like?

499. I feel nothing.

492. My sister asked me what I was doing. I explained to her. She asked me why I was doing this. I told her I didn’t know. She said nothing and then left. About as much of a response as I could’ve hoped for

461. Hey now. I could have done any number of things to procrastinate. You’re not special, Elliot.

432. Also divisible by three. Obviously I’m not listing every number divisible by three. But it just occurred to me here. As long as I’m taking a break from clicking, I’m going to move from the kitchen to my bedroom now that my sister has finished her movie and gone to bed. My wrist won’t stop cracking.

40 minutes later and I’m back at it.

425. In anticipation of the next file failure, I migrate this one earlier. plus if there’s a comment on 420 I can enjoy it unimpeded by the 200 file limit

407. A number that feels like it should be prime but isn’t

351. This isn’t getting any easier. However, it isn’t getting harder, either. That forty minute break did wonders for the one wrist muscle I’m using to do this.

333. Roughly 2/3 of the way there, although obviously not exactly. I think it would be an interesting psychology study to see how different people react to having to do this.

321. favorite one so far, definitely made me smile

294. Some people could probably find it in them to quit now.

284. I believe it. Why would you make this. Just to prove you could? Was 1000 the maximum files you could nest, or could you have kept going? Maybe one day we’ll have a sequel and it’ll just be 2000 files. I’d probably play that too. I don’t know why. But I think I would.

260. Another migration. This was definitely less than 200 files, but whatever. Will migrate again at 100 for the auspiciousness.

250. 75% done. I started this an hour and forty minutes ago. 100 minutes ago. So probably half an hour left. It feels like it should be less.

219. If I told my mom about this, she’d probably tell me that downloading things like this off the internet is a one way trip to getting malware on your computer. While I trust itch.io strangers much more than she does, can you imagine explaining that to the person you hire to fix your computer? “Yeah, I downloaded a file off the internet. It contained 1000 zip files nested within each other. I opened every single one and then the last one had this gnarly virus.” Like,,,,, you’d really be bringing that upon yourself. My friend hopes the last file contains something; he predicts the game of thrones shame gif. While I’d appreciate a fun little image, I fully expect there to be nothing except the last file just being called something like “you did it. Congrats on the most pointless accomplishment ever” well. Back to it

198. Elliot, if you had to go through the pain of making this, some of us might as well go through the pain of playing it.

175. I realized I forgot to point out 197, which is the Pokédex number for umbreon, my favorite Pokemon. home stretch.

135. I’m obviously tired. I did the math all wrong. Forgot to subtract the forty minutes I spent not doing this. This began at roughly 8:40 PM. It’s 10:34. So 1 hour 54 minutes minus forty. 74 minutes to open 865 files. Those numbers aren’t nice enough for me to do mental math, but I think I’ll be done in like ten minutes. Lets go!!

117. marks the first time the zipped file had a comment. Before this you had to unzip the file to see the comment. Which begs the question, is this something Elliot changed partway through, or will this be the only time it happens? I guess we’ll see.

I also realized 111 will be the last time we have repeating digit in a 3 digit number. 999 was the first… how far we’ve come.

111!!!! I feel like Elliot a bit. Is anyone going to read this? Am I screaming to the void?? Par for the course, I suppose.

100. Zipped file also has the comment. Clearly Elliot didn’t know how to do it differently at first. Anyway. Time for the final migration!

85. Seeing 2-digit numbers is jarring after all this time.

69 nice.

40. You know what would be so fucking funny? If we got to file 1 and it was labeled 1000 and then there were 1000 more files. I know Elliot didn’t do this - he doesn’t have it in him. But it would be so fucked up. I think that would make me quit. 1000 is enough

19. My favorite number. I can’t believe this is almost over.

2. This is it.

[vox-off]

what started as a way to pass the time while miserably sick for two weeks has become a new hyperfixation and i have catapulted myself face first into the wayhaven chronicles and i wanna yell about my detectives under the cut

Eilidh is reserved, kind in action if not in affect, patient, logical, soft-spoken, and iron-willed. Her backbone makes steel seem doughy. Her resolve is unshakable. She is the older sister of Det. Cameron Fox. She joined the Wayhaven PD for something mentally engaging to do. She is wildly intelligent and gets Weird when she doesn't have a puzzle to solve; once she has one, she's a dog with a bone. She feels intensely but privately; to see - or, more accurately, to be shown - what Eilidh is feeling is a surer sign of trust than anything else. Though she experiences emotions intensely, she is able to let them go. She is without artifice and almost without ego; she owns her mistakes, but does not dwell on them. Beyond her very small circle of beloved people, she cares very little what others think of her. She did not believe in soulmates until Adam; she has never wanted anyone as badly as she wants him, has never loved as fiercely as she loves him, but will not settle for anything less than all-in. She has no intention of waiting for him to get his head out of his ass, but also knows she will never find his equal. There is no getting over Adam du Mortain, there is only learning how to live with him at arm's length. Besides her brother, Mason is Eilidh's best friend, full stop. She loves Tina and Verda, but she knows they oftentimes wish she were different, more open, warmer. Mason is the first to not only accept but respect her for who she is, no changes imagined or required. She is slow to anger and uses violence only when her hand is forced, but heaven help you if you touch her brother. Neither Fox sibling has a good relationship with their mother. Eilidh sees Rebecca as little more than a stranger. Rebecca projects acceptance onto Eilidh's stoicism and Eilidh does not trust Rebecca enough to be emotionally honest or demonstrative with her. In turn, Rebecca does not know Eilidh well enough to recognize the difference.

in my blorbo headspace, my two detectives are siblings, they both work for the wayhaven PD, and they both have the blood mutation. rook died just after cameron, the youngest, was born. i'm handwaving the probable police policy against siblings working together in a professional capacity because, quite frankly, i don't care enough about police procedure to portray it accurately. also if their mother can be their agency liason/handler, their sibling can be their partner in (solving) crime. also also vampires exist, we're already firmly in unrealistic territory

Detective Eilidh (AY-lee) Fox - Intimidating/Cautious/Genuine/Stoic/Stubborn. 34 y/o. 5'9. Dark brown hair, grey eyes. Highest skill: Deduction.

Cameron is passionate, combative, irreverant, loyal, has unrepentant problems with authority, and is a little bit of an asshole. He is the younger brother of Det. Eilidh Fox. He joined the Wayhaven PD as an alternative to prison and despite it being what landed him in hot water in the first place, he still punches first and asks questions later, if at all. His sarcasm is a bulwark for his soft spots, of which there are many, the biggest being his sister. The only thing quicker (and sharper) than Cameron's wit is his anger. He is possessive in such a way it backfires into heroics: you mess with his people or his town, you'd better have an excellent exit strategy, for hell hath no fury like a pissed off Cameron Fox. He is in a Something with Mason. Like Mason, Cameron doesn't do complicated; he prefers one night stands and flings without expectations of commitment. Bobby was his last attempt at a real relationship, and it ended disastrously. He and Mason have the same general ineptitude with feelings and the recognition of them. Cameron is stupid gone for Mason and is absolutely clueless about it, right up until he isn't, at which point he tries very hard to be clueless again; the only thing more terrifying than what he feels for Mason is the possibility of Not Having Mason. Come hell or high feelings, he will not rock this boat. He wouldn't consider himself super close with anyone in Unit Bravo besides Mason, but if he had to choose a second favorite, it would be Felix. In Rebecca's absence, Eilidh raised him and he would kill - and die - for his sister. Neither Fox sibling has a good relationship with their mother, but of the two, Cameron is more openly hostile to Rebecca. Cameron felt Rebecca's absence less, as Eilidh stepped into the caregiver role without second thought; his anger at Rebecca is for the burdens Eilidh had to bear in her stead.

