#I'm still in act 2 and was just spoiled about the basics of those details

[lunafeatherart]

Cassandra's gonna be so pissed, you guys

[magical-wishies]

To love or not to love, that is the questio-

Ok whoops wrong reference. Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I made a MV of the song "Darling Dance" by Kairiki Bear featuring my favourite little tricksters for the occasion!

I'd rather you go straight to Youtube to watch it because Tumblr always finds a way to cut the quality, lol.

Eng subtitles are available too!

Here it is! Hope you enjoy my pride and joy. Basically like a hopeful child but in video format. Reblogs are specially appreciated because Youtube sucks at promoting new channels!

This also acts as a behind-the-scenes post, so let's get straight into that, shall we?

MV Project 1 "Darling Dance"

Illustration time: 37 hours

Editing time: Approx. 30-35 hours

Total: 70 hours

*Cough* Holy freakin' moly does making an MV take so long. Before you roll off your bed, I'll say that part of the reason making the art took so long was because I have trouble drawing Marx consistently.

Here's some unused assets! Look at them, they're all salty over not making the cut.

In all seriousness though, a lot of times I don't really see a lot of editors/ MV makers getting appreciation for their efforts. And now that I've personally experienced making an MV for the first time, it's also increased my admiration to the people who dedicate their time to this! All the kudos to them.

Now, I'll go scene by scene then comment along the way! Spoilers ahead!

Verse 1

Pretty good for what it is. In the first image, you see that heart behind Magolor? I discovered the motion of it on complete accident lol. Capcut is hard to figure out..

I also really like the color palette of 2nd image. That art of Marx was the last one I did during production (aka I drew it this morning), and just look at him. He's such a bastard he's the best.

Pre Chorus 1

Mmmm yeah it sure is the pre chorus! I put a bar behind the text in the middle because I didn't want people to stare into their soulless eyes for too long. That probably worked!

1st Chorus

When I first added in the expression change, I fangirled over it a little on the first rewatch. Like, come on! They suddenly look mischievous, and the color change on the background! I know I drew it but still!

For the rest, I experimented a little with all the "Nah"s! I think it ended up well. Most of the lyric editing in this MV is completely original, so I had a couple of things to try out!

Verse 2

This song is horrifically outdated because it says Twitter instead of X!! (/sarcasm)

This scene is my second favourite. I'm really proud of the details on the tabs and the editing at the beginning! Wish I could put more images but the app only allows ten. Bummer.

Pre Chorus 2

I think it's cute, and I used it as my pfp on YouTube! That's about it though.. image limit is killing me I can't put anything here :(

Chorus 2

...Not gonna spoil it! I like how I drew them, but there ain't anything notable. Unless you look at the last image I put right before the bridge. :)

Bridge

This is where my editing comes in freakin' clutch. Ooooooh it's so satisfying to look at. Chef's kiss. Also those Marxs (Marxes?) are really cute.

The second part of the bridge is nice as well! I tried to make the lyrics snap to the rhythm. Glad I added that tv effect in the bg too!

Chorus 3

This scene is my favourite! Wanna know why?

This sequence right here. I think I will etch it into my brain forever... I love me some snappy editing. Like a lot. Like a lot a lot!

The second part of the chorus is like the original song's MV! I loved the hearts popping in and out whoever thought of that is a genius. Putting it into the MV was a good decision!

And that's a wrap! Hope you enjoy the MV as much as I enjoyed making it. And, stay tuned for next time! I have a feeling a certain jester is getting his own solo MV...

Feel free to leave your thoughts either in the Youtube comments section or here. See you around!

[assassinnumber9]

For the Director's commentary game...(pretty please!) from one of my favorite fics, Loid Forger is NOT a Cuddler:

Oh boy! Chapter 3 of Cuddler was probably one of the most difficult chapters for me to write, possibly tied with chapter 2 as I am neither a child nor a dog but had to basically go into what a child and dog would think/act like lol

It's been awhile since I wrote this one, but I do remember thinking as I was typing that Loid Forger would absolutely be the one to have a full conversation and/or argument with a dog (because it's canon as seen in Ch 58 of the manga). And because Cuddler is set after Loid and Yor are officially together and know each other's identities, I wanted to make Loid be open to admitting pretty much anything that wasn't the fact he was a cuddler - this time being that he spoiled everyone in the apartment way too much as well as how he enjoyed the hustle and bustle of family life.

This chapter was particularly difficult to write in terms of description, as the reader pretty much knows the apartment already. So, I had to rely on little details to make the flow not so choppy and to give a break from the quick and simple dialog, and what I decided to focus on instead was the sounds around the apartment simply because going from being by yourself to having a family involving a young child and a wife with a loud, annoying siscon of a brother would be a big change.

And the other way around is also correct - going from a full apartment to complete quiet with the exception of a pretty chill dog.

