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utilitycaster · 2 years ago

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Would LOVE that essay on combat in dnd because full agree. But not even just for people watching live play, like, combat is an essential feature of dnd as a game system and it endlessly frustrates me when i see dms be like “yeah combat is just too complicated and no fun so i dont do it in my game :)!” Like i guess thats your right, but any non-caster class is gonna be miserable in your game. I saw a video recently talking about how dnd has kind of become the default ttrpg and is marketed as the perfect system for everyone and any style of play which is just. So not true. Combat in dnd is equally as integral as roleplay is and theres really no argument otherwise. Very valid if you hate dnd combat, it sure isnt for everyone, but in that case maybe play a different ttrpg where the characters arent constructed around combat abilities, i promise you’ll have more fun.

So this is one of those things that touches on maybe 99% of my feelings on Experiencing Fiction in general and actual play in particular; I apologize in advance for the length and digressions within this response.

Here are the reasons I have seen or I surmise why people don’t like D&D combat, either in actual play or in home games:

It can get crunchy and involves a lot of rules

There are long stretches in which individuals do not necessarily act (not exclusive to combat but I think this is a factor)

It contains violence

There is a potential for character death

Now, it’s fine if you aren’t interested in D&D-style combat, for whatever reason, when you play ttrpgs. It’s just that this is a core feature of D&D. As you say, this is what the martial classes are structured around - and, frankly, no small number of casting classes/subclasses as well. By avoiding it when you play D&D, you’re avoiding the bulk of the game, and there are plenty of ttrpgs that permit open RP that aren’t combat focused that would probably fit your needs better (eg: PbtA and Savage Worlds are both generic systems that can support a heroic fantasy like D&D without the emphasis on combat skills). I happen to love and prefer D&D, but that is specifically because I love combat, and yeah, there are other games and people should seek out those games if they don’t like combat.

When it comes to D&D actual play though…skipping combat is just straight-up stupid. And to be clear I mean fully skipping it and not watching it at all; while this is piggybacking off my post about spoilers, it’s fine if you are the sort of person who needs to know how combat ends in order to enjoy it! That’s just a personal preference that I respect even if I don’t share it.

D&D combat isn’t just an inherent part of the game; it’s an inherent part of the story. The idea of D&D being split into combat and RP is a false dichotomy. There is RP and crucial story within combat scenes, and you simply do not achieve the same effects by reading an after-the-fact summary. To use examples from Critical Role, consider one of the most famous RP moments from Campaign 1, when Scanlan uses his 9th level counterspell in the Vecna fight. The weight of that moment derives from mechanics and from the fact that it is in the midst of combat and well into a climatic final battle. Or for lighter examples, there’s a ton of Beau/Yasha and Fjord/Jester mid-combat flirting running through much of Campaign 2 that informs those relationships. Molly’s death? Caleb going into a fugue state when he kills humanoids with fire? Yasha destroying Obann? Fjord dying mid-deep scion fight? Those are all moments that have deep character weight and meaning that are within the context of combat, and you cannot divorce them from that context and hope to retain the same effect.

This is what dovetails into a larger discussion of Experiencing Fiction which is a (in my opinion) worrying tendency among some people to truly believe that you can cut up media into the palatable bits and pieces and push all of what you see as icky vegetables to the side of your plate. I fucking hate this. I think it’s what drives a lot of things including a distaste for combat. This is how you get, for example, people who dislike combat because Violence And Death Bad, which, do I think that in the real world violence is most often a thing to be avoided? Do I think that in the real world death is heartbreaking? Yes, but this is fiction. There’s that great Brennan Lee Mulligan quote about how TTRPGs like D&D allow people who usually must be conflict-avoidant in real life to let out their anger and frustration in a place where it is safe and harmless, and I believe that whole-heartedly. I want stories about death because I want to know I'm not alone in how I feel about death. I want stories in which people can express their rage in ways both healthy and unhealthy, because big same. (I also think it’s absolutely not coincidental that people who believe they are ‘protecting’ people by circumscribing what is acceptable in fiction tend to be strongly associated with either bigoted, violent policies in real life, or harassment and doxxing online; maybe enjoy a fucked up movie, as John Waters once said, and you'll calm down.)

This idea that you can cut up media and only consume what you like is also what I think is behind some of the really ill-considered and overly granular timestamped content warnings I’ve mentioned previously. It is fine if there are things you don’t want to watch or which will be upsetting or even triggering to watch! It’s fine if you as an individual don’t like violence! But I think there’s a problem when people believe they are entitled to be able to watch whatever they want and have it mold to their exact wants and needs (and that it’s a failing if it doesn’t), rather than taking on the responsibility of seeking out media that already fits the bill. Actual Play D&D will nearly always have violent encounters. If this will be an issue this is not for you. It is not gatekeeping to say “you can come through this gate, but the gate is in fact here for your specifically requested protection"; and yet people think that instead, gates should be placed around everything else. So (to give an example) this is why the warnings for D20’s Neverafter strike me as a symptom of this larger problem - if you have discomfort with violence towards animals and children, that’s fine, but you are watching a D&D horror series in which over half the player characters are either animals or children. This is not something where you can skip a few seconds of a flashing gif that might be a migraine or seizure trigger, or a case where an exceptionally rough scene of gaslighting can be read instead of watched; this is inherent to the show, and if this is not for you, you need to go elsewhere.

To give one last example, I was looking for fanart for Worlds Beyond Number, and came across a picture of Suvi with a caption of “Suvi but without the imperialism” and like…Aabria has said in interviews that this engagement with the empire is extremely deliberate; that Suvi is intended to be tied into the political structures of this world as an intentional contrast with Eursulon’s status as an outsider and Ame’s role at the smaller, community level. Suvi without imperialism is not identifiable as the same character and it throws the entire story off-kilter; she is of this empire and that is the fucking point. Any story worth telling is not just items thrown haphazardly into a bowl; they are combined and mixed. Someone is giving you a plate of brownies and you are acting like it’s physically possible to take out the cocoa powder without fucking the end result, and buddy, it’s not.

(Truly, I was not joking when I said this is like, the load-bearing pillar of most of my complaints about fiction consumption patterns in general. This is about how people will deny the flaws in characters even though any reasonably intelligent ten-year-old, and I know because I fucking was one once, understands that person vs. themself is one of the core conflicts and overcoming one’s flaws is in many cases the entire story and if you start out perfect there is nothing to be said. Like…I think a lot of people genuinely just want to watch a nonstop Monterey Bay Otter Cam of their sufficiently sanitized, focus-group-tested blorbos baking cookies together, and are affronted when people with the tiniest sliver of empathy and/or curiosity want a story with plot and character growth, which in turn require conflict.)

Anyway. I think the takeaways here are that there’s this awful entitlement people have in which they think that they can simply consume anything and it is the failure of that media if it doesn’t cater specifically to them, rather than a failure of them to seek out that which they would enjoy (and I could go on this rant indefinitely; it is truly the most constant theme among Takes I Think Are Dumb); and also I really want to bake something right now, given my choices of metaphor. Combat is part of D&D as a game and as a storytelling medium, and it is incumbent upon people who do not like combat to find something that doesn’t have D&D combat, rather than try to pull out the vital organs of the story.

#answered #faltermoth #long post #to continue with food metaphors it's really like. you are going to an italian restaurant and being mad there are tomatoes there #girl why are you at the devil's sacrament and so forth #i was going to make a joke about bombing all your coffee shop aus but actually i read a coffee shop au that was like. dark. and good.#(it was also professionally published in a work specifically about retellings though)

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mockerycrow · 2 years ago

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Hello! Hope your day is going good! I would like to request a ‘who would you ship me with’ for the CoD guys if they’re still open.

I am a tattoo artist with a big passion for art in general. I spend most of my time working but I like to craft and garden in my spare time.

One of my favourite things to do it go for long walks and look for cool things like bones and edible plants and herbs (I’m a bit of a hippy heehee).

In terms of personality I like to think I’m very laid back but I am stressed all the time, that being said I wouldn’t necessarily call myself high-strung. I try really hard to be kind and see the best even when it can be a struggle. I also am always joking around I LIVE to make people laugh and feel good :)

Despite my stress I’ve been described as a very calming and fun person to be around. I carry myself in a very professional and formal manner around those I don’t know, which can seem a little off putting at first. I am a big history buff with special interest in the Victorian era so it bled into my daily life and I literally walk around like a fancy Victorian lady with ‘Disney princess hands’.

Appearance isn’t very important but it is fun! I am just over average height and chubby, with olive skin and lots of tattoos. I have a more alternative look that’s been described as a kindergarten teacher at a school for forest witches, so I guess like a hippy goth haha!

Anyways, I appreciate your time, thank you! ❤️✨

I ship you with…

Simon “Ghost” Riley!

These are temporarily closed. I am answering the ones I had in my inbox from when I opened them last time. Please do not request one right now. Thank you.

I ship you with Ghost! I imagine he met you through you being a tattoo artist, as he adorns several tattoos of his own.

I think he would appreciate your lifestyle; he also works a lot and he wouldn’t want an S/O who doesn’t understand that he would be away a lot.

I think your hobbies would be interesting to him; he wouldn’t exactly understand the bone collection and I think he would be blunt about it.

He watches you garden your plants and one day, you’re sick for a good few days and realize you didn’t take care of your garden; you rush out there and find out everything has been taken care of for you.

Ghost is also a constantly stressed person, so he understands your struggle.

He appreciates that you aren’t strung up all the time.

Ghost tells you his dad-like jokes, including his military ones after he finds out you like to make people laugh.

I imagine Ghost has been with the military so long that he forgets not everyone will laugh at his “half a dog” joke.

Ghost really likes how you are calm. Like Price, I imagine if Ghost wanted an s/o, they need to be the calm outside of the chaos he lives in everyday.

He doesn’t mind your style, in fact he secretly loves it because you’re happy with it.

He quietly listens to your history facts and I can see him exchanging his history facts of his own; not of the same subject, though.

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 months ago

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September 9: Reaper

I finally (finally!) finished Reaper today. I’m not sure I have anything more to say about it that I haven’t already said; my thoughts aren’t that deep.

I did enjoy it, and it grew on me a lot as I was reading. I still maintain as my primary criticism that it was too long. But in some ways I did like it more than Chainsaw I think.

I was skeptical at first of the multiple-POV structure, first because Jade’s voice so defined the first book and was one of its stronger attributes (if you liked Jade, if not, probably don’t read this book). And second, the extremely distinctive tone of the first one made sense to me because it was her voice just third person. But here, a lot of that same tone, same vocabulary, same very noticeable turns of phrase (drink every time you read ‘dials back’) shows up again and regardless of perspective-character, which is making it sound a lot more like the author and not any of the characters. On the one hand, that’s fine; I do that too, keep my style across various limited third person perspectives, but the thing is some of these phrases are SO distinct that it’s hard for me to believe all of these people would be using them, and in particular that they’d show up in the Gal essays, which are first person, unless she’s very purposefully imitating. But then, again, why is that same voice everywhere else? I’m probably being too harsh on this and if I actually read the two books back to back, I’d find Jade’s voice in the first one much more distinct, but nevertheless I found it a jarring combination of style and perspective, personally.

And third, you know, I like Jade and at first I wasn’t so keen on spending so much time with people who aren’t her. The concept of the ensemble grew on me a lot and I think the overall impression of the book benefits from it. But here again I get back to ‘it’s too long.’ Because whether or not a section was dragging had much to do with who it was about. Sections about characters who were returning from book one, or who were deeply embedded in the plot of this book, were a lot more interesting than sections focused on characters who showed up for a few pages and then died. I get the idea and I’m not even against having those sections. But they should have been shorter.