Detective Cameron Fox - Charming/Impulsive/Sarcastic/Stoic/Even split Easy-going and Stubborn. 31 y/o. 6'3. Golden blond hair, dark blue eyes. Highest skill: Combat.

[inqilabi]

I've started dating... intentionally lol. I've been single for 8 years. And if we're being technical and precise, then my entire life. The last time I dated was 6 years ago. And that was only a total of 10 dates or so, and I saw 5-6 people. And decided to stop because I realized I wasn't ready to share myself in any capacity with anyone. I also struggle to connect with my dates in the specific manner I wished to experience. Quite frankly, the latter is still an issue. I've only ever been interested in one person in my entire life so far. And I've practically been single my whole life because I wasn't even interested in anyone in highschool or uni.

And I've been trying to figure out what changed now because up until last summer, I had decided that I was going to do life solo. I didn't think anything would change in my desires. I didn't think I would feel that desire to share myself with someone. So I decided that if I wanted kids, I would adopt as a single woman. And I was looking into laws around adoption from Pakistan. May be a sperm bank if I was feeling bold & wanted to be pregnant which is unlikely. I was looking into the psychology of sperm bank babies and how they feel about their lives etc, and thinking about whether this was ethical or not from the child's perspective

i understand myself really well, why I do certain things. Why I feel certain things. But this part eludes me tbh. I don't know why I've kept myself single so long. I mean it's so ridiculous I think to go without crushes or interests that it had me questioning my sexuality

When people use to ask me why I don't even date, I truly had no other answer than I don't feel like being with anyone. And this one friend, who is now an ex-friend lol I've talked about her before. Anyway she mentioned how she doesn't understand my demeanor or approach because the desire to be with someone was very strong for her. So she would have 4 dates every weekend. She treated finding a partner like a serious project.

I also don't know why I've rejected perfectly decent people that have been interested in me. I guess because I wasn't ready at the time. But I don't know why things have shifted now when I wasn't really expecting them to.

I do know that I would be okay to go at things alone still, largely because I've been alone for so long and because the desire to be with someome still isn't something that completely consumes me. It wasn't on my mind in the last 6 years, not even a little bit. If I think about the length of this time, that's a lot of days, a lot of years where I would just go about my days - sharing them with no one, talking to no one at all, flirting with no one, routine and all. But since things shifted now even this bit, it scares me - what if this is a desire that one day starts to consume me?

[hoghtastic]

It's me again. I'm the one who wrote the ask about feeling ridiculous about feeling hurt about Alex & Johanne being together/possibly living together.

To the anon who thinks I was making fun of the other anons here & mocking you guys or "usuing a different angle," you can feel how you want, but I was honestly being serious. I did use some of the same words & phrases that a lot of you guys have used to describe what you call a "stan" on purpose & I started out putting it in quotations but I figured it wouldn't be necessary for all of them that I mentioned. I wasn't doing that to try to make myself look better or "claim" anything. I was doing exactly what the admin said-I felt like these descriptions describe me to a certain degree BUT I do not feel like I am a stan. I can think for myself, I don't follow the crowd, I don't kiss ANYONE'S a$$, & even if I "like someone" (Johanne for example), I have no problem saying if I disagree with with something they've said or done. Anything I say or do is because I feel like it's right & not because I think I may gain something from it. And that's the exact point of my original ask. I know that if I were to post lovey dovey posts of the two of them that it's not getting me anywhere with either of them. I also know if I posted something calling her out on her BS, it's also not gaining me any props from anyone here who disagrees with how she's represented herself. And when I say I'm usually smarter than this, I meant it. I feel rather intelligent but obviously not brilliant & I know I have lots I can still learn in this lifetime. However, something about this ridiculous feeling I have when it comes to Alex makes me feel very F@%KING insane! And I, otherwise, feel like I'm definitely not! So I hope you can understand, I'm seriously NOT trying to make you or anyone else feel like I'm trying to talk negatively about you in some sort of sincerely twisted way. I'm seriously here, pouring my heart out, because I don't know anyone in my personal life who would even understand WTF I'm even talking about, let along be able to give me any suggestions.

Now, to the admin, wow! Your response sincerely moved me & really brought tears to my eyes! I know very little about parasocial relationships & have only heard about it in relation to this Fandom (go figure) so thank you for linking the article (that I haven't yet read but will) & for your feedback. I am usually pretty self aware & I think that's exactly what is freaking me out because I know, from the mixed feelings I've been having lately, that something is CLEARLY very off for these types of things to be bothering me but at the same time, not bothering me. Does that make any sense? Lol I know better. Yet, I can't control it. I try. I discuss this with the one friend in the Fandom that I have but I've still come up with no real explanation. And you, my dear, sweet knowledgeable admin, have given me lots of food for thought & I thank you! Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I don't quite think I need professional help just YET lol but I definitely see that almost anything could tip that cup in that direction quite easily. And just so you & anyone else who MAY feel a bit concerned, know, I'm NOT at risk of doing anything stupid like hurting myself {or anyone else lmao} due to all these ridiculous issues. I love me way too much. It's just that I recognize some of what I've been feeling isn't really that "normal," & when I've searched deep within & asked myself why it's happening, I have been unsuccessful. I'm happy to hear this can be something that others experience, too, because quite frankly, I sometimes feel SO D*MN alone! I do know there's some good from all of this because I have made a bond with the friend I mentioned above because of Alex.

I guess, ultimately, my issues really have nothing to do with Alex, his life, his gf, or happiness with her at all but honestly, everything to do with me, myself and I'm projecting my thoughts of how things should be onto to him, the object of my affection. & yes, how we see him at conventions definitely doesn't help anything.

Maybe I should have written this all out in a private message to you & not here for everyone to read, but honestly, maybe the responses from you & anyone who doesn't think I'm trying out "a different angle" can be helpful to others as well. Sorry this is so long but thank you from the deepest pit of my soul for posting the other ask & for your advice & helpful information. I just may end up sending you a private message before long (& I hear over half the people here saying, "Oh thank God!" as they yawn. Haha)

Thank you for everything & I promise not to bother you guys with this any longer!

And P.S.

I hope you all understand how serious I am now. (& yes, seriously crazy, too. But at least I can laugh at myself!)

Anon to anon. 😊

As for me, I’m really glad my response was somewhat helpful. Rest assured that you’re definitely not insane nor are you alone in this, anon. Your feelings are valid, and I truly admire you for being so self aware of them and bringing up such an important discussion, especially in the context of a fandom. Parasocial relationships are very common, especially nowadays, and even encouraged by the industry who sees them as profitable. So I feel it’s important for people to understand what they are and why we get caught up in such relationships, their benefits (like making new friends, like you mentioned), but also their darkest side. So thank you too. 😊 And if you (or anyone else) ever need someone to listen, I’m always a message away.

[reinterlacing]

I'm about to start taking apart my lan (local area network for you witchy mosscore types) in the house I came to in 2019 hoping to find solace and a place to recover.

I'll disconnect the tiny PC and the even tinier tech box + hard drive, and the network switch, and battery backup which make up my little indie "data center" that I built from cheap and cast-off parts. I'll take down the router in the basement and the one upstairs that formed a wifi bridge around the huge chimney so I could work in a bedroom while the servers lived next to the ethernet drop in the cool dark downstairs.