I remember writing it and wanting to capture how Loid, after so long of being a family man, would find the quiet now uncomfortable and unsettling, and so I added him reminiscing after Bond became distracted by the food in front of him as dogs do lol

I honestly think it's interesting how chapter 3 of Cuddler has been a favorite of at least a couple people I know while it's one I'm still uncertain of myself, but I did have fun writing this cute little scene! The Loid and Bond duo are always just so cute!

A little fun fact about Bond's meal - it used to be the one I fed my mom's dogs when I had to petsit. Now, they just straight up eat chicken from a can. That was actually a big inspiration for this scene, because those two are so spoiled.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this little commentary! Thank you for the submission! 💕

[kiwicopia]

Hello ♥ I saw that matchups were open and was like why not. I would like a matchup for HSR & Genshin, please :)

What I like to do on Valentines Day: my love language (giving) is acts of service & gift giving, and I prefer to receive words of affirmation & quality time. I consider myself a switch, sexually.

Personality wise I’m straightforward and oftentimes blunt. I am not very emotional, which tends to come across as uncaring, but it merely boils down to my inexpressive & introverted nature. I like to create things manually, I love occult sciences, the macabre, psychology, working out, learning (I have two degrees, & I started grad school recently), be it trivia, languages, anything. I’m multilingual, and enjoy learning about other cultures. I’m neurodivergent, among others, so I generally need lots of space & patience. While I am not the friendliest or bubbliest person to be around, I still am always willing to listen to the woes of my loved ones and provide advice. I am a bit of an efficient procrastinator, I get everything done early to leave time for myself later on. I don't really have any phobias, but I am highly sensitive to sensory stimulation. I dislike overly sensitive people, & those who are fake/inauthentic.

Looks/basic details: I'm bisexual (no preference fiction-wise, but in real life I prefer women), she/her, in my 20s. I’m a Leo sun/Capricorn moon/Scorpio rising, tall (around 1m79) & I believe my MBTI is INTJ. I'm half Greek half Egyptian, have long light brown (or dark blonde) hair, big brown eyes, & I prefer to wear clothes that are edgy or elegant. I have 2 dogs and one elder black cat that I love with all my heart. I have a few piercings (two per lobe, industrial and septum) & two subtle tattoos.

I hope this was enough 🖤 take your time!

Natasha has words of affirmation down to a T. She will never pass up a moment to tell you how much she adores you in her life. Despite being a busy doctor, she always makes time for you, and she always knows when it's best to give you space. Let her spoil you on this special day, whispering sweet nothings into your ear while sprinkling in reasons as to why you add so much goodness to her life. Natasha doesn't mind being spoiled with gifts, and she'll get you a few well thought out ones as well. Everything on this day will be as special as you are to her.

Kaveh has been grateful for you stepping into his life since day one. He can never remember at times unless you tell him about it, but he'll always love that you can listen to his drunken ramblings so easily. Will always tell you how much he loves you at any time of the day, even if it seems random. He just wants you to know how much he loves you. Kaveh loves anything and everything you have ever given or will give him. Just be prepared for when it's his turn on this special day. Being an architect comes in handy with gift making, so be prepared to be spoiled with lavishly designed items, and maybe even a building or two, that come straight from this man's loving heart.

[orionsangel86]

Deciding I couldn't wait to listen to Act 2 of The Sandman on Audible, I decided to just jump in and read the comics instead. I have consumed them at a pace far quicker than I thought I was capable of and have finally reached the end of the Worlds End books. The Kindly Ones is next. I know whats coming, but I can't bring myself to read on. The end of Worlds End left me with such a deep feeling of dread and melancholy, just like the guy at the inn, looking up at the giants in the sky...

The end of Brief Lives hurt, but I don't think I'm gonna be able to make it through The Kindly Ones. I wanna storm into Destiny's garden, rip his stupid book from his hands and tear out all the pages.

These dumb comics made me fall in love with that silly emo boy endless dream king more than the show ever did. My brain has gone and Castiel-ified him and I HATE myself for it.

I can't read on. I've hit an impasse. I need the ending to change... how many times have I complained on here how much I loathe tragedies.

Sigh.

As someone who generally doesn't like comics, these comics are fucking superb. The story is SO beautifully crafted. This is next level story weaving and how could I have expected anything less from Neil Gaiman really? But I NEED him to change the ending.

***Spoiler alert***

The whole way through this story so far there has been this idea that those who resist change die, that those are your options: you must change, or you must die. There is all this foreshadowing about change or death, and there are all these hints to different paths taken and choices made, I wonder if Neil was in several minds about how the story would end whilst he was writing, and in the end, he chose the tragic path. Dream couldn't change enough to prevent his death, it even seems, from what I have read so far and what little I have spoiled myself, that perhaps he even welcomes his death? Now that just wont do.

