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richea · 4 months ago

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A dive into Hearts R's localization

I've talked a lot about Hearts R and the way it rips apart the original story and characters, but I haven't really talked much about its localization, which is truly its own can of worms. While I have stronger feelings about the Japanese version being poorly made in just about every regard than I do about its loc being a bit of a mess, I've gotten a lot more into translation and editing the past few years and I figure it's time to at least write something regarding this.

A lot goes into a localization, and that also means there's a lot more to unpack with Hearts R's loc than just the "Kor" rename and the fact that only a small portion of the dialogue matched up with the voice acting (these being the obvious things anyone can pick up on, even without knowing Japanese).

As a translator who has played through the localization numerous times, while also having gone through the game in Japanese and done a deep study on all the terms and their naming conventions, I want to go over some things, discussing characterization as well as what terms were good and which ones make me scratch my head.

There's a lot I won't discuss here simply due to the scale of the game, so don't expect nitty-gritty analyses and all the various examples of blatant mistranslations to be found in the game or anything. This is just to give an overview of some things I find interesting.

Characterization

Let's start by discussing something that is crucial for characterizing the characters properly: character voice. Each character has their own "language" for how they're written. For instance, in Japanese Shing talks very casually, Kunzite talks very scientifically, Hisui talks like a punk, etc. Essentially the goal is that via reading written dialogue alone, more often than not you should be able to differentiate who is talking without even needing to see their name slapped next to it.

This is something that is not as easy to get across into English, however the skill still exists when localizing dialogue nonetheless. You'll still want to write Shing's dialogue in a laid back manner, and write Kunzite's to be scientific, and make Hisui's very rude.

Overall, I think the loc did a decent job establishing voices. There's definitely some hiccups, but at the end of the day, I'd say the vast majority of the text uses decent character voice for each character. It's far from perfect, but Chalcedony and Kunzite in particular I think were written very well.

However, where I think R fails is that the quips in the game come across very same-y. While the dialogue can be funny, the sass that Shing would say felt very similar to the sass Beryl might say. Beryl's sass is supposed to come more from finding things absurd while Shing's is supposed to be a bit more out of frustration, but the loc didn't differentiate this well. I'm not sure how to better articulate what I mean by this, but trust me that it was a thing.

Also, they would make the characters say quips in dialogue that they weren't really meant to, which sometimes completely changed the feel of a scene. Shing and Hisui got this the worst, and I also think they're the two characters who suffered the most in this loc.

Below I grabbed some examples of character dialogue for each main character so you can see their character voice and what went wrong or what went right. This isn't a full overview of each character but rather just a small selection of lines that stuck with me (Tumblr has an image limit unfortunately, and also there's just a lot of characters I would have to go over).

Shing

Shing definitely suffers from overusing quips when he wouldn't normally, as well as his overall character voice coming off a bit more bratty than he was originally intended to be. I think everyone's aware of "Kor Meteor doesn't try, Kor Meteor DOES," which has... quite a different feel from what gandoko was originally intended to mean (which was just a cute wordplay on saying "let's go all out"). I will admit this is partially due to his rewrites in R in general as this is also an issue with him in Japanese, but the loc did him no favors. That said I don't think all of his dialogue is horrible, as the third image is an example of a line I think they did just fine.

Kohaku

For the most part, I think Kohaku's character voice is fine. She definitely had some weirdness especially early on ("rapscallion" lives in my head rent free), but she definitely eased out and overall I think anyone who plays the loc gets a perfectly fine idea of the character that is Kohaku (at least her R portrayal).

Hisui

Hisui is, erm... well I'll just say the loc team had a lot of fun with him. Maybe too much fun. It feels like only a tiny amount of his lines were intended to be taken seriously, which is really disrespectful to his character when the whole point of his character is that it's hard for him to express himself in words. Why ruin his serious moments by throwing in random goofy quips and making him come off like a full time jerk? He's definitely not a polite character, but the loc just always tried to make everything that came out of his mouth sound back-handed, even when he was actually trying to be nice.

Another huge issue, which you can see in almost every pic here, is that he would say something from the Japanese (fine) and then the loc would add in another sentence below it that is completely original to the loc and also contributes nothing other than to make Hisui sound like a jerk. For instance in the first line, in Japanese he's (seriously and concernedly) saying "Innes is calling for us? Is she hurt and can't move?" so I'm not sure why they felt the need to make it Extra and Funny. There's an infinite amount of examples of this with his dialogue and every time it truly does paint him to be a much more meanspirited character than he really is.

They did some alright things with his character voice (see the last cap, which is fine), but overall, if you see Hisui say something unhinged and incredibly rude and out of pocket, it's probably the loc and not actually what he said.

Beryl

Beryl on the other hand is a character who DOES say sassy things a lot, so I think the overall writing for the loc played into her personality a lot better than it did with the above characters. It's all written very extra and over the top, which is exactly how Beryl needs to be written. I think my only gripe with her writing is that they did make her flub up words more than she originally did (especially simple ones...), but other than that I don't have a lot to complain about here.

Innes

Innes is mostly a "no notes to be had, for the most part fine" character as far as her loc portrayal goes. I will say in Japanese she called the party "kids" a lot and the loc changed it to "mules" which, at least to me, gives off a slightly different nuance, but it does fit her character so I may just be nitpicking.

Kunzite

Kunzite's character voice is very hard to mess up... so much so in fact that I think the loc actually did him justice (you can only hope they didn't mistranslate anything with all that kanji though).

Chalcedony

Like Kunzite, I find myself surprisingly content with how Chalcedony's dialogue was written. They got across his pretentiousness and formality just right with not a ton of hiccups.

Galando

Galando completely falls in the "can never be taken seriously ever" category, except unlike Hisui I think this actually benefits his character. In Japanese, his dialogue and frankly personality are really unremarkable, but in the loc he says a lot of incredibly bizarre and goofy phrases. The loc team had a lot of fun with making him sound ridiculous and it did him a lot of favors when his overall implementation in this story was an absolute trainwreck.

Richea

Richea's dialogue can be a bit hit or miss. Sometimes it's too stiffly worded, sometimes it's too casual. Overall I think her voice is fine though and it never really did her character too many disfavors.

Terms

For this section, here's a very useful reference which writes out most terms in the game, comparing the Japanese names (romanized very straightforwardly) to the loc. I will be using my own romanizations for terms below.

