#I'd also love to see more self ships with them actually I have no issues with sharing them <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[lieutenantselnia]

I wanted to make a May the 4th post dedicated to my Star Wars f/os yesterday, but I gotta be honest I just did not have the energy ._. So I'm just gonna do it now though!

I never really talked much about my Star Wars f/os on here because despite having 5 of them (maybe more if you count platonics), they're all secondary f/os and I hardly find the time to dedicate art or writing to them. They still mean a lot to me though and I think they're wonderful and interesting characters, so here they are💕

First up, Grand Admiral Thrawn/Mitth'raw'nuruodo, I first got to know him properly through Rebels (I knew he had existed in the Legends universe before already but didn't particularly care about him) and not going to lie, for a while I found him really annoying. He seemed very arrogant to me and I didn't get how he could always be a step ahead of the rebels, but I learned to understand and appreciate him, and somehow I fell in love with him eventually. At the time he was probably the strongest fictional crush I ever had (this man literally made me question my asexuality at some point - I didn't know that micro-labels like grey-, demi- or fictosexual were a thing back then). I didn't know about the existence of a self ship community back then, but in my head I shipped a character that was basically myself with him (with a few changes of course, like I was 16 at the time but my s/i was obviously a grown adult, the story I had in mind for her wouldn't have made sense otherwise anyway). I also started writing character x reader fanfictions about him! I finished a few one-shots, but the only multi-chapter story I started has unfortunately been laying around abandoned for a few years. I still kind of want to write an ending for it one day, but I don't know when that will happen. I struggled with my feelings for Thrawn after some uncomfortable experience with a former acquaintance in the Star Wars community, but as this is luckily in the past and maybe I can reconnect with him some day (In the meantime I'd love to meet other Thrawn shippers who are comfortable sharing him!). Regardless of that my love for him has had a significant influence on me, because without him I would've probably never made my art instagram account (the first social media account I made aside my personal insta account that I never use) and wouldn't have met many of my wonderful online friends.

Next up, Admiral Ar'alani, she's gorgeous and at least partially responsible for my bi awakening. I mean just look at her! Due to being a book character she's probably kind of underrated and less well known, I'd love to see an animated series about her and the crew of the Steadfast! I loved her in the Thrawn trilogy, I still have to read the Ascendancy trilogy though.

Commodore Karyn Faro probably wins the price for the most underrated f/o among them (also F in the chat for her for having literally 2 canonical depictions in a comic and no other visual reference, that's why I had to choose a slightly silly picture for her). I loved reading from her perspective in the Thrawn trilogy and I always enjoyed her dynamic with him too. Despite having her as an f/o I also ship her with Ar'alani, I think they'd make a cute couple. At the moment her canonical fate is pretty much unknown (I don't think it was ever made clear whether she left the Chimaera to transfer to her own fleet before Thrawn left for Lothal or not?), but although it is unlikely I personally wish that she'd also somehow end up with the Chiss like Eli did and get a happy ending with them.

Tech was just a very relatable character for me, and I knew I'd like him pretty much from the start. I always had a weak spot for this slightly nerdy scientist type of characters (namely Kowalski from TPoM and Mr. Spock from Star Trek TOS), I just never really f/o'd any of them before since I was like 8 years old or so at the time I was obsessed with them. But oh I had so much fun watching Tech, and his quote "I may process moments and thoughts differently, but it does not mean that I feel any less than you"? That hit right in the heart especially since I could relate so much to it. Also he must still be alive, I don't accept that he's gone no matter what the canon says.

Last but not least, I think General Grievous/Qymaen jai Sheelal was actually my second proper fictional crush, but for some reason it took me until last year to properly admit to it? I don't know, apparently 13 year old me was unconsciously in denial about being a monster lover, or just somehow unaware that I could just ship myself or an oc with him and didn't have to pick one of the canon characters. He's a character I'd actually love to come back some time, it's mainly that I'm too focused on my other f/os at the moment, but I think he deserves more love (yes I know he's kind of horrible too, but I think horrible fictional guys can still be loved and cherished).

Anyway this got longer than I anticipated, but at least you have an introduction to some of my secondary f/os now I guess. Anyways I hope you all had a happy Star Wars day, and who knows, maybe some of these guys here will make an appearance on my blog again in the future <3

[joejhang]

fanon neil vs canon neil

god i am so FUCKING done with the aftg fandom mischaracterising neil i'm literally writing fucking ESSAYS about it and pacing circles muttering about it under my breath it's driving me up the goddamn wall so i am going to word vomit brain dump yap about all of it in an incoherent tumblr text post. spoilers ahead continue at ur own risk

i've said it before and i'll say it again I HATE FANON NEIL. istg this fandom LOVES to mischaracterise neil and ykw i think i know why. they take the smallest most unnoticeable parts of his personality and then exaggerate them to disproportionate and unrealistic levels in order for him to fit their idea of a conventional, stereotypical and desirable main character. they smooth out his jagged edges and prick at his "insecurities" to make him more likeable, more acceptable and more conventional of a narrator/main character and in doing so erase so fucking much of his personality and draw as a character that he loses just about all of the flavour that made me love him in canon. and also especially within the andreil dynamic this fucking fandom just loves to tweak neil's character until he's basically unrecognisable just so they can cram andreil into some preconceived socially acceptable clichéd ship dynamic. because andrew is perceived as the typical mysterious, moody and grumpy love interest therefore neil just has to be the sunshiney smiley blushing cute softboy in exchange. yeah because all gay ships have to be grumpy-sunshine and black cat-golden retriever dynamic. i raise you: andreil's dynamic doesn't work because of their differences it works because of their similarities. if u think about it andrew and neil are honestly very similar people in the way they think and process emotions and events and that's what allows them to connect and understand each other. andreil would not work if neil was super sunshiney and a blushy soft mess and andrew was the stoic, never smiling, unemotional stone of a guy the fandom loves to make them. just accept they do not fit into the conventional boxes laid out by booktok for what gay ships look like. i fucking digress.

neil is also just insanely mischaracterised on his own. people love making him very jittery and insanely oblivious and easily flustered with a generous serving of self-esteem issues. i hate to break it to you guys: neil josten is not insecure. i don't think there's a single instant in the series where neil is actually insecure about anything. as a narrator, person and character, neil is very realistic, pragmatic and logical. ruthlessly so. i'd say on this, neil is even more cerebral and unemotional than andrew is. neil is very straightforward and realistic abt himself in his narration and i'd honestly say his opinion and views about himself are one of the only things in the story that isn't affected by his narrator bias. if neil is anything, it's self-aware. i'm now going to present all my fucking evidence.

neil doesn't have a sexuality crisis. literally in the entire series never once does he even question his fucking sexuality. it's implied he's already figured out he's aspec/demisexual from the moment nicky questions him about his sexuality. neil says "i don't swing" and follows up in his narration: it wasn't quite the truth, but it was close enough. and later when he starts his relationship with andrew he doesn't ever question the nature of his feelings towards andrew or even anyone else and is pretty clear about it when andrew breaches the topic: "kissing you doesn't make me look at them any differently" so yeah neil is pretty certain and aware of his sexuality.

neil isn't insecure about his appearance. i feel like this is gonna require a bit of work to explain but hear me out. it is mentioned several times that neil has a complicated relationship with his appearance because he looks so much like his father/abuser. this is obviously understandable; you wouldn't want to look into the mirror and see the man who gave u all ur scars. that being said, neil doesn't have a lot of strong emotions regarding his appearance. most of his feelings of panic tied to when r*ko dyed back his hair is because of how it would be a lot easier for his father to discover him now that he has his original colouring back. i'm also pretty sure neil knows that he's cute. like it's never explicitly stated but i've reread aftg maybe fifty times and trust me i can read between the lines. neil explicitly says that he has a "love-hate relationship with his reflection out of necessity" and while the "hate" part of that statement is obvious: he doesn't like that he resembles his father, i've sort of just accepted that the "love" part of it is that he knows he's kinda fine. it's not brought up by him at all bc neil as a person is not one to linger on people's appearances almost at all. i think the only people to get a decent amount of lines dedicated to their appearance in the narration are allison and andrew. but yeah i genuinely don't think neil thinks he's ugly or unattractive and he's probably definitely been told how cute he is by others enough that he doesn't harbour any delusions about how he looks. regarding his scars, he never expresses any insecurity towards them and how they look, he just doesn't like them on display understandably bc of how acutely they point to his past and childhood that he's trying to hide.

neil is actually very very confident in his own and other people's abilties. this is esp regarding exy. he knows he's good at the game. like he knows. the most distinct example i can think of for this point is when kevin tells neil that he was at castle evermore to try out for the perfect court when they were younger. neil doesn't even doubt for a fucking second that he would've made it onto the perfect court. never does. he skips over the second-guessing and doubt part and just straight up starts daydreaming about the future he could've had playing with kevin and r*ko. like that really got me bc it's easy to assume neil would be super unassuming and have low self-esteem but no like neil doesn't doubt for a fucking second that he deserves to be perfect court. it's just that he doesn't believe in r*ko's delusions enough to play along with it by the time he gets the tattoo. he's also insanely confident about the foxes and their abilities and also kevin by the end of the series. at the beginning he takes a pretty realistic vantage point and says that with the way things are, the foxes will never beat the ravens. but even with that pov he still has the gall to challenge r*ko on LIVE TV and i doubt he's lying when he declares so boldly to everyone that if the foxes were united they'd be an unstoppable force (and guess what he was fucking RIGHT). and by the end, when the foxes are united, he has no more room left for doubt at all. some guy tells neil to kick the ravens' asses and neil just replies with zero hesitation "that's the plan". like he's so fucking on board with it. and he never once doubts that kevin is the best striker in the game. like literally never. at first he considers r*ko and kevin on par with each other (possibly, it's never stated outright) but by the end he literally has no doubts when he says "kevin is the best striker" like goddamn the amount of confidence neil has is so underrated.