I don't know all the details of what comes next, but I do know the ending, and I don't like it. The one thing I keep clinging to is Hob's last dream, and the hope that perhaps that means that Morpheus isn't actually dead at all, but just free of his duty, free of his role, and out there somewhere, with his brother, at peace and happy. (Yes I already spoiled myself and read the comics with Hob and everything from the Ren Faire through to the dream on the beach had me sobbing even though I didn't know what had happened before)

I am almost certain Sandman will get more seasons at Netflix (and if Netflix don't renew someone else will snap it up - hopefully HBO) so am sure there will be a point in the future when these later stories are adapted and my god I hope they do change it, somehow. Even if everything still happens to lead to his death, i would need more emphasis on Hob's dream to basically confirm that he was still "alive" somewhere, that he was free, that he was happy...

That's my wish. Until then, I will go immerse myself in ridiculously sappy happy fluffy fanfiction I think. Thank FUCK for fanfiction!

[athena-is-a-chaotic-lil-shit]

Of Ice and Blood

Part 3

Hey there! Thank you for taking the time to read this

There are so many left out details here that I did on purpose for future explanation within the fic for the element of mystery I'm trying to brew . Hope you don't mind! Enjoy reading❤

Part 1

Part 2

Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

1.7k words.

Pairing: Tai'chi Kashharzol (Orc) x Pearl Blackbell (Human OC/Reader)

Warnings: cursing, violence, injury and fighting.

*

Without thinking, I drove my fist towards the voice, regretting it the instant I recognized who it was.

Tai'chi.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found my fist encased in his hand. He seems unfazed by my reaction, seemingly expecting it.

“Oh shi— I’m so sorry!”

How the hell did he sneak up on me without making a sound??

“Feisty- I mean, I should be the one sorry, for startling you...And for following you. I just wanted to, make sure you were alright.”

I blinked. He was concerned?

He spoke up when I didn’t respond.

“So, are you okay?”

“Y-Yeah. I’m fine. Just, disappointed.” I breathed in and sighed as he gently let go of my fist.

Oh, and his scent helps right now. He smells so...wonderful I don’t know why. It’s not like I’ve been surrounded by disgusting odors my entire life. I swear I’ve inhaled appealing scents like lilac, sandalwood, cinnamon, even rain has its particular smell! But Tai'chi, he—he’s something else entirely.

“Shouldn’t you be somewhere else like, I don’t know, maybe getting lunch with some of your friends or in a classroom?” I asked. I wonder why he would even bother to be in my presence. Anyone should be creeped out by the way I spoke up earlier. I mean, who does that? Plus, I did throw a stranger down to the floor. But part of me knows he deserved that.

Definitely.

“Want to talk about it?” He ignored my question. Tai'chi was now sitting cross-legged beside me, the oak’s root in between us. His deep azure eyes studying, watching me carefully.

“What?”

“What you did back there, wasn’t something a plain, timid college girl would do.”

Wait. He knew I was pretending to be one?

“Yes, I knew.”

“You can read minds?!” I stammered out. He can read my mind this whole time?! Shit.

He held up for a second before a boisterous laugh broke out of him and echoed through the circling trees, scaring away some birds perched above. I don’t know if I should be offended or flustered by his guffaw. It was so, so deep and rich and —

What the hell Pearl? What if he's reading your mind??

Tai'chi faced me again, sighing once he calmed down.

“To answer your question, no, I can’t read minds. But like I stated before, your face gives it away. Or your brows since you’re wearing a mask, but I can imagine your expression.”

I let out an incomprehensible noise.

“How did you find out I was pretending to be…you know,” waving my hands around.

“The moment we made eye contact this morning when you entered. And the way you shifted your body at the last second to prevent yourself from plunging into the trash bin, I knew you were something more. Your eyes and your actions show your experience in combat. A skilled warrior would notice these little things right away.”

My jaw fell open, and I’m sure he knows. He left me speechless.

Should I tell him I am a trained martial artist and a weapon wielder?

But we just met like 5 hours ago!

He seems trustworthy. And he’s an orc, didn’t they have a code of honor or something?

My thoughts ran wild I swear Tai'chi could hear my mind, screaming.

“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t wish to. And I must’ve sounded, creepy when I admitted I’ve been observing you. But before anything else, will you allow me to introduce myself, for real this time?”

“You mean your name isn’t Tai'chi?”

Letting out a chuckle, he replied, “I swear to you, my name is Tai'chi. What I mean is, I want you to know my full name. Do you understand what this implies, Pearl?”

I racked my brain for a moment, trying to recall what my parents said about orc traditions when my uncle, papa’s brother, married the orcess he fell in love with. Something about an orc’s real name being reserved only to those they’re close to?

“I guess so? But what exactly?”

“I want to become your friend.”

I couldn’t help the slight warmth creeping into my cheeks behind my mask. He can’t see it, can he? A friend, he says. A friend!

“Oh,” was all that came out. A pause and;

“Uh, I mean, I’d love to be your friend! I never had an actual friend before. I mean, have cousins, but we aren’t acquainted enough to consider myself their friend— I mean— uh, what should I do?” I blurted out a little rapidly.

He smiled. He actually smiled! Oh, damn, it was adorable!