I did like getting to see more of Letha though, and I liked Banner a lot, too, to be honest. I’m starting to wonder if I really was being queerbaited with Jade/Lethan in Chainsaw though. I mean, I didn’t expect or want more from their relationship in that book and I didn’t necessarily expect them to be explicitly romantic in this one; I didn’t have any distinct expectations. But there was a very obvious romantic sheen to the dynamic before and now it’s like very explicitly a Best Friendship. And look I’m not going to sneeze on a best friendship but it’s making me second guess my previous reading comprehension skills, I’m not gonna lie. Also the ‘what if threesome’ brain rot is deep and there’s something so… mmmm, almost there, about Jade/Letha/Banner. Banner the dumbass who steps up for his wife and daughter. Jade and Letha with their final-girl-best-friend-romantic-friendship bond. Jade and Banner coming to respect each other grudgingly, partly over their shared love of Letha and partly because they see the growth in each other and partly because they keep going through life and death situations together. Ultimately saving each other. Jade sacrificing herself for Banner-and-Letha together as a family. Mmm mmm mmm. I’ve been convinced. I’ve been converted.

I thought this novel had a better Big Climactic Ending, honestly, at least as far as I could recall. It was simpler, more direct, fewer characters and less stuff going on. Felt more focused. And more of a piece with the overall mood of the novel. I really, really liked that the previous installment was a summer story and this was a winter one, and that this one took place over such a compact period of time. Possibly even more than Chainsaw, it felt so cinematic, like a straight up blueprint for the movie that will inevitably be made. And you know that isn’t particularly easy, to take the vocabulary, the timing, etc., of one medium into another. I respect it.

I’ll read the third one eventually but not for a while. I need a little break. But maybe next summer.

#the year 2024 #2024: reading

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mithliya · 2 years ago

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Some context for the astrology in Asia thing is that there was a period (I believe in Korea) where a bunch of girls were aborted just because they were going to be born in a certain astrological year (Year of the White Horse I believe) that meant that they would be strong and independent and people didn’t want their girls to be that way. And now that that generation is older the boys in that age group know pretty much nothing about it, and the girls are being told that they should be grateful that they were allowed to live. Idk for sure if this is something that has occurred “for centuries” but if it’s happened once it’s likely it’s happened before. Actually, somewhere else in Asia (India?), women who were born in a certain time were deemed unlucky, right? And they were made to marry trees and then have the tree cut down before they married a man because the belief was that the nature of their birth meant that they were doomed to have their lover die prematurely.

But back to female-malice. Pretty much she’s saying “cars are bad for the environment so developing your personality around it is kinda not great” and “lesbians are different from each other because we’re all individual people and not copies of each other and the one thing that connects us is our love for other women, not some style or interest or hobby” and “masculine & feminine aren’t real and butch and femme are based on masculine and feminine so how do we intend to eliminate the concepts of gender roles if we use them to define our styles?”

I honestly have, for a while, wondered to myself about butch and femme and how they fit into radical feminism because of the fact that they are based in the arbitrary ideas of masculine and feminine that we are trying to get rid of, but I haven’t really thought too much on it because I’m not a lesbian so I didn’t feel like it was my place to comment on that, and since I’m not a part of the culture it’s possible that there’s something about it that I’m missing or don’t know about

Also I’m sorry we’re all bringing this drama about another person to you when you’re not even really involved in any way other than being a lesbian also

what you told me about the astrology & abortions stuff sounds familiar to me. i think i had heard of it before. but i would argue that the misogyny is not necessarily from astrology itself but rather the idea that girls shouldn’t be xyz and therefore they’re better off not being born than be those things so like. misogyny drove that behaviour rather than astrology itself? but that’s definitely messed up. never heard of the india thing tho.

and yeah i generally understood the same of her statements. i would disagree about butch being arbitrary tbh because there’s a level of gender non-conformity that butches display that makes them a visible target for homophobes and ppl that hate female gender non-conformity. yes they’re all social constructs ultimately but not social constructs that don’t play into the treatment of others if that makes sense? like i’ve seen my gf face a lot of bs from people for being an asian butch lesbian. if she wasn’t butch, they likely wouldn’t be able to guess that she’s a lesbian & be shitty to her accordingly yanno. and if she wasn’t butch, they wouldn’t be weird to her in many ways. so like i kinda agree but also i do see a point to terms like butch especially bc butches are alienated and othered and mistreated etc and so ofc many identify strongly with that aspect of themselves bc of how marginalised & hated it is. with femme, i personally do not see the point in itself besides it being a term complementary to butch or being a shortcut term.

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remcycl333 · 3 years ago

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you don’t need to be happy to be manifest!! but...

who doesn’t want to be happy?

(long post alert, sorry in advance lol. but please read it all the way through, i really think it’ll be worth it<3)

ok, to preface this, you don’t need to be happy to manifest. i’ve manifested great, positive things while i was in depressive episodes. i manifested wonderful things with tears streaming down my face. BUT, i think something a lot of people overlook is that it’s really beneficial to feel positively about your desires.

this is something i realized a few months ago, saw great results from, and then forgot all about and, well, stopped seeing the progress i wanted. but i’m back on track now, don’t you worry.

(i’m going to be using the example of my sp, bc that’s what i have the most experience with, but this applies to literally anything u r manifesting)

i’ve made a few other posts saying pretty much what i’m about to say in this next paragraph, so if you’ve already read those, i’m sorry for repeating myself. just bear with me lol.

so i came to a realization a few months ago--and i don’t exactly remember how i came to this realization--that i kind of...hated my sp? like i fucking resented him. and i was like, wait a minute, that’s not right. i love my sp. that’s why i’m trying to manifest him! so why do i feel like this?

i used to focus on manifesting in steps, so naturally the first step was contact. so i’d be affirming all day every day “my sp is texting me right fucking now😡“ (and other variations) and then when he didn’t text me, it’d just make me angry at him. but technically, he didn’t even do anything wrong?? sure he didn’t text me, but he had no clue he was supposed to? idk it was all complicated and weird. and then when i wasn’t mad that he didn’t text me, i was having arguments with him in my head, preparing for some weird fight that my brain just assumed was going to happen whenever we did get into contact. which is weird, bc my sp and i never fight. like, this is my ex. yet i literally cannot tell you a single fight that we have ever had. we literally get along perfectly. we have never fought (or even argued) once in all the time that we’ve known each other. yet my brain was always fighting him. and it was just, exhausting?

and so one day, when i was troubleshooting, i realized: rem, if you were in a relationship right now with your sp, would u hate him? would u be constantly fighting with him? god i fucking hope not!

now, what would i be thinking? i’d be laying in bed at night, hugging my pillow, thinking about how much i love him. reflecting on how happy he makes me, how perfect he is, how good he makes me feel. i’d be thinking about how he is the most perfect boyfriend i could ever have asked for. i’d be content after spending a long day with him, excited to spend the next day with him as well.

and during the day i wouldn’t be wondering why he wasn’t texting me. if anything, i’d be wondering why he was texting me considering we were literally hanging out, together, at that very moment!

i would trust him. i’d be walking on cloud nine. i’d be content. i’d be...happy.

now, in no way am i saying that you need to be happy 24/7, or dancing on air, or feeling intense butterflies in your stomach. you’re allowed to have other emotions. you’re allowed to feel anger, you’re allowed to break down and cry! you’re allowed to have bad days. but if you’re feeling these negative emotions about your desire, i want you to try your hardest to release them. i don’t think any of us want to have breakdowns over our manifestations and cry about them, but if it happens, it happens. just pick yourself up afterwards--or stop it before it even really begins, trust me, it gets easier to do this--and maybe do a few deep breaths to calm yourself down, and remind yourself why you’re on this journey in the first place. once again using the sp example, it’s because you love your sp. because they are perfect for you! they make you happy. you love their smile, their laugh, the witty conversations you have with each other. you love being in their arms. you love when they’re in your arms! they did something that made you fall in love with them, or want to be in a relationship with them. what was it? focus on that.

enough with the sammy ingram (i could go on a whole rant about her) style affirmations. with the “he’s going to fucking text me, he has no choice, he’s my fucking boyfriend and he does what i say.” like....ew?? i used to say shit like this, and it was really what started making me resent my sp. i was ordering him around in my head, creating this weird dynamic between us (which, he wasn’t even aware was there), and getting mad when he wasn’t doing what i was ordering him to do. looking back, it was borderline psychotic. it was just turning it into me against him, and that’s not what i wanted at all. i want to be in a relationship with him, with mutual love. i don’t want to be his boss, or his mom, or his fucking military sergeant!! (i don’t even know if that was the proper term bc fuck the military, but u guys know what i mean lmfaooo)

(disclaimer if u use these types of affirmations and they work for you, go for it. but i used them for a while and they just weren’t it for me. carry on)

i guess what i’m trying to say is, those affirmations weren’t making me feel good. they weren’t making me feel like a “boss ass bitch”. they were making me feel...like a bitch. and strangely, powerless. i’d say these affirmations, or just bland ones where i wasn’t necessarily demanding my sp to throw himself at my feet and kiss my shoes and tell me he is nothing without me, and ultimately, if i wasn’t feeling resentment, i was feeling...nothing.

once again, i want to make this so so so clear, you don’t need to be happy to manifest. but my belief? if your affirmations aren’t making you feel joy, or excitement, or contentment, then what’s the fucking point? if you think of your desire, and don’t feel positive feelings about it, then you might have lost your way a little.

don’t worry!! it’s an easy fix. easy, and even...fun? rewarding? comforting? i just want you to take some time--laying in bed at night is the perfect time to do this in my experience--to think about why you want your desire so badly. do you want money? think of how great life is going to be once you have it. of all the stuff you’re going to buy, for yourself, and maybe even for others. don’t focus on the problems you want to fix with it right now. think of that clothing item you’ve had your eye on, or that book you’ve been wanting to read but haven’t felt like “wasting” money on. think of how excited you are to buy those things, because you’re going to! think of the good. not the bad.

remember: you create more of what you focus on. focus on the good, get the good. focus more on the bad...get more of the bad.

your manifestation is done. it is created. it is on it’s way to you. it is here! all there’s left to do is feel excited. it’ll be here any moment now, how fucking exciting is that! it’s safe for you to be happy. it’s safe for you to focus on the feelings you would have if you had it, rather than focus on affirming specifically to bring it to you. it is safe to be happy.

i used to affirm solely for contact, all day every day, and sometimes i’d get it. but it’d be short lived, my sp would be distant, etc. but then once i started focusing on truly living in the end and basking in my love for my sp, thinking about how perfect and amazing he is, i not only got contact (without having to specifically affirm for it), but he was actively engaged in our conversations, making up new topics to keep the conversation going, asking me about and expressing interest in my hobbies and interests, bringing up and reminiscing on old memories of our previous relationship, complimenting me, flirting with me, asking me to hang out, etc. shit i was not getting when i was “he is so fucking in love with me and he’s texting me right fucking now”-ing all day long. i started focusing on how amazing and perfect and good to me he was, and that’s exactly what i got in my reality. who would’ve thunk?

and you know what? yeah, he fucking loves me. he misses me and he wants to be with me. but that’s a given. but that doesn’t fucking matter. i am the only person who matters in my reality!! sure he loves me, but do i love him??? that’s what the universe wants to know. that’s what truly fucking matters. the universe brings me my desires. so i’m gonna fucking desire it!

guys, please trust me on this. just try it out, with whatever you’re manifesting. this could be what you’re missing. this could bring your manifestation to you. i promise, if you’re like i was and feel resententment or anger or hatred towards your desire, this is going to make you feel so fucking good. just stick with this for a week or two. i promise, you’ll see movement.

and remember, there is no one to change but self. don’t change them (or it), change your perception of them (or it).

let’s make manifesting fun again!!! it’s the perfect tool to bring happiness into your life. so fucking let it!!!!

so no, you don’t need to be happy in order to manifest. but....maybe, just maybe, prioritizing your happiness isn’t such a bad thing. i mean, who doesn’t want to be happy?