neil is a very unemotional narrator. it actually gets me all the time how logical and ruthlessly pragmatic neil's narration and inner monologue is. some of the only strong emotions portrayed in neil's narration are anger, irritation and occasionally grief, which is only ever triggered by major trauma-inducing events (e.g. dr*ke). almost all of his inner monologue is analytical and observing others and dissecting either other people or the situation he's in. and almost all of his decisions and actions are made based on impulse and instinct. neil is a very instinctive person. this is outright stated in the way he plays exy; in theory, he can't give u a lot, but in the heat of the moment he's at his best. this applies to practically all facets of neil's life. he never plans his moves or what he's gonna say (except like that one time when he planned out what half-truth he was gonna tell andrew post-columbia). he's super quick and on the ball and literally does whatever the fuck he wants at any given moment. he's also insanely good at compartmentalising. like it's difficult to explain but while his priorities are obv hilariously skewed, they're also very clear in his mind. things he considers unimportant he simply just doesn't think about. what others look like and what they think of him don't factor into his internal monologue or his thoughts at all he literally just files them away in the back of his mind until they do end up becoming useful or important to him. he barely comments on andrew's appearance at all until andrew becomes someone worth staring at and admiring for him. the only reason he describes allison and renee in the detail that he does is because it's important in understanding how and why he reacts to them the way he does. this man was literally about to lose his goddamn mind at the fall banquet but he specifically reserved his mental breakdown for after the banquet so he could spend his time roasting the fuck out of r*ko. bro fully locked in and was like "clock riko now break down later" and i respect it.

neil doesn't actually have a martyr complex. it's funny because almost all of aftg is him being the absolute fucking opposite of a martyr. he wilfully sticks around the foxes knowing he's putting himself and them in danger. he doesn't "sacrifice" himself until he's absolutely forced to by his father's people. by then, he's already told himself he can't and won't run and he's smart enough to know he'll never get away anyway. and going to evermore wasn't about self-sacrifice or martyrdom it was about protecting andrew and those two are pretty fucking different. he knew he was coming back from evermore and he knew that he wouldn't die there, despite all the shit he went through, so i don't think that can be counted as "self-sacrifice". he was doing what he had to do to protect andrew, the same as andrew would've done for neil or aaron or kevin or anyone else he'd sworn to protect. the kidnapping in baltimore was the culmination of neil's character arc, which isn't really about learning to be selfless and self-sacrificing, it's about learning to stand his ground and stop running. those things r crucially different: neil not running in baltimore wasn't about selflessness, it was about courage. yes, part of it was obviously inspired by the foxes and motivated by not wanting them to be hurt but i truly believe it ultimately was about neil learning to stand his own ground and make his own home and have it be something he's willing to die for. call it whatever u want honestly i just don't think neil is as much of a martyr/sacrificial lamb as the fandom makes him out to be.

[blueskittlesart]

How do you feel about concepts for redeemed/good guy Ganondorf? I don't remember if you've said anything on it before, so I am curious to see what sorts of thoughts you have to share or if you've thought about the idea before (especially since you've worked on SoF so I assume you've thought about many possibilities of a "what if" Zelda game)

For my part: I have mixed feelings, and I think a lot of concepts end up being "I want a buff guy to ship Link with"; I also think a lot of criticisms of the racism in many depictions of Ganondorf have merit (though I don't speak on them in depth because I'm white) and would love to see a more favorable/complex portrayal of him and other characters of color in LoZ. I personally haven't seen many versions of good guy/redeemed Ganondorf that really engage with the base structure of the LoZ games but I would love to see one that did.

Anyways I love your blog and analysis and I love seeing someone who finds analysis as inherently a part of their engagement with fandom as me, it's really nice :) I hope you're having a good day

I never posted about it much but sof did actually have a somewhat redeemed ganondorf, or as close to "good guy" as i'm willing to go with him in my own writing. sof was/is very much about me exploring the religious aspects of the lore and issues of fate vs self-determination, so my ganondorf was a much younger version of the character (similar in age to link and zelda) born into an extremist hylia-worshipping doomsday cult. in sof, ganondorf finds the remains of DEMISE'S sword and believes it to be the master sword, so when it starts ordering him around he follows the orders without question, believing that he's hearing the voice of hylia, and basically everyone in his life affirms to him that this is the correct choice and he's hylia's chosen one. Because of the intensity of the religious doctrine he was raised with, he has no problem following the sword's orders even when they become progressively more and more violent, and by the time link and zelda get to him he's nearly past the point of no return. (this is also partially a product of the setting I chose to put sof in--it's one of if not the first cycles after sksw, so the hyruleans' understanding of the reincarnation cycle and their own general history isn't super solid.) So that's my personal take on a "good guy" ganondorf, and, i think, the way i'd like to see it done in canon if ever they choose to go that route--because loz deals so much with the concepts of fate and cycles, I think leaning into a ganondorf who isn't inherently evil but can't escape the fate that waits for him is a fun way to take it.

[pupmkincake2000]

Funny how I keep getting comments like this

And it's not that it's harmful,it's that it's just not right whatsoever 💀 all your reasons for them being together are faulty and are things shared between friends aswell.

So, the dude called me and my ship weird while (and I'll keep saying it nonstop) HankCon is the most harmless ship in this fandom.

Okay, we are not saying that people can't ship whoever they want, are we? Especially in this particular fandom? In which most of the ships have no logic behind them at all, yet people are quite fine with those just because they fit into people's standards of beauty and how guy x guy ships have to look like, in their opinion.

So my questions are like those I've seen on twitter: "why do people find it so hard to be silent haters? like genuinely? why is it so hard to see something you don't like and think "ew weird" without feeling the need to tell the person who likes it that you think its weird/bad/gross/wrong ??"

And here's the answer: It's because they need to feel like they have the moral high ground. Actual virtue signalling. Ewww you like this, here's why you're wrong.

And nobody was able to give me an open answer why HankCon seems so offensive to them. And we do not talk about age gap here, it is too ridiculous to bring this up as an argument even. We are not talking anbout father & son issue because canon relationship is still friends, any father & son as well as romance are headcanons. So why those who like father & son are supported and those who love romance and fucking between the character are hated?

In a fandom (with no canon ships, except maybe Kara x Luther) where people literally ship characters with everyone they want?

Someone on twitter also said that the massive increase in self-insert, kinning etc. has created parasocial relationships with fictional charas. It's always happened but it's more now. Any perceived attack (moral or otherwise) on the chara equals an attack on that person's identity.

But I doubt that's the only issue. Although the theory has its place, given the general infantilization of Connor, which, however, is immediately forgotten when people need him to be an adult.

If haters are here to spread morality and justice, why aren't they doing it in other fandoms? After all, as I've mentioned before, there is the Rick and Morty fandom where people ship a grandpa and a grandson and I've never heard of people hating on this ship. Why these people are not among those discussing, for example, the laws of Japan, where a man over forty can marry a sixteen-year-old (correct me if I'm mistaken) if it is really an age gap that bothers the haters so much? But for some reason they chose as a victim a harmless pairing that does not harm anyone and is not even as popular as it was before? Or the goal is to errase it from the fandom spaces completely? If so, I'd suggest those to go outside and touch the grass.

[aingeal98]

Hi, so I was reading some of your Stephanie Brown meta & kudos, serious props yours is excellent. I also noticed you seem to be among those who picked up on the worrying undercurrent of Stephanie's relationships with older men. So double kudos for that.

Especially as its one of those things that tends to get glossed over in fandom & I am unsure at times if some writers even grasped what they were doing. Though that may say more about how girls tend to be treated/viewed as adults rather than children, teenagers or victims, save when its convenient to judge them as such.

Sorry not sure where I am going with this, but I think your stance it from that "Five ships that won't happen" section of the Steph ask as well thought out and covered a lot, so third kudos just for tackling that heavy topic so deftly and efficiently.

Ah thank you! Stephanie's relationship with men is so fascinating to me because she's been hurt so many times and the dissonance between her canon and fanon versions are pretty grim yet interesting. Like in early canon she was the Faith to Ariana's Buffy, the Veronica to the Bettys that were Tim's other love interests at the time. And various writers had various ideas about why she was the way she was, a common theme being that she had difficult relationships with the men in her life and had been hurt in the past. Be it a villain, a friend of her fathers, Cluemaster himself, or a shitty clearly too old guy named Dean. I don't think it was meant to be a pattern, more likely just individual ideas about trauma Steph suffered in her past that ended up turning into a consistent trait.

So you've got an abusive father, at least two cases of SA that I can remember (her babysitter and Black Mask), a pregnancy with clear subtext that the father was older than her, and the general way Batman treats her.

Not to mention she was a minor when all this happened. Like Steph has so many issues that she deserves the chance to unpack but instead they've just kind of... softened her down. Like her Batgirl run was the first chance she'd gotten to be the actual hero instead of The Girl in a story written by sexists, and she deserved every second of that. There had been too much injustice done to her character and her Batgirl run did a good job at setting the baseline for giving her a decent narrative. But afterwards, the New 52 could have delved more into her psyche instead of leaning into her waffles and sparkles fanon characterization. But because the New 52 is the worst, it didn't. And now here we are.

It's one of the reasons I'd really love to write a story about Steph realising she's bisexual, because I think in some ways her view of men are due to feeling trapped by heterosexuality and the patriarchal society. It's hard to explain fully without going into a whole other meta but the way she reacts to Tim showing her bare minimum decency is heartbreaking. Like yes men are awful and have been awful to her but she still likes them, she's going to settle down and marry one eventually right? She just has to find the right one, and Tim didn't treat her like complete garbage so he might be it for her!

And then for her to realise that no, she doesn't. She can marry a man if she wants to but if she wants romance there's also women... I really think bi Steph could be so much more than a simple "Oh hey I like girls now cool lol." Like it would shake a significant amount of the misogyny she's internalised and directed towards herself, it could alter the view she's taken of the world, and it would allow her to see her past trauma through a different lens, maybe with less subconscious self hatred.