Tai'chi was about to say something, but he snapped his mouth shut and grimaced. I was confused by his sudden change of mood, along with his scent.

Then it struck me.

The two of us shot up when multiple smells filled the air, making my stomach clench.

We were followed, not just one but six individuals. One of them was the pretentious human from earlier.

My day can’t get any better. And is that a baseball bat? Great. Fucking great.

I swear. I’m cursed to find trouble anywhere I go.

“Hello, freaks.” The guy in the middle began. “Whatcha doin’ out here in the forest?”

The others began spreading out and surrounded us.

“Planning something nasty I bet.” A human to my right spat.

“You will pay for what you did to me, you bitch. Just so you know, my father is the dean of this university. No one will ever hear a word of what I did here and what we will do to you.

'Dean’s son, David Silverstone, assaulted by an insane student in the woods within campus grounds. His friends graciously helping him fight off the lunatic until she passed out and was carried to an isolation chamber for monitoring, later finding out about her severe psychological disorder.’ Now wouldn’t that be a hit in the papers!” The bastard and his companions cackled and snickered, some of them stealing glances between my legs and I felt my skin crawl.

Tai'chi growled lowly, silencing them for a brief moment. He was getting mad but held his ground.

“And you,” the human pointed, “you beast. It won’t be hard antagonizing you, people will no doubt believe you were the one who violated the schoolgirl and left her in the woods to die.”

This fucking—

I felt a hand on my shoulder just as I was about to start, gently gripping, in hopes of trying to calm me down. He knows they were baiting us on making the first move. He shook his head, and an idea popped up.

Taking a deep breath, I attempted to make my voice as girly as possible, sounding so hilarious, like those overdressed, flashy high school girls with flowery perfume so strong I wrenched every time I get a whiff of it.

Provoking them would do.

“Oh, I’m so scared! Should I get on my knees and beg for mercy? Oh please, great and noble one, have mercy on my poor soul.” My voice laced with mockery and sadness, with my legs fake trembling and my arms flailing.

And did Tai'chi just snort?

“If you beg nicely, I will perhaps give you a chance to— ”

My sudden wheezing interrupted him and I laughed. Hard. I can’t believe he bought my terrible acting! I expected him to straight-up be offended rather than actually bite the false bait. He is dumber than I thought.

I was holding my middle by the time I was done. Tai'chi’s shoulders were moving slightly, probably chuckling and trying to hold back his amusement.

“Did you honestly take it seriously??? I can't— oh my God!” I choked out once more before I went on.

“There’s no chance in hell I’m gonna bow to you, not even one degree of an angle, you foolish, idiotic, spoiled, bastardized son of a bitch.”

His face was turning red out of rage and oh! Wasn’t that a sight to behold?

“You brat!” Turning his head to the others, he yelled, “What are guys standing there for?! Get them!”

Good.

Perhaps they didn’t catch my hands slipping on my beloved crimson knuckle dusters out of the bag when I was laughing then, tugging down my hoodie’s sleeve to hide it.

“Don’t move.” I told the orc, whose eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“But—”

“Just don’t.” I said with my voice firm. I will take them on my own. I can’t have him getting in trouble and people blaming him for being an orc. Imagine that. The ones who attacked him will be viewed as victims because they were up against him, an orc. Numerous humans will jump at the chance to throw dirt at their race, a single act of self-defense treated as a one-sided assault to humans, the thought of it being enough to somehow remove all of them from the city, but everyone knows it's not that simple. Dimwits.

I strode forward without earning his response, waiting for the first person to come at me.

I took my stance, although it was more of preparing half of my body since I was still hiding both of my hands.

They all seemed confused and hesitant, which was what I was going for. To me, and those with experience in hand-to-hand combat, this is one of the most basic stances, but fundamental, nonetheless. A simple form that can determine the outcome of a fight. With my right foot forward, left foot back, both firmly planted to the ground, and my dominant hand wearing my dusters. In their eyes, it was…wrong, foreign. Some may even say it’s an open vulnerability, showing how inexperienced the opponent is, but oh, it is the exact opposite.

I didn’t see Tai'chi’s expression, though. I was on alert and getting into my zone to peer at him, one motion that can put me in a compromising position. Did he notice my brass knuckles? Likely.

“Scared to hurt a little girl like me?” I enticed.

Finally, the one beside their alleged leader charged at me.

A typical amateur approach.

The guy, about two inches taller than me, threw a right punch, which was a huge mistake.

Predictable.

I smirked under my mask and dodged it not a second before it connected. Making him falter as I grabbed his arm and brought it down to my knee, dislodging his joints.

A high-pitched scream of pain broke out of him as he dropped down on the forest ground, gripping his bent-off arm, cursing, but refused to rise and fight me again.

I gave him one last glance before I looked back at the others.

“Who’s next?”

****************************************

Those human shits just can't leave them alone! Interrupting their supposed-to-be official introduction! There's more to the orc that meets the eye *wink* Who is he exactly? Why was he so... observant?