#law of assumption #manifestation #manifesting

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piraticoctopus · 3 years ago

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Y’all wanna know how my train of thoughts work like 24/7? I had a big nerd mind expansion moment while trying to organize my Hollow Knight thoughts where I pulled out my entomology textbook because I was thinking about eusocial insect societies (ants, honey bees, termites)— and when I typed out a description of them in a way that pointed out how messed up it is when you give it morals (in short, I described them as producing a “self-sacrificing, unthinking, emotionless, will-lacking army”), I was like “woah, wait a minute, no mind to think”, and I realized I don't really know all that much about termites or how their societies/genetics differ from hymenopterans (ants, bees, and wasps), but I knew they DO have a king, so I looked into it more and then did a deep dive into reading scientific papers about caste determination and colony structure and then when I went to find a diagram of it—

*fucking x-files theme plays with a dramatic zoom-in*

TLDR; the Pale King’s basically a termite.

Supporting info and other interesting (to me!) facts about termites below the cut:

(Here’s the publication that diagram is from in case anyone wants to read about queen termite reproductive strategies lmao)

Termites are monogamous until one of the pair dies. Queens can produce new queens through parthenogenesis (making babies without a male, so 100% of their genes are from her, but they aren’t necessarily straight clones). So if she needs to she can make a bunch of younger versions of herself.

I googled “are termites monogamous” for confirmation and forgot to specify Google Scholar and there is... so much going on here

Some reproductives are meant to leave the colony to start new ones, and thus have wings (and are called “alates”). Their wings are shimmery and very pretty and like twice the length of their bodies so all those headcanons where people give PK wings are valid.

Irrelevant to my point, but interesting: Unlike hymenopterans, in which males are haploid (only have one copy of each gene), termite males are diploid (have two copies, which is standard in most animals). Honey bees have some weird genetic fuckery because of that which results in the females (all diploid) of a colony sharing an average of 75% of their genes with each other (average full-sibling relatedness is 50%).

Also unlike ants and honey bees, the males don’t fuck off and die after mating. In those groups, the queen can mate once and then produce fertile eggs whenever she feels like it, but in termites the king sticks around and they just... constantly go at it, I guess. (Which, considering that being isolated and bound is enough to keep the WL from making more kids, maybe this one is a point in my favor.)

Workers and soldiers can be either male or female, unlike ants/bees where all workers are female, but are kept sterile via pheromones, so they’re functionally all kept neutral.

Some soldiers produce acids and will straight-up explode themselves during warfare, or use their massive heads to physically block tunnels from intruders, and commit numerous other acts that would violate the Geneva Conventions. Bugs have no morals and by our standards they’re all dirty little sinners running around committing war crimes.

I read something about mass burial pits, but couldn’t find more information on it other than that they exist??

Their architectural skills are incredible. The craftsmanship! You’ve got the classic “cathedral” style towers typically associated with termite mounds (largely constructed from shit, btw— maybe that’s why Ogrim is a fav), but some species apparently make “cartons” (papery nests) up on tree trunks.

Termites love wood. PK’s wife is a tree.

#we're going full cringey on main boys #i just think they're neat #PK in the diagram was for 'primary king'#but i saw it and literally heard the x-files theme lol #OP #is this infodumping? i'm sorry #*me reading about termite sex* i'm doing research it's important #is this not the content y'all followed me for #isoptera #insects #termites #bugs #hollow knight #pale king #hk pale king

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stylesnews · 4 years ago

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“Feeling good in my skin/ I just keep on dancing,” Harry Styles sings in his latest single, “Treat People With Kindness.” And in the song’s exuberant music video -- which has garnered 17 million YouTube views and counting since its debut on New Year’s Day -- he does just that: Wearing a sequined jacket and bow tie, he chassés, spins and flutters jazz hands like an MGM musical star (with a little help from his equally debonair partner, Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge).

Styles shot the video in early 2019 after several weeks of training with choreographer Paul Roberts, a collaborator since his One Direction days. “I think somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew this could be something special,” says Roberts, a veteran stage director and choreographer who’s worked on videos and tours for the likes of Sam Smith, Katy Perry, Diana Ross, and the Spice Girls (their Spiceworld stadium tour).

Watching the explosive fan reaction to Styles’s little known dance talents -- including from the Spice Girls, who've “sent lovely messages" about the video -- Roberts says it seems like "Treat People With Kindness" arrived at the precise right moment. “Most people’s comments are, ‘I’ve not felt that happy for three and a half minutes in a long time,’ or ‘I smiled from ear to ear the whole way through.’ It’s a positive light.”

He spoke to Billboard about Styles’ intensive training process -- and why he wouldn’t be surprised to see him dancing onstage again.

There’s been one pretty overwhelming reaction to this video: “This is the guy who was in the group that insisted they couldn’t dance?!” Did you expect this kind of reaction to Harry dancing? I’ve been with Harry for 10 years: I was with the One Direction boys from the beginning the whole way through their career before they took the hiatus, and they always made a very conscious decision that they didn’t want choreography as part of their brand -- but they did want a kind of disheveled organization in order to allow the cameras and the lighting to stand a chance in terms of presenting them in the best manner possible.

What was very evident to me was that all five of them, and then it obviously became four, they’ve all got their own magic. The only time I’ve experienced that was when I worked with the Spice Girls. I always knew that they had special skills aside from what they were in One Direction, whether it was movement, songwriting, being able to handle the business side of things. For such young lads they were very astute and very decisive. So, getting together with Harry -- he’s a bit of an alchemist, is Harry. Everything he turns his hand to turns to gold. Where did the initial dance-centric concept come from? Harry and the directors, Ben and Gabe [Turner], sent me a video link to the Nicholas Brothers scene from Stormy Weather and Harry asked me, "How long do you think it would take to dance like this?" I was like, "OK, are you being serious?" "Yeah, I’m being serious."

That is probably one of the most standout dance sequences ever captured on film -- so I knew we were aiming high. I said, "Why don’t we go into a studio and let’s workshop some choreography, some moves, some short sequences, and see what your ability is, see how we can tailor this to make you look the best you can possibly look." Obviously it would take some investment in terms of rehearsal and commitment, I told him it would be mentally and physically exhausting, but I thought, "My God yeah, let’s do it; this will be an adventure."

How long did the whole process take? We started in mid-January 2019, and we rehearsed and workshopped for about four to five weeks before the shoot, every day. Both Harry and Phoebe had other things going on, so, for instance, Phoebe was working on the new Bond movie in Canada, so I sent my assistant to Canada to work with her. I stayed in the U.K. with Harry, and then we went to L.A. where Harry shot two more videos, for “Watermelon Sugar” and “Falling.”

What was the process in the studio like with Harry? We didn’t even use his [vocal] track to begin with -- we used different big band songs, some contemporary alternative music. It was just about finding his [movement] language first and foremost. Then we developed the choreography and sent it to the directors, who gave us feedback. We enhanced the work a bit more, and then once we had some really solid sequences, Ben and Gabe storyboarded the scenes against the timeline of the music.

At this point Harry and Phoebe were still working separately, and then we joined forces in London, where we really started to refine these sequences of choreography we’d developed, trying to find the finesse and the style, almost making sense of the movement for them so they felt they had a dancer’s way of working the movement through the body. You’ve worked with a wide variety of artists, many of whom aren’t dancers first. How do you find, as you put it, the “language” of movement that makes sense for each of them as individuals?

I think the general answer is really communicating -- listening and understanding what the artist’s desire is. And also collaborating, so you don’t get too lost in yourself as a choreographer. What looks good on you might not transcend to the artist, or even necessarily the dancers.

With Harry, what was important within the language of the choreography was that it felt joyful and had personality. Him and Phoebe, with the work she’s done with Fleabag, you associate them and what they do with a sense of style, a real confidence, but at the heart of it it’s entertainment. And with the amount of time and budget we had, which was such a luxury in this day and age, we wanted to do something that pushed both of them out of their comfort zones. We tried to make it as athletic as possible but without compromising them as artists and becoming too comedic. We wanted it to be a bit quaint and cute in places, but we definitely didn’t want it to be thought of as nonsensical or silly.

Harry’s movement in the video is so crisp and precise, even his hands and arm extension look very dancerly. Did that come through a lot of specific work with you? As a songwriter and artist, for Harry it’s about detail, about pushing yourself to be the best. He’s always got questions: "Why are we doing that? Should we be doing this?" We got to a point during the rehearsal period where I brought in a ballet teacher, really to just get Harry and Phoebe to open themselves up from behind their shoulder blades, have an idea of extension, the lines that extend from your center all the way to the tip of your finger. I’d be saying, “Your arms Harry, your arm line!” Asking him to push his shoulders down, lift his carriage up, extend through his breast. And when he hit those lines, he’d be like, “Oh yeah, that feels different.” It’s funny: We spent a couple days apart -- he had to go off and do a gig somewhere -- and I was like, “I hope you’re rehearsing when you’ve got some downtime, dude!” And he sent me a picture in the gym with his arms in the most beautiful balletic arm line! I was like, "Yes, by George, you’ve got it!" Besides the Nicholas Brothers, did you have any particular dance references in mind for the feel of the choreography? I just delved into the MGM archives. Obviously [Fred] Astaire and [Gene] Kelly, the two greats -- especially with Astaire, we loved how sometimes it seems so effortless yet a bit throwaway, not totally totally perfect always. We enjoyed the moments from him of “I’ll just do a bit of this,” “I’ll just walk off camera left,” the dropping in and out of movement. We loved the duet “Moses Supposes” from Singin’ in the Rain, for Gene Kelly and Donald O’Connor -- we loved the camaraderie between them, which felt a bit goofball at times, and just that wry smile, the look to the left, knowing your partner is there and has got your back. It feels fizzy, it feels joyful.

And yes, there was a massive core of MGM-ism, but at the same time an absolute huge dollop of Harry-and-Phoebe-ism. It was important to us to feel a bit more contemporary, so again we stay true to Harry and Phoebe as artists. Has Harry indicated any interest in dancing more going forward?

We had a conversation back at the end of the summer about how much we enjoyed the process, and I know he was doing another project where choreography was involved, so we were just talking about it and how he felt. Coming from where he came from to what he was about to do, he felt he could be pushed even further. I don’t know if he got the bug, or if it’s just the way he is as a person, very inquisitive and wanting to keep elevating himself. There’s now been some talk on social media that it can’t be long before Harry does Broadway. What do you think?

I mean, I think with Harry Styles, anything is possible, is it not? I mean, I’m sure because he’s tasted the dance, he’ll inject that along the line in his career. It won’t necessarily be out-and-out dancing, but I guess it’s a bit like Bowie used to do, isn’t it? It’s the showmanship and presentation of the performance. Who knows? He’s just so open-minded and open-hearted — and because he’s so open it allows the universe to come back at him and he’s able to do anything he sets his mind to.

#harry styles #jan21 #paul roberts #billboard #article #tpwkmv

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definitely-not-a-wasp · 3 years ago

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I'm okay with a bunch of disorganized rambling honestly 😂. But if I had to narrow it down then I guess I want to know about main and side characters and how they compare to the original?

I know that tumblr is the Prime Site for disorganized rambling, but I have perfectionism issues. But that is a great question, nonnie, and I will be happy to ramble is a slightly less disorganized fashion.

When reading Maximum Ride as a somewhat-formed adult who discovered they enjoy English classes about 3.5 years ago, I noticed that JP, when writing, doesn't understand consistency. At all. Which means, in many ways, I have a free sandbox to work with.

Spoilers for my rewrite WIP, because I strongly believe that if a story would no longer be good if one had spoilers, then it wasn’t a good story in the first place.

I'm trying to keep the backstories the same, plus or minus the scientific method and a few characters (RIP my OCs. I want to bring you back so bad but it wouldn't fit with the thematic narrative). I've mostly kept their (starting) abilities the same, too. Without further ado, I'm going to introduce some WorldBuilding. (If I'm good at nothing else, I'm good at world building)

First off. Logically.

How are they getting Cable?

How are they getting internet?

How are they getting money to eat and stuff?