Sorry this turned into a giant ramble haha, but thank you for the ask!

[kaycode1999]

hi heard you were doing some match ups and i was wondering if u could do me one

For starters, im a demisexual girl, still debating if im bi or simply a straight ally(in that case i'd kindly ask for a male counterpart), i don't want to be shipped with mk, mei, sandy, tang,pigsy bc i only see them as friends, and ao lie bc i already got him two times

i struggle with anxiety, abandonment, self worth and attachment issues and am currently working on my insomnia

Im a really sensitive person(tho not to the point of crying)my familly calls me a litteral drama queen

I sometimes feel like a useless third wheel, i rarely get angry at anything and always get along with anyone, my friends to confuse my goofy,friendly and open minded behavior for naivety and stupidety and i really hate it

For my aesthetic: i guess im a bit of everything depending on my mood, i like it when it matches, tho i do prefer hardcore colors like fushia, purple and dark blue, i also wear some moon and star themed jewelry i make myself

Im an ambivert, i socialize pretty well but prefer alone times

My love languages is physical affection(im not too clingy since i value personal space and boundaries more), words of affirmation, flirting lots of flirting and quality time and for me communication is the key, i don't really have a type but i am looking for someone loyal, who will love me and my insecurities and will accept that im badly crazy sometimes

i like drawing, mythology, reading, writing poems, painting, listening to music depending on my mood, studying dark entities(wich freaks my parents out), walking in the city(during night time),and i have a weird habit of collecting bird skull

I match you with

Macaque

The good thing is he knows first hand what its like to deal with anxiety, abandonment, self worth, attachment issues and feeling like a useless third wheel. Which means he has special knowledge of how to help you through it and/or do what he can to make sure he's never the cause of those feelings

With everything that's happened in his past, he actually views your demeanor as strong and intelligent. In his mind it takes no effort or intelligence to be cynical and mean, it's easy to do- but being friendly and kind shows your strength of character. ( Don't let him hear your friends putting you down for it or protective mode is ACTIVATED)

It simultaneously makes his heart swell with pride and makes him super flustered to see you wearing moon-themed anything because he compares himself to the Moon and Wukong to the Sun. (Please make him some matching ones he would love it😭)

Poor Monkey is honestly affection starved so he's not used to any of it. He's so thankful that you want to give him affection even though it makes him flustered. Its so cute though, his face gets so red with any kind of affection its adorable

Person B: what is this?

Person A: affection

Person B: disgusting

Person B:

Person B: do it again

This has actually happened before 😂😂

He never imagined he'd be lucky enough to be with you, so trust me once he is he's never leaving

He loves going on walks with you at night, he also finds the skull thing interesting

If you’re having trouble getting to sleep he’ll do whatever you want to help, just talking about random stuff or humming or just generally being there for you

[bloodpen-to-paper]

Spider-man: Across the Spider-Verse Trailer Thoughts

Can I just start this post off by saying that I am totally normal? Over this movie? Perfectly reasonable in my level of hype and mentally well in every way? Mhm, trust me. Anyway, onto the blurbs!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-Seems Miles is at his teenage rebellion stage

-Miles' teacher telling him he's not doing too well in Spanish in front of his Puerto Rican mother is an ouch (in that it's hilarious, but not for him. Sorry Miles)

-Seems there's gonna be a rift between Miles and his parents now that he's Spider-Man full time and very much keeping it secret from them; maybe this movie is where they find out?

-Across the Spider Verse seems to also have a core theme of Miles going against the grain and doing things his way, forging his own individual path for how he wants to do Spider-Man. Looking forward to seeing a more grown up Miles that is able to go further into his self-exploration now that he's reaching older teen/young adulthood.

-I think Gwen and Miles might get together this movie which... eh. Alright. No hate to the ship, but the first movie felt very platonic save for Miles liking her cause she's a pretty girl, and rip to cishet society but that ain't enough to sell me on a relationship. Maybe they'll get some development in this movie? Until possibly that I'm just gonna enjoy them as friends personally

-Apparently Oscar Isaac voices Miguel... Doctor Strange was not kidding when he said the multiverse got screwed in NWH

-Here we have Jessica Drew, Marvel's first (continuous) Spider-Woman! She looks awesome, and based on how often she appeared in the trailer, I'm assuming she will play a key role.

-I also suspect she will help push the narrative around ATSV's theme of parenthood, with Miles having issues with his own, and Peter becoming a father.

-Regarding the race change for Jessica, I earlier referred to her as the first "continuous" Spider-Woman, because she was the first woman to notably don the spidey title. However, the first official Spider-Woman was actually a one-off character named Valerie the Librarian. Originally, Valerie had no powers; she instead went around as a non-super helping Peter Parker's Spidey in any way she could. Spider Verse has always been by black people for black people, so it doesn't surprise me that they (allegedly) are honing back to Valerie, a black woman and the first official Spider-Woman, to base Jessica's appearance on. Goes to show the creators did their homework, which I'm pleased to see.

She is so beautiful ma'am please take my hand in marriage; also, she's pregnant! She is literally hero-ing while pregnant, which I've realized is not something we really see like... ever. Granted, because its dangerous, but Spider Verse has always made strides to give more diverse female representation, and a pregnant spidey mirroring pregnant working women seems to be next on their list. Happy to see it!

-We got Miguel O'Hara! Admittedly I'm not the most familiar with him, but one doesn't traverse Marvel comic fandom without having heard of this guy. Based on what I'm seeing in the trailer, he looks like a very fun character and I'm excited to know more

-"Don't even get me started on Doctor Strange and the little nerd back on Earth-199999." I am... so normal about the acknowledgment of the MCU in Spiderverse. The multiverse really is converging, which on a meta sense is something I absolutely love so I am very excited to see where the Marvel universe heads.

-Also people have been saying Feige stated the MCU was Earth-616 and Spider Verse went against that, which they're happy about, so if someone could fill me in on what happens in Earth-616 I'd appreciate it!

Peter's back! And he has a spider baby! From what I've seen this is Mayday Parker, daughter of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson, and she does indeed get her father's spider abilities in the comics. Perhaps we'll see more of her in the future?...👀

Stab me, it would hurt less.

(Looks like Gwen's backstory is being explored more, which is a hooray moment, but its exploring her trauma, which is less hooray.)

And of course... the meme, made multiversal. (Is that fucking PS5 Spiderman)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That's about it, very excited for this movie, also afraid, but mostly excited! See y'all when it drops!

[sepublic]

I'd really love a scene in the first season of a hypothetical Metroid show where Samus, who has yet to begin her Zero Mission, explains to a survivor in an area overrun by Metroids just how screwed they are; Like in a speech similar to Kyle Reese explaining how f'ed up the Terminator is, she explains "You can't hide from it... You can't trick it with a disguise... It is always hungry, but nothing it eats will ever satisfy it. But it keeps eating anyway. And it will always see you, as long as you're alive."

Because the idea I'm going with here is that Metroids can see 'energy signatures', more specifically, the unique life force that every living being gives off... Is this the soul? Maybe. And this is perfect, because what were they made to do?

To destroy the X; Parasites who can perfectly mimic any living being. Metroids can keep track of all living things in an area, and tell them all apart; In particular, they can distinguish between X mimics and the real deal, and prioritize destroying the former. The Thoha of SR388 really knew what they were doing here.

...This DOES lead me into a few questions for myself, however;

Why does the Space Pirate Mothership not have any Metroids? I chose to exclude them because in the actual Zero Mission game, you only ever encounter Metroids in Tourian, and they don't respawn. In fact, I have to wonder if Mother Brain had only just begun breeding Metroids in Tourian when Samus arrived on Zebes, which is why they're not all over the place.

But that's not the lore I'm working with here for my personal Metroid fanon; The Metroids have already been used to attack the galaxy en masse. This shows how Metroids are a threat to the galaxy, it sets up everyone fearing and hating them, it also sets up the Space Pirates to take such a huge blow because not only did they lose Mother Brain, they also lost so many assets to the Metroids when they turned against them.

And given the Mothership is Ridley's personal one, I don't see why such a high-ranking vessel wouldn't have Metroids aboard. During the story, Metroids DO attack the Mothership, but sections of it that Samus doesn't come across; This is to explain why the Mothership explodes when the Metroids make the reactor go critical, because it seems just a tad silly for Mecha Ridley to have a self-destruct mechanism that can blow up the whole ship it's on.

This also gets me to another problem; Even if there weren't Metroids aboard, it would've been a non-issue for Weavel to call in a few from orbit. The idea is that the Metroids didn't immediately realize/sense Mother Brain's death, and even when they did, it took them a moment to realize; Wait, why am I not attacking this obvious prey all around me?

If Metroids can sense energy signatures, then this makes them one of the best trackers in the galaxy; They need to be in order to eradicate the X. So why would the Space Pirates not deploy Metroids to look for Samus, because even if she's weakened, she nevertheless took down three of their top leaders.

I guess you could have the Metroids rebel at the start of the Zero Suit segment, and that's why Weavel doesn't call in any; It doesn't explain why Metroids weren't already aboard the Mothership, but whatever. But I like the idea of the Metroids turning rogue happening near the end of the Zero Suit segment, just as Samus enters Chozodia; There's more of this lasting dread and uncertainty, because Samus is also wondering when the Metroids are going to turn against the Space Pirates, as this entire Zero Mission hinged on? And this finally happening is what gives Samus the opening she needs to enter Chozodia, where she navigates past a few guards stationed there, and finally finds the test.

Likewise, I mentioned a while back about using Gandrayda as a spy within the Space Pirates; She's the one who deduces that destroying Mother Brain will cause the Metroids to turn on the Space Pirates, evening the odds for the Federation. Similarly, she finds out that Tourian is sealed off, and the only way inside is through Ridley and Kraid's access keys; This was because of Mother Brain's justified paranoia, but she still allowed her personal subordinates a way in, in case they ever needed to rescue her.