Let's talk about the elephant in the room: Kor. Why did they change his name? It's actually quite simple: Shing is based on kanji. It means 心具 (shingu; heart-tool). Yamamoto stated that among the characters in the game, he's the only one who's not supposed to have a mineral reference in his name. To get around this, they did Kor, which is based on cor which is the Latin word for heart.

I suppose in a vacuum, I get what they were going for. However, the decision fails to make sense for two very simple reasons: recognizability, and the fact that they left the names Hisui and Kohaku in which literally were translated into English in Graces' loc. It comes across as very ironic to me that they were so held up by Shing's name being Japanese wordplay, to the point of changing it entirely, yet ignoring the two party members with Japanese names. Why only Shing? Nobody would know (even Japanese players) that Shing was supposed to be wordplay on anything had Yamamoto not discussed it in an old blog post. Yet they left in the names Hisui and Kohaku, which are very obviously Japanese, and no English player would know what they're supposed to mean, or if they were even mineral references! Maybe their intent was that they're from Norqueen, and Kohaku has cherry blossom aesthetics to her, but this also doesn't make any sense when nobody else from Norqueen had a Japanese name. It's only them.

This isn't me advocating for them doing Jadeite and Amber from Graces' loc (as I think that was a similarly bizarre situation), but if you're going to change Shing, you could at least be consistent and commit to the idea of making everything Easily Understood References, instead of just changing one name to something completely unrecognizable (and frankly a bit dumb sounding) and not the ones that probably warrant it more.

Shing isn't the only character they did this with. For instance, the members of Chen's Corporation weren't intended to have mineral names. Their names are references to marine life in various languages. Chen's last name is Corallo, which is Italian for coral. Sango means coral in Japanese. Ecaille means scale/shell in French (with her real name being Mica, which is actually a mineral and the loc did keep). In the localization, they were translated to... Ultra Marine, Aqua Marine, and Coral respectively. While I don't think Chen and Sango's name changes were horrible, I still think they could have just kept them as is with no issue at all. "Coral" just feels disrespectful though. Why would you name her what Chen and Sango's names were SUPPOSED to be? Her real last name was changed too, from Zimmer to Zinnwald, which is really just pointless more than anything.

A lot of what the loc did can kind of just be boiled down to pointless. Here's some other pointless name changes for NPCs:

Isaac->Azide (is this even a mineral term?)

Pearl->Perl (?????????????? this one I genuinely don't get because pearl WAS a mineral to start)

Dona, Zektz->Kardia, Sydan (both were mineral names changed to heart terms to match with Shing, but really this is a pointless change. Iola's name wasn't turned to Japanese to match Kohaku and Hisui? Make it consistent if you're going to do these things?)

Sinhala->Benston (sinhalite is a mineral. I don't even know anymore)

Spin, Nel->Ward, Hope (spinel is a mineral...)

This isn't even all of them, but these are the most egregious. For a game really insistent on making everything a specific reference, it's almost hilarious how much the localization made things inconsistent with its own decisions, and how it broke things that would have worked perfectly fine had they just translated it literally. No Tales game has changed so many names arbitrarily and made them so unrecognizable with name alone if you compare to the Japanese names.

It's unfortunately not just the character names, as the location names suffered a bit from this too.

While character names are (mostly) based on minerals, the locations were based on fairy tale references. Most location names in Japanese were portmanteau of terms, whether it be author names, location names from fairy tales, titles, you name it. You can read all about this here, and these observations were made by Japanese fans as well. This stuff is about as common knowledge as the Shing naming convention among Hearts communities, so I would be willing to bet the localizers knew about it too.

Anyway, some of the loc ones I think were fine. For instance, a number of those terms just come across as awkward in English (such as シーブル, which I don't really have huge issues with them just going for Seaville). Yuraio needed to be changed anyway, as it's Japanese worldplay (though I can think of many better alternatives than just "Lion Park" if they wanted to keep the fairy tale reference).

However, I do take issue with some that completely change the reading for the name. "Dronning" and "Norqueen" (however you choose to romanize it) sound nothing alike. "Wonderidell" is a fairly straightforward romanization, and "Cind'rella" makes very little sense when in Japanese, Cinderella was the name reference for the Winged Whale ("Cendrillon" in Japanese, "Mysticete" in the loc). I also think Celland and Quartzia were absolutely fine and conveyed their meaning perfectly fine to English speakers, while I will admit it took me a while to figure out that Organica and Minera were supposed to be based on the words organic and mineral.

As for regular terminology, I don't have a ton of nitpicks. My biggest is that I don't really like the term "Spiria Nexus" as a translation for Spirmaze. The game already uses "Spiria Core" (for Spirune), and the words nexus and core are... very similar in meaning! I would probably opt for something like Spiria Labyrinth (and honestly, Spiria Maze works fine as is). Spirune is a bit of a hard one, because in the context of the story, it refers to both the whole and broken pieces of it, so I feel like they could have opted for "Spiria Shard/Fragment" for the broken pieces and "Spiria Core" and "Spiria Shard/Fragment" could have worked hand in hand. This might just be me nitpicking though.

For positives, I really like the terms "calcification," "Will Artes" and "synthetic Spiria". I'm also surprised "despir" (bungle of katakana) stayed intact given every other naming convention they went for (furuere got changed to Will Wisps, when the terms are similar in structure).

Artes

Artes are infamously something Tales is very inconsistent about, and how did Hearts R's loc fair?

To start, each character has their own "theme" to their artes. Shing's are light based and reference astronomy terms, Kohaku's are fire and cherry blossom based, Hisui's are all bird terms, Beryl's are artist babble, Innes' are French marine terminology, Kunzite's are dark based and a bit grim, Chalcedony's are aerial/holy based, and Galando's are... well all over the place. Shing, Kohaku, Kunzite, Chalcedony and Galando are all based on typical artes (and if not, their naming conventions, or are typical artes just a little to the left), while Hisui, Beryl and Innes have entirely unique kits.

Shing: My only complaint is the loc overused the word "meteoric," sadly including Crazy Comet (which I really wish they had left as is, since it's so iconic). So many celestial terms exist!

Kohaku: I just think Scarlet Halo is a bit messy, since it was already localized as Crimson Disc in Graces. Did they forget Graces loc ever happened?