JP's answer: handwave it off. Sometimes you need to ignore logistics for the sake of plot. This is an answer I'd accept from an author that I like, such as Julie Kagawa, that makes amazing worlds, characters, and narratives that I will happily handwave a few things that wouldn't work in the real world. James Patterson, on the other hand, did not make any of that; he made a cool concept, some good rough-draft characters, and nothing else, and therefore this is an unforgivable sin.

Wasp's answer: They are not getting any of that.

Introducing Cottagecore.

The house is off the grid. Solar Panels and a wind turbine create electricity. They have their own well. They grow their own food, raise livestock for eggs, milk, and wool, and trap fish for meat. They get money through dumpster diving and pawning. They still have to steal half of the necessities they can’t make themselves. They do have a TV, but it can access about three channels on a clear day. Internet is only a thing when they go to the public library.

Giving the flock a background that’s heavy in farming and livestock rearing shores up the plot holes mentioned above, but in my opinion, ties the flock more tightly to the environment, thus giving them something tangible to lose when they have to leave the E-shaped house. Because they’re not just leaving a house and a safety net— they’re leaving their entire way of life with no promise of getting it back. It also gives them a tangible connection to the earth in case I want to actually pursue the global warming themes.

Main Characters

Maximum “Max” Ride (Birthname: nonexistent)

First off, I'm letting her be Latina, James Patterson.

In the original, Max was very much the headstrong, independent, action girl. Leaning into Strong Female Character (TM), but overall she had a strong, solid foundation and enough character consistency through the first three books for me to not have to just make an entire new character. However, I felt that she was, in some ways, a bit too Action-Girl and Strong and Capable. Yes, Max is incredible and competent, but she’s also fourteen. She’s a child.

In the rewrite, Max’s character is still headstrong, independent, capable, and sometimes not the best at listening to others. All of that’s the same. But she’s that way not because of girlboss energy, but because there’s no one else to do it. She doesn’t want to lead, necessarily. She wants to get some rest and let someone else handle the problems life keeps throwing at her. But she knows if she did that, the responsibility of leader would fall to Fang and Iggy, and she can’t ask that of them. She doesn’t want to place that burden on anyone else (Look, there’s a reason I chose Ayano’s Theory of Happiness as one of her signifier songs, okay?). Her narrative is very much centered around burden, and also around loss. She lost her cultural heritage when she was taken away from her birth family, she lost her childhood to being a leader, she lost a good deal of her friends to the school (RIP my OCs), she lost Jeb, and then she lost her stability. And she’s going to lose a lot more before the end of the story. So a lot of her character arc deals with learning that there are some things she can’t fix, some things that can’t be recovered. She can’t get the E-shaped house back. She can’t get her Little Baby Angel back, even after they rescue her. She can’t get her friends back from the school. And instead of working so hard to recover those or find something to replace them, she has to learn to live with that sense of loss and move on with her life without feeling guilty for leaving things behind. And she has to learn that asking for help and sharing her burden is selfish or weak.

Other changes I made that don’t necessarily fit into her narrative arc, but you asked for rambling so rambling you shall get:

Max hallucinates, because mental illness is also a prominent theme in the rewrite. She doesn’t have a psychotic disorder, but her C-PTSD causes visual/audio hallucinations, especially when she’s stressed or sleep deprived.

Max ends up having a Gender Discovery throughout the story and goes by He/She pronouns eventually. I don’t know when, but it will happen.

As far as genetic modifications/special quirks go, she can fly faster than the rest of the flock, but not 300 miles per hour. She averages about sixty mph with diving speeds of 240. She cannot breathe underwater or shut down her organs on command. She also has the Super Special Power to predict the weather, but that’s not because of genetics, it’s because she has chronic pain in her right arm that gets worse when weather fronts change.

Her favored weapon is her trusty rebar that she picked up from a condemned building. I think she’s going to name it eventually but I don’t know what yet.

Fang (Birth name: Gabriel Xue)

In canon, Fang is characterized in early books by being the “dark, strong, silent type”. He’s probably the most reserved member of the flock, to the point of falling into the Brooding Mystery Man trope in parts of the book. They care a lot, but they’re not the best at conveying that, especially with the younger members of the flock, and at times their high empathy leads them to making mistakes. Despite the high empathy, he’s often compared to a robot due to his lack of expression and external emotions.

Well, first change is that they’re not a man, so jot that down—

If Max’s narrative is centered around burden and loss, I would probably say that Fang’s is centered around humanity and moving on. None of the flock was treated as human while in the school, but Fang was more often than not treated like a wild animal due to “behavioral issues”, and therefore had and continues to have a difficult time considering themselves real and alive, let alone human. This manifests through a several different ways— where in canon Fang definitely had a ‘fight’ reaction, in the re-write they have a ‘freeze’ or ‘shut down’ instinct. They’re selectively mute for multiple reasons (including derealization, jaw pain, the fact that they didn’t learn how to speak until they were 10, and genuinely forgetting it’s something they’re capable of), a period of Cotard’s syndrome, and a tendancy towards self-loathing and self-sacrifice. In short, Fang is still halfway stuck in the mindset that most of the flock grew out of when they escaped in the school, and doesn’t know how to move past it.

Much of their character arc revolves around not necessarily seeing themselves as human, but learning to treat themselves as human even when they don’t feel like one (or even feel real), and knowing that just because they don’t feel human all the time doesn’t mean anyone else can treat them the same. They never start easily expressing their emotions, and they’re always going to be selectively mute, but they learn to accept that those aspects of themself aren’t character flaws or signs that they’re sub-human.

Other additions to Fang’s character include:

They don’t get their hair cut in New York. It stays long through the entire series. They have the longest hair in the flock by the end of the series, and they can wear it in so many styles.

Fang uses they/it pronouns because themes of reclaiming the weapons used against it and, more importantly, Gender.

They’re actually really good at spelling compared to the rest of the flock, because they and Iggy communicate with Print-On-Palm when they’re nonverbal, and they’re nonverbal for some pretty long stretches of time.

They and Max have... zero romantic tension. At all. There is none. The number of times Max calls them her sibling/little sibling in the first arc alone is staggering, and that will not change.

Igneous “Iggy” (Birthname: Jamsetta “Jamie” Griffiths)

I’ve talked about Iggy before. Canon doesn’t give us much to go off of, but from what’s shown, he’s smart, sarcastic, has sharper edges than Fang and Max, and also has a sizable ruthless streak. So that’s what I have to go off of.

The big difference between Iggy and Fang&Max is that Iggy has a much better memory of the School. Most of the flock have areas (months or years) that they don’t remember, or people that they’ve blocked from their mind, but Iggy... doesn’t. So he’s the one that remembers all of the other AVIAN test subjects that were old enough to have names and identities but died due to complications. Max might have the burden of leadership, but he has the burden of memory. And that has lead to both a massive fucking guilt complex, because why did he survive when they didn’t, and, as mentioned above, a ruthless streak that he doesn’t shy away from.

Which is to say, by the end of the story, Iggy has the highest kill count.

I love, love writing Iggy next to Max and Fang. I love writing Iggy next to Gazzy and Nudge. Because, I say this with all of the love of the world, but Iggy is not a good person. He is loyalty and love incarnate, and the world can burn down if he and his siblings are safe. Max and Fang will always try to save as many people as they can. They will wonder what’s wrong with them the first time they kill and don’t have a mental breakdown about it. They are good in a way that Iggy is not. He’s okay with killing Erasers. He’s okay with killing humans. He’s okay with killing people who might not necessarily deserve it, if they show themselves as a threat or are simply in the blast radius. He knows perfectly well that most of those Erasers he’s murdering are four and five and he is okay with that, because a lot of the AVIANs were that age when they died. (Yeah, in the rewrite it’s not Fang who has an issue with Ari; it’s Iggy who wants the 7-year-old wolf-boy dead.)

And this is, of course, juxtaposed with Iggy being really, really good with Nudge and Gazzy (especially in the beginning). Because, again, he actually remembers being a child. He remembers a lot of kids that died and is therefore fiercely protective of the kids that didn’t, as well as fiercely protective of the innocence that he never got. So he’s the one that cooks their favorite foods when they’re having a bad day, always makes time when they want to talk about something, and convinces Max to let them go to that toy store in New York because, yeah, he Max and Fang aren’t kids. They never were. But Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel can be. (And if he has to be a murderer to preserve that, then he’s perfectly okay with that.)

He and Angel don’t get along very well, though. The telepath doesn’t like hanging out with the person with the most clear memories of the school.

Other additions:

Iggy is trans and says trans rights

He also has paranoid episodes, because C-PTSD. Sometimes they’re very helpful. Sometimes they are not.

I actually decided that he’s one of the flock that doesn’t meet their parents. I know in canon he did, but I always found that very clunky because it didn’t add to his character. He was one of the characters who, until it was convenient for the plot, seemed to care the least about his family. I’d much rather give that to a character whose arc would benefit from it.

Iggy! Gets! Older Sibling Rights! Seriously, he’s two months younger than Fang, he is just as capable.

Iggy does not know braille because Jeb decided it wasn’t necessary for him to know. Iggy is also the best speller in the flock, because Print-on-Palm was the only way to talk to Fang for a solid year. Yes he mocks everyone over this.

Iggy is the only member of the flock that enjoys swimming and can take into the air from water. Everyone else in the flock is incredibly jealous.

Nudge (Birthname: Monique Robinson)

If Iggy is defined by his memories, Nudge is his polar opposite. She was seven when she left the School, but she has next to no memories of it. She is missing a lot of time in the first year she escaped. And that causes... a lot of things. It makes her feel disconnected from her older siblings, it gives her the ability to function in society in a way the other’s can’t, it lets her feel less grief over the ones that didn’t make it and she doesn’t remember, it makes her feel guilty that she doesn’t remember what she’s old enough to know.

Basically, in order for me to keep the character of Nudge as I saw her (more extroverted, not afraid of the world, fascinated with humans like her siblings aren’t, desiring to fit in instead of isolate), I had to put a little bit of distance between her and the flock. Of course, she loves them— that will in no way change— but she’s old enough that she should remember the school (and her dead friends) unlike Gazzy and Angel, but she can’t, and she very much fears forgetting the flock if anything happens to them. So she’s trying desperately to keep the flock close and wants desperately to experience the world at the same time, and doesn’t know what to do when she can’t have both. That’s her biggest character conflict throughout the series, along with that in-between area where she’s not quite where her older siblings are but understands so much more than Gazzy and Angel, and where she stands in that.

So yeah. Nudge’s journey is that in looking for belonging in the world, in her family, and in herself.

This is why she’s one of the ones that gets to find her parent, James Patterson.

Other additions include:

She never straightens her hair. Never. Her resources at the E-shaped house aren’t perfect, but she still has learned how to take care of her hair and has a few styles she cycles through.

She becomes the default person Max sics on people when the flock is trying to befriend them. Also their de-facto diplomat around strangers.

As in canon, she does take some time away from the flock to expirience ‘normal life’. This does not last long due to the stress of being separated from her siblings/not being able to help them and [REDACTED]

Nudge is... not the only person in her head. I’m not focusing on it much because she doesn’t actually know and neither does the flock (I don’t know if they ever figure it out during the series, either), but she has dissociative identity disorder. She’s not aware of her alter(s?). Her alter isn’t super aware of her, either.

The alter that I’ve developed is named Oxy and is not super aware of the outside world. In her eyes, she’s still seven and they’re still at the School. She would not recognize the body as her own if she looked in a mirror.

Nudge actually leaves the flock for a while to pursue her dream of living a normal life. She deserves it. She learns how to make muffins and the basics of software development. These things are unrelated.

Gasman (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

Honestly, writing Gazzy is kind of hard for me. Partially because I’m not great at writing kids, and partially because I feel like he’s a pretty surface-level character in-series that... isn’t super compelling in canon. But even if that’s the case, I try to treat all of my characters with respect, so here we go. In my rewrite, he escaped when he was four, which was half a lifetime ago for him, so his memories are ill-defined. Therefore, he managed to circumvent a lot of the trauma that the rest of the kids have, and not in the way Nudge did, which is by creating an elaborate blockage in her memories.