But as I've established: Metroids can see energy signatures. They're made to see through mimics, Gandrayda should be no more different. Part of me is working with the explanation that I dunno... Maybe they CAN tell something is different about Gandrayda, but they're still animals so as far as they know, she's still a Space Pirate because she's regarded as such by the other Space Pirates. And no Metroid bothered to 'communicate' this to Mother Brain.

I'm not sure if this works; I guess it makes sense if Gandrayda just stayed aboard the Mothership the whole time, only going to Zebes for a brief moment... More on that in another post. But she never enters Tourian. And again, I feel both the Gandrayda and Finding Samus dilemma boil down to a simple question: Why weren't Metroids aboard one of the most important vessels in the Space Pirate fleet?

Honestly, I might just do away with the whole "Gandrayda setting up the Zero Mission with her intel" reveal because of this, and just have it be done by some Space Pirate who might be having second thoughts over Mother Brain ruling the galaxy with Metroids, because it makes them ask: What use would she have for us with her Ultimate Warriors at her disposal?

[shiningstages]

SHIPPING INFO. answer the following for your muse(s) so people know how shipping works on your blog.

have a diantha icon edited by the lovely serin a million years ago diantha you'll be revived properly one day i swear to christ -

what’s your OTP for your muse(s)?

me cracking my knuckles as i look over my whole muse list + diantha.

diantha is easiest because its just captain/diantha and clarisse/diantha (this ship can work flipflopped too but like someone see the vision please understand LOOK AT THOSE GIRLS!!!!!!!)

ratio and screwllum next easiest b/c those two have not left my mind since they were introduced at their respective times and they should hold hands (ofc i like aventio too, but screwtio is my ride or die and also don't sleep on screwtioturine think about it pls i beg). i actually ship both of them very leniently (if that makes sense?), because i'm a multishipper and i love people holding hands, but these are very much the otps (special shoutout to argentio and screwllum/herta and screwllum/gepard though; those are also cute and the last one is the latest collected bestie rarepair and we thrive on it)

looking at my other muses...LanVane, nods nods. BeaZeta, BronSeele (hi3rd and hsr; though multishipping seele in both contexts is also really fun, and in hsr seele/silver wolf angst or hsr seele/gepard and hsr seele with any of the main express friend trio...nods nods). March 7th you can ship any person under the sun in hsr with her, but my favs are caelus or stelle, dan heng, and robin. stelle gets protag rights, but ofc exploring my fav men through her would be fun. yu takasaki with anyone in the club because also protag/past self insert origins rights, but setsuna, ayumu, and shizuku hold special places. kotohonoumi with kotonozo and kotori/minato (p3) honorable mentions. eiden/blade will always be my fav in nu carnival, but shoutout to edmond and yakumo as well. i do like tsukasa/wxs it's true (yes all of them each dynamic is cute), but i think tsukasa/shizuku or tsukasa/haruka has legs to stand on as well (hard working people with personality differences but very determined when striving towards their goals; shizuku has the added benefit of older sibling talks). though i also ship haruka/minori, and minori/kohane. nice nature/tokai teio is a classic to me.

me trying to think otp-wise for other muses...shrugs~

what are you willing to RP when it comes to shipping?

i love a good domestic fluff, or writing about a couple just being affectionate or just going through slice of life together. also very much into writing out the scenes of my muses in love and flustered but not really knowing what to do in situations when they haven't quite confessed yet. drama is also yummy; love a kind of hurt/comfort working through issues or things that come up type thing too (and the varying degrees of success or failure in that department). since i've started writing more Stuff too, i'd be willing to write out...just a tiny bit of teehee~

how large does the age gap have to be to make it uncomfortable?

me staring at screwllum, the oldest man alive...he's an exception because he's ancient.

for muses that are teens in canon (and in verses where they're teens, as in versus them in other verses as adults and stuff) it has to be pretty close in ages. but once we're past like 22 i'd say the world is our oyster.

are you selective when shipping?

not really, though on here i guess i don't seek it out as often because i'm not on here as often anymore! i'm a big fan of chemistry and usually only rping with friends anyways though, so we have to be cool with each other and think our lil dolls mesh well together before we can go and pursue more in a shipping on here sense.

how far do steamy moments have to go before they’re considered NSFW?

i haven't written any of the teehee on here yet, but i'd say when it get's steamy is like...more than kissing. when you're describing grinding and kisses going places that are obviously to get a rise out of the other muse, or when clothes are being touched or played with or tightening in ways...then the nsfw tag and the read more are implemented. if it's just kisses though, they get steamy but not too much so.

does one have to ask to ship with you?

yes absolutely!! i love communication, and if you think our muses mesh well together like that, please reach out about that and don't just assume~ though also i only really rp with friends so i only talk about it really with friends i've talked about it with numerous times before (waves at wars and serin and j even though you're not really here anymore). but still reach out if we ever rp for a bit and you have ideas~

how often do you like to ship?

:))))))) i can become a lil fiend devil if you wanna

aventio and screwtio have made me particularily feel some sort of way that makes me go even more insane than my love live shipping days, and that says a lot.

in terms of actual writing shipping, i feel like i think about it constantly but also not at all fghfgjhfgjhf discord servers have been my breeding ground for rarepairs and more talks though (surprise it's just two mainly hsr servers wow can you tell i like this game and the friends that invited me to these servers omg hi toria and rei and jules if you somehow find this)

are you multiship?

(points to literally every other answer) oh yes. yesyesyesyesyes.

are you ship obsessed or ship more-or-less?

hmmmmmmmmmm i think both. on one hand in general ships can just consume me, but on the other hand i like varied levels of writing (though also platonic shipping too let's not forget her...i love her too.)

what is your favorite ship in your current fandom?

screwtio / screwtioturine. aventio and ratioturine (i'm putting both because ppl can be really picky about name stuffs) are also very good yummy stuffs, but mushing my two men together and then adding aventurine into the mix.............yeah it's good stuff

finally, how does one ship with you?

(points to many points in this post) write with me, be niceies to me, and if you have ideas after we've gotten to know each other for a bit lemme know~

tagged by: @toestalucia warsssssssss thank you for unlocking my third eye and enabling me i love my bestie so much everyone aaaaaa tagging: teehee lmao~ @nokrysalis for crystal but also any of your other ocs or any canon muses you wanna yap about!!!!!!!!!

[dysfunctionallygrey]

Oh wow there is not a straight character in pjsk

sequel to the other post I made a while ago where I talked about my fav pjsk ships and characters ever.

Anyways in the event of mizu5 I'm going to take this moment to talk about pjsk because that pink little bitch has been roaming around in my head Scott free no rent like a squatter.

Disclaimer Yes I have not watched the event stories, yes I still watched mizu5, get over it. Sometimes people just UABDNEKSKDWUJQNSJEKSBBD

Let's talk MizuEna I love mizuena. I can only really describe them as my lesbian parents because they are literally me but split in two. Trans and an artist who turns to social media for the gratification they never got it's like Sega looked at me specifically and manufactured these two to my own liking.

I honestly never expected to love these two as much as I did but gahh they have taken over my heart. The way they just.... They are so. They. AUGHHHH

Getting into the story I definitely thought I would relate to someone like Mafuyu or maybe even Kanade more but Ena came in like a semi truck with her personality and parental issues. She is jealous, she is bitter, she is insecure, she is everything to me. To me she is all the negative shit I never got to express properly and she goes through so many struggles that I have, especially with my art that I just have to. ARGHHH.

And Mizuki. Boy oh boy where do I even start. She is my total opposite in a way I dont have her personality at all, I don't like overly girly or feminine things at all but her struggles with self expression, the way she is condemned for it. She barely shows up to school. Damn oh my god another one for the kin list.

1+1 is two and I love these two as much as I love them individually. It's clear that they have a stronger ish bond compared to their bond with the other members and I love seeing their dynamic so much it makes me so absolutely worryingly soft. Argh.

What else to talk about.

Wonderland x Showtime.

As from my other post, prior to playing pjsk I definitely think I'd walk out of it shipping smth like Emunene and Ruikasa like everyone else but for some reason I'm in that weird ship limbo of "Oh yeah they'd make sense" and do nothing about said ship.

Why? I think it's because wxs has one of the most solid friendships ever that it makes me a little hesitant to pick one ship and go with it.

Emunene is great because I love their dynamic and opposites attract but we also have Emukasa which is like the equivalent of putting two energetic dogs in a playpen and pumping them full of coke. Ruikasa is also a pretty intriguing ship but we also have Ruinene who also have the potential for something adorable.

In short, the beauty of wxs is that at the end of the main story they all feel like a genuine group of friends that have bonded in a real way. Unlike other groups where they are just two duos pretending to be a squad (cough cough vbs) they all have wonderful dynamics with each other and are such cutie patooties .

Honestly I'd take any ship from wxs, even poly I like those because they all sort of make sense to me, of course some more than others but idk they're all sort of plausible to me at the end of the day.

I think I'd like to talk about other misc, cross pairings now.

I don't have much but shout-out to every mizuan post on my feed that got me to ship this ship. I don't know guys the bow thing and the bow thing and the bffs and the AJDBMSJABEBSUNDND.

I am normal

Also shout out to MafuEmu and my one irly who got me to ship it I actually kinda like MafuEmu somehow.

Of course j still love AnHane and Kanamafu but I am also a multishipper with the mind of a crow, I see Shiney I likey.

Leo/need?

Huh??

[assorted-candy]

20 Q's for Fic Writers

I got tagged by @dp-marvel94! Thank you!

1. How many works do you have on Ao3? 

I've just posted my 22nd work a few days ago!

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

37,763

3. What fandoms do you write for?

So far, all my published fics are for Danny Phantom. It's a fandom that's near and dear to my heart and my favorite to write for. I've written fanfiction for myself in a lot of different fandoms over the years. Miraculous Ladybug, Mega Man (Star Force, Battle Network) and Fire Emblem are a few. (Will these ever see the light of day? Probs not, lol)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?  5. Frayed Ends - 37 kudos - Jazz and Maddie are fighting more often. Jack wants to reach out and help his family. 4. The Same Blood - 45 kudos - Maddie and Jack try to help a sick girl that collapsed in front of their house. They don't know what to make of her condition. Danny wants to help.