I'm bringing all this with me and will set it up in another basement - one where I can potentially leave it for a while - in a house where I don't know if I can stay more than another few weeks or a month or two.

I came out here with a lot of hope. that hope is now gone, replaced by other hope that's lesser in scope but perhaps more realistic.

I learned a lot.

I learned a bunch of technologies which I taught myself on those doorstop computers - just like when I was 16 and my father saw me using a computer I built in a literal cardboard box and had nothing to contribute. back then I taught myself assembly language out of a library book. in this case it was vital skills I missed from 2014 onward.

I learned people have widely differing ideas when it comes to core values like friendship, loyalty, duty of concern, and so forth. "people" very much including me. I've hurt others due to my own questionable values in that regard and now I know it. my own inability to communicate under certain conditions also did not help.

I learned that every molecule of extroversion within me is "affiliative" - the drive to love & be loved - rather than "agentic" - the desire to project & be seen. a lot of people seem to prefer agentic extroversion, and I learned I have very little to say to those who do.

I lost my best friend & confidant of 30 years, I haven't even begun to be able to address that, and quite frankly, nobody gives a shit.

I honestly don't know what to say or do at this point and am just grateful to have found some Zen teachings along the lines of "before enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water; after enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water."

lately people have been having opinions on how I should or shouldn't be doing things. the common thread among all these people is that they have expended minimal effort to understand why I do what I do in the way that I do. accordingly, their opinions on the subject are of little use to me.

I found out the mother who I've had no contact with in many years, whose mind was gone not long after I broke it off, is dying. it wasn't a shock. only in the past few months did I reach sufficient insight on the shit she did to have compassion for her as a human being, and she didn't have anywhere near the 30 years it took for me to get there, extended as the journey was by her bad behavior, lack of insight, and lack of ability to build another human being up rather than tear them down. I needed, and need, a lot of support which I never got.

I treasure my newfound wisdom, but overall, I feel diminished by the past 5 years especially.

at this point I just want to find someone to be naked with - I think if you're still reading you know what I mean by this, or close enough anyhow - who'll be my ride or die and I'll be their ride or die until the wheels really do come off this whole absurd circus or until we're gone, whichever comes first.

I always thought sure that'd happen. I thought sure. even thru all the time being an awkward kid and an awkward adult, I was sure I'd eventually find my constant, and then I would finally be able to put all the hungry restless miles behind me and devote myself to her and to us.

it's hard to overstate how central this is to my identity. people usually wanna sell some individualistic platitudes at this point, but I am long past that bullshit. I am absolutely meant to be part of a dyad and I function so much better within a healthy one.

and now I have to admit, decades late at pointing out the obvious, that the odds don't really seem very good.

I don't know how much fight I have left in me, probably it'd be none but for the continued availability of a very long pharmaceutical supply chain. but those pills are some good shit; I know I'll keep getting up as long as that prescription keeps showing up.

for the position I'm in, I'm in a pretty good position: a nearly-complete 1-man survival gear loadout, a collection of computer bits sufficient to do indie remote work from most anywhere in the lower 48 and in many other countries, and a paid 3-month SIM card.

I can pull 40 bucks an hour even with absolute shit-tier reliability because of my skillset, and I can make a lot more than that if I can ever get stable again. I just need a quiet private space without a bunch of random shit going on in it, especially addiction.

I am a homebody. I need a home. me without a kitchen and plants is already approaching tragic, now please if you are going to be present with me at all, understand that I, need, a home.

and the reality is, I don't think I'm going to have one for a long time yet, if ever.

[rodismancave]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐃𝐌𝐈𝐍 !

NAME: Mist! But I've gone by many other names before lol. This one just has stuck for longer than the others

PRONOUNS: They/Them

SEXUALITY: queer

SINGLE / TAKEN : single

𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐒.

I saw a juvenile iguana get run over last sunday and I got so devastated (I had stopped my car to let it cross the street) that I spaced the fuck out the rest of the way to my destination

I have worked as an illustrator and work as a bartender at a bar sometimes. I've also worked in a kitchen.

I learned english by myself bc I was really dedicated to understanding the sonic archie comics (small town and the sonic archie app only had comics in english), reading warrior cats (only 3 books were translated by the time i was 11) and reading homestuck.

𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄.

HOW LONG : I'm pretty sure its been 10 years

PLATFORMS : Started on Instagram comments, then DMs when that became a feature, Unsupportedmsparp, msparp, amino when I got bored, instagram again, Discord, Twitter, and now Tumblr.

BEST EXPERIENCE : I made a warrior cats fan Tribe rp group on discord in 2018 that took off pretty well despite some insane people joining and leaving. I still think fondly of it and plan on bringing it back to start over and make new memories with people who aren't insane

𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐓𝐘𝐏𝐄.

FEMALE OR MALE : Whatever. I rp characters by how much they make me feel insane not their gender

FLUFF, ANGST, OR SMUT : All of them? I guess? I've roleplayed smut very sparely bc i have issues

PLOTS OR MEMES : Frankly, I don't know. I mostly go wherever I'm called. I'm not very used to plotting stuff through the end, and It's hard for me to be fully comfortable with memes that aren't very specific. If you hadn't noticed I am mostly the kind of guy to go on and on about shit and wait for someone to join in on the bit or something. But im not against either option

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES : depends on what kind of RP we're doing, I quite enjoy rambling and matching my partner's length is always a fun little challenge. I do get a little upset if the same courtesy isn't done for me, but y'know. I try not to be picky

BEST TIME TO WRITE : When im bored out of my miind and feeling particularly funny

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S). In some ways yes I guess. I don't really relate to the kind of person Rodimus is because he is the sort of guy i'd either be best friends with or would hate the guts of, but I guess I relate to some more personal aspects of him. I do project on him every once in a while but that's bound to happen when you're roleplaying. It is Natural. But yeah idk. It's not something I tend to think about.

Tagged : @tacticturn

[athunbrean]

[EN] The Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom – Review

!!Version en français disponible ici!!

[Translated from French with Deepl. May contain translation errors.]

This review contains a few mechanics and story spoilers, but does not spoil the game's ending.

1. Introduction: background, brand, console

More than six years after the previous opus, we're finally treated to the new Zelda! A long-awaited game, considering that its predecessor, Breath of the Wild, is probably one of the greatest games of all time (although it's still a little early to decide). Tears of the Kingdom was immediately announced as a direct sequel to the previous game, and from the very first trailer we noticed the blatant resemblance to Breath of the Wild. Six years may seem a long time to wait for a game that uses the same engine and virtually the same map as the previous opus, but there are two main reasons for this long wait:

- The 2020 Covid crisis. Probably the main reason that slowed down many projects, including this one.

- The last year of development. According to Eiji Aonuma, the game was almost ready in March 2022, but with its complex physics and customization (more on that later), it clearly needed time to work out all the bugs that this kind of mechanics creates.

I won't dwell on all the similarities between TOTK and BOTW - I'll mention them here - but the rest of the text will dwell much more on the differences and what this game brings to the table compared to its predecessor. But it's clear that the similarities between the two games may put some people off, myself included. The entire BOTW map has been reworked here, with a few changes, but clearly not enough to renew the feeling of immense discovery that BOTW gave us. The actions are also very similar, as is the way the inventory works. In short, this is a game that takes up almost everything BOTW had to offer in terms of its world and principles, while changing a few things about the world itself, and modifying some of its gameplay. If this aspect may seem off-putting at first, especially when we return to the main map after the "tutorial", it gradually dissipates as we clearly understand that TOTK has its own qualities which are not the same as those of BOTW. Where BOTW shone for its discovery and exploration, TOTK shines above all for its mechanics, creativity and gameplay. Perhaps someone introducing themselves to the license by starting with TOTK would have all these qualities at once? To be explored...