Which means Gazzy... really doesn’t know how to deal with all of this traumatic stuff happening. So much of his development turns out to be a coming-of-age narrative. Learning how to deal with the horrors of what his siblings grew up with. Learning the fears that they had the entire time. Losing his innocence when everyone around him never had it in the first place, and being so terribly alone because of it. Because, really, how can you explain such a deep loss to people who never had what he had? How can they help in a way that matters?

Also, relationship-wise, I’m slowly deteriorating the relationship between him and Iggy. Slowly. Or, changing it, at least. Gazzy hero-worships Iggy in-series, and for good reason, because Iggy is super cool, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old, and especially when Iggy has taken care to cultivate parts of his behaviors to be child-friendly. Part of growing up is seeing the flaws in your heroes, and Gazzy has to learn how to deal with it. End of the series Gazzy is much less closer to Iggy than beginning of the series Gazzy, and neither of them are really okay with that, but they learn to live with it, because that’s really all they can do.

Notes:

I’m keeping the mimickry! It plays a bit of a bigger role because that’s how Gazzy learned to talk. I’m debating whether or not he has his own voice or if he just borrows the flock’s as he sees fit. He also uses it to scream really loudly and occaisonally burst the eardrums of Erasers.

At one point he cosplays as Jessica Jones. No you don’t get any more context than this.

He has a horrible sense of fashion.

I’m changing his name eventually because it sucks. He’s either going to change it to Gannet, Garrison, or Ivy Mike temporarily, and permanently to Zephyr. (I never said I was going to make his name GOOD, because he’s eight, but it’s changing. You’re welcome.)

Angel (Birthname: No first name, surname “Falk”)

It’s just... a completely different character, at this point. I’ve changed so many things about her in an attempt to make her consistent and act like a six-year-old and work in the whole “telepath before she has a solid sense of identity”, so it’s a different character. Also, I’m tired of writing coherently or in paragraphs, so have some interesting facts.

She has epilepsy! Super severe epilepsy! I think she might also develop juvenile MS in the future because her brain has so many scars from being a fucking six-year-old telepath. There’s no way she could get out of that unscathed.

She has more memories of the school than Gazzy, but only because she keeps accidentally reading the minds of Max, Fang, and Iggy. On a related note, she interacts with Iggy as little as possible.

The mind reading means that she has a hard time developing as a normal child with a normal sense of identity or reality. She can’t tell how much people are individual people and how much they’re just extensions of her. Conversely, she can’t tell how much of herself is actually her instead of the thoughts/opinions/identities of someone else. It’s... kinda fucked? But also super not-her-fault.

She’s albino because white wings. Also, because I thought it was cool. This also means that her vision sucks, though. Also she has the biggest straw sunhat and the most stylish sunglasses a six-year-old can have.

She’s responsible for Max shaving her hair off.

She has the highest swear count because I think it’s funny. She’s the only person allowed to say the fuck word in writing. Everyone else can only say ‘hell’ and the occasionally ‘damn’ but she can say whatever she wants for dramatic and comedic value.

She is NOT THE FUCKING VOICE, J*MES P*TTERSON.

Honorable Mentions

Jeb

I’m skipping Jeb because of how little I care about him. He’s a little bitch, next character.

Ari

STILL HASN’T BEEN REVEALED AS AN ERASER. I’ve been writing for 50,000 words and he’s over here saying ‘nope nope not yet, not dramatic enough’. He’s had speaking lines but has refused to make himself known to Max. I am so frustrated with this seven-year-old wolf-child that I’ve already considered how I would kill him, if I decide I want to kill yet another child in my writing.

So, my main thoughts for Ari is that he... really just drew the short end of the stick in every possible way. While Jeb didn’t sign him up for Eraser expirimentation, he didn’t do anything to stop it, and pretty much cut his losses when he realized this expiriment made a wreck of his ‘perfect, unflawed’ son, because Jeb doesn’t consider children of any species to actually be humans. So, Ari really hates his dad, which makes things complicated, because he also really loves his dad and really wants his approval.

Which means that he also really hates Max, because she’s the child that always got Jeb’s time and attention, even when Ari was human. I think, on some level, he knows that trying to tear Max down to a less-favored level isn’t actually going to help his situation— infighting for the love of an abusive parent won’t make them any less abusive— but he’s also seven, and his development is already severely stunted due to becoming an Eraser, and he doesn’t see ‘leaving ITEX’ as an option like the Flock does. ITEX is his everything. It’s all he’s ever known, and they tell him he’s doing the right thing, and he wants them to love him. He wants his father to love him. He knows that if he ever questions ITEX, his father will never love him. So it must be his older sister that’s ruining his life and being a horrible child, and once Ari drags her back down to his level, Jeb will realize who the best child is and love him properly again.

Ari, on an even deeper level, does care for Max quite a bit, because she’s his older sister and he wants that to mean something in a way that ‘Jeb being his father’ obviously doesn’t. He wants what she made for herself, and he hates the Flock because she loves them and obviously doesn’t love him.

Ari, if anything, is the product of neglect, and both loves and hates everyone who shows a chance of caring about him. And he’s seven, so he can’t notice these patterns, let alone break them.

So. Notes!

He doesn’t look like an adult. I thought that was gross and unnecessary. He’s seven, but he looks closer to thirteen or fourteen. Still young enough that he looks like every Eraser’s little brother, and the Erasers high-key treat him like it.

On a related note, he’s the only Eraser who can talk. The others don’t have the mental capacity or vocal structure to replicate human speech, but they can understand language (at about the level of a two or three year old) and are very good at nonverbal communication. This is why Ari managed to climb the ranks despite only having three years of “service” and also looking like a tween.

He doesn’t have an expiration date because that is SUCH a stupid plot point.

I’m giving him a chainsaw! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but he deserves to have a chainsaw and GODDAMN I will give it to him.

Emergency and Gene

The OCs that I love and also killed pre-series. They don’t have any scenes, because they’re dead, but their deaths greatly effected Max, Fang, and Iggy, and they are very commonly referenced. Their voices are probably Max’s most common hallucination, to the point where she sometimes pretends they’re ghosts that she can talk to. They’re not ghosts. They’re dead.

Dr. Valencia Martinez

I’m actually keeping her pretty close to canon— loving, supportive, the type of person to take in a gsw victim with minimal questions. The difference is that rather than kindness fueling her actions, it’s incredible guilt. She has three goals surrounding Max: Give her as much support in any way she can, teach her as much about chicane culture as possible, and never let Max know that she’s her birth parent.

(She’s probably going to fail at AT LEAST two of those, but it’s the thought that counts.)

Notes:

She has a pet fox named Robin Hood that she rescued from an exotic animal salesman that got arrested.

I think I’m going to kill her. I don’t know yet, but it’s on the table.

Anne Walker

Y’know, the fake FBI Agent. Who’s not actually a fake in my story because I hated that plot point. She’s genuinely an FBI agent who put the Flock into pseudo-witness-protection in order to build a case against the Institute of Higher Living, accidentally got attached to her prime witnesses, raised them for a few months, realized a [SPOILER] and promptly had to let them get the hell out dodge.

I really like the Anne Walker that lives in my head. She is a VITAL part of the Flock’s development, their mental/emotional recovery, and adding to their safety net to fall back on. She serves them as their first adult role model, and is the first adult to show them what parent/child are supposed to look like from a healthy perspective. Though she has several fuck ups, she becomes someone that the Flock genuinely trusts and loves, which makes it all the more difficult for them to leave when [REDACTED].

Notes:

She and Max do butt heads initially, because Max is paranoid and also afraid of becoming uneeded. This ends up being incredibly important because Max needs to learn how to live and find meaning in life without being the designated Leader/Parent/Big Sister

Anne, at one point, sits the entire flock down to teach them about consent, which was something no one ever talked about with them before. She goes in talking specifically about consent in a romantic/sexual sense (because they’re fourteen and that’s something they need to know), but quickly turns into a full-fledged no, people are NOT allowed to do that to you, what the FUCK.

She’s responsible for giving the flock a laptop. It’s because Angel is online schooled (bc telepathy makes actually learning difficult) and was therefore provided with a computer.

Anne is also allowed to swear, but only when it’s funny.

Michael “Grey” Rivers

Aka Grey from the Sewers Aka GR3Y H47 Aka Mike from the Bronx Aka Gifted Child Syndrome Incarnate Aka Would-be-in-MIT-if-his-parents-weren’t-horrible. He’s my son, your honour.

Basically, his backstory boils down to him being a genius, getting into MIT at 14, his (horrible) parents wanting a perfect child who could “make it out” of the Bronx and represent his family/neighborhood/borough to the world. When he inevitably failed their expectations due to stress, a schizophrenic-spectrum disorder that completely alienated him from the rest of his support network, and refusing to take his psych meds because the side effects were horrible and they made it harder to think (and therefore pass his classes), they kicked him out. He fully intends to go back to MIT when he turns 18 and has control of his finances/scholarships/medication/therapy.

So that’s how the flock meets him.

Mike ends up in a very prominent support role for the flock both in technological persuits (helping them track their parents, helping them get information from ITEX, trying to disable Max’s chip and failing multiple times until it becomes a matter of personal honour—), in helping the older members of the flock figure out how to deal with hallucinations/delusions (because he’s actually been to therapy, unlike them), and in being one of the only people who talks to them and helps them without any ulterior motive. He’s not trying to build a case against ITEX/The Institute of Higher Learning, he’s not double crossing them, he’s not plagued with guilt. He just genuinely wants to help them, and they genuinely want to help him, and that’s their first introduction to a healthy, non-codependent relationship.

My many disorganized notes on Michael Rivers:

He’s from specifically Morris Heights, Bronx, NYC.

He would say that his last name is actually Rivera, but his grandparents changed it to Rivers so it would sound more English, and his family has been in America for so long that he doesn’t know much about any Latino heritage he may or may not have. He identifies as African American, not Afro-Latino. He’s just bitter that his family felt the need to change their surname to have better opportunities in New York.

Nudge aggressively befriends him pretty much the moment she meets him, bullies him into teaching her how to code, and he very quickly adopts her as his pseudo-little-sister.

His delusions in the book seemed to involve government conspiracies, but as that’s the one delusion that is proved correct in the book, I’ve decided it would be best if his delusions and reality intersected a bit less if I don’t want to write him having a manic/paranoid episode in the second scene he has screen time. So his delusions are more based on “none of this is real”, “someone is recording everything I do and setting me up to fail” and “my ill-wishes on people can and will come true if I dwell on them too long.”. Government conspiracies are one of things he is skeptical about because he thinks most conspiracies are either “CIA admitted to this twenty years ago” or “antisemitism”.

He’s taking online free college classes that don’t actually give him any college credit, but they have good information and help him feel like he’s working towards something. He plans to double major in computer sciences and electrical engineering, minor in marine biology. He’s wanted to join NOAA since he was twelve and he is nothing if not stubborn.

There you go. These are my characters, now. I have custody.

#maximum ride on main #Maximum Ride rewrite

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kingstylesdaily · 4 years ago

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How Harry Styles Found His Inner Dancer For 'Treat People With Kindness'

He spoke to Billboard about Styles’ intensive training process -- and why he wouldn’t be surprised to see him dancing onstage again.