3. Returned Home - 49 kudos - Maddie finds Danny at home after he disappeared ten months ago.

2. The Broken Pieces Left Behind - 66 kudos (tie) - Maddie knew what the portal did to Danny. If she could create something that essentially turned him into a ghost, she could figure out a way to fix all of it. Even if she hasn't made any progress in the past two months, she'll keep trying. She didn't account for what Danny wanted. 1 . What's Out of Out Control - 66 kudos (tie) - Danny thought he had it under control. He thought he could finally hang out like they used to always do. Tucker could feel the rift between them widening. It wasn't getting smaller anytime soon.

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to! There were a few comments from my two earlier fics that I never responded to and it's already been so long and I feel like I ended up putting it off too long to say anything now 😓But I'm so so thankful for all the comments I receive! I never thought anyone would read my work, let alone comment on it. I'm always between two modes of 'author commentary' and 'screaming thank you and running away'.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Lol, I love my angsty stuff and there are so many different flavors of angst, so it's hard to pick just one. I'd say the piece I aimed to write for Angst Fest, The Broken Pieces Left Behind, might be it. It ends on a rather hopeless note for the Fenton family that even I don't know how to make everything better for them

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Home for a Cat. It was for a Ectoberhaunt prompt that I was absolutely stumped on. So I decided someone was going to adopt a cat by the end of the fic.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Ahh, so I actually posted a fic on FFN wayyy back when I was in high school. I remember it being received pretty well but I got a really rude comment on a simple spelling mistake. Back then, I was just told I had dyslexia a few years prior and I had some really bad self-esteem issues tied in with that. So, yeah, that comment basically made me terrified to ever show my work to anyone ever.

It's been over ten years since then and I wanted to actually get over that fear. I impulsively decided to do Angst Fest with the mindset that no one would even look at what I posted. Not only did people look, everyone has been so kind!!!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

lkdajldkf, nope. I get flustered trying to write basic romance and having two characters hold hands, lmao. Major props to those that can, it's definitely a skill that takes time to master just like any other genre.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I haven't.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Also haven't had this either.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, but it seems like a lot of fun.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

Back when the show was airing, Amethyst Ocean (Danny/Sam) was my go to. I'm a sucker for friends to lovers tropes and it's really nostalgic for me. But, I don't really read a lot of shippy things for Danny Phantom, so ships don't make or break a fic for me.

If I'm looking to read romance, the whole Love Square (MariChat my beloved) with Miraculous Ladybug will always be great. Even if I jumped ship on the show around season 2 or 3 and I have no clue what they're doing now, lol.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I honestly have so many WIPs that are unfinished on my computer from over the years. Maybe a super old one that I titled 'Phantoms in the Daylight'. Angst once more with Character Death as the main pain point. I like the beginning but oh boy, does it get sloppy and confusing real quick. I'd need serious outlining energy put into it if I'd ever want to salvage it and I just don't have it in me.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue! Give me two blorbos and I'll make them talk forever.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Scenery and description. I love the dialogue portion so much that I end up running into the floating heads in an empty room problem in the first drafts of my fics. My first round of edits are dedicated to making sure I have a scene and grounding characters into it. And then I have to go back later to make it not feel so robotic sounding.

(Also a weakness but more as in fic than writing. Summaries and Titles. I stare at my drafts on AO3's editor for at least half an hour trying to pull something together, lol)

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I can probably talk about this for hours, lol. I absolutely love foreign languages, especially when it comes to linguistics. So, I'll try to be brief, lmao. Short answer: depends on the fic but normally no. I already spend so much time fussing over the word choice/slang/formality/dialect characters use in my native language. I don't have a good enough grasp on another language for it to sound natural to the reader. ("They would not fucking say that" is my internal monologue during dialogue edits, lol)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

It's a toss up between Pokemon and Danny Phantom. I first learned about fanfiction from a friend who showed me FFN for the Pokemon fics. I looked around the site and found all of the Danny Phantom fics soon after and got hooked on those. I started writing around then and it would have been for one of those two.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Hard to chose one! Writing technicality wise, I'm proud of how What Remains on the Table turned out. I consider description my weak point, so the original draft was 0 dialogue with very stiff descriptions. I was able to edit it to really practice my environmental storytelling. (Although, please mind the tags if you click the link as it does deal with the dissection topic)

I'm not sure who's been tagged and I'm not sure who writes fanfic, so @lavendarlily, @fangirlwriting-stories, @grub-xd, @nanaarchy and anyone else that wants to join!

[rustyvanburace]

nanananan nanashi 4 ask game🥹

favorite thing about them: NANASHI HAS STYLE, and I will die on that hill. People bitch and moan about Nanashi's "ugly" design, but he is PUNK and that fits really well with IVA's themes. I'd rather have a protagonist with a totally unique appearance than yet another bland kid. Maybe that is antithesis to the roots of SMT (they've always favored bland "nobody" characters), but I am nonetheless sticking to my stance. I love that he is dressed for the part as a Hunter, but still embraces his own sense of identity and style -- which frankly is important and natural for teens. I feel the same way about Asahi's own style. I love that Nanashi's design incorporates aspects of the two Akiras from IV. HE. HAS. GOOD. DESIGN.

least favorite thing about them: Once again this is more of an issue I have with IVA's writing and it is not solely about Nanashi, but I do wish that IVA did explore Akira's motivations more (especially with rescuing his sister, which is just absent in IVA) and how his actions and choices would've later impacted his later reincarnated self. There's a lot of stuff that Akira did in the background of IV that only barely gets examined IVA. Akira's "betrayal" toward the Hunters and Nanashi falling into that same fate makes for an interesting foil, but is just another foil that gets resolved way too quickly for my liking. Nanashi saves the day by repelling the Tokugawa Mandela and is immediately forgiven and praised by all with almost hardly any skepticism. Again it's an issue I have with IVA at large, but it still leaves me wanting more out of the characters and their development.

favorite line: Can I even say I have a favorite line from a silent protagonist, lol? I can say that I do like how "extreme" Nanashi is with his answers, either being very openly kind to downright crass and cold. It's much more extreme than some of Flynn's answers in IV. Arguably it makes IVA's alignment choices too obvious, but I like that it gives Nanashi a polarizing personality and it fits with his design too. Plus some of his anarchy answers are downright hilarious.

Additionally, I'm also amazed at Nanashi's "Dagda!" voice clip in the massacre route. For most of the game, he calls for Dagda in such a high-pitched voice. But as soon as you're locked in massacre, his voice suddenly turns really gruff and deep. Lmao??

brOTP: HE IS BROS WITH EVERYONE. But especially with Asahi, Hallelujah, and Navarre! I love his caring sibling relationship with Asahi, I love him being best of buds with Hallelujah, and I love that Navarre is basically like the cool fun uncle to him.

I posted that stupid edit of Morcedai and Rigby earlier, but actually Nanashi and Hallelujah are WAY more like Morcedai and Rigby. That's them for realll.

OTP: Nanashi x Hallelujah NATION LET'S GO. I will absolutely ship them both as bros and as a pair! They have the best ever chemistry.

nOTP: Yeah so, I really do not like Asahi x Nanashi and I hate seeing Nanashi get shipped with adults. Stop it. Enough said.

random headcanon: I like to imagine that, even before the events of IVA, Nanashi has always had dreams of his past life -- just not as frequently or as "unusual" as they later would be, stuff that he'd just brush off and keep to himself. I also like to think that, partly cause of that, he feels a closeness or yearning towards the Sky Tower and Firmanent but cannot put into words as to why.

unpopular opinion: Nanashi's concept design (the one where he's older, has glasses, and the giant robot arm) sucks and I'm tired of people saying it is "superior" than Nanashi's final design. Maybe the older design would have worked better for an earlier story concept, but for the way IVA is now, it fucking sucks. You can't just switch Nanashi's design with that and expect it to seamlessly work with the game's narrative. People complain about Nanashi being a "discount Demi-fiend", but actually Nanashi's design is much more subtle and it HAS to be in order to work with the narrative. A giant robot arm is the very opposite of subtle.

God I'm just, so pissed at people saying Nanashi's design is "bad". I'm pissed I'm pissed!!

song I associate with them: I'm just gonna cross these out with all asks going forward, I am not good at picking songs lmao.

favorite picture of them: Once again, it's Nanashi's precious smile~!

Thank you for the ask!!

[amadeusgame]

July Devlog - Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee ~ Episode 1 ~ Waltz

Quick overview of all changes/updates implemented this month:

MUSIC: wrote almost all remaining music for Episode 1, and recorded some live parts for certain tracks

MYSTERY: created a "glossary" menu in the backlog notebook for reference (including things like the terms of the Witch's deal, etc)

SAVE/LOAD: system can now handle loading from multiple "progression points" within each scene

AUDIO IMPLEMENTATION: code for seamless audio looping (with reverb tail) exists now and works

TEXT SYSTEM: scrolling text can now support rich text codes, including font style changes mid-text

POINT-AND-CLICK SYSTEM: there is now a visual change to the background image when hovering over an interactible object

UI DESIGN: started reformatting main menu - still in progress

The rest of this development log is a lot more personal than usual, and is quite long. This month has been a lot, and I want to talk about how that impacted my ability to work on this game.

Read on below the cut.

More on Amadeus: linktr.ee/amadeusgame

The fact I have still done so much is a testament to how much this game means to me, and how much it helps to acknowledge when I just can't do what I planned to do and need to re-prioritize.

I was severely set back this month because of health issues. This resulted in a compounded setback because the health issues made me more easily frustrated by life in general, so any development issues ballooned into perceived catastrophes.