Part 4 is actually on its third revising— and I'm still trying to come up on HOW to phrase my next words to lead to part 5. I let me brain take a break from spewing senseless words for now so I'll probably post the next part of this later or tomorrow

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed! And I'd appreciate it if you have some advice for me, or just point out some mistakes I made! Thank you

Ps. This is really not perfect formal writing if you're wondering. I just type away whatever comes into my mind, and then proofread it to the best I can. And I hope you don't mind me using a lot of spaces. It... sort of makes my mind clear and continue moving forward, and it helps me when I'm reading it again, mentally taking note that with every line between spaces there's a slight pause and again, read it clearly like you were the one thinking it. I don't know how to explain how my own brain works but I guess that's that?

Tags: @kokokatsworld @crackinanutshell

[lokiarsene]

Hi, new follower here--I'm about to beat the game, and your blog was such a great find for me. I couldn't put the game down until the Akechi reveal, and then I had a hard time getting back into it. I spoiled the entire rest of it just so I wouldn't get burned so badly again. I really wished the game hadn't kept so much of Akechi's character a secret until so late--I felt like the reveal wanted me to throw out everything I knew and loved about him and acted like I was dumb for trusting him.[1/2]

Reading your replay now has helped confirm to me that my interpretation of him wasn’t wrong, but good lord. The game basically introduces you to a boy, throws him out the window and replaces him with an unfamiliar character, then gives that character only a couple of scenes. The narrative doesn’t help you connect the two at all, and it feels like the twist was just attempting to replicate the whodunit of P4… Anyway, I’m looking forward to the rewrite! Best of luck!  [2/2]            

You’ve pinpointed one of the major reasons why I’ve currently shelved my replay of the game: so much of Akechi’s build up feels like a ‘trick’ on Nov. 20th, and yet the conversation he has with Shido a day later shows that he actually has more up his sleeve than the game literally just presented to you. He lies to Shido about both the PT’s threat and Morgana being a ‘normal cat,’ so even though the game just had Futaba flat out say Goro Akechi is evil, it then gives us evidence that hey, no, he’s not evil–he’s just on his own side. No one else’s. And while we as the players/viewers can appreciate this dramatic irony, it’s also absolutely infuriating that no one in the PT even considers it until he’s breaking down hysterical in front of them.

His lies to Shido are easy to overlook, because the game has just cast him in the traitor’s light, so I honestly didn’t even notice he said this when I first played the game. But seeing it in the replay… and seeing just how much of an emotional dissonance I felt from the Akechi build up crashing up against the twist, then being further complicated by Akechi himself being a complicated character, and… well, like you said, anon: I felt burned. I felt like the game wanted to both discard everything I knew about Akechi, and yet still try to tug at my heartstrings about him with all the information that he gave to us before the betrayal. And it just didn’t work. I cared about Akechi, yeah, but then I hated the game for what it did.

I’m not a fan of getting jerked around by stories. This is why I don’t watch GoT or The Walking Dead. I don’t bother with books or TV shows or movies that don’t have happy endings or aren’t in some way positive and upbeat. I just don’t see the point in wasting my time on such emotional maelstroms, and I don’t think they’re good stories.

That’s what Akechi’s story feels like to me in P5′s current form: cheap, lazy, a way for Atlus to give us a compellingly complicated, sad, messy abuse/neglect survivor and then throw him out like pure trash.

I also agree with you in that it feels like a lazy way to repeat P4′s twist, while also failing to realize that the whole reason why the true culprit in P4 was so surprising was because the proof was in front of you all along, and he was never trying to hide anything about himself, he just kept himself at a safe enough distance that you couldn’t notice anything was wrong unless you really looked.

This is also why his Social Link in P4G was so fascinating: your relationship with him wouldn’t change what he did or how he felt. You never failed Adachi–he failed himself, long before you arrived. The S-Link would just give you further insight into the man behind those actions, and your reward for that is the same as the ‘true ending’ in the base game: a letter explaining himself, and offering you just a little more information to help you stop the true mastermind. The only thing you really take from his S-Link is more details about his character and the pit of apathy and bitterness he’d fallen into.

Akechi’s Confidant is one you can’t control, indicating that it’s a necessary bond to Ren’s story. Necessary bonds are often plot-significant (which it is), and are also reserved for characters that are as important to the plot as the protagonist (which Akechi is, but he’s also treated like garbage). It’s also the only bond that doesn’t seem to reverse despite having all the proper build ups for a reversal. Basically, it has lots of promising potential, and I can’t pretend that I wasn’t sitting through that ending, half expecting him to put in a surprise appearance. When the credits rolled, and nothing happened, I closed out the game and promptly deleted it from my PS4 (I had to re-install it for the replay lol).

Anyyyyyyyway…. all that aside–welcome to the blog! I’m sorry that your experience with the game was exactly how the game probably intended it to be, but I do hope that this blog and everyone’s contributions of asks / theories / fix-it suggestions, etc. can give you some kind of solace. And if nothing else, there’s the anime to pin our hopes to!