Hisui: It's actually hilarious how bad his got mangled when his are some of the most straightforwardly translated artes in Tales. All of his arte names are just "[bird] [thing]" and if you translate them 1:1, you get a perfectly fine Tales arte name with no work needed. Yet somehow, they messed this up? An arte named wild-hawk got translated to Mosquito Hawk. What? Another one is kite-rain, which got translated to Rainbird. scatter-heron is Cuckoo's Egg. god-shot-chicken is Bird of Paradise. His artes are just very bizarre, because some are translated literally, and the other half just have completely random naming conventions. It makes for a really inconsistent kit of artes, not to mention each arte had a very specific bird associated with it, and the loc just mangled this. His artes really make me scratch my head at what they were thinking.

Beryl: Flying Colors (originally Slashing Colors) is the only arte of hers that's even remotely close what the Japanese had. This isn't really a complaint as I think changing the names is fine, more just an observation since the game didn't get dubbed and her arte names are actual spoken words and not strings of kanji.

Innes: The loc took hers which were two word structured and made them grammatically correct French. Don't really have any other notes here.

Kunzite: His artes are the most consistent to its own conventions, though I would probably change some to more clearly reference what the arte takes inspiration from.

Chalcedony and Galando I don't have any commentary on other than what I said for Kunzite. They're fine.

Closing thoughts

There's of course a lot I didn't cover in this post. For instance, I feel like skits were overall translated better than the story was, and there's a lot of nitty gritty things like titles and flavor text that I didn't touch upon. (Here's a very funny example of the loc team not picking up on a fairly obvious Abyss reference. Nobody knew this was supposed to be about Mieu)

But, I would say my main thoughts on the loc are that in some regards it was fine, and in some ways was highly disrespectful.

For the story dialogue, it feels like someone translated it roughly (and I will note that there are some lines that are just blatantly inaccurate to what was said, even removing the editing fluff, so I assume this was a rushed job), and then an editor came in and edited the lines without hearing any of the voice work attached to it. It's very rough around the edges, to say the least. I do think the game would have worked better if it was dubbed (like the script feels like it was intended for), even if the mischaracterization would still sadly persist.

To add a very personal comment here, Hisui is my favorite Tales character and it hurts that the only way the English fandom has to experience him is at the hands of his incredibly disrespectful localization writing. While I think his dialogue in it can be funny at times, it's not the kind of writing I want to see in very serious scenes. It's not good when a character can never be taken seriously, when that's not at all how they are intended to be viewed.

I will also add, as someone who plays games in Japanese and is heavily involved in fan translation, whenever I play Hearts R's localization, I just translate the dialogue in my head as I listen to the acting, then I read the translation on my screen and kind of laugh at how far it is from how I would have translated it. Not only is it a disservice to English speaking fans, but it is hilariously obvious to anyone who knows both languages how inaccurate it is, which is not how a localization is supposed to read.

(As a final disclaimer, the rants in this post are only intended to discuss Hearts R's localization. I support the localization practice in general, but I am allowed to nitpick when one was so obviously rushed out the door with poor communication. Please read this article to understand the ways in which I approached writing this post. I do not support the witchhunt on localizations that fandom is so currently obsessed with. All of my speaking points have come from someone who has studied Tales localization practices as well as Hearts specifically in depth, and who has aimed for putting out high-quality translation work myself.)

#tales of hearts #hearts babbling #i need a tag for my tales essays at this point

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mjjune · 1 year ago

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How to Handle Beta Feedback (or: how to analyze, synthesize, and improve your story)

So this is the 3rd (and potentially final?) in a series I'm doing, so I recommend reading the first two posts first! I also took inspiration (and wholeheartedly agree with) another post which I recommend below.

Part 1: How to Have a Good Beta Experience (alpha vs. beta)

Part 2: How to be a Good Beta Reader (critique vs. beta)

Other recommended reading on writer mindset/accepting feedback here!! by @shaelinwrites

Now that you've read those posts (because you definitely read all that lol) and are ready for even more info--

As usual, this is very long post, and disclaimer that this is all based on personal experience and what helps me as a writer.

Topics:

So You've Got a Bunch of Comments... Now What?

Conflicting Comments

Negative Feedback: Headspace

Editing Your Story

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So I've Got a Bunch of Comments... Now What?

First, you thank your beta readers. They took the time to read your book, usually for nothing in return. So thank them!

Then, here comes the fun part (or the worst part, depending on who you ask, lol).

Now, you have the hardest part of writing, after getting the words down in the first place. Now, you have to read all those comments, over and over, and figure out what to do with your story based on them.

But, MJ, how the hell do I do that?

Well, a lot of this is trial and error and figuring out what works for you. But I can break down what I do. Keep in mind this is basically a skeleton version of what I do and may not work for everyone. You'll have to adapt this to you.

So I'll split this up by type of comment. In my experience, the majority of comments will fall into these categories. Some of these are "easy" to make changes on, and some are not.

Typos & Grammar

Style & Prose

Plot & Structure

Character Arcs & Development

Typos, Grammar, Style, & Prose

So, this is where personal style/taste will differ. For me, when I'm in the beta stage, I ignore these comments. Yep, you read that right. Ignore them. Completely. Like they don't exist.

During beta rounds, my goal is to analyze and fix the story and grammar and prose have very little to do with that. This is something I will edit right before I give it to another set of betas, but I never start here (unless it's a glaringly annoying typo).

However, if you are overwhelmed by how many comments you have, or have conflicting or hurtful comments (which I address below), or if you are sweating because you think you might have to rewrite large portions -- maybe start here. These edits are short, quick, and don't require Hard Decisions™, so you can edit these and feel productive, get back on track, dig a little deeper into your story, and it'll give you some time before you have to tackle the harder stuff. Overwise, I would hold off and not bother with this until other edits are made (because, if you end up rewriting a whole portion, then the typos/prose might change, anyway, so it's more work in the long run). But this is totally personal preference!

That said, when it comes to feedback on style and prose, I would be hesitant to jump in and change everything that readers recommended. In a lot of cases, this comes down to personal preference. Making your prose more/less descriptive, more/less concise, etc. etc. might not be making your writing better, just different. So, dive into these comments with a goal for your writing style in mind and only edit based on comments that 1) agree with this goal and 2) you agree that the change would make the prose stronger.