I eventually identified that I was really stuck on a few particular aspects of the finalfinal-final-forrealfinal vision for the game:

Design - I hadn't sat down with my overall art direction since finishing the demo. It was still feeling rather demo-y from a design perspective and I became self-conscious about this. On the other hand, I was really stressed about whether changing anything about the design philosophy this late would create exponentially more work for me as an artist, and feeling like I might have to choose between quality and finishing.

Narrative - although I'd written Episode 1 in full, I wanted to do more foreshadowing of much-later reveals. As I started considering how to do this, I began to worry about being so heavy-handed with it that I would give everything away and completely undermine the whole project before it gets going. I was too afraid of striking the right balance to make any actual progress.

Build/Implementation - a lot of mechanics were still buggy, and in addition to fixing them, I still needed to do a lot of tedious and very manual work to build the remaining scenes of the game. This work felt so mind-numbing that I had no desire to do it, and yet it still needed to be done. A perfectly demotivating combination.

Over-fragmentation - at this point in the game's development, the fact that all of my tasks for it were separated by category in Asana ("art"/"audio"/"mechanics," etc) made it difficult to see the dependencies in how these all come together, which in turn made it difficult to manage the remaining tasks to ship the game. It seemed like my to-do lists were all invisibly interconnected and felt impossible to track progress.

Once I realized I was stuck, and was stressed out by my to-do list but not actually working on it, I ignored my actual planned tasks for that week and gave myself a new assignment of figuring out how to get un-stuck and feel less overwhelmed. This mostly came in the form of asking friends for advice. It also involved following my own advice I love to give other people, which is "acknowledge when a system isn't working for you and change it." I went from feeling frustrated, lost, demotivated, and stressed to really excited after some self-reflection and 2 conversations.

Over-fragmentation

...Technically 3 conversations, as the fragmentation issue was solved thanks to an earlier conversation I had last month with a different friend about my narrative workflow. After talking with her, I started using Notion to manage the writing side of things. I built out different projects for each particular scene so I could have not just the text embedded, but also additional notes on metanarrative information, links to BGM inspirations, checklists, and more. This was something I did just to make it easier to finish writing the full script of the game, and it was definitely a game changer (hah).

I initially built it out as a writing tool, but now that the game is in the final stages of development, I find it is useful to think about all of my remaining tasks like this. It helps to consider them holistically in terms of the multimedia scene(s) they relate to, not as discrete and disconnected art/audio/mechanics needs. Once I realized this, I spent a weekend migrating all of my Asana checklists into the scene-based projects I'd already made in Notion. This was a lot of work, but it is now much easier to see a direct path from the current state of Amadeus to a finished game. And it gives me achievable goals on the way there: discrete checklists for finishing individual scenes, which are playtest-able while I work on the rest!

(I still use Asana to manage big picture stuff as well as recurring reminders and what I plan to do each week, but the specific tasks pertaining to the build of Amadeus Episode 1 all live in Notion now.)

Narrative

To address my narrative bottleneck I first had to get over the thought that spoiling my narrative to a particular friend would ruin it for them. Once I actually asked them if they'd like to be Amadeus Spoiler Friend #2 (because I was desperate and knew I needed more help workshopping the narrative), they were so enthusiastic I regretted not asking them several months earlier. We set up a voice call, I told them everything, and we bounced ideas on certain Very Important Topics.

I know that the more I have figured out from the very outset, the stronger the whole series will be; so I am very excited about this.

This friend also asked some questions that I hadn't thought to ask myself before (even though, in retrospect, they seem obvious) - and answering those questions gave me solid direction for finishing this installment in a way that's fun and also should pay off really well later. Then after our conversation they also offered to proofread certain sneaky things I am doing from the lens of their Forbidden Knowledge.

Talking to them has made me feel much better about my reveal/foreshadowing pacing, and I have someone I can ask directly about my "is this too on-the-nose" concerns, which helps a ton. Also, it just felt good to hear someone say "oohhhh, that's really cool!" about something I can't talk about until way later, because I THINK SO TOO I'M GLAD YOU ALSO THINK SO.

Build/Implementation

As for build issues, I talked to a friend (listen, the power of friendship got me through this month, I'm not going to lie) who is a career game developer, and who previously worked in Unity although he doesn't anymore. I used to worked with him on game jam games... the first of which was in 2016... when I was fresh out of undergrad composing exclusively in MuseScore. In a roundabout way, it's partially thanks to him that I eventually built a portfolio to go to grad school, which in turn got me to make Amadeus and also become a (much worse) Unity developer myself. Funny how things work out.

Anyway, I really enjoyed talking to him. He is non-judgmental - he knows I've taken exactly one Unity/C# course and have learned the rest by trial, error, and StackExchange.

He gave the best possible advice for where I am currently at in development: since I've built almost everything, even if I've done it with the world's jankiest spaghetti, the most important thing right now is to Just Finish It. But once it's done, we're going to have another call where we can discuss how to refactor everything to make my life a million times easier making Episode 2.

But it wasn't all about planning for Episode 2. He also helped me identify how I can slightly tweak some of my existing structure to automate more things that I've been doing incredibly manually. We effectively made a list of "here are the things to do NOW to make things simpler, and here are the things that are not worth fixing at this stage but we can talk about for Episode 2." (Example of a quick NOW fix: instead of dragging a reference to my Menu Settings script to every single slider and button in my menu, just have a script in the parent for all of those menu sliders/buttons that automatically grabs the sliders and buttons in its children and assigns it that reference. Then I only have to assign the reference ONCE to the parent. Seems so obvious now! I need to be doing a lot more stuff in scripts to just make my own life easier.)

In the grand scheme, though, that advice wasn't the most helpful thing he told me by a long shot.

In our conversation, since he is a developer who chose that career because he enjoys it, he started talking about focusing on what I LIKE about building the game. When I open Unity, what do I find fun, and want to do more of? Obviously I should also take note of the major pain points so we can reduce the amount of time I have to deal with them in future episodes; but he also told me to pay attention to what I really like to do.

I'm going to be completely honest. I'd completely forgotten that building the game itself was something that was, at one point, fun. When I was first building the game, it involved a ton of interesting problem-solving. It was asking myself "I wonder if I can figure out how to do this..." and being excited when the answer was "yes." It was showing off by doing way beyond what the Unity class homework assignment asked. It STOPPED being fun after I'd built all of the baseline mechanics I wanted to use, and then my to-do list slowly - so slowly I didn't realize it was happening - shifted from "stuff I want to build," into "stuff I think other people will want me to implement."

And while many of these mechanics are indeed important and good, it is not particularly motivating to build mechanics just because I think someone else will want me to build them. For the past several months I have been programming for other people and not for myself.

I really, really appreciate this next bit of advice this developer friend gave me. He prefaced it by saying "now I don't usually advise people to increase scope, but..." and that's how you know it's good advice! It is clearly tailored to ME and what I find motivating. His point was: this is MY game. I'm building it entirely myself. So if there's anything that I'm curious about, anything that's made me think, "hmmm, I wonder if I can figure out how to do this?" - then I should just do that. It's my game, I'm not building it for anyone else. I can build stupid mechanics for no reason. I can, and should, try building stuff just because it would be cool.

And that was so incredibly motivating. I actually HAD been thinking of a particular "what-if" mechanic, a mechanic I'd actually literally said "man, it would be cool if..." to my writer friend in our conversation from a few days earlier! But I'd given up on it because it seemed not as important as other things I "should" be working on. This new advice gave me permission to prioritize self-indulgence, not just in writing/art/direction/music, but in the programming of the game itself. There's a reason I am making a game, and not another form of media! I find the process of building the (janky) mechanics myself fun, interesting, and rewarding! It lets me play with the part of my brain that watches math YouTube videos for fun, in addition to the part of my brain that likes making music that goes dugga dugga and drawing pretty pictures.

Opening up the engine and writing code is supposed to be something that makes me feel like a cackling evil wizard, not a bored and frustrated person going through the motions because they have to. There is no obligation. I am making this because I want to make a game.

Soooo after this conversation I immediately built three things that I'm really happy with.

Text now supports rich text codes, which means I can be REALLY tacky with fonts and colors and all sorts of stuff.

(Obligatory this-is-a-WIP disclaimer but the finished game will probably be comparable in terms of how much psychic damage it deals to graphic designers.)

Now, Unity's TextMeshPro supports rich text by default, so you may be wondering why I haven't been doing this all along. Two reasons: one, I didn't realize that until recently. Two, the way my text-auto-scroll mechanic worked was NOT compatible with this. I had to completely re-work the entire logic of that mechanic so that it wouldn't also visibly type out the characters " <style= " in the textbox. But after making the necessary changes, which was a headache but it's fine I figured it out finally, I HAVE BEEN HAVING SO MUCH MORE FUN IMPLEMENTING TEXT!

BGM with a reverb tail can now loop seamlessly, which I really wanted for a very important later scene I've been working on.

This was one of those things I'd been putting off as a "nice-to-have" and figured I shouldn't spend time on until I finished working on "essential" stuff, but after this conversation I decided to just sit down and make it. It was really easy! It only took me like an hour, including time to research! I'm actually really excited about this because I hate basically every audio middleware program in existence (Wwise, I'm looking at you) and it's so much easier and more convenient to just do this in Unity.

In fact, this is pretty much the only script I have that is super generic and not tied up in lots of other Amadeus-specific spaghetti, so if you have a use for it I put it on GitHub here: https://github.com/ArcanaXIX/UnityScripts/

Hovering on interactible objects now visibly changes the appearance of the object, in addition to the existing cursor changes.

Actual implementation needs to be tweaked a lot, but this was my first time using sprite masks in Unity and it was very fun getting it to work. "Background objects visually change on hover" was another mechanic I had been considering for a while, but I was thinking about doing it very manually by rendering a unique sprite for every single interactible and then activating that sprite when it's active. This would require so much extra art and very hands-on implementation, so I had given up on it.