2. Story and Lore

A new game means a new story. First of all, a few personal disclaimers before we get started:

(1) I know very little about the Zelda timeline, because I've always found it very artificial, and above all I think games are great when they stand on their own. In short, I think one of the great things about Zelda is that you can start one at random without having played the previous ones.

(2) I've never really liked Zelda games for their story, which is rarely very deep in itself. I loved Breath of the Wild, and yet the story is far from having impressed me. But Zelda, like Mario, is a fine example of how a game can be good even if its story is insignificant.

To sum up, the game takes place after Breath of the Wild, where, after exploring the castle's basement, Ganondorf starts attacking us and Zelda finds herself teleported to the past, where she meets Hyrule's founder, Rauru, and other Zonai (her species). Throughout the game, Link will have to find out what happened to Zelda and defeat Ganondorf.

As we all know: Time travel often makes for very tricky scenarios. But quite frankly, it's well executed in this game, because time travel isn't something "easy" for the characters to do. However, there's a catch: the fact that Zelda has gone back in time can be known very early on by the player, as the cinematics leave no doubt about it. Except that the game's entire scenario is based on the fact that the characters don't know what happened to Zelda (in particular, the main quest that justifies our going to the four regions is that we're investigating Zelda's disappearance). This leads to many absurd situations where the characters have no idea where the princess has gone, even though we know for a fact that Link has figured out what happened to her, as if he knew from the start but was hiding it from the other characters. This kind of twist doesn't work in such a non-linear game, as it leads to passages that cryptically show information that has already been given to us in a literal way, often giving the impression of playing the game out of order (which is the last straw for an open-world game).

And where BOTW succeeded in not repeating itself too much according to the regions, regardless of the order, TOTK, on the other hand, has a more important and complex story, it can't afford to, and so many cinematics feel very repetitive as you have to understand everything regardless of the order in which the game is made. The most blatant are the end-of-temple cinematics, which are all the same, sometimes to the word, making you want to skip them after the second time around.

The other problem with the story, which is more personal, is that it's often hard to get attached to the characters. This was already a problem in BOTW, but I think it's even more of a problem in this game: we get much more attached to characters from the past, whom Link doesn't know, than to characters from the present, who aren't really present at all. Even the sages we meet in the four regions are nice, but nothing more. This is even more true of the sages of the past. We easily become attached to Zelda and Rauru's family, but the sages of the various peoples seem very cold to us, not least because we don't even see their faces.

3. Gameplay : Powers

As I said earlier, this is the game's strong point. Very different from BOTW, which had powers that weren't very important, here they're essential to enjoy the game, even if it doesn't always encourage you to use them.

The sandbox aspect is the one that has received the most critical acclaim. TOTK's new powers include two that really encourage creativity: Fuse and, above all, Ultrahand.

- Ultrahand: This power lets you mix objects and mechanisms together to build all kinds of vehicles and tools. This is the most revolutionary aspect of the game, and what makes each game unique. Each player creates his or her own vehicles, which are often jaw-breaking at first, but get better and better the more they master this tool with its infinite possibilities. And, as ever, there are engineers at heart who will build incredible vehicles. It's a really enjoyable aspect of the game, and one that allows us to make our lives easier, or not, to our liking. Nevertheless, its main quality is also its main flaw: The game rarely encourages us to use this mechanic. This is a good thing, because the customization of our experience is total, and those who don't feel they have the soul of a builder can easily play the game without using it much, but it's a flaw, because the game doesn't encourage us at all to exploit our creativity in our constructions, for example through puzzles or the like. This sometimes gives the impression that we're making things more complicated for ourselves than anything else.

- Fuse: This mechanic allows you to mix all kinds of tools with different types of objects. For example, mix a sword with a monster's horn to make it more powerful, a brick-breaker with a rock to make it easier to destroy deposits and harvest ores, or mix arrows with all kinds of elements to modify their specificities. While the latter is very satisfying to use, as it allows for all kinds of arrow types (fire arrows, explosive arrows, tracking arrows, etc.) and is, in my opinion, much more enjoyable to use than buying arrows of each type, the rest is fun at first, but quickly becomes boring. You get the impression that you can mix your tools with anything, especially with mechanisms, but not only does the game rarely encourage you to do so, but you also come to understand that, for example, with swords, it's the monster horns that do the most damage, and so with each new weapon you throw one away to mix it with, which quickly becomes repetitive. It's a mechanic with potential, but one that's not exploited intelligently enough in the end.

Among the "main powers", we have two others that are more anecdotal:

- Ascend: This is a movement power that allows you to pass through any ceiling that's low enough. The introduction of this power makes perfect sense in a world where caves abound, and where having to go back and forth to each cave would quickly become tedious. Here, we can simply cross the ceiling to get out. Not only is this quite satisfying, but it also allows us to spice up our strategies a little, especially when it comes to attacking monster camps. But like the other powers, this one has a lot of potential, but isn't exploited nearly enough by the game! We could drool over the idea of making temples with puzzles that require us to go from room to room using this power, but it's hardly the case. What's more, this power can be a real pain to use, as it's often capricious, from the fact that it's often tedious to position yourself correctly so that the game accepts that we can cross the ceiling, to the simple fact that activating this power automatically directs the camera upwards.

- Recall: Like the others, this power has a lot of potential, especially in terms of the puzzles it can be used to solve. But since it's a pretty cracked power, you have to be careful not to break the game with it. We'll talk about the shrines and temples later, but this power breaks most of the game's puzzles. At times, you even wonder whether the game intended this power to be available at all. But on top of that, once again, this power isn't used enough. It may come in handy in some cases, but it's possible to complete almost the entire game without using it.

We also have some new sage powers which are clearly less important, but which are worth mentioning nonetheless:

- Tulin's Power: A power that allows us to make a horizontal gust of wind when we're in a paravane, giving us a boost. This is clearly the most practical sage power, mainly because it's the only moving sage power, but also because it's much easier to use than the others, since all you have to do is be in paravane and press "A" at any time, whereas with the others you have to either wait for the sage to approach you, or move towards the sage in question. What's more, you'll need this power pretty quickly to travel from island to island in the sky. The only drawback is that the button for activating the sage's power is the same as the one for picking up objects, so we regularly find ourselves in the situation where we're pushing with the wind what we intended to pick up, which can be quite annoying at times.

- Yunobo's Power: A power that allows us to roll Yunobo (a Goron) and propel him towards an area to demolish everything. It's quite fun to use when you're in a vehicle, as it automatically moves in front of you and when you press the button to activate it, it propels you forward, but apart from that this ability is rarely used, as it's neither practical nor useful. Like many of the game's mechanics, this one clearly doesn't encourage its use. The only time you'd be tempted to use it would be to shatter cave walls or ore deposits, but in the first case it takes a long time to recharge, as most cave walls have a large number of layers, and in the second case it shatters ores all over the place. What's more, the character is quite imposing, so it's quite complicated to get him in the right place to use it.

- Sidon's Power: A power that lets you create a shield of water to protect yourself, and launch a small "water blade" when you attack. This is probably the least useful of the five sage powers, because beyond the pollution phase, it's never encouraged to be used, and above all, it's not at all practical. The shield idea would be useful in combat, but it's precisely in combat that this power is the most complicated to activate, as you have to manage to go to Sidon and order him to put up the shield at the same time as fighting.