Examples: If you know you want your story to be fluffy and descriptive, you might ignore comments that ask you to shorten or remove descriptions, and instead act on comments that strengthen your descriptions. If you know you want your story to be minimalist, then you might ignore comments that ask for more descriptions, or only add in description if all betas agree that something is unclear or difficult to picture/follow.

Plot, Structure, & Character Arcs

This part is harder and can be overwhelming. This is the part where you might actually have to scrap, rewrite, and/or drastically change.

When I'm reading these bigger-picture comments, I jump in with these mindsets to help me focus:

All comments are opinions and suggestions. Regardless of how they are worded, I am not obligated to follow them.

They are trying to help me and want my book to be the best it can be. (If some readers seem to not have this intent, perhaps ignore those comments for now*.)

*I will discuss this more below

These reminders help me hold on to the positives, and I tend to start there. Which parts of my story did everyone across the board respond well to? Perhaps it's a specific character arc, or a particular plot point. I always like to make mental note of these, because no matter what happens with the rest of the comments, I don't want to lose these. I don't want to edit these parts out, I don't want to lose the most engaging parts of my story, even if there are a lot of issues that need editing. Even if the entire scene gets redone, I don't want to lose what people connected with.

Maybe even write these down. I don't do this personally, but maybe start a document and keep bullets of the parts that most/all betas collectively agree are the strongest parts.

Then, go through and do the same for the weakest parts. The hardest part of all this is figuring out which parts are actually weak, and which parts are just not to some readers' tastes. Then, on top of that, once you have found the flaws, you have to figure out how to fix them.

So how can you tell if a comment is pointing out an actual issue, or if it's personal taste? Here are some pointers:

Keep your goal in mind (re: the themes, a character's development, etc.) Does the comment conflict with your goal? If yes, it could be personal taste. (Or, it could mean something is unclear and/or they've interpreted it differently, in which case it's your decision to edit or not)

How many betas commented on it? If it's 1/5, then it's probably personal taste. If it's 4/5, you should take a deeper look.

Is the comment pointing out something you were considering changing / something you already suspected was weak? If yes, then it's probably a real issue. Always trust your gut.

Is the comment telling you how to change or fix something? If yes, take a step back. It might be a real issue, but you need to decide for yourself how to fix it.

Personally, I take notes and leave comments within the manuscript like sticky notes of what I'm going to change. For example, for a recent wip, multiple betas felt a particular scene was slow so I made a note for myself so the next time I go to edit I'll dig deep and figure out why it was slow for myself (regardless of what they think the reason is) and fix it.

But, when it comes right down to it, you have to make these decisions yourself. It can be very hard to determine which comments need action and which ones don't. A lot of it comes with experience.

On a side note (not to worry you lol) I thought when I went through multiple beta rounds with my first finished manuscript that it would be easier the second time. I thought: ok, I know what bad comments look like now. This will be easier on my next wip. Nope. Wrong. A new story meant a new audience meant new problems and new comments. It was easier, because I know how to handle the emotional side of it better. But actually discerning the major issues in the manuscript and how to fix it was not easier.

And one of the hardest parts about it is the next two sections, which is why I separated them out...

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Conflicting Comments

When you have multiple readers providing feedback, this is going to happen. It's inevitable.

One person might think your story is super slow, or that a plot point didn't make any sense, that a character's arc was pointless, or that the climax was a huge letdown. Another beta might say the exact the opposite. So what do you do?

Essentially, you have to decide for yourself and your story what to do. I don't have much advice here other than you're not alone in going back and forth.

I can tell my own story, though, and maybe you'll get something from it. Twice now, for two totally separate manuscripts (and genres), I have struggled with what to change when betas have incompatible criticisms and recommendations.

And over and over again, I have come across the same result:

Betas read it and make suggestions, and I make changes that I think are best at the time even though the comments were conflicting.

I let those betas reread it, and they LOVE it. So much better than the previous draft. Great!

I hand it to new betas, and they make the same exact comments that were made on the original draft. Again, just as conflicting as before.

And it's an endless cycle. And from it, I have learned that there is no such thing as a book that will satisfy everyone. No matter how polished, when you edit things to fit others' wants and needs, there are going to be others who don't like it.

And especially in my first manuscript and beta experience, I realized (after 5+ drafts) all I was doing was changing the story, but not making it better. I was adapting it to people's personal tastes, and in doing that, it was losing the me in it. I actually ended up going back and doing a full round of edits through the whole manuscript to literally inject myself back into the narrative. And it is wholly better for it.

I have gone through this twice now, where I have adapted manuscripts based on beta feedback and ended up in this loop.

If this does happen to you, the only recommendation I have for this is to step back. I wish I had done this sooner, both times. Force yourself to not look at the feedback or the manuscript for weeks—if not months. All of these changes you've made, all these different comments and feedback and drafts? Let it marinate, go work on something else, and come back later.

Conflicting comments are a part of writing. You're going to have to get used to it, and know that it's impossible that your story is going to resonate with everyone, or that your style is going to work for everyone. It takes experience and practice, like everything else, to get good at interpreting comments and acting on them.

But just know that conflicting comments doesn't mean your story is bad or that you need to scrap it and rewrite the whole thing. Conflicting comments is actually a good thing. It means, like all works of art, there are various interpretations, and readers with those differing interpretations are making recommendations based on them. You, as the writer, must decide your own intent for the work, and no one can tell you what to change or how to edit (at least, not until you have an editor/publisher lol). That's part of the writing process you have to figure out on your own.

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Negative Feedback: Headspace

Rude comments. Condescending comments. Comments that feel like a punch in the face.

They happen. To everyone that writes and has the guts to share it.

Sometimes comments had no intent at all to hurt your feelings but did, and sometimes comments just genuinely are condescending and mean.

Regardless, this is when writers get these nasty imposter syndrome thoughts. "I'm a bad writer" "a good writer wouldn't have gotten comments like this" "this beta is a good writer so what they say must be right and I'm a fraud."

Firstly I highly recommend reading the post I linked above and is linked again right here. What I'm about to say is along the same vein.

As the post says above, these negative thoughts are not objective.

That's not to say that you can't be upset about comments that trigger these thoughts. I've gotten comments before that, honestly, I can't think of a reason why someone would say that except with intent to hurt my feelings (or even in some instances gaslight). And it works, unfortunately.