Once I turned it into a question of implementation, it became less manual (I no longer need to redraw every single interactible object) and also a fun challenge to learn more about Unity functionality. The only additional art assets needed are something with roughly the right shape to use as a mask, and then an alternate version of the full background art which can be really easily made by just applying a filter.

Here is the version of that background art that I'm using as a proof-of-concept, which was made in about 2 seconds by just converting the existing image to a 1-bit layer:

I will be experimenting with what exactly I want the highlighted areas to look like, but once I've found a process I like, it will be really easy to just apply that to all of the background images.

After importing the asset, I just added some very simple code to reveal part of this alternate art using sprite masks when you hover over interactible objects. The only detail work using this process is in the sprite masks for each interactible, which don't have to be perfect for it to look good, just approximate. Pretty straightforward and feels good. 

I'm really satisfied by how well it works even as just a functional placeholder - this is with using the "N" key sprite as a mask for testing purposes. I intend to do more than just add a black outline, but again, functional placeholder:

(I'm too lazy to make a GIF, but imagine the window there is brown pencil like everything else until you hover over it and then the black lines appear. I'll definitely be making a new gameplay trailer once this is in better shape, so look forward to that if you want to see it in action.)

Which brings me to...

Design

...except not really! I just needed to realize from my playing around in Unity that "Design" is not a separate and distinct thing that can be tackled independently from implementation. Implementation is a driving force of design. By approaching implementation with joy and excitement, I have also found an avenue to address the game's design needs. I'm going ham with fonts and figuring out what visual direction I want to take the interactible mask layer.

Instead of treating the "design guy" and "implementation guy" in my brain as two coworkers who vaguely dislike interacting with each other, if I imagine them as two coworkers who are both stoked and insane about this project and each other's work, the collaboration becomes really fun. The implementation guy shows the design guy this mechanic they built and the design guy goes "oh, I can have SO much fun with this. I'll be right back with some placeholder assets so we can see what looks good!"

Motivation

I think the actual message of this devlog, at its heart, is exactly the same as last month's. I've just been repeatedly coming to the realization that I keep trying to make a "good" game, by some generic "objective" definition of "good," and it's made me miserable. What I really should be doing is making an incredibly self-indulgent game. That means a game I find fun to build, too!

Amadeus is not going to be a broadly marketable smash success. It has a chance, when it's completely finished, of gaining a cult following by word-of-mouth via people going "you have to just trust me and play all 5 episodes of this. We can't talk about it until you're finished though." But, as its sole author and artist and musician and developer, Amadeus is something that I need to make in a very certain way to prove a point. It's coming entirely from within, and I am absolutely determined to finish it, so I must be self-indulgent.

Let's not get it twisted, though: I don't believe that self-indulgent and good are at odds. Spending a couple days making mechanics for fun actually made the game better! But in a project like this, where my primary goal is personal artistic expression, and my secondary goal is proving I can finish a major project... motivation is the most valuable currency in the universe, and therefore self-indulgence matters more than anything else.

I am speaking so passionately about how motivating it was to talk to people who understand my priorities and are excited about meeting me where I'm at, because without motivation this game would never be finished, and I want to be very honest about the fact that finding ways to stay motivated has been crucial.

I would also like to contrast these motivating conversations with how demotivating it is to receive feedback from folks who, shall we say, are missing the mark on what this game is and seeks to be.

While I sincerely believe that Amadeus: A Riddle for Thee is going to be good, there are a few things to keep in mind about it. These are things that I think are pretty obvious, but just in case they aren't:

It is made by one person.

With a budget of $0 and all of my spare time.

With a very strong professional background in audio, 

And the scrappiest DIY skillset in everything else.

That's not to say it can't still aim to have smoother player experience, to have stronger visual cues, to be better written, to be a better work of art. Those are in fact all things that I have been constantly working toward and seeking feedback to improve, because I do want other people to engage with it and have a positive experience. I am making this to share with other people. But I will occasionally receive feedback that seems to want to steer Amadeus in the direction of your average Kickstarter-funded publisher-backed title with 15 people working on it, and not a solo passion project.

The remainder of this devlog is written as objectively as I can while very demonstrably being upset about it. I debated removing this section entirely, but I think it's important to discuss, because this kind of thing can really impact development when you're a team of one person.

I also know that normally this kind of feedback wouldn't bother me so much, but since I received it after going on 2 weeks of dealing with the onset of a new chronic pain issue (which has been a massive stressor), it utterly tanked my mood.

Dismissive, Demotivating Feedback

I received the following feedback as "things to work on" from an anonymous juror evaluating my game for an indie game event.

When first meeting the witch the dialog is just incredibly long and boring and I ended up skipping through most of it. Given how linear this story seems to be, I think it would be better suited as a webcomic or a motion comic, not a visual novel. The interactivity hinders, rather than helps, in this case.

All due respect: who are you writing this critique for? For me, to make my game better? Or for you, to validate your own preferences? I think the answer to that is clear.

This is an obvious--and egregious--example of particularly demotivating feedback, but since it is real feedback I have really received, I want to talk about it. Specifically, I want to talk about how much it sucks to hear this.

This isn't actionable, unless you count "throw everything away and do something else" as an action worth taking. This makes no attempt to meet me where I'm at or consider my reasons or motivations for making the game as I have. It does not even consider that there may be aspects of the interactivity that are crucial to how the story will unfold; I'll acknowledge that the currently-live demo does not do much to showcase this, but this feedback has already decided that there is no such intention and I've wasted my time making a game.

My actionable feedback is to go make a webcomic instead. It also insists that my writing is boring, but doesn't tell me how to make the Witch dialogue more engaging (which, I have received other feedback from others addressing the same topic, who did give me specific and actionable feedback that has since been implemented). It just tells me that it's boring and they didn't like it.

And what's worse, this was feedback submitted by a juror evaluating my game for an indie games event. This kind of feedback sucks no matter what, even if it's just somebody leaving a public comment. But this is an individual who, in a certain context, was given some manner of influence, authority, and merit; and given this authority and merit, their feedback amounted to, "why did you even make a game?"

The rest of this juror's feedback was similarly dismissive and made it clear they did not like the game. That is understandable. However, it made no attempt to acknowledge that this game does have an audience, even if it's decidedly not this juror. Every single other juror's feedback at least understood that Amadeus has certain priorities and gave feedback that was more or less aligned with those priorities, but this one did not seem to think I've ever so much as had anyone else playtest it. In fact, they effectively said as much:

I get the feeling that this is an experience that makes a perfect amount of sense to the developer but that there hasn't been any attempt made to make it playable for someone who doesn't already know the garden path.

And this is feedback from before I decided to become more self-indulgent! This was the reaction to the game in a state I was actually trying to make even slightly marketable! I suppose in a way it validates my current priorities, because even when I try to prioritize quality over self-indulgence, people like this will still assume I've prioritized self-indulgence and write dismissive feedback about it anyway.

This feedback sucks so much I've dedicated a full segment of my monthly write-up to discussing it. Because as I've already mentioned, when you are one person making an entire and incredibly ambitious game entirely by yourself, motivation is the most valuable currency in the world. In that currency, things like this are expensive.

Further, when you are one person, you are ill equipped to handle things like "100% of your development team suddenly has a new health issue" and can't delegate the role of Accepting Bad Feedback With Grace to someone else in a better mood. I probably wouldn't even be mentioning this if it weren't for the pain that came on this month, but the pain happened and it has tangibly impacted my ability to work on this game, and put me in a place where this kind of feedback was the single last thing I needed to hear.

I know very well what the professional wisdom on this kind of topic is. The professional wisdom is: if feedback hurts, that's because part of it may be true; don't use "it's a solo project" as an excuse for shortcomings of your indie game. If you can't do something, form a team with someone who can cover your weaknesses. The player doesn't care how many people made it, they only care if it's good. Don't whine when people point out that your scrappy indie project feels scrappy.

That's valuable wisdom for someone trying to make a profitable career in games. That's also precisely what I intend to do after I finish Amadeus: take on a more collaborative project with a group of people I trust - we have a tentative team, but I've told them all they have to wait until I've proven I can ship this whole 5-part game. I'm not ready to lead a collaboration until I first finish Amadeus and prove that I know how to manage a project of this scope from beginning to end. Beyond that, of course, it is personally important for me to share Amadeus's story before I worry about other projects.

"Put together a team to cover your weaknesses instead of making excuses" is not valuable wisdom when the entire point of a particular project is that it derives meaning from being one person's vision. That is what Amadeus is. It's far more about expression than quality, even if in my opinion, good expression is quality.

I sought feedback from this indie event because I hoped that indie spaces would understand that "indie" can mean anything from "personal multimedia art piece" to "modest budget and team of folks who quit their AAA careers to follow their passions." I've also really enjoyed attending this particular event myself, and have made meaningful connections with developers who have showcased at it previously. That's a big reason I took this feedback so personally - I had higher expectations that my work would be respected for what it is from this feedback.

Oh well.

At any rate, the lesson I learned from this was not that I should go make a webcomic, or that the music in Amadeus is too dissonant.

(I got that feedback as well, but it's easier to shrug off critiques related to audio because I am extremely confident in my abilities as a musician. I have an ego too big to deflate on that front.)

The lesson I learned from this was that my intentions are always going to be dismissed and misinterpreted by some people. There's nothing I can do about that, so I might as well make what I want to make with full authenticity, and hope the people who are interested in listening will hear what I have to say.

[theabysscomeshome]

Number one clown Childe for the meme?