At the end of the “Watermelon Sugar” shoot, he wrapped, got in his car, came to the dance studio and we rehearsed into the night. Knowing how short a time you sometimes get with artists even for really big performances, I thought the rehearsals would dilute and we’d lose momentum, but both Phoebe and Harry were so committed. What was the process in the studio like with Harry? We didn’t even use his [vocal] track to begin with -- we used different big band songs, some contemporary alternative music. It was just about finding his [movement] language first and foremost. Then we developed the choreography and sent it to the directors, who gave us feedback. We enhanced the work a bit more, and then once we had some really solid sequences, Ben and Gabe storyboarded the scenes against the timeline of the music.

via billboard.com

#kingstylesdaily #Harry Styles #hs: tpwk #January 2021 #hs: news

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imagines-r-s · 4 years ago

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a little reminder

requested: yes by @lokiqueenofasgard

taglist: @drewsephsmiles

[Can someone write me a JJ x read where he’s just gassing up everything she does and he’s like “yo, you need a hype man? Cause I’ll be your hype man.” And it’s just really fluffy and cute? Cause I need that rn.]

i hope you like it, i kinda switched it up just a little

a/n: in case no one has told you today, you are beautiful and you are loved. hope you all enjoy

warnings: talk of insecurity, i think that’s it?

There were moments in the day where you felt absolutely gorgeous and on top of the world not in a cocky sort of way-but just in general. Then, there were other days where you felt at the bottom of it all, the negative thoughts running through your head bringing you down. Sometimes it was after someone made a comment about you and other times it came without warning.

You had a bad habit of comparing yourself to your friends. Kiara and Sarah, who both were as beautiful as they came, perfect hair, perfect skin, and perfect body. You were sure they had their own insecurities, as everyone did, but they never made it seem like it.

As you were getting ready for the plans you had with the pogues, you couldn’t help but look at yourself in the mirror, focusing on the way the bikini looked on your body. Noticing all the small imperfections, more seemed to pop up the more you looked at yourself. Everything was so noticeable and it hurt to look at yourself, but you couldn’t peel your eyes away from the mirror.

Being too focused on the mirror, you hadn’t even realized that JJ Maybank, your best friend, had come through your front door and was on his way towards your room. You and JJ had known each other all your lives, having lived right next to each other your whole life, it was normal for him to just waltz into your house, especially considering how Luke was.

“Look at you, babes, looking as beautiful as ever,” JJ’s voice echoed through your room breaking you from your thoughts, “I feel like you only ever wear that bikini because it’s my favorite color.”

You tried to ignore the blush that spread across your face at his statement, “yes, of course. I make all of my decisions based on what you’ll think.” You said, your arms unintentionally wrapping around your torso to hide whatever you could. “Why do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“Like, wrap your arms around your body and like-like try to hide it, I don’t know.”

“Oh, uh,” you stared down at the ground, letting out an uneasy laugh, “I don’t know, just habit, I guess.” JJ stayed silent for a while as you went to your dresser and pulled out your denim shorts and oversized shirt to put on over your bikini.

“Are we going to start walking to the chateau or are you going to sit there all day, Maybank?” you looked at him waiting for his answer. “Oh shit, sorry I was thinking.”

“What about?”

“Do you think you’re beautiful? Like genuinely, if someone asked your opinion on yourself, would you force out what response they want to hear, or are you going to be honest?”

“I mean, in all honesty, I think I am, but only every once in a while. And, I’d probably bullshit an answer, you know.”

“Why don’t you think you’re beautiful? You’re literally so beautiful, you do realize that right?” JJ furrowed his brow, waiting for your answer. “I mean I guess so, but have you seen other girls? Literally, I-”

“Yes, I’ve seen those other girls, but have you looked in a mirror?” JJ’s heart broke when he heard you comparing yourself to other girls and denying what he was saying, “Here’s what I’ll do, you need a hype man, and I’m here. I’m going to tell you your beautiful as many times as you need me to until you believe it.”

Before you could respond, you were already close to the chateau, “well, look who finally decided to show up,” John B said from the patio. “Someone just took forever to get ready, that’s all,” JJ replied without missing a beat, causing you to hit him upside the head.

Eventually, everyone made it onto the boat and you were on your way. Once the boat had settled, everyone started getting ready to jump off the boat, except for you. It didn’t take long for JJ to notice that you were staying behind, so he simply sat next to you. “Aren’t you going to go in?” you asked the boy beside you. “I’m not going if you aren’t, beautiful.” You simply rolled your eyes in response to your best friend, “you know, you look amazing in that swimsuit, and I really would like to see it again at some point today, y/n/n.”

You silently debated, you assumed he was just saying that, but you decided why not and got ready to jump into the water, spending the rest of the night with your friends. As the night went on, the sky grew darker, allowing the stars to be seen. Sarah started pointing out the constellations as all of you watched in awe, but while you were looking at the stars you felt a pair of eyes on you. “J, it’s rude to stare, you know.”

“Sorry, you just look stunning.”

“JJ, stop. Omg.”

“Awe, are you flustered, babes?” You simply flicked his forehead causing him to groan. You started to feel your eyes grow tired, tired from the thoughts running through your head, and everything else you did today. JJ took notice of your tiredness, telling you that if you wanted you could lay on his lap. It didn’t take long for you to fall asleep, the noise of your friends’ conversation slowly dimming.

JJ focused on your face for a moment, confused simply by the fact that you didn’t see yourself in the way that he did. He thought that you were absolutely stunning. You reminded him of sunflowers, the bright color of yellow matching that of your personality, and the beauty of the flower matching that of everything else about you. He knew it was cheesy, he knew if he ever told anyone that they would call him out on how whipped he was for you, but he didn’t care when it came to you.

“How long have they been together?” Sarah asked John B, curious as she saw how JJ looked at you and protected you throughout the day. “Oh, they’re not together,” John B responded when he saw where she was pointing to. “Wait, seriously,” Sarah was in awe when John B simply nodded, either you two were just extremely oblivious or you were just plain dumb.

When the boat came to a stop at the dock of the chateau, JJ tried to wake you up as gently as he could, leading you towards the dock. “Here, pretty girl. Jump up,” JJ said, pointing towards his back, ready to give her a piggyback ride on the way back to the chateau. Once he got into the chateau, he set you down in the spare bedroom, telling you to come and get him when you had changed.

Once you had gotten changed into one of JJ’s shirts, you went out to the living room to get him to come back to the room the two of you had shared way too many times. “Goodnight, beautiful,” he said, kissing your forehead, before walking to the other side of the bed to lay down. Maybe JJ’s plan wasn’t that bad.

Throughout the next few days, JJ kept reminding you how beautiful you were, no matter the occasion or how bad you thought you looked at that moment. The bad thoughts in your head didn’t necessarily go away, but you were starting to feel better with yourself and how you looked.

When you were told that there was a boneyard party this Friday, Sarah made the executive decision that she would go out to the Mainland to go shopping on Thursday, have a sleepover, and then, get ready at her house Friday. You were excited, saying as you hadn’t gone shopping in forever.

When you got the text that Sarah and Kie were outside to pick you up, you quickly grabbed your bad, yelling goodbye to your mom, and running out the door. “Get in loser we’re going shopping.”

The three of you got your ferry ticket to head to the Mainland and you were on your way. Sarah and Kie took the time to look through clothing items that would have made you feel awful for wearing. The colorful crop tops would show a lot of stomach, the shorts would show your thighs and stretch marks, the shirts made your arms look weird. “y/n, you have to try this on, it would look amazing on you,” Sarah said as she held a denim dress that buttoned up in the middle, that would look amazing with a simple black shirt under it.

“Sarah, I don’t know, it’s cute, but just not my style,” you smiled sadly. “But it would look amazing on you, y/n. Plus, I know JJ wouldn’t be able to keep his eyes off of you,” Kie added. You simply shot her a look, “I’ll try it on, but if I don’t like it, I’m buying more oversized shirts and jeans.”

Hesitantly, you asked one of the employees to open a fitting room for you. When you got into the dressing room, you hesitantly stripped out of your jeans and shirt, grabbing the black crop for under the dress, then putting on the denim dress. Looking in the mirror, the dress didn’t look right, it didn’t look bad and you knew it, but everything in your head was telling you that it didn’t look good in any way.

“y/n, you good in there? Whenever you’re dressed we want to see,” you heard Sarah say from outside of the dressing room. You didn’t want to step out, but you knew they would be disappointed if they didn’t see it. “Oh my god. y/n, you have to buy that. And if you won’t I will for you, you look hot as hell,” Kie said, making you smile.

Sarah and Kie both convinced you to buy the dress and shirt, saying something about wearing it to the boneyard, it was still a casual outfit, so they had a point. As you bought it, your mind immediately went to the one person who’s opinion you wanted to hear.

When the three of you got back to Sarah’s, you all decided to start watching Criminal Minds, again. “So, y/n, what is up with you and JJ?”

“Like the JJ on the show or Maybank?”

“Maybank.”

“Oh, uh, nothing. I don’t know what you mean, to be honest, we’re just friends.”

“It sure seems like more than that,” Sarah added.

“Oh no, if something happened I wouldn’t complain, but I also don’t want to mess with the dynamic that me and him have had for so long, you know?”

“Ooh, she admits it,” Kie says, giving Sarah a high five. “He’s literally in love with you, I don’t understand you two,” to which you simply denied what they said, going back to watching Criminal Minds. By the time all of you went to bed, your mind was racing. Was he actually in love with you? Why hadn’t he said anything?

Friday night came around a lot quicker than you figured it would, anxiously tapping your foot in the back of Sarah’s car, you just watched all the trees pass by until you were parking to head to the party. All of you walked towards the bonfire where the boys usually hung out, in an attempt to find them.

When you made it to the bonfire, you noticed how John B and Pope were there moving to open a space for Kie and Sarah, while you stood waiting for JJ. “Last time we saw him, he was getting drinks, so you might check over there and I’m sure you’ll find him,” Pope said, to which you politely thanked him.

Making your way towards the keg, you caught the attention of people you didn’t want to talk to. “Who knew a pogue could actually clean up well,” a random kook, that you recognized as Quinn said. “Woah, who knew a kook could wear something other than a basic ass polo and random striped shorts?” you retorted.

“I would watch your mouth, pogue,” Quinn said.

“Oh, and what are you going to do about it?” The familiar voice of the boy you were looking for said, causing you to smile. “Hey, J, he’s not worth our time. Let’s go for a walk,” you pulled on his wrist to which he simply hesitated for a moment before following you.

The two of you ended up walking near the beach, “are you ok? I heard what he said to you?” JJ asked concerned that Quinn might have hurt you. “Yeah, it’s funny what happens when you actually start believing people when they say you’re beautiful,” you said, causing him to stop walking and smirk at you.

“Man, who could have possibly told you that?”

“Hmm, I don’t recall actually, but it just stuck with me,” the both of you laughed.

“I just wanted to say you look absolutely gorgeous tonight and I’m glad what I’m doing is helping, but I plan on reminding you until we’re like 80 or something.”

“J,” he simply hummed in response,” did Kie mean it when she said you were in love with me?” JJ simply stood there, clearly debating what to do, he was starting to get flustered. “Is it a problem if it’s true? I’m not trying to mess anything up with you.”

A rush of confidence ran through you as you wrapped your arms around his neck,” well, it’s not a problem since I am too.” JJ smiled before his lips met yours softly, he pulled away only for you to kiss him again, “I love you so so much, pretty girl. I’ll be reminding you of that too, baby.”

“I’m sure you will, J. I’m sure you will.”

#JJ Imagine #jj x reader #jj maybank x you #jj maybank #jj fluff #jj maybank fluff #jj maybank x reader #jj maybank imagine #jj x you #jj x y/n #jj maybank x y/n

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gamebunny-advance · 2 years ago

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@Civilian AU!Anon

Here's Kayane of the Civilian AU!

Aw, she’s pretty cute! I like the Miku-style detached sleeves, they’re a cute reference, and the emphasis on the Sakura blossom motif is cute too. I really like the transparent layer on her skirt! I’m a little curious to see how the “black light” phase is going to work since she’s already starting with dark colors. Maybe she becomes a blinding light, lol.

I also like the variations on the teams’ symbols/colors, so they’re still parallels, but still unique for the swaps. Very nice!

More thoughts under the cut since they got too long for the tags and I have some visual aids this time.