So how can you get a handle on your negative, imposter-y thoughts?

Control Your Headspace: Be Objective

Take a step back and say, "This is an opinion." Writers and readers can be very good at stating their opinions as if they are facts. (See: this whole series of posts, which is really just all my opinion and personal experience, yet likely reads like an instruction manual. Nothing here is fact, either, by the way.)

"This book is unfinished." "Descriptions are required to set a scene." "You're not using this word correctly." "It doesn't make sense that this character would make this decision." "The beginning isn't as polished as the rest of the book."

None of these comments are, by themselves, hurtful (though the first one definitely stung). But all of these comments easily tried to sneak in and plant doubt: "the book needs to be redone, it's bad the way it is, I'm not a good writer."

Because yes, these are all real comments (slightly paraphrased) that I've gotten in various beta rounds. And they all sound like facts, don't they? And probably, some of the people leaving these comments believe they are facts.

But they're not.

And this is why I'm going to emphasize two points made in the above post I linked: do not dwell on the most recent comments only, and be objective.

Having 3+ betas is so, so important for this reason. Having multiple sets of eyes and feedback can be the difference between dwelling on one person who didn't click with your story, and being able to clearly see "ok, this person just didn't get it" because other betas did.

That's not to say that if someone didn't like it or is telling you to change something or that something didn't work for them that you should ignore it. But it does mean you shouldn't let these comments seep into your subconscious with negative self-talk.

And there are a few points I want to make here, regarding being objective when you look at comments like these.

Even if a comment is harsh or hurtful, that does not mean it's useless. Being objective means you can take a step back, acknowledge that the comment stings, and come back to it later when you can be more objective.

Condescending and (purposefully) mean/hurtful comments can actually be useful. They force you to defend your work! Defending your work, seeing the worth in your work, is a huge part of the battle against negative self-talk and imposter syndrome. See this post for more discussion on this.

Even if you do multiple betas and they all collectively agree (including yourself) that your book needs a complete rewrite or needs to be scrapped, this objectively does not make you a bad writer.

Being objective means you can distinguish not only opinion from fact, but acknowledge that needing massive edits, even dropping the book entirely—these negative thoughts are not true.

Objectively, all writers have shitty drafts. All writers have stories hidden in a drawer somewhere that are so unfixable they won't ever see the light of day. Yes, even the Big Ones™ like Neil.

Getting negative feedback, harsh or mean comments, readers who don't connect with your work, having shitty drafts, and tossing drafts away entirely are all part of writing and none of these things make you a bad writer.

Fighting with your inner imposter syndrome and negative thoughts is an ongoing battle that all artists face. It comes with the territory. Hopefully some of my rambling will help you fight that battle.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Editing Your Story

Alright. I'm not going to tell you how to actually edit your book because that's not my job and every writer works differently. What works for me probably won't work for you.

But I do want to say that even though this is often seen as the hardest part of writing (other than getting the words down the first time, I guess), it can also be the most fun and hopeful time as well.

You finished a manuscript. That's a huge accomplishment. Even though having all this feedback can be daunting, especially when everyone has their own ideas of how your story needs to change, this can be the most rewarding time because you are creating a plan on how to make your story exactly what you want it to be.

So, at least for me, the only thing I can really recommend is to break down your own book as if you are a reader yourself - taking a break from it (again, for months) can help you come back with fresher eyes for this - and analyze your own story as a fake audience member.

What are your themes? What are you exploring? What are your take-home messages? When you put the book down, what do you feel and what did you learn?

Then, compare: Did beta readers, in general, have the same experience you did? Were they able to name the themes and have a similar experience reading your story? If not, focus on the comments they made that reveal insight into why they didn't. These comments are probably going to point you in the right direction of what to change.

Other things to consider, regardless of comments:

If you outlined, go back to your original outline and see what's changed. Did you leave anything out? Were any themes or plot points lost that you would like to include? (or vice versa)

Are there any themes you want to explore that you haven't yet? Or any that need more emphasis?

Do all the characters that you want to have development have satisfying arcs? Do any of them need more page time or feel unfinished?

Does the prose style align with what you want?

Regardless of whether readers agree/disagree or even commented on these at all, I like to take these into account during the editing process. Because editing isn't just "what did readers say and how do I fix it?" Betas are here to show you how your work will be interpreted by an audience and share opinions—that's all, really.

In reality, editing is you analyzing your own story and making it the best version of itself as humanly possible, while knowing that it isn't possible.

You do what you can. You make changes that you agree with, that strengthen your story, to tell the story you want to tell, even if others don't always like it. That's what makes it yours.

So go forth and make your stories magic. That's what all stories are, after all.

Peace out

~MJ

#writeblr #writblr #writers on tumblr #writeblr community #writerblr #writer community #beta reading #beta readers #writing community #novel writing #writers of tumblr #wtwcommunity #mj posts #mj talks about beta reading

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lees-chaotic-brain · 28 days ago

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HIIII

🏁-Looking back at the first thing you've written/posted, how have you improved since then?

🌓- Show us a snippet of a before and an after between drafts! What did you change and why?

HI HI. HOW ARE YOU ML??

writerblr ask game!!!

1. um so the first thing i ever wrote/posted was my gojo x oc fic otherworldly. (don't look for it it's deleted for the time being). honestly i think at that point i was really bad at managing word flow, my dialogue was really cringe, and i was bad at describing emotion. that being said, i think all of that has gotten so much better in the last fourteen odd months!

2 so for this i'll actually use my current wip, because i've done SO much revising and it's a really good example.

this also got kinda long so the rest is beneath the cut. enjoy this little peek into my writing process for these fics!!

when i first start writing a song fic i look up the lyrics online, listen to the song, and select somewhere around three and five groups of lyrics i like. then i copy and paste them into the doc, and outline what the portion based on each set of lyrics is about.

as you can see in these screenshots i have the major sections of the fic outlined with the last two lines of each portion being the lyrics. i didn't include the last section because i didn't want to spoil anything.

from here i pick the section that speaks to me the most and start writing. i'll show you a few examples below.

so clearly some of them only have a couple of sentences added, but i continued developing my ideas. normally this is where the process for these fics ends. i just write the sections, tie them together a little, edit and post. but this is different.

i think the most important change here is i decided i wanted to do it in a 5 + 1 format so you can see that i labelled the sections with numbers and a heading.

but then yesterday i decided that i didn't like how i had set it up and completely redid the set up. i don't want to spoil it since some of the parts are in their final draft, but this is pretty much the final version of the first paragraph

that way i can shift into the 5 + 1 smoother, but honestly it might not even be a 5 + 1 anymore i still need to work out the formatting. also i don't know if i'm actually going to include the lyrics in this one which is going to be a big change.

anyways sorry for the yap sesh! hope you enjoyed this look into my brain lol.