- Riju's Power: A power that allows us to send a bolt of lightning to the place where a bow arrow lands, provided the power is activated beforehand and the place in question is in the zone where the power is activated. It's a very satisfying power to use when the game wants you to, though sometimes a little tedious as the power's area of application grows very slowly, but then again, this power is almost never used beyond that, and the game never encourages you to use it.

- Mineru's Power: A power that allows us to control a Golem and assign weapons, or any other object, to its hands. The most complete power of the five, it's quite original and fun to use, but you soon realize that it's far more disabling to use it than not, so you never use it.

4. Level Design: The World and its special features

I'm going to compare it to BOTW again, but that's where the comparison is most important. In practical terms, it's the same world, the same map. Obviously, there are a few changes (shrines that change location, villages that change climate, etc.), but overall it's the same map. As a result, exploration almost takes a back seat in this game, which is a shame given that it was the great strength of the previous opus.

Tears of the Kingdom does, however, set itself apart with a few additions to the map:

- The Sky. Now there are floating islands above the entire Kingdom of Hyrule. This is what the trailers dwelt on the most, and what made fans drool the most, so that in the end it represents a maximum of 1/3 of the game... The largest island is the one in the tutorial, and it's undoubtedly the best. Except that, after a refreshing 4/5 hours, you're propelled onto the mainland and realize that all the other islands are much smaller. It's easy to enjoy exploring some of the islands, which have a number of great ideas, but the disappointment comes when you realize that the types of islands are repeated... I'm thinking in particular of the islands where you have to bring a green stone to activate a sanctuary, always with a kind of bumper in one place that you have to turn with a lever, and which is repeated I don't know how many times. In short, it's all the same, with a lot of potential but disappointing execution...

- The Underground. Unlike the sky, this part of the map (which is the same size as the surface) wasn't teased at all before the game's release. In fact, when you discover them, it creates a "wow" feeling. And in the end, although I like the ambience of these dark subterraneans and the similarities with the surface are a bit funny, there's not much memorable about them. Especially as the game doesn't encourage us to explore this place at all because there's not much to see, lots of Yigas camps that are almost all the same and give us vehicle schematics we'll probably never use. In the end, we're much more inclined to go in straight lines, as the main reason for going there is to find outfits that are marked on the map thanks to treasure maps found in chests on the floating islands. Again and again: an idea with a lot of potential, but a rather disappointing execution.

- Caves: Something a little refreshing at first, but quickly becomes repetitive and rather pointless to do. In each cave we have to kill an Elusis to loot a crystal, but the reward given by these crystals is really useless, so it feels like we're doing all these caves for nothing. Fewer caves and more variations of them wouldn't have hurt.

- Wells: Really useless, except in very rare cases (like the well in Zelda's house).

The game also introduces 5 new temples. While the games leading up to these temples are quite fun to play, albeit often a little too easy (special mention should be made of the flying boat game before the wind temple, which is a joy to play), the temples themselves don't offer much in the way of interest. For some, it's simply a matter of getting from point A to point B without much more (for example, the Temple of Water), while others have a few nice ideas but rely solely on this idea and are above all too easy to break, notably because we can climb the walls and also through the power of Recall, which can break many puzzles, already few in number. I'm thinking in particular of the Temple of Fire, which has a principle that's not so stupid in itself, but in addition to being simple, you can climb the walls, which breaks the entire temple. I'd still like to mention the Temple of Lightning, which is undoubtedly the best, probably because it's the most enclosed and the one with the most puzzles.

As far as the shrines are concerned, I know that many have appreciated the fact that they can be solved in several different ways, but I think that this has completely ruined the principle of the shrines. With Ultrahand and especially Recall, which break at least 1/3 of shrine puzzles, there's no room for puzzles and reflection. What's more, many shrines are blessings, i.e. shrines that have no riddles or anything to finish them. It's understandable when the path to get there is tedious, but having this type of shrine practically every time it's in a cave, is really tedious and takes away all desire to do the shrines themselves. Because, if you liked the shrines in BOTW, it wasn't just because you could teleport there and get presents, but above all because they were puzzle-oriented, which was a change from the rest of the game, which was exploration-oriented. But it's not all doom and gloom either. There are, of course, a few sanctuaries that stand out from the crowd and are fun to play.

Finally, a new world and new characters mean new quests! As far as the main quests are concerned, we're on the same lines as BOTW: you have to travel to 4 regions, the same as BOTW, and complete a quest each time. So there's nothing new about the main quests, only that unlike BOTW, where they are activated automatically, here they can be skipped if you're too thirsty to explore right away, which can be annoying as it would prevent you from being able to activate the towers (which are used to display the map) and prevent you from having the paravane (even more essential than in BOTW). As for the side quests, they are even more repetitive and, above all, unchallenging. A lot of "go get 10 mushrooms" quests, which quickly become irritating. There are, however, a few side quests that stand out from the crowd, such as the woodland gazetteer at each relay, which makes the relays more interesting, and which are often quite fun to do, and the gift that comes with these quests is well worth the effort.

5. Music and graphics

In terms of graphics, we're sticking with something quite similar to its predecessor, which still proves that a game can be very pretty without being 4k (although the grass sometimes reminds us of a certain Pokémon game whose name we won't mention). But this has been boosted even further. The floating islands are particularly pretty, although they all have absolutely the same graphics, which is a shame... The downside is that the Switch being what it is, there are frequent FPS losses (a problem that had more or less been avoided in BOTW, apart from in the Korogu forest).

As for the music, and the soundscape in general, we're staying right in line with what BOTW had to offer: we prefer to create atmosphere rather than leave the music on all the time. This sometimes gives the impression that the music is non-existent or unmemorable, yet you only have to skim through the OST after playing the game to realize that these tunes have clearly stuck in your head, and will do so for a long time to come. An ambitious choice, but still as effective as the previous opus, although I understand the frustration of not having such memorable melodies as previous Zelda releases have left.

6. Conclusion

I've been pretty hard on this game, and yet I'm giving it a score of 3.5/5, which is in itself a very good mark. It's still a game with a lot of great things to do, where everything beckons, and where finishing even the smallest quest requires enormous concentration because you want to do everything at once. It's a game where the hours just fly by. But most of TOTK's charm and quality are already present in BOTW, which set the bar very high. On the whole, I find this game very hard to innovate and remains in the easy suite, which was a disappointment for me. I would sincerely have preferred to wait longer for a game that kept the same formula, but with a lot more new features. Even so, I'm not at the point of thinking that this game is just "€60 DLC for BOTW". You don't need to know much about video games and code to think that, as TOTK is so technically advanced. This is a BOTW where all the cursors are turned up, the qualities are accentuated but so are the flaws, and it completely fails to be a revolution like its predecessor was. This is not to say that it's a bad game; it's a great pleasure to play, even more so if you're not familiar with BOTW. But expectations were probably too high for me, as I'd been completely blown away by Breath of the Wild. Above all, it's a game with a lot of things that have immense potential but are often executed in a very clumsy way. We hope that Nintendo will be able to renew this license and surprise us once again with ambitious, even revolutionary games.

[infiniteanalemma]

So, I said I'd do a NaNo 2023 retrospective on the things I've learned over the past month. Here this bad boy is. It took me a little longer than expected, because it's a long, long post. (Y'all know I can't help but write an essay for every little thing!) Admittedly, it's somewhat self-indulgent, but it (hopefully) has some useful information about writing strategies. As per my usual policy, under the cut so it doesn't clog anyone's dash.