I knew that she’d be a mermaid from the silhouettes you sent in, but it’d also be cool to see a non-mermaid Kayane.

Fun Fact: Some of Sayu’s original concepts had her as a bunny themed idol. You can see some of this concept art on the wall during Sayu’s defeat cutscene.

I think that mixing themes can work, but I’m having a hard time following the through line between “Sakura” and “mermaid.” The through line for Sakura seems to be the Japanese pop idol influences. As mentioned before, there are clearly Miku influences in the design and Sakura are associated with Japan first and foremost. And that’s all fine, I think that isolated, all those themes could make a very cute character design.

I guess what’s throwing me off is that *neither Kayane or Sayu are associated with Sakura, so the addition of it makes me want to see an even greater emphasis on it rather than it just be an “icon” on her outfit.

I think I’ve said this before, but when it comes to AUs, I like to see a focus on what makes the AU different from the original, so since the Sakura theme is unique, I would love to see it get pushed further.

I want to see “Kayane if she was a virtual idol like Sayu.” more than, “Kayane if she was Sayu.” I know those statements sound very similar, but there’s nuance that makes them different. The former is a deconstruction and reconstruction of the pieces of each character, and the latter is a fusion of both wholes. Neither is necessarily better than the other, and they both have their places and uses, but I have a preference for the former most of the time.

As a personal example, let’s look at my recent Kun3h0 x 1010 swaps.

I would say that the first pass is closer is a “fusion” because it takes White and puts him Kun3h0′s outfit, just in his theme colors. There are some elements that changed to fit him: the belt accessory now resembles NJ’s screen instead of a rabbit, the heart motif was swapped for a star (I associate White with stars, but that isn’t a canon element), and the design on the boots changed from the speakers to more resemble the original pattern on the 1010s legs. And besides the outfit, there were some elements that were added/changed to keep Kun3h0′s elements from being completely erased: the skin turned pink because Kun3h0 has a human skin tone (and pink is a normal skin tone in the NSR universe) and his irises had to change from white to purple because the sclera aren’t black anymore.

The second pass first asks these questions: What makes a Kun3h0 unit a Kun3h0, and a 1010 a 1010? I decided that the most important parts of Kun3h0 were the rabbit-ear headphones, the boots, and the gloves, so those were going to stay no matter what. Instead of keeping the strict construction of the outfit, I kept the silhouette mostly the same. So he still has the crop top, the shorts, and the sleeves still taper outwards, but the design of the top was changed to be more sailor themed because a key-part of 1010s characterization is the sailor motif. To add onto that, a sailor hat was added to really push the sailor elements since a lot of the other iconography was dropped. The outfit colors were also kept monochrome and black was used in more places to better replicate the 1010′s original uniform.

To me, the fusion reads more as, “White in Kun3h0′s outfit.” while the deconstruction-reconstruction reads more as, “White if he were in the same series of robots as Kun3h0.” I don’t think either is significantly better or worse than the other, but there were different thought processes for both which came to different conclusions for the prompt, “Kun3h0 x 1010 swap”.

I hope that this explains and illustrates what I’m trying to get at.

I know that it would be kinda difficult to really “deconstruct” Kayane because her entire role/design revolves around her relation to 1010, so in an AU where she has nothing to do with them, it makes it a little harder to visually emphasize the things that originally characterized her. However, that being the case means that there’s actually more room to focus on new visual motifs like the Sakura to really make the design your own. You did it with Daphne & Jan with their new underwater motif, so I think you can do it here too.

Again, I really like the direction these are going, but I just know that they can be pushed so much further.

But I don’t always give the best advice, XP. They say that you know you have a good design not when you can’t add anymore, but when you can’t take anything else away, so me asking you to “push” the designs further might not be the best advice and shouldn’t be taken as an absolute. I can only tell ya what I want to see, not necessarily what’s the best choice.

*Strictly speaking, there is a canon flower!Sayu that appears on a poster in the Akasuka district. I find the design itself kinda underwhelming for a themed alt, (it’s no all pink Sakura!Miku), but I know it wasn’t made to stand out on its own: its function is to be a cute themed variation of the character, not totally reinvent her. It’s literally a little poster on the side of a wall that not everyone is even going to take the time to investigate, so I understand not wanting to spend too much time designing a more grandiose flower themed Sayu.

#submission #civilian au #nsr #kayane #kayane nsr #i'm trying to avoid giving direct suggestions about changes #because while i can say what *I* want to see and what *I* prefer #this is ultimately *your* AU so it should go in the direction that you want it to #i also feel like character design is a 'puzzle' that you have to 'solve' and i don't want to give away answers #so that's why the example is of something i did #rather than how you could change kayane's design #i can give my opinion but it's up to you if/how you're going to use it #unless you specifically ask me what I would specifically do #i try to be nonspecific about changes

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pebblysand · 3 years ago

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[writing rant - on filler words]

[yes, i should be writing castles but here i am giving you unwarranted writing advice instead. sue me.]

this morning, you might have seen me reblog this post on filler words. it's a classic, very typical piece of writing advice where the author lists a number of filler words/sentences that you should scrape from your writing to appeal to publishers or make your prose seem more professional or whatever. i reblogged it saying: 'i disagree with most of these, don't listen to people who tell you how to write.' which a couple of you liked (cheers!) but upon reflection, i feel like this needs a bit more of a nuanced response, which is what i'm doing now. i'm not reblogging the post again because it's long and this is going to be long, and tumblr isn't necessarily text-friendly but do go read it first if you fancy.

now, as far as i'm concerned, the truth isn't that i think filler words are amazing and that you should keep them all, love them all equally like your precious children. of course, you should watch out for them. just like we do when we speak, we fill our written sentences with a lot of pointless fluff that brings nothing to our message. when used "wrongly," filler words slow down sentence pacing, hurt the rhythm of your prose, your ability to choose the correct lexicon for certain actions, etc. they're not always good, and you should definitely be aware of them in your prose.

however, what i dislike about these types of posts is the way people dispensing this "writing advice" make whatever they're saying sound like some sort of golden rule. like: if you don't do this, your story will be shit and never get published. i don't know much about the publishing world but i have written 300,000+ words of mildly successful fanfiction over the years, so i do know a thing or two about writing as a craft, if not a business. and, here's the raw, honest truth: believing that anything about this crazy art we're making is set in stone? that is the kind of thing that will make you a shit writer.

now, if you're following this blog, i'm guessing you like my writing, are probably quite familiar with it. then, this will not be a surprise to you: while i don't pretend to hold any sort of truth on the matter, god knows, i use a shit ton of filler words. by which i mean: a SHIT TON. take any paragraph of any fic i've ever written and i'm sure i could point you to some random word "botox" in pretty much every sentence. this post itself, if you're paying close attention, is also filled with them. and, another surprise: i know that. it's by design.

and, that, my friends, is what matters most. you should watch out for filler words, be aware of them, but if they end up in your final draft, it has to be for a reason. in fairness, i think that's where most of those writing advice posts get it "wrong" and why they annoy me so much: they tell part of the story, but not all of it. they talk about words in a vacuum like our words only exist to be pretty on a page, rather than to share something with other human beings.

now, as a disclaimer, i should preface this by saying that: it depends what kind of writing you're into. this is all very related to personal taste. as a reader, i tend to prefer stories that are told from a very distinct pov, where the story is told by a character rather than by the author. this preference also informs my writing. to me, a story can be first person or third person, it doesn't really matter, but i like a good old restrictive, terribly biased and unreliable pov in a story. i'm someone who 100% favours character over plot (although plot is terribly important too, don't get me wrong) and i like a person to tell me a story, not a robot.

in that context, "filler words" aren't just sentence "botox," they tell a story, too. they tell you who your narrator is. in a post like this, they inform you that i probably speak quickly, that i'm somewhat bubbly but assertive, that my sentences are long and rhythmic, and when i write "in fairness" rather than "to be fair," or "to be honest," it even hints to the fact that my main dialect is hiberno-English. in a work of fiction, filler words can tell you mountains about where your character is from, what they think, feel, etc... are their sentences short and devoid of any filler words? perhaps, they are extremely poised and self-confident, or perhaps they are so detached from what is happening that they are actually on the verge of an emotional breakdown. are their sentences filled with "just"s and "you know"s and "slightly"s and "really"s? perhaps they are insecure, unsure of what their next move will be.

filler words are also where style and pet peeves happen. you'll notice that i use "and:" and "like:" as sentence openers relatively often. it depends on the work and how i feel about the character, but it is something i enjoy playing with. i use 'rather' and 'perhaps' frequently, too, frankly for no other reason than the fact that i like the sound of them. not everyone does, obviously, but since i'm the queen of my own fictional kingdom, i get to authoritatively decide to abuse them. that og post said to not use "that" as a conjunction (prefer: "he said he wouldn't," to: "he said that he wouldn't). man, aside from dialogue, i hate "he said he wouldn't" with a passion. i always use "that" as a conjunction and detest the way my sentences sound without it. i find the absence of "that" clunky and unclear. i don't know whether it is right or wrong, but that's how i roll. the people of the internet seem to like it but if they don't, they're more than welcome to read the work of another author who doesn't use "that" as a conjunction. i'm not holding a gun to their head.

however, as you've probably guessed from the above, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't be aware of your filler words. both yours and your characters'. know what you like, what you don't like, how your narrator narrates and how your characters speak. know how you speak and write, what your strengths and weaknesses as a writer are. edit your work critically. this being said, scraping all the words that make the work special is ludicrous. you would be scraping your work of so much personality that could actually be what makes it unique. writing is an art, not a game of exactitude. if the goal was to write everything perfectly, you could ask siri or alexa to write your short story for you. where you need to be careful with filler words is for them to serve your story, rather than hurt it. the filler words? they need to be carefully considered, questioned, and you need to make sure that they are intentional, not accidental.

and, of course, that's the hard part. that's the part of the writing advice these posts never get into because making blanket statements in the world is always easier than saying: it depends. creating a work of art out of thin air isn't as easy as cmd+f-ing all the "just"s and hitting "delete all." it's noticing which of those filler words you overuse, and keeping them in the back of your mind while you edit, taking a lot of them out. it's listening to your beta/editor when they tell you to take more out. it's also sitting for hours in front of your word document, contemplating every sentence and asking: should i use "just" here? does it show anything? does it have a purpose? does it sound right? let me read this out loud. and, what about the "eventually" there? does that sound natural? is that more of dialogue thing?

that's the line of critical thinking that will make you write better. and, don't get me wrong, posts like the above are useful as a guide in the way that they tend to list the most frequently used filler words, which you can then use as an inspiration to spot these idiosyncrasies in your writing, decide whether to scratch them or use them creatively. but: i'm sorry to say, there's no golden rule to it all. just hard work and practice. trust yourself.

i hope this helps.

#writing tips #writing advice #filler words #writing rants

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murasaki-murasame · 3 years ago

Text

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep11

Studio Passione: “We paid good money to animate Rika’s festival dance, and by god you’re gonna ENJOY IT!”

Anyway, thoughts under the cut, plus Umineko spoilers.

I know I talked about my theories for how this episode would be paced out last week, but I’m genuinely amazed that they managed to stretch the rest of this loop out into the entire episode, lol. It’s almost impressive how they managed to pad out half an episode or less worth of content into a full episode.

It kinda doesn’t even give me that much to talk about, yet again, which is kinda awkward, but either way this basically proves that I was totally right about my interpretation of the whole Keiichi scene, so I feel kinda pleased about that.

Long story short, the scene we saw in Gou was just an illusion depicting the story that Satoko told Ooishi about what happened, after she set the crime scene up to make it fit her version of events. I guess there’s still a non-zero chance that there’s some extra layer of mystery going on there, but at this point I really doubt it. I think that’s basically all that was going on.