#ignore the fact that the text is green #it's because it's in my version history #lee's brain answers #lee's brain moots!#from: berryzxx-writes #chats with berry 🍓☀️

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arimiadev · 1 year ago

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Canvas Menagerie — October Updates

Spooky season has come and gone! October was a very, very busy month for me so there wasn't much progress on Canvas Menagerie, but definitely some.

So, let's look at what progress was made for Canvas Menagerie in October.

I had a main goal to hit by the end of October—finish the first draft of Act 2, the 2nd portion of the game. And I hit it!

It came out much shorter than I anticipated. I originally estimated it would be around 60k but the first draft came out to be 44k. For reference, I estimated Act 1 would be around 50k—the first draft ended up around 55k and is currently just shy of 58k after further editing.

For Act 2 I ended up removing several "filler" scenes I had outlined and I pushed a couple of scenes at the end to Act 3. Once I write more of Act 3 I'll be able to tell if I like these changes or not, as I won't start scripting these parts into Ren'Py for quite a while. Act 2 also still needs quite a bit of editing for some of the scenes, so while the first draft is done, it's not completely ready.

I'm still unsure on how I want to go about distributing CM. I've been back and forth on ideas, ranging from releasing it episodically to releasing it all at once to releasing Act 1 as a standalone game and Acts 2 & 3 as DLC. I do want Act 1 to serve as a standalone experience, as Act 3 will be more ~ drama ~ than slice of life. If you have a preference, let me know!

Now, onto art!

I realized there wasn't an (updated) key art featuring the cast, only ones for Niko and Ren, so that was my second goal for October.

Fun fact, I did actually draw most of the characters' parts that are hidden by the others... They're all on separate layers so I could easily readjust them.

Last but not least... happy (late) Halloween!!

(Niko is a bunny ghost and Ren is a lazy vampire. maybe next year he won't dress so lazily...)

——

Canvas Menagerie is a slice of life romance game about a transmasc actor getting the lead role in a major TV show and follows the cast of the show going through their mid-20s together—and his budding romance with the celebrity who plays his rival on the show.

itch.io demo ♥ more devlogs

#visual novel #visual novels #indie games #gay games #visual novel game #lgbt games #my games #canvas menagerie #devlog

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courtanie · 9 months ago

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how were you able to get into writing and did you ever struggle? i'm currently 20 years old and attempting to develop my skills, but it feels so infuriating knowing that i'm somewhat behind in comparison to other people my age. the comparison thing is a major roadblock - i read tons of media and whenever it's my turn to write, i look back on whatever i've written, read, then boil in envy. i don't know how to write well without making myself feel bad.

Well first off, take a deep breath and know that every writer has gone through exactly that and continues to do so. It's a game of never-ending improvement and backsliding and reusing any prose you come up with that you actually liked a teeny bit and honestly it's all just a mess.

But it can be a fun mess.

I started writing when I was 15 and it was literally just an outlet for my teenage rage at that point. Then trauma happened and it became a trauma outlet instead. But also I was just bubbling with ideas and no one wrote things that I wanted to read in particular so clearly I just had to do it myself. Which is literally what I still do. No one else is writing Kyle having a bad time in the exact way I like it so I gotta take the reins.

I know the rule of thumb is "never compare yourself!!!!" but literally no one heeds that. No one can. I compare myself to others, too (which is half the reason I stopped reading don't do that like I did srsly it's a bad idea). But like here's the thing: Do you want to get your stories out? That's literally all that matters. It doesn't matter how bad/good/mediocre it may be, you're writing for you. And you just have to accept that sometimes you're gonna write badly. I still do alllll the time. Sometimes my chapters are really poor because I'm slogging through them trying to get to the exciting parts that prompted the story idea in the first place. Sometimes I have to go back six years later and edit a large portion of a story because I want it going in a different direction or I just thought that what I had didn't hold up. I've deleted so many of my old stories, I've cringed and apologized to my audience and myself so many fucking times.

I shouldn't've.

Bad writing is still something that wasn't there before you brought it into the world. It's still creative and enthralling and a piece of you. Babe you're gonna cringe and you're gonna get angry with yourself and you're gonna get hung up on a sentence and not be able to look at that chapter again to work on it for a couple months because you're so frustrated and lost. But that's okay! It's the process. That whole "we're our own worst critic" adage holds a lot of water, but you have to embrace it and just keep pushing forward regardless. Write it and if you still don't like it, go back and rewrite the entire thing again with the first one open as comparison. You'll make wild changes and settle into it better, trust me.

And believe me, I've struggled and continue to do so. I am literally being roasted by my readers because "oh wow the annual update!" which. Is hilarious and true. I'm really struggling right now due to real life stuff and I've gone on several hiatuses in my 15 years writing. I am notorious about shittalking my style and my lack of creativity. I am wildly out of practice and it's showed lately so I'm back crawling my way up the hill trying to find my footing again and improve after my backslide. But that's what happens with any skill, if you don't use it, if you don't do your damn scales and arpeggios, you're gonna lose what you've gained. And it's disheartening, but it's a reason for you to just keep pushing forward and write the damn thing regardless of self-criticism.

There is always going to be someone better than you, that's how it works for all of us, especially in this subjective of a hobby. But that also means you're better than some people. And the wild thing is, no matter how 'bad' you think you are? You're gonna be someone's favorite author, I absolutely guarantee it. Some of what I considered to be my "worst" stories have had people coming and telling me they were their favorites, that they reread them every night and have their own special binder on their bookshelf. Just keep fucking going, dude. You're never gonna stop improving unless you stop altogether.

#buck up babe #remember that it's all for fun #writing is not life-or-death #do as i say not as i do

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powerofmettatonneo · 10 months ago

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Happy Birthday Jason!/An Announcement + Bonus Content

After half a month of no updates on What Measure is a Non-Human, I finally have one! And, since y'all have been dedicated enough to follow my Tumblr, y'all get to be the first ones to know (all one of you currently; hi IYP! Thanks for all the support!).