Okay, so, to start ... I've been doing NaNoWriMo since 2016, but this is only my second time winning. I also won last year's NaNo, using the same project. I don't want to get too deep into what the project is, as I don't want to kill my forward movement by talking about it before I'm far enough along to get feedback. What I'll say is that it's a visual novel/game script, and I already had a pretty good chunk of content before I used it as my NaNo project.

I'll get more into why that is important later, but for now, I'll just say that I've been writing for a long time and have a long trail of unfinished projects stretched out behind me.

First, though, let me just start with some background information, to lay the foundation of some of both the problems and solutions I've discovered. If you don't care about the background stuff, and are just interested in potential strategies, look for the ** down below.

Okay, I can reasonably say that this November was a whole mess, as per usual. It seems like something insane happens to me every November, and this year was no exception in that regard. Even so, I managed to write every single day of the month except one, which was the day I wound up in the ER. Long story short, my doctor had me try out a new medicine this month and I had a bad reaction to it. (I'm fine, for the record. It took about a week to get out of my system, but I'm okay now.) That one day aside, I wrote every day and on most days, managed to write more than my necessary minimum.

Personally, I'm really proud of myself for pulling that off. As someone with Attention Deficit Disorder (inattentive variant, not hyperactive), it's remarkably difficult for me to form habits and stick with them. I have a huge problem with sticking to something every day, and there's a tendency for me to quit doing something completely if I miss even one day.

I'm also really bad about rewarding myself for success, and I don't get that natural hit of dopamine for finishing my tasks. (Thanks, brain!) This means that even when I succeed, it's hard for me to even appreciate it. Between that and my executive dysfunction, it's hard to stick to doing anything consistently for 30 days. I've had to figure out ways to make myself acknowledge and reward myself for reaching my goals, something I've struggled with for a long time.

Now, part of the problems I've had in the past with completing NaNo was that, in addition to having crazy things happen during November, I've never really had much support in my writing endeavors. I was surrounded by people who thought writing was a waste of time, and didn't understand (or, frankly, care to understand) why I wanted to do it.

As someone who both writes and creates visual art, it's hard to create when people discourage you from creating unless you're actively making money on it. Now, these people weren't trying to be malicious. On the contrary, they were trying to be helpful. They just see things like writing and art as fanciful and unnecessary, a distraction from real things that you should be doing instead. This seems to be a common problem for creatives. Believe me, I've tried relating it back to their hobbies and how they enjoy spending time on doing those things without financial compensation, but somehow my writing and art are different to them.

After a while, I quit trying to explain it to them and attempted to do all my work in (effectively) secret. Combine that with my other problems, and what you get is inconsistent output that lasts only as long as I could force myself to keep going only for myself. As you might imagine, that typically didn't work out well. If I gave up on a project, no one knew except for me, and no one cared except me. Hence, several dead projects and WIPs. It did not help to have other people encouraging me to stop writing and try it next year, only for the same thing to happen again that next year of telling me to quit and put it off again for another year.

Fast forward to last year.

It was a bad year for me in a lot of respects, but somehow, I managed to win NaNo for the first time ever. How did I manage that? It was a combination of things, honestly, but I think it boils down to three main reasons: one, instead of a new project (like I'd tried in previous years), I started NaNo on a project I'd already been working on for quite a while, something which already had a decent chunk of words. (This is the game I mentioned before.) Two, I allowed myself to "cheat" my word count by including things that were related but not directly in the manuscript (working on background lore, codex entries, and such). And three, I told a small handful of others about it who weren't in my well-meaning-but-discouraging immediate circle.

I still did my writing largely "in secret," as I didn't confide in those few other people the idea of what I was doing, only that it was "a writing thing" and explained the concept of NaNo to them. Still, having others know I was trying to reach a word count and being supportive instead of critical did wonders for having me hold myself accountable for not skipping days. Maybe that seems like common sense, but I was so used to having to hide what I was doing or be met with concerned disapproval or condescending amusement at my "fancy" that it was a whole sort of whiplash to meet people who simply thought it was incredible that I could write so many words.

Plus, by allowing myself to "cheat," I did an end-run around my perfectionism, which tells me that if I don't do the task exactly right, I shouldn't even bother to do it at all. Perfectionism (at least for me) isn't just the enemy that tells me every word has to be perfect, but also that the way I do it also has to be perfect. I "cheated" a fair bit that November, and it was incredibly freeing.

This NaNo, I decided to springboard off of last year's revelations. If merely telling others helped me hold myself accountable for my days, this year I decided I would do at least one in-person write-in and meet with other NaNo-ers. (Is that the word? What do we even call ourselves? Oh, it's WriMos, isn't it? ... Honestly, that word doesn't look much better.) I also gave myself permission again to "cheat", and while I did end up doing it one time, I actually didn't really need to this go-round. Merely knowing that I could do it was enough that it took the pressure off for having to get it perfect.

But that wasn't enough. I decided I'd try to push myself even more this go around. (Yes, I know ... some of you can possibly feel the hubris rearing its head, the pride awaiting the fall. We're getting there.) I decided I'd try out a whole bunch of strategies I'd heard or considered, but not yet given a go.

This is where it becomes somewhat relevant that I'd recently been put on a new medication. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the medicine contained a fairly powerful stimulant that is commonly used for weight loss. (That's not why I was taking it, but that information is relevant for what comes next.)

For the first time in a long time, I was feeling good. I had more energy than I'd had in years, along with a brand new ability to focus. On one particular day in my first week, I knocked out over 3,000 words. I was pretty consistently hitting above par, racking up my word count. I was getting those words in, buddy. Things were going amazingly well. It was not to last, however.

Warning: medical stuff ahead, for those who'd like to skip it!

To its credit, the medicine worked. It accomplished what it was supposed to do, which was to help my body use the energy I had and not feel so lethargic, and increase my focus. Unfortunately, it also did some things it really didn't need to do to my body alongside that. I realized in short order that I was having side effects from the medicine, and quit taking it as soon as I realized. 

I am an inherently stubborn person when I want to be, though, so I suffered for three days before having someone take me to the ER. Even then, I didn't want to go because I had convinced myself there was nothing they were going to be able to do except tell me I had to wait for the medicine to work out of my system. I told myself I could sit and suffer at home just as well as I could sit and suffer at the ER. It took my doctor telling me to go before I reluctantly gave in.

It's a good thing I did, though, as among its other side effects, the medicine left me severely dehydrated even after the copious amounts of water I'd been drinking. My veins were so shriveled up that even one of the hospital's phlebotomists couldn't find a vein in my elbow or wrist to put my IV in, so they ended up sticking it in my bicep. I was partially correct that they couldn't do anything to get the medicine out of my system any faster, but they did make sure I was at least somewhat hydrated before they let me go.

Okay, hospital stuff over!

After I went home, my body had to crash out and recover. I had to go the rest of November without that extra pep, while also recovering from the side effects. That put me at a low, while trying to keep up writing. I'd built myself a nice little buffer at the beginning of the month, but my jaunt to the ER ate a decent-sized chunk out of it.

Here's where those strategies came into play. I'd discovered a few things I felt were helpful, but I'd been pumped full of energy when I started. Now that I was working from a deficit, the true effectiveness of those strategies would show themselves. Would they still work when I was struggling to accomplish anything, or was my ease at writing purely from the stimulant?