How I feel about this character: I think Childe is really fun. He was our first introduction to the concept that the Abyss can change you, and that combined with his infamous eye lighting and seeming inability to exist in regular society was super intriguing. I'm endlessly interested in details of how exactly he interacts with people, especially other Snezhnayans, and how he's seen due to both his position as Harbinger and also what he's actually done with that.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Hmm. Childe/Zhongli is fun, imo, to hop on the popular ship bandwagon. I love parallels here between Zhongli taking an interest in Childe and Zhongli taking an interest in Xiao and the yakshas way back when, and how perhaps he might see his younger war-torn self reflected in the eyes of both of them. I love the scandal of a respectable and likeable funeral consultant being seen socializing with a harbinger. I love how little any of Childe's many many issues even faze Zhongli. Aside from that I already mentioned I read a fun Kaeya/Childe fic once and I think there's potential for those two to be very Messy together. I'd also be open to Childe/other harbingers, though I haven't given any particular one of those much thought.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Childe and Zhongli c: But also 100% Childe and Ekaterina, I've seen some _very_ intriguing discussions of how they might interact and it hits a lot of my favorite points re: how Childe is seen amongst regular Snezhnayans vs non-Snezhnayans, combined with Ekaterina's particular slant on this as someone who is fervently loyal to the Tsaritsa. I was also very intrigued by Childe and Skirk, but idk how I feel about that now that I've seen her (though admittedly that's getting into parts of the story I haven't seen all of).

My unpopular opinion about this character: I see people complaining a lot about how he almost drowned Liyue while having a tantrum. This annoys me a lot. During the Liyue story quest we find evidence that he'd been planning that drowning for months. Probably ever since he came to the country. It was the attempt to get the gnosis from Morax's body that was the whim, because he thought it might be more exciting. But Childe's attempt to drown an entire city was extremely premeditated, and I will not have anyone saying otherwise.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Related to the last point, I wish Hoyo would let Childe (and the other harbingers) be a bit more villainous. I've noticed a definite trend of trying to soften them once they've become playable, but not in a 'they've slowly been reformed by the power of friendship' way. It's in a 'oh they were never actually that bad' way, and I think that's very boring. Let Childe be the harbinger who was fine with trying to drown a city if that's what his orders were, even if he thought it was kind of boring. Let him struggle with whatever instincts the Abyss left him with (which I think are also downplayed nowadays, tragically) in a way that's not easy to paint as heroic. That doesn't diminish his love for his siblings. If anything it makes it more interesting, because his love for them is at odds with his current life and that could have been a whole thing aside from him badly pretending to be a toymaker. Let him have an actual character arc to become heroic if that's the direction hoyo wants to take him.

[ominous-feychild]

OC Facts Tag

Thank you for the tag, @honeybewrites!

Rules: Make a list of fun facts about your OCs. Like a headcanon list, if you will! Except it's actually canon lol.

Characters from Sun and Shadow: Freya, Crow, Daleira, Faer

Freya:

Knows a lot about sailing, but has mostly worked on ships by herself. Is she self-taught? Well, kinda--it's because of her dad basically being a god of the ocean. It's literally in her blood, and she's blessed to have good luck on the ocean. Not that it helps her if "luck" doesn't come into play...

Has mostly figured out how to translate three different forgotten languages by using only her own intelligence and libraries

Has anger issues but thinks of herself as a very calm person

Has a lot of nightmares, but remembers very few of them. Doesn't have very many good night's rests

For some reason, half of what she thinks and knows of her past contradict each other...

Sleeps curled up in a ball; likes cuddling with stuffed animals but left it at home when going to Lynsmouth because she thought her fiancé would judge her for it. Joke's on her, it's a fiancée, and she has way more than just one!

Would forgive her dad for his neglect if he just gave a sincere apology, a hug, and spent at least a few months with her every year

Hates standing out

Was previously in a toxic relationship with a man who groomed her. It caused a lot of her modern-day issues. Her dad is not aware of this, and she hopes to keep it that way.

Crow:

Both hates and loves the smell of blood

Forgot how to cry years ago

Is a fantastic actor and liar; thinks their lies are terrible and obvious, but is able to fool even some of the people best at reading body-language

Knows how to fight with two different types of weapons. Also knows hand-to-hand combat--that, and using a simple dagger, are what they're best at

Always has a knife/dagger within reach, but it's usually hidden behind one of their wings or their tail feathers

Their humor is, in reality, an act they put on to make people underestimate them. They are hyper-alert and constantly on guard

Is most comfortable sleeping on top of something spherical; likes wrapping their arms--and so their wings with them--around it, resting their cheek over their shoulder/wing, and splaying their legs out

However, is used to sleeping in terrible conditions. Just always needs to sleep on their stomach; it's painful to lay on their wings

Daleira:

Is almost certainly ADHD and is probably on the spectrum; I'd have to write more of her before I say the last part for sure, though

Doesn't have very many friends and is aware of it; most of the people in her life are either humoring her because they're afraid of her or because they want political power

Her obsession with magic originated from her trying to figure out if she could change what she is--aka, stop being a faerie and turn human

She's terrified of her own magic and refuses to use it. Most of the magic she uses in-story is during moments of panic (ie, used on reflex) or through a conduit

If she ever managed to "turn human", would cry for weeks about no longer being able to shapeshift. Her ability to shapeshift is one of the few things she likes about being a faerie

Has never been in a relationship before

Doesn't like to sleep because she's afraid of what her magic will do while she's unconscious. Lucky(?) her, she can literally make it so she doesn't have to sleep

Wishes she had a sibling or other people to relate to

Loves sweet food; lucky her, she won't ever gain weight unless she wants to

Faer:

Figured out engineering over time from reverse-engineering half-destroyed machinery

Likes cooking and sees it as very similar to engineering

He loves his hair and would cry if he had to cut it. Has not cut it once in over 5 years, not even to trim it.

Loves soft textures and wears an oversized cloak to hide his constant fidgeting, to generally keep his actions hidden, and to be able to pet it

The more I write about him, the more certain I am that I accidentally made ANOTHER goddamn autistic character istg--

Although he claims the cyborg bobcat that follows him everywhere is his familiar, it is not. It is an actual bobcat. They bonded over a series of incidents of saving each other's lives and refuse to part from each other

Refuses to set foot in a forest until his life depends on it. Thankfully, now lives in a city.

The giant scar over his face is far from the only one he has.

Has PTSD and is constantly aware of his surroundings

Met Daleira when she saved him, but actually likes her as a friend and person

Is suspicious of Valyarus, but doesn't know how to tell Daleira that her dad gives him major creep vibes

"Faer" (pronounced "fair") is not actually his name

Tagging (with no pressure): @the-letterbox-archives @the-golden-comet @yourpenpaldee @darkandstormydolls @themboty + anyone else who wants to join!

Divider by @cafekitsune

[prince-liest]

This may be an odd question, but I believe you mentioned you got into writing because of rp(or at least into fanfiction?) And I was wondering how you transitioned into writing solo? Most of my writing is/was with a partner, but I've been trying to write on my own, and I've found it incredibly difficult. I'm told that what I write is still good regardless, but I've a hard time both finding enthusiasm for it without a partner to bounce off of or finishing whatever I'm working on.

This might just be a me thing and more to do with being self-critical, but if you have any advice, I'd really appreciate it. I just want to figure out how to enjoy writing again without jumping through weird hoops for motivation.

(You may have already been comfortable writing even before rp and if that's the case, feel free to disregard this question.)

I'd tried to write a bit of fanfic before my RP days with limited success motivating myself, so it really was very much RP that got me the skills and ability to be able to write full-form fics!

But more than mechanical skill, mostly I think the issue you face is very similar to what I struggled with for a while when swapping to writing fanfic, which is that a lot of the reason RP is so easy and rewarding is because it's such a profoundly social activity. You write a few paragraphs and then you get social feedback immediately from your RP partner in the form of chatting about it and/or the RP response you get! With fanfiction, you have to write a whole damn piece or chapter, post it, and then hope that you get comments if you want engagement - and then those comments are inevitably going to be a little bit less personal if, like me, you RP OCs that you put a lot of yourself into rather than pre-existing characters!

The problem with doing things for the sake of extrinsic motivation is that it kills your intrinsic motivation to do those things. This isn't a moral flaw, it's a documented psychological effect! Nowadays I write primarily because I want to see the things I put into the world, but that's fucking easy for me to say when I also have a large reader base and really enthusiastic commentors, isn't it? And it took me a hot minute to figure out how to transition to motivating myself that way rather than because I wanted interaction.

My suggestion is, honestly, to find folks that hype you up! I kinda crested that barrier by getting possessed by writing demons and pounding out like 60k words of insane Hawks-centric character study in one month during the 2020 quarantine, and I was lucky enough that people really liked it and immediately flooded my notifications with the kind of really lovely, long-form comments that my writing style encourages, which isn't really a typical experience. Those folks that hype you up, it is LOVELY if they are your friends, but sometimes what you really need to do is find the small social circle of freaks that are really into whatever niche thing it is that you are writing, and infiltrate their Discord. Ship-specific groups are really good for this! (Especially for rarepairs.)

But a lot of it is really going to be finding the balance of finding supportive people who will feed into your excitement, and also finding that part of yourself that finds the process of writing to be fun. Social activity is still 100% just a necessary part of the human experience, and I myself post snippets of my writing online and on Discord all the time for the little dopamine hit of "Yay! We're enjoying this together!" but it's become something I do because I want to share the joy I already get from writing, not because I'm writing to share it!

Which also means that you should write things that you enjoy writing. ;) Write things you are actually excited about - not just things you want to read, but things you think would be fun to write, and if there are boring parts that you're getting stuck on? Fucking skip them! I am not kidding! You think anybody thought it was a loss that I literally never even mentioned how radiostatic got together for the first time in 666? If they did, nobody's mentioned it, because it wasn't necessary to the story I actually wanted to tell. Literally so goddamn many of my fics start with cold opens because I don't like to bother with exposition until things have already gotten rolling. Fanfiction especially is GREAT for this because people are already familiar with the world you're writing in!

You are writing to entertain yourself! If it's not entertaining, don't fucking write it! Or figure out what about it is boring you, and then write it differently. This will have the splendid side effect of teaching you how to write transitions and also making a fic that is more fun to read. >:)

Anyway, this has gotten quite long, so: I'm sorry that I wasn't able to offer a great deal of advice, because I relate deeply to what you're experiencing but I basically got to speedrun the transition phase. I hope that it was at least a little bit helpful!