I've been hard at work writing the story, but not spending as much time editing it as I would like, so I'm currently sitting on two-three chapters. This is because the mental downtime I have at my job gives me a lot of time to think of ideas that I want to immediately write down before I forget them, but the physical time I spend there takes away from the time I can spend editing it. I could hypothetically release them with less editing done on them, but I want to hold myself to a higher standard of what I release into the world and do genuinely enjoy the editing process. However, with that all being said, I have three days off in a row, and I'm going to use this chance to buckle down and try and get them ready for publication by Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, I can't promise anything, but I do have other news that I can make assurances on.

I've decided that Valentine's Day is Jason's birthday. I wanted to give most of the major characters birth months, at least, just for chronological cohesion; I chose this day in particular for Jason because I have personal history with the day that, when combined with the fact that he's the mc of a romance story, made it the perfect day for him. In celebration of his birthday, I have written out a 7k word prequel one-shot all about the confession/first kiss that I will be posting on Valentine's Day, come hell or high water.

I actually wrote a first draft of the first kiss portion all the way back in December, right after the second chapter, and as a bonus for those of you who take the time to find this post, whether now or in the future, I'm going to share it with you. Most of it will be repetitive to the last bit of the finished story, so beware of spoilers I guess (but this is a prequel anyways so like do they even matter), but I have added enough to the final product to make it stand out and above. Really, this is largely just to archive it as I think it's interesting to see how any story evolves over time, much less my own, and I hope y'all feel the same way. See y'all on Valentine's Day, and without further ado, here goes the original first kiss scene (also fair warning, there's still no smut, but it does get more explicit than I've previously allowed it to):

…Hazel reached up and kissed him. Jason entered a state of shock, freezing in place. At first, his mind went completely and totally blank, but that quickly changed into a series of scattered thoughts as his mind tried to reconfigure itself. I'm being kissed. By Hazel. Who is a Pokemon. Oh Arceus, I’m being kissed by a Pokemon—and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever felt. As soon as he returned to coherent thought, however, the kiss ended. Hazel pulled away, and Jason could see that she looked… scared. The look in her eyes was the same that he had when he confessed his feelings to her. It hit him then; the kiss was her idea of a response, and he had just frozen in place like an idiot. He could imagine the doubts and fears rushing through her at his complete lack of a reaction. He also knew exactly how to alleviate them.

Jason narrowed the gap between them and restarted the kiss. He could clearly feel the surprise in his partner and just as clearly feel it melt away as she returned it. Her lips felt velvety against his as they both pushed against each other with all their might. All of the nerves, the adrenaline, the raw energy they were feeling was channeled into the kiss. They fell back onto the bed, Hazel on top, and didn't stop for a second. It felt like they were melting together, becoming one.

Hazel broke from the kiss, and before Jason had a chance to react, she dragged her tongue across his lips. She moved it down, trailing along his chin and neck, resulting in a small moan escaping his mouth. When she arrived at his shirt, she grabbed it with her teeth and began tugging at it.

“S-stop,” Jason gasped, lightly pushing his partner back. Hazel let go of his shirt and stared at him, a look of disappointment in her eyes. It hurt him to see it, but he had read enough ‘romance’ stories to know where this was going.

“I’m sorry, but we can’t do this right now,” he said, trying to let her down gently.

“Umbre,” she whimpered, looking down at her feet. She felt ashamed at herself for pushing so hard so fast and afraid of what her best friend would think of her for it. Or, she did, until the implication of those last two words hit her. She jolted her head back back up and was met with a worried smile on Jason’s face.

“I’m not saying never,” he started, “but I don’t think I’m ready for something like that yet, and I’m pretty sure mom would just straight up kill us if she found out.” Hazel just sighed at that, but even the vague hope of “not never” sent a small shiver up her spine. She laid down on top of him, enjoying his warmth. They sat there in a comfortable silence for a while, simply enjoying each other’s touch in the wake of the roller coaster of emotions they had both just experienced, and soon drifted off to sleep, not caring what tomorrow might bring so long as they had each other.

[Also, one final super extra bonus note: my beta only left one comment on this original draft when I showed it to her, and it was too funny not to mention: on the line "Her lips felt velvety against his", she simply wrote "I refuse to consider the mechanics of this", to which I simply responded "coward".]

#what measure is a non-human #fanfic #human x pokemon

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midnightwriteson · 2 months ago

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Bad Habits - World Building 1

Just something I was thinking of when I was updating Bad Habits. While I've been reading BDSM stories and doing research here and there over the years, this is the first time I've delved into writing it. I'll keep saying it, I'm not perfect, I may make mistakes, but I'm going to be true to it as much as possible.

First off, I'm not going to expect everyone to know what BDSM is, so we're going to start off with a little bit of a definition. Essentially BDSM is very much a multi-faceted acronym. BD stands for Bondage and Discipline, DS is Dominance and Submission, and SM is Sadism/Masochism. To keep from getting flagged on Tumblr I'm not going to get into the mechanics of all of that, but I will say that Bad Habits with mostly get into the BD and the DS portion of it. You can find a lot of research online if you want to learn more, but also know that the internet is not always accurate or people are highly opinionated on certain subjects and this one is included, so take what you read with an open mind. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In my world we're going to focus on two BDSM clubs:

-Cloud Reassess - will be the club owned by Lan Xichen and Lan Wangji. Even though in canon it's the home to the Gusu Lan Clan, I just thought the name and the association of the clouds/sky as an allusion to transcendence or ecstasy interesting. The majority of the main cast of MDZS will be associated with this club. It's a club with a stellar reputation and while their may be some boarder line possibly dubious content, my focus is to show a positive interaction and play in the club. While my focus will be the relationship between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian, if there's enough interest in the other pairings, I may write little interludes or side stories.