** Here's the list of strategies that ended up sticking with me through the month:

Music - I've tried writing with music before, but I always felt it was a distraction. However, this time around, I tried writing to video game soundtracks -- and this actually worked for me. I think part of the reason it worked for me is that most music in video games doesn't have lyrics, and I think lyrics are a large part of why other music distracts me. However, listening to classical or modern classical music didn't work well to me, either. I think what made the soundtracks work for me is that I largely used music from games that I've played: as a gamer, I've been essentially conditioned to focus on in-game tasks while those tracks play on loop. That translates into writing without becoming distracted. Notably, it doesn't work with video game tracks from games I haven't played. Familiarity seems key, at least for me. This might not work for everyone, but it might work for other gamers.

Writing Sprints - I've also tried these before, and they didn't seem to work in the past. However, I think what made them work this time is a combination of two things: shorter lengths, and consistent rewards. My ideal sprint time seems to be between 10 and 20 minutes. Longer sprints become tiresome, and my attention starts to drift. Shorter sprints make me feel pressured as I try to think what to write, which causes a sort of mini-writer's block. 10 to 20 minutes seems to be my golden mean; long enough to think without feeling the pressure of the countdown, short enough not to strain my focus. Then, regardless of words written, the sprint is followed by a break with a reward. My word counts during these little sprints tend to be somewhat small, usually between 50 to 200 words at a pop, but those add up. Anything that adds words to the count works.

In-person writing events - I'm an extreme introvert, so I don't think I could do a daily or even weekly meet-up, at least not consistently. That said, I do think this helped motivate me. Sometimes it's a struggle for me to socialize, so an in-person event was an excuse to get out of the house and be around people. At the same time, the goal wasn't to have to interact, but for each of us to focus on our writing -- a "social" event, but one where each of us doing our own thing. Plus, everyone at our write-in was very nice, and also pretty small-scale. It might have been a whole different story if I'd shown up and there were a hundred people there. Ours ranged from three to about seven people. Small, low-key, informal -- and with snacks! That worked for me tremendously well.

4thewords - Now, I'm 100% committed to this one yet, as I didn't start it until over halfway through November, but so far, it seems to be working pretty well. I actually found this one in NaNo's resources. Basically, it's a RPG-like "game" where you fight monsters by doing timed writing sprints. I actually wrote this post in 4thewords. You can line up a row of monsters of your choice to "fight" in an uninterrupted stream. As of typing this right now, I'm "battling" a monster called a Kai, which has a 75 word count with a 10 minute timer. Different monsters have different word counts and time limits. As soon as you defeat a monster, it goes on to the next one in your queue until you've reached the end of the total word count. When you win, you get experience and items, which can be used for future battles and/or to customize your in-game avatar. I haven't delved deep into the more gamey aspects yet. There's in-game story lore, quests to complete, and different locations to visit. It also counts your daily writing streak, but only gives you credit for your streak if you've written at least 444 words. I know there are other timed sprint apps out there, but this one does have a whole host of features, all of which are optional. You aren't in any way punished if you break your streak, for example, and there are in-game items you can use to "repair" a broken streak if that's something that bothers you. I don't know for sure that it's something I'll stick with long term, but it does seem to be working for the moment. It is paid, though. There's a 30 day free trial, which I'm still in, and a $4 monthly membership.

Small Rewards - As I mentioned above in Writing Sprints, I made sure to reward myself for meeting my goals, whether it was reaching my daily word count or finishing a sprint. I'm bad about not keeping track of my successes, let alone reward myself for them. As a side effect, it can be hard to see the progress I make. For me, it's easy to only look at the big goals and try to come up with a reward that matches that, but that has historically never worked for me. Forcing myself to stop and acknowledge small successes has been very helpful. I've experimented with a few different types of reward. The small, consistent rewards seem to work better -- giving myself a short dose of social media/discord time for finishing a sprint, looking at video game stuff (new games I'd like to try, game mods, etc.), a little snack for hitting a thousand words. I'm trying to be careful about using food as a reward, especially sweets, because that can be a bad habit to get into. Still, it does seem work pretty well.

"Cheats" - Last year's NaNo, I gave myself permission to cheat a little, and as I said, that helped take a lot of that perfectionism pressure off. So this year, I decided to sort of bake that into my writing strategy. It doesn't have to be perfect. I know that. I've heard so many writing advice gurus talk again and again about "shitty first drafts" and I acknowledge what they say makes sense. (For everyone except me, my brain says.) My "cheats" are really just another way of doing that. I made liberal use of my *Unfinished* tag, allowing myself to skip over things that I just didn't feel like writing and move on. I gave myself permission to leave things "ugly" and repetitive. I allowed myself to just strike out things I was no longer happy with and rewrite it, while still letting that old stuff count as words written. (After all, I did write it. Why shouldn't I give myself credit for it and let it go toward my word count?) Sure, this made my manuscript look ugly, but by doing that intentionally, I managed to sort of shut down the part of my brain that criticizes me for not being "good" enough. I did it on purpose, brain. It's supposed to look that way, so shut it and let me get back to work. And it did.

There are a few other things I'm still on the fence about. I'll keep giving those a try and see how it works for me. In the meanwhile, here's some things that didn't work for me (and why they didn't work for me), but others may find useful:

Scrivener - Wait! Don't pick up your pitchfork just yet! I love Scrivener, and I use it all the time. It's super helpful for me, but -- and here's the key part -- not for writing in. It's a great little tool for planning, background lore, keeping track of important details ... just not so great for me at being a manuscript. If you're on the fence about buying it, I do recommend it. It's got a bunch of useful features, and it makes for a great story bible. But as both a "traditional" story writer and a budding game dev, I don't recommend it as a word processor.

Music - I mentioned music in my strategies that worked, but I'm also putting it here, because I tried new musical things that didn't work, too. I already mentioned lyrics and unfamiliar instrumentals in the previous bit, but another thing I noticed didn't work well for me were instrumental covers of popular songs. I found them in a lot of "study focus" type playlists and gave it a go. While I do find some of them pretty relaxing to listen to, I think the main reason they didn't work for me is that I recognized the songs and still wound up "singing along" with where I knew the lyrics were supposed to be. Apparently, my brain latches on to that familiarity and becomes distracted in the same way songs with lyrics distract me. If you have a similar brand of neuro-spiciness, this may not be the way to go for you either.

Ambient Chaos and white noise generators - Ambient Chaos is such a cool app, and I really wish it had worked for me. To give a little explanation, it's basically a sound mixer for random background noises, each with its own volume slider. Some are ones you might expect, like rain, waves or a coffee shop. Some are weird: beehive, zombie invasion, nuclear siren, alien ship. Others seem pretty counterproductive, like couple arguing, fireworks, marching band or construction site. Still, you can mix and match as you like, and some combinations are actually pretty pleasing to listen to. Like the study focus music, I found both Ambient Chaos and some white noise videos very relaxing, but on this one I'm not entirely sure why it didn't work for me. Maybe it's because I don't really like repetitive noise, but it wound up making me blank out when I was trying to think about what to write next. I guess white noise fills up the space in my brain? Who knows. Sometimes the brain just says no.

"Big" Rewards - This is probably going to seem counterintuitive, but in addition to smaller rewards for meeting smaller goals, I tried to give myself bigger rewards for bigger accomplishments. Going out to dinner for writing a certain number of days in a row, buying something I didn't really need but wanted as a treat, that sort of thing. And while I really enjoyed those things, I don't feel like they did much to actually motivate me. Again, this may be the Attention Deficit problem rearing its ugly head once more, but my sense is that those things aren't immediate enough to trigger that reward "conditioning". The smaller rewards were things I could do right away -- immediate gratification. The bigger things took a little more time to set up, and in that time, the effect was lost on me. I still knew why I did it, but that didn't make me want to do it again to any appreciable degree. It didn't hurt, mind you. It just wasn't effective. My motivation level was the same as it had been before the reward, and the monetary cost wasn't really worth it to be a viable system to continue using to motivate myself.