[thebeautyis]

I hope this is not a rude question, so please forgive me if the question is insensitive. It's not my intention. But you mentioned 9/11 and I think you are a New Yorker, right? How did you experience 9/11? I'm not even American but I know every detail about my 9/11 experience, every emotion. So, I'm wondering how it was for somebody who lives there. You don't have to answer if this makes you uncomfortable or sad.

hi, no it’s not rude at all. it’s not something I go into detail about almost ever because a) it does feel pretty personal to talk about and b) I don’t know anyone who died that day so in the grand scheme of the day, my experience was not that traumatic but…I guess the day in itself was incredibly traumatic. I’ll post this behind a cut just in case someone doesn’t feel like reading it :)

PSA: this got REAL long. oopsie. 

I was in 7th grade when it happened. The day itself I remember in bits and pieces at this point. I don’t remember much about before finding out what was going on but I do remember hearing that kids could see smoke from certain classrooms (I went to middle school far far away from the Trade Center but you could see smoke pretty much all up and down the coastline) and then it wasn’t until math class, I think probably like 2 hours after it had all happened, that our teacher finally told us what was going on but he lied about it. He said a bomb had gone off (which had happened in 1993 I think) and that nobody was hurt. And TO THIS DAY I am still mad at Mr. Silver for that. Anyway, I remember panicking during class because I knew my dad worked in the area so after class I went to the office to try and call one of my parents but of course the phone lines were down so I couldn’t reach either of them. Cue further panic. And then my next memory is being in the cafeteria with the whole school because I guess they cancelled classes for the rest of the day and we all went downstairs to wait for parents to come get us. I remember seeing my mom show up in the cafeteria and running to her and finding out my dad was ok. And then the rest of it is a bit of a blur. One of my good friends couldn’t get in touch with her mom for a couple hours and I remember waiting in the hallway with her while we tried to get in touch to make sure her mom was ok (she was fine but like I said, cell phones weren’t working that day). And then I remember finding out we’d have to walk back home since public transportation was down. I lived straight up on the other side of the city from where I went to school so the spoiled lazy 12 year old I was complained about having to walk but then we got a ride from someone, I have no idea who so no walking for my lazy 12 year old butt! 

I remember getting home and giving my dad the biggest hug I’ve ever given him. He worked literally across the street from the Trade Center but because he’d had to drop my brother off at daycare that morning, he hadn’t gotten to work at the same time as usual so he was actually, thankfully, stuck on the subway when the first plane hit. They’d stopped the subways for a bit obviously and then when he got out of the subway, he saw the second plane hit and I think the first building collapse? And he just started walking in the opposite direction. He ended up walking to his friends house and then walking all the way home. And without giving too much away that’s basically walking from the bottom end of Manhattan to like…the upper middle part of Manhattan. It’s far. Physically, he was and is fine. Mentally, it obviously shook him up and he still doesn’t talk about it really ever but I know he thinks about something else like that happening and having to get the family out of the city. 

I also remember talking to my best friend at the time on the phone and her saying World War 3 was gonna break out because of what happened. And I remember we didn’t have school the next day. And, most of all what I remember, is the feeling in New York in the days and weeks after. How kind, compassionate, patient, caring and close-knit we all felt to one another. Even at 12 I knew this traumatic, horrendous, utterly devastating event had bonded us as a city. The number of stories about every day people coming to rescue total strangers and the people they found days later in the rubble still alive because of some heroic gesture or just random acts of kindness stories. It’s interesting because I have been in New York City every single 9/11 since then except for 1 in 2007 when I went away to college. And I felt it. I felt like a piece of my heart was missing not being there. Almost like I needed to be there and be in the presence of others who had experienced that day in order to remember it properly. Instead I was 9 hours upstate with people who weren’t from the city and didn’t fully understand what it was like to grieve that day as a New Yorker. It hurt a lot. It was probably the hardest 9/11 I’ve had because of the fact that I wasn’t in Manhattan for it. 

Not that any of them are particularly easy. I always find myself feeling pretty low on that day, which is why I don’t like to hear about it and I don’t like the graphics people make saying never forget etc. I just think that’s dumb. Even as someone who didn’t have quite the traumatic experience others may have had, I will never and can never forget it and I resent having those stupid graphics shoved in my face made by people who probably didn’t live in the city at the time. Something that stuck out to me this past January when the Muslim ban was being enforced was how NYC had the biggest protest at the airport against it. We were the city that was hit the hardest and affected the most by terrorism and we were the city that was loudest and largest in our protest against the Muslim ban. We filled 4 stories of the garage at JFK including the roof, not to mention the thousands of people on the ground. It’s just interesting to me how the rest of the country uses 9/11 as a reason to be patriotic blah blah blah and I know they do it out of goodness because an attack on any city is an attack on the country but sometimes it’s done the wrong way. NYC continues to be the most welcoming and accepting of cities, despite what we went through, and I wish other parts of the country would realize that before saying we should ban Muslims because of 9/11 etc. That’s just straight up ignorance, not patriotism. 

ok DONE sorrynotsorry this got political :)

[feynites]

I had a thought earlier and thought I'd shoot you an ask about it: Do you have any tips on getting better at world-building (I think you're great at it btw)? Also, have you always liked world-building, in itself? I find myself often using worlds other people create, because I'm not very good at creating/thinking of my own, and was wondering if that was lazy of me? Just was wondering what your opinion was, on all that! Just food for thought. c:

Thank you! I’m glad you think I’m good at it!