I think this is going to be one of the more polarizing parts of Sotsu for people, depending on how they feel about the way that this is tying itself in to Umineko. This is the sort of storytelling device that’s basically never been used before in Higurashi, but is integral to how Umineko is set up, so it’s one of those times where it becomes undeniable that this is meant to bridge the two series, and is drawing inspiration and ideas from both of them, instead of this just staying within the boundaries of Higurashi alone.

With how this arc feels like a point of no return in the transition between the two stories, I really like how the first thing Satoko does when she accepts that she’s a witch is to start bringing Umineko-style narrative trickery into Higurashi for the first time. I think it’s a neat way to show how she’s starting to ascend beyond the game-board itself and is operating with a different set of rules. Obviously people aren’t gonna like that if they don’t like the idea of this being tied to Umineko, but I think that ship has long since sailed at this point, lol.

And honestly, even without relying on knowledge from Umineko, I think they did a fine job of having that scene in Gou seem weird and suspicious right from the get-go. For one thing, we were also told in Gou that Keiichi had no memory of what happened, and everyone else in that scene was dead, so it’s not that hard to start guessing that we were shown a false version of events.

I think I said this last week, but the confirmation that this is literally just Umineko Logic 101 really makes me wonder if Ryukishi is doing it this way in part to ‘prepare’ people for what to expect from Umineko. There’s still the possibility that we’ll get a full on remake after this, but even if it’s as simple as this basically ending on the note of ‘go back and read the Umineko VN’, he might still be trying to give people an idea of what to expect from it so they don’t get turned off by ep2.

This is getting more into theory territory, but if we keep going down this rabbit hole of transitioning into Umineko logic and narrative structure, I wonder if the entirety of Gou/Sotsu is going to end up being contextualized as a set of forgeries, in the same way as it worked in Umineko. Something along the lines of Satoko ‘seeing Rika’s loops’ being a metaphor for her being given manuscripts to read by Featherine based on Rika’s account of events, and then the Gou/Sotsu loops being forgeries made in collaboration between Featherine and Satoko, and presented to Rika as a new mystery to read and solve. At the very least, this could arguably justify stuff like how everything seems to go in the way Satoko wants, regardless of how reckless she gets.

I’m not 100% confident in that, but it’d definitely continue the trend of this being a blend of Higurashi and Umineko’s writing styles. I think it’d also provide a more comprehensive non-magical interpretation for what’s going on than just ‘Satoko fell asleep in the shrine and just dreamed all of this’, or whatever.

I also don’t really think that’d contradict the whole idea of Satoko being Lambda, though. Looking at it through this whole lens, it’d be sorta like how Ange goes through her own whole character arc in the process of reading Featherine’s forgeries, and basically ends up becoming a witch by the end of it. So the whole narrative arc of Satoko venting out her anger at Rika by trapping her in a new set of loops and slowly becoming a witch would still be intact, and still for all intents and purposes lead to her becoming Lambda.

There’s also various ways this could be tied into the whole deal with Lambda being Takano’s benefactor in Higurashi. Considering how Lambda never actually plays a part in Higurashi itself and is never mentioned by Takano, it could be as simple as ‘Satoko reads Featherine’s manuscript version of Higurashi and ends up relating a lot to Takano and wants her to succeed’, which gets morphed into her granting Takano her blessing of certainty. Either way I think that the whole timeline of events is weird and nebulous and isn’t really intended to make logical sense.

Anyway, probably the most surprising part of the episode was the reveal at the very end that the next arc won’t be called something like Nekoakashi, but instead it’ll be Kagurashi. I’m not really sure how much to read into that, though. It could just be as simple as them speeding through the Nekodamashi stuff, and most of Kagurashi will be the aftermath of that, so they gave it a unique name. Or it could be a completely new arc that does something totally different. Lots of people have suggested the idea of it being an arc all about Eua and Hanyuu and their backstory, which would be one way of doing something entirely different to a Nekodamashi answer arc, but who knows. I don’t think the final scene of this episode necessarily proves that the next arc will be about those two, though.

But on the topic of those two, at this point I think it’s probably safe to say that Hanyuu is effectively meant to be Eua’s piece in this game, and that they probably have a similar relationship to Bern and Erika, going by how much Eua seems to look down on Hanyuu. Although it’s not exactly clear if this Hanyuu is the same person as the Hanyuu from the VN, or if she’s like a clone of her that Eua created after Hanyuu disappeared or whatever after Matsuribayashi.

Either way, I’m not entirely sure how they’d even approach an arc focused on those two. It’s not like Umineko really explained Featherine’s backstory, unless Sotsu is going to straight up introduce Ikuko/Tohya, which I guess could tie into my above theory about this being a forgery. On the other hand, I guess they could maybe do something like the Hanyuu backstory arc from the Higurashi console ports, but that wouldn’t really feel relevant to Sotsu’s story at this point.

Really the big question is just if the entire story will wrap up in four more episodes, or if there’ll be some sort of third season or whatever to wrap things up. Considering that this entire episode was just about wrapping up this loop, and we haven’t even gotten into anything from Nekodamashi, it at least feels like we’re running out of ways they could pull off an ending with just the next arc. But it’s not impossible. The simplest way to handle it would be to spend one episode at most on skimming through the next set of loops so we can get back to the cliffhanger from Gou, and then continuing from there, but if my theory about the overarching structure of the story is correct, then there might not even be that much to show after the cliffhanger, and the continuation of it might just happen in the meta world [or the ‘real world’], not the world of that loop itself. It’s also possible that, if this does lead into some kind of Umineko remake, the ending won’t even be particularly conclusive, and will just be continued in that series instead.

Even with how the pacing has gone thus far, I’m not really sure how confident I am in the idea that we might get another entire season out of this. Maybe we might get another nine episodes to fill Sotsu out to 24 episodes total, but I don’t know if we really need another full cour or two after the next arc. At the very least it’d feel kinda agonizing to have to wait even longer for ANOTHER full season to see how things actually end, lol.

There’s still the whole question mark of how the OP and the key visual for Sotsu depict Rika and Satoko as teenagers, and the other club members in different outfits to the ones from Satokowashi, but who even knows how that all might play into the story at this point. I still think we might get a Saikoroshi-style arc where Satoko loses her game and is banished to a world where Rika doesn’t exist and her relationship with the club members is totally different, but I’m not even sure what the whole point of that kinda development might be, or how long it’d take to get through.

At this point I think the best thing to do would be to just go all in with the Umineko stuff and have this end with the birth of Bern and Lambda and their whole love-hate relationship of mutual torture, even if it means leaving things kind of inconclusive, and without Satoko getting much punishment for her crimes. I think it’d be much worse if they just drag this out for even longer only to end it on the note of this whole conflict being neatly resolved and everything looping back to square one like nothing ever happened.

I guess we’ll just have to see how the next few episodes go, lol.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi sotsu #petition to replace the OP and ED with Rika's festival dance

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ravenkings · 3 years ago

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I’m really interested in that tweet you posted about poets writing only for each other nowadays, because I think I kind of agree with you, like maybe it shouldn’t have been stated the way it was, but it might not necessarily be wrong either? Like, I believe poetry can be a very powerful thing, but it doesn’t generally have much of a wide audience beyond those already invested in the genre. I think someone asked Neil Gaiman once why he didn’t become a poet, and he said something like, “I love writing poetry, and will always write poetry, but I knew I couldn’t make a living off of it” and I feel like that about sums it up. Like it doesn’t take away from the value of the art form, but realistically it just doesn’t extend far beyond its own pre-existing circles nowadays

((Poetry anon again)) I feel like it’s also a weird dichotomy though, because I feel like there is a particular brand of contemporary poetry that *does* reach a wider audience, but only because it’s been specifically crafted to do so? I’m thinking along the lines of instagram poets, Rupi Kaur, Amanda Lovelace, etc…who write to very specific topics in a very specific, easily digestible style. I feel like they do reach an audience other than other poets, but I also feel like their kind of poetry is like…fast food poetry, like commercialized. I’m not sure what exactly I’m trying to say here, and I hope I don’t offend anybody who is into their work! Just a trend I’ve noticed within the contemporary poetry genre nowadays, there’s a very specific style and almost commercialization about it that is intentionally crafted to appeal to wider audiences but loses many of the qualities that would make it true, impactful poetry in my opinion

i completely agree, and i think a lot of this gets to like how to be an artist/writer today and how you "market" yourself. instapoets like rupi kaur imo have successfully turned themselves into a variety of social media influencer, which i think is one way you can go, especially if your concern as a poet/writer is to be read by as many people as possible. it also upends the traditionally white and male poetry/literary establishment and opens up the space to more diverse voices, which is obviously a good thing. i think the problem is that, if you are trying to "make it" as an instapoet, essentially what you're searching for is a kind of virality, which usually comes from an appearance of relatability that may or may not be authentic. this article goes into it more, specifically in rupi kaur's case. i guess what frustrates me about instapoetry is that i feel like poetry doesn't have to be bland or vague in order to be accessible. like instapoetry works because a lot of it is just vague enough that you can read just about anything into it, but that leaves a kind of void at the center because it's not really clear what the writer's intentions actually are. like... it's poetry written to be retweeted and re-posted imo.

i also think, beyond instapoetry, there is an idea that poetry (like contemporary art) is somehow too abstract/ivory-tower/inaccessible for most people who aren't poets themselves to relate to. i do think that a lot of those complaints are valid and obviously the poetry/literary establishment has a lot to answer for in terms of restricting access/prestige from marginalized people like women, POC, etc. but i do think some of it also comes from a strain of anti-intellectualism and suspicion of anything that does not hold ""practical"" value in specifically american (and i suspect, though correct me if i'm wrong, british) culture.

that in and of itself is interesting, because i think it speaks to the changing role and perception of poetry in specifically the english-speaking world. like, at the end of the 18th/beginning of the 19th century, you have the romantic poets (wordsworth, byron, shelley, keats, etc.) many of whom came from privileged backgrounds themselves, but who positioned themselves very much against the traditional british moral/intellectual establishment. and then, in victorian britain, you had the poet as upholder/propagandist of bourgeois british/imperial values (tennyson, kipling, etc.) and then you have the modernists in the early 20th century and so forth. tbh, i feel like when you think about it in that way, the rise of the instapoets is not really that surprising. like.....maybe it's kind of a reflection of where the culture is (late capitalist neoliberal social media hellscape where self-branding is god).........unfortunately 🤷‍♀️

#i'm sorry i'm just kind of rambling idk if any of this makes sense #i used to write poetry actually but like.....this is one of the reasons i stopped #like unless you want to be an instapoet there's no certainty that you're ever going to get read #i mean that's the case for any writer but unfortunately i do think that's particularly the case with poetry......#poetry anon #anonymous #asks

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hlupdate · 4 years ago

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He spoke to Billboard about Styles’ intensive training process -- and why he wouldn’t be surprised to see him dancing onstage again.

There’s been one pretty overwhelming reaction to this video: “This is the guy who was in the group that insisted they couldn’t dance?!” Did you expect this kind of reaction to Harry dancing?

I’ve been with Harry for 10 years: I was with the One Direction boys from the beginning the whole way through their career before they took the hiatus, and they always made a very conscious decision that they didn’t want choreography as part of their brand -- but they did want a kind of disheveled organization in order to allow the cameras and the lighting to stand a chance in terms of presenting them in the best manner possible.

Where did the initial dance-centric concept come from?

Harry and the directors, Ben and Gabe [Turner], sent me a video link to the Nicholas Brothers scene from Stormy Weather and Harry asked me, "How long do you think it would take to dance like this?" I was like, "OK, are you being serious?" "Yeah, I’m being serious."

How long did the whole process take?

We started in mid-January 2019, and we rehearsed and workshopped for about four to five weeks before the shoot, every day. Both Harry and Phoebe had other things going on, so, for instance, Phoebe was working on the new Bond movie in Canada, so I sent my assistant to Canada to work with her. I stayed in the U.K. with Harry, and then we went to L.A. where Harry shot two more videos, for “Watermelon Sugar” and “Falling.”

#harry styles #articles #tpwk #120121

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