As always, I don't think any of the strategies that didn't work are actually bad, for what it's worth. They just didn't work for me.

If there's anything I've learned in my now years of writing, it's that writing isn't so different from the other skills we have to hone with time. When we first start out, we try all kinds of things, hoping there's some magic method or tool that will make everything work. Unfortunately, the one and only method that works above all others is doing the thing, repeatedly. Everything else is just polishing and refining that. In one way, that sucks because it never really feels much easier. In another, it's sort of reassuring that, if you keep at it, you will get better.

Anyway, this is probably long enough. It's late here, and I'm tired. This post was as much for my own benefit as anyone else, as it helps me to write things out so I can really examine it, but I do hope it proves helpful to someone out there.

[hellsideangel]

Yes more on aoi. Mainly cuz this character resonated with me. Rn I'm labelling myself as biaro (bisexual aromantic) and so I saw alot of myself in this character (thou I know it's mainly projecting cuz I don't believe she fits into any specific category).

SHIT FORGOT TO SAY WARNING SPOILERS. WOOPS. MAYBE DONT READ MY POST BEFORE THIS ONE?

At the beginning shes presented as a weirdo which gets makatos interest which I love. Cuz I tend to make friends weirdly out of no where due to curiosity and weirdness. And she took noticed that makato was special compared to everyone else which peaked her interest leading to be her falling in "love" without knowing it wasn't love. I understand being confused and unsure about feelings what one should feel and what one does. An it is really complicated because there is love, lust, admiration, interest, curiosity, fun, obsession, uniqueness and well it's hard to know what if what your feeling someone sets within the boundaries of society. Would this be considered friends? Closer than friends? Family? Lovers? Because I tend to get close people easily and it took growing to realise and be aware of boundaries not to cross the romantic line and mislead people including myself.

Anyways, something about Makato drew her in and she accepted Makato as Makato no matter how Makato appeared. In fact she liked being able to see the 2 versions and kinda came of as pervert. But with her it seems she doesn't really think the way most do. Even with the question of do I join basketball or do I reject them. She very clearly went you don't wanna commit so just join when U feel like, why choose do both. And I feel like I look at creatures the same way. They just are what they are. And this pressure to pick a category to just live the way you want resonates with me.

Anyways, the way she hits on Makato felt sexually bi so when the turning point hit and it was revealed that she actually didn't love Makato I felt quite happy to see some form of biaro even if that isn't who aoi is. And they way they presented it with her grandmother blindly wishing for aoi to find her special someone or something to love and how she masks to reassure her grandmother since she knows the grandmother means no ill will. But she wished for it.

Later they introduce this idea of loving something so much something to die for. Since her father is a whale fanatic whales are what was special to him. Introducing this idea that if it can't be someone it could be something and how she jealous that she doesn't have either. In a way I feel the same as a kid I wasn't hyper about rock or pasta. I just didn't find it as boring as everything else. It started with a misunderstanding that pasta was my "favourite" and I kinda went with it. Soon enough I kinda discovered a range of different pasta dishes what I liked and didn't like and somehow made it special to me. With rock it was slight interest. But once I deep dived I found meaning and reasons to stay obsessed. Now I can safely say I love these things. I wouldn't necessarily die for them but I couldn't imagine living without them either.

So for aoi. I feel like she's in love with the idea of being in love. Having someone. And frankly her home life sucks and she's very lonely. She also masks her real wants for the people around her as if she's scared of she doesn't be easy going they won't come back again. This need to be liked. I wouldn't say I had that but as a kid I tended to bounce from one person to the next trying to make friends with people who clearly didn't want to. Didn't really understand fake friends boundaries rejection. I just saw it as this looks fun you guys look happy can I join? It used to be a distraction. Idk if it's the same for aoi but it seemed like a distraction from the fact she's lonely and has no one close to her.

When ryuji comes over to her place after a scare (aoi knows ryuji loves Makato) she says in roundabout words the only reason I'm relying on u rn is because I know U don't like me. I wouldn't be stuck masking it's ok since it wouldn't be an issue dragging u here. It would be if U liked me. (Since she wants to be liked not disliked) And I kinda of get the logic. It's alot more difficult when Ur like this to deal with people that like. The feeling you owe the people that like you to not disappoint them.

Anyways, she then says the begining thing I reposted that if his love falls throu and she doesn't love anyone either in the future can they live together. Which I just love because alot of aro feel this way. Wanting to connect and be close platonically. For me I guess I want the same but it's more complex so not getting into that but it goes to show she wants permission to be close to someone without the heartbreak of breaking someone's heart because Ur unable to fulfil their desires. The idea of suppressed Ur own desires for the sake of others. Then ryuji responds that'll never happen. Ull be fine. She cried and he goes you're actually pretty dark Hu? Which I love can't explain.

And then later Makato has a moment with aoi and might love her proving he doesn't love ryuji despite dating him. In this moment he says the words she'd been dying to hear I'd be there for U always. Mainly cuz she's been lonely her whole life even her family isn't a constant so a friend whose seemingly safe cuz they meant to be dating Ur other friend hugging U in Ur darkest moment saying I'll be there fills U with hope that being aro (whether or not aoi is) doesn't necessarily mean being alone.

She also has a momentary panic is this ok? Because she knows she's the third wheel. And the way she tries to get them together l, stay away and distance herself is something I love being portrayed because it's a sad truth. At least for me, once a relationship has been established U can't be as close, U have to distance and I've lost alot of friendships that way. In this one thou they return to her or that it's ok and stay close even thou she basically does break up their relationship. However that's good because Makato wasn't gonna fall for ryuji even without aoi. Which is nice to see that it shouldn't have so much pressure to not be the tag along not get in the way not mess it up.

The: is this ok? might also stem from is it ok to lean on someone knowing you can't love them back? Which is one most struggle with.

Anyways the depth of the relationships and characters is astonishing. I only picked aoi mainly cuz I was surprised how much I related and personally I love her depiction especially when she let the mask fall and it all got too real.

But I also love makatos story and depiction as well and ryujis.

#u never asked for this

#overshare

#need to share after watching and feeling

#this is my opinion don't come for me

#yes I know it's long sos 😜

#senpai wa otokoto? Okonotoko? Okotokonoko? Have I spelt that wrong? Oh well.

#my appol

I am so hooked on this anime!! Ugh. I swear she's giving the aroace vibes! With the previous episodes, it feels like she's trying to convince herself that she loves her senpai. But I think she's just in love with the concept of falling in love because she thinks that's what's normal. I'd be bummed out if that wouldn't be the case because tbh this is a good representation of being an aroace. Like I can totally relate to Aoi. I've been through this phase before. And even now I am also considering living with someone who's also aroace (if the chance presents itself, of course living alone would be fine too).

I do hope the series will have a proper ending. Taiga is already aware that he's gay but we can't say the same for Makoto. I think we are yet to figure out whether Makoto will actually fall in love with Taiga or not. He crossdresses and he likes girly stuff but that doesn't mean he's gay based on that. I just hope they get to fix their relationship. Whether Makoto would remain friends or pursue a relationship with either of the two. If Makoto prolongs his relationship with Taiga without developing feelings for him, that would be really unfair for Taiga. I feel bad for Taiga accepting to go out with Makoto simply because Makoto doesn't want his friendship with Taiga to turn bad. That would just be too unfair. :(