World-building is a very interesting subject, but it took me a while to even really appreciate what it was. I’ve also spent a lot of time in other people’s worlds and environments, that’s pretty common among fanfiction writers, but I wouldn’t consider it lazy. Not unless you think any fiction set in our world is also lazy. There will always be parts of a story that some people are better at or prefer to focus on, or still need to build up their skills at. It’s normal.

I think a few things are very key to good world-building, though. Or at least in my experience, it’s the stuff I’ve figured out that’s helped me the most.

1. Nothing is original. You might not be entirely sure of where an idea has come to you from, but at the end of the day, there are only so many facets to human existence out there. Our imaginations only carry us so far, and our ideas come from the people around us, and also from their ideas. Artists draw from the things they see and experience, and use references to make stuff more realistic. So do writers. Do not worry that your stuff is unoriginal. Doing your best to abandon that fear is one of the biggest favours you can do for yourself as a writer; there’s a difference between similar concepts and ideas, and plagiarism, and only plagiarism is really a problem.

2. Nothing is without real-world context. This is related to the above. The things you make are coming from somewhere, and that means that they will have implications and real-world parallels. It pays to stop and consider where you’re getting your ideas, and what those ideas are implying about the world around you, too. In order to write stories, you have to be willing to take the stuff of your daydreams, and hammer it out into a narrative. It’s like turning a hunk of rock into a gemstone. You have to cut pieces out, decide what to reshape, what to keep, and what to throw away. If you can’t attack your own presumptions about the real world, you’ll have a harder time shaping a consistent fictional one. But also, at the end of the day, a rough diamond and a faceted one are both still diamonds. People will often be able to tell where you’re pulling your ideas from, so what you say about certain subjects can still have an impact on real-world concepts, and on your readers.

3. Let your setting be bigger than you. When writing, it’s extremely easy to get caught up in your own ideals and frames of reference, and that can mean that you design a world that acts more like how you think it should, rather than how it would. Worlds are big, and to some extent you can mitigate this by being aware that there is more going on than what you’re describing - that your story’s perspective is limited to the characters and events in it, and that contradictory things or mysterious unknowns still linger in the wider scheme of the setting. Your characters shouldn’t know everything that you, the author, knows, and you, the author, shouldn’t know everything about the world, either. An exhaustive list of details can even work against you, because it makes it trickier to keep track of what all your characters do and don’t know as well.

4. Big events are great, but cause and effect is better. When you look at history, you can see the way certain figures and events impacted one another, and connected together to get people to their ends or beginnings. A common mistake in world building is to take the big events - wars, coronations, the fall of empires, the rise of them, etc, etc - and just throw them into the setting without much thought for how they all interact with one another. But it’s like… if you have a nation that’s got a standing army, that’s expensive. Most nations have very small armies of professional soldiers, and instead tend to temporarily conscript people to bulk up their armies in times of crisis, because someone who is busy training and fighting isn’t doing other vital work, like raising livestock or farming crops or building homes, making babies, running households, etc, etc. But they still need to be fed and clothed and offered some kind of shelter from the elements, provided with equipment and a certain degree of entertainment, and things like that. Professional soldiers can spend their time focusing on being the best fighters they can be, so there’s an advantage to it, but you also need to justify having them around, especially if the rest of your country is having to work overtime to keep them fed. So a nation with a big standing army is going to be a nation that finds a lot of reasons to go to war - war lets you bring home spoils, lets you raid someone else’s farms to feed your soldiers, and expand your territory, and tax or enslave conquered peoples, and so on and so forth. You can start your world-building at the point of ‘I want this nation to have a big army’, or you can start it at the point of ‘I want this nation to be war-like’, or somewhere else on the chain of events - but certain things will also imply certain other things. It’s best to be aware of what those elements are when you’re laying out your setting. If you make a nation with a big army that is ‘peaceful’, you either need to explain how that works, or else people will probably think that the reputation is inaccurate (and that’s fine, too, as along as you’re willing to create a nation with one hell of a propaganda machine instead). But if you have a warlike nation, then there will also be other nations that have taken the brunt of its actions and conquests. So you will do better to let a few key traits expand into their implications, than to try and railroad everything into a framework that doesn’t flow naturally from those things. Because if you have your big nation with its standing army and militant inclinations, every other part of the world is probably going to be impacted by its quest for expansion, and if they aren’t, you need to be thinking about why, or else the pieces of your setting won’t fit together very well.

5. Avoid the Golden Mean Fallacy. The Golden Mean Fallacy, also known as the ‘argument to moderation’, is the idea that the perfect solution to any problem lies in compromise. But thereare some situations where saying ‘both sides are in the wrong’ requires a lotof false equivalents or narrative contrivances, even though people often tend to think that this is the most reasonable or neutral stance to take as the sort of arbitrator of the setting. Approaching societal conflicts in your world-building withthe idea that compromise is an ideal solution can actually be really offensive, though, and less ‘neutral’ than beneficial to aggressive qualities in the setting.For example, if one group is trying to commit genocide against another, looking at it and going ‘okay you guys want to live, but these other guys want to killyou, so I think the solution here is to just let them eradicate your culture –that’s really what they’re objecting to, anyway, and then you get to live andthey still get to destroy you, everybody wins!’ is not something you want to present as a fair solution. Sometimes people are just plainly in the wrong. That said…

6. Nevermake any culture/race/ethnicity/etc ‘evil’ in your stories. Doesn’t matter ifit’s orcs, robots, aliens, faeries, or what-have-you. The ‘savage tribe ofmonster people’ or Always Chaotic Evil Race™ is a bad trope and it needs to godie in a fire. If you want an ‘evil group’, you will do far better to alignpeople based on something like ideology or political corruption than race, geography, or traits theyare born with. There are other tropes along these lines that should be avoided, too, in fact there are more of them than I could successfully list in a timely fashion. As a general rule, though, if taking your world-building principles and applying them to real-life groups would result in an appalling statement, you should either change it, or else work it in as a form of propaganda and prejudice which you’re well aware of. That’s the difference between something like ‘mages are the most dangerous people in Thedas’ versus ‘the Templars believe that mages are the most dangerous people in Thedas’. One is you, the writer, making a blanket statement that some groups of people are just born dangerous, whereas the other is you, the writer, creating a scenario where prejudice exists in the setting.

7. Taking something out is often harder than adding something in. For example, building a setting without something like sexism or racism is usually much more complex than building a setting with something like magic or dragons or something. Fantastical elements are flexible, and you can shift the rules of them around to suit your needs without too many people crying foul. Whereas something like sexism is built into a lot of aspects of our society, and sinks into things that many people don’t even think twice about. Trying to create a fictional world where there is no sexism or history of it is, therefore, very hard, because you have to learn as much as you can about the ways in which this prejudice impacts our society and our presumptions, and then try and extrapolate how that would change everyone’s behaviour in a different world. And what you don’t change will immediately tilt your setting towards being the kind of place where biased presumptions are true facts of nature, rather than being a place where bad attitudes merely exist among the people and cultures there. This applies to basically everything, by the way, although it’s usually the most glaring when someone decides that they don’t want to deal with X kind of bigotry, and think that just going ‘it doesn’t exist in this world’ is the simple way out. (It’s not, the simple way out is to go ‘it exists in this world just the same way it does in ours, but I’m not focusing on it’.)

8. Keeping track of things is more important than knowing them off the bat. Everybody knows you’re making stuff up. That’s what they came to this party for. Inconsistencies can happen, but it’s also entirely possible to get so caught up in the planning stage that you never actually do any writing. So a good compromise between spontaneous invention and consistency is to just note the things you add in when you add them in, and then figure out how they might impact the other elements in your story, and set aside potential consequences in case they’re interesting or useful later on. Editing is your friend, and ‘I don’t know, let’s think about it until I do’ is also a vital element to incorporate into your thinking.

9. Be aware that you can mess up, and probably will. In order for any story to be inclusive of a wide enough range of people and cultures to make a whole world, it’s going to require you stepping outside of your own experience, or incorporating stuff that you have only a limited amount of knowledge on. You may very well fuck this up. This doesn’t mean the attempt was doomed, and it doesn’t mean you’re bad at world-building, and it also doesn’t mean that you have to defend your mistake in order to keep your setting from being deemed a worthless heap of junk. Your honour doesn’t ride upon whether or not you can make a convincing argument as to why your intentions outweigh the unintended implications of your actions. If someone points out a mistake, you should think about the ways you can go about handling it and/or fixing it. Maybe you just suddenly made your virtuous heroic group a lot more shady than you thought. Maybe you have to abandon a plot twist you were originally angling for. Maybe you have to make your narrator a lot more unreliable than you initially planned. There are solutions, and most importantly, you gotta listen to the people in the real world whose cultures or traits you borrowed from for your story. Just like when you borrow anything. If it’s not yours, you need to respect that and be mindful of how you use it.

10. Have fun. When you make a new world, there should be things in it that you love. That speak to your delight and sense of wonder. These are the things that often help the most when you’re deciding what to actually make in your world. You want unicorns? Put in unicorns. You want talking dragons? Put in talking dragons. Just think about how they would work, and how people would react to them, and how having them around might change the way the world operates. A lot of stuff will build naturally out of that.

I hope some of this helps!