-Nevernight - Will be the club owned by the Wen Clan. On thing I've picked up from watching the Donghua is that the translation they use for the Wen's home is Nevernight. I don't know what the direct translation, but more often than not I see Nightless City. I personally like Nevernight better. Sounds cooler to me so this story is giving me the opportunity to use it. I will make it clear that most of what will be associated with Nevernight will not be good practices of BDSM. The Wen will be my villains in this story as they often are and I do not condone the activities that come up in this place. I feel to be realistic to what goes on and while I know plenty of the BDSM community will not like it, it's sadly something that does occur. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cloud Reassess Bracelet System: I wanted a non-verbal way to show acceptable activities and conduct on sight. More than one can be worn if you want to communicate a mix of things looking for in the night, but I tried to keep them pretty divided. My mind keeps going to those stretchy type bracelets that used to have words on them. Something easy to take on and off and interchangeable as people change their mind. I settled on the image below (they are plain without words just colorful):

These are of course something that I jotted down while brainstorming, so these might be edited as new things come up, but so you have access to the color code, here's what I have so far: Red - Observing Only (No participating and not to approach for a scene.) Orange - Touching/Making Out Allowed (This is to be more open to exploring with a partner but not going all the way) Yellow - All Vanilla Activities Allowed in Private (Open to sex and more intimate practices in private) Green - Adding Bondage/Negotiating Lighter Kinks In Private Blue - Okay with all the above and bringing things public/Likes to watch Indigo - Open to discuss odder kinks/fetishes Violet - Looking for harder play/kinks (like S/M or pain play) White - Staff On Duty/Off Limits (Usually worn with other colored bracelets to show what staff is open to. Unable to act on it while on the clock, but able to discuss if interested. Most staff are in committed relationships however.) Black - Taken/In committed partnerships/relationships. Can be worn with other colors to signify an open relationship or willingness to bring someone else into a scene between committed partners, but alone means completely off limits under all circumstances and will get you booted from the club for trying

Also if you all think of something I miss on the scale, I'm happy to add to the list or create another color. I feel like there is so much that could be explored here, so feel free to drop the suggestion either in a DM here, on the story comments, or even in my discord. I will be back with more World Building and probably talk some BDSM terms at a later date.

#Bad Habits #World Building #Fan Fiction #FanFic #Explanations

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oilbun · 2 years ago

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I wanna make some edits and make some stuff clear cause ice gotten some negative feedback on this.

1. When I made the tweets I felt like the 4 year gap between the showings and the public teaser drop wasn't right, but further research says the showings took place around February 2017, so yes, it was 4 years, im not crazy

2. I'm saying all this as someone with an art major who majored in animation for a while. I'll admit I don't fully know my shit, I'm a nobody who finished art school with Sequential Art and dropped animation. I know that animation isn't easy to make, I've pulled all nighters or very late nights animating. Animated movies take a while. At least 4 years on the short end. We never bat an eye when western animation takes this long (but do keep standing up for the projects that were canceled).

3. I'm not necessarily defending Mappa, I'm defending the animators, the YOI crew/Hasetsu townspeople. This is their baby (canceled or not) and no one should keep harassing them. You wouldn't want people hounding you over it either. There's probably a reason the creators deleted their socials. I'm aware of the animation conditions in Japan, and yeah, they aren't great. I didn't touch on that cause that's a different topic.

4. I'm aware Mappa took it off their WIP portion of the site. But there's no official statement saying production was canceled. You can interpret that move as an error, cancelation, whatever, you do you. But I have faith, and if I'm wrong I'm wrong at the end of the day. That's OK. Yeah the silence kinda sucks, and the website blurb is the only changed update I've seen, but there's not much else they can really update us with? It's possible it's under some kind of NDA so it can't quite be publically spoken about yet, it's possible they just don't have an update ready for us yet. You're allowed to be upset with the slience, but again DONT HARRASS MAPPA OR THE PR SOCIALS about it. It's not gonna fix anything.

If you wanna believe it's canceled that's fine, but there's some of us that are willing to wait. Harassing their socials is just annoying and looks bad on us as a fandom. At least be cordial. When the PR team has an announcement they can make, we'll be the first to know. We also don't know how contracts about these sorts of things works in Japan. Believe me, if I could reach out to someone on Hasetsu Townspeople or Mappa I would, but it's currently not possible. I'm just giving a timeline of events, giving the team the benefit of the doubt because I know this stuff isn't easy to make, and just asking people not to harrass these companies and teams. Harassing them isn't okay, I understand being upset but that's not the way to handle it. Be patient if you want, just don't be annoying.

posting it here too cause I'm over seeing tiktoks of people complaing about Ice Adolescence's delay. One person going so far as to say "Mappa is lying and deceiving us"... bestie...

Here's a thread of tweets I made regarding the timeline of events for YOI Ice Ado:

All I ask is that the fandom contine to be patient for the passion project of a movie that's being made for us and to stop harassing Mappa and YOI social media's about the movie

#yuri on ice #ice adolescence #studio mappa #mappa #yoi #ice ado #ice ado when #yuri katsuki #victor nikirofov #psa #this is a psa #just be patient #anime #anime movie #animation #this is the last update to this post

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undertale-data · 3 years ago

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[Image Description: An Undertale chat box that has “WHY FANS LOVE UNDERTALE” at its center. Next to it are a line chart and an Egg from the Dating Hub on its left, and a CRIME measurer (also from the Dating Hub) on its right. End I.D.]

[Image Description: a pie chart titled, “LEVEL OF LOVE FOR UNDERTALE.” The textbox on the top right reads, “On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least and 10 being the highest, how much do fans enjoy Undertale?” From the top going clockwise, 12 or 0% chose 5 and below; 23 or 1% chose 6; 98, or 4%, chose 7; 325, or 12%, chose 8; 529, or 20%, chose 9; and 1664, or 63%, chose 10. End I.D.]

It’s clear from all of the data analyzed so far that fans who took the time to answer our survey love Undertale. It is unlikely that they would have taken the time to answer so many questions if they had not, and even less likely that they would have come across our survey in the first place. Naturally, it comes as no surprise that 63% of our responders gave their love for Undertale a score of ten out of ten. 95% gave their love for Undertale a score of eight or higher, and only 12 responders responded with five or below, a number so small that their responses had to be lumped together to be visible on the pie chart. Of those, only 3 responders gave their love for Undertale a score of 1, and based on those responders’ other answers, it is likely that they were only intending to troll. We are very fortunate that the vast majority of responders took the survey seriously, enough so that responses like this are barely a blip in the data.

Now, for our final analysis post of the event, we will delve into the reasons that fans love Undertale so dearly.

(Essay and highlights under the cut.)

There have been countless essays on the impact that Undertale has had on people’s lives. I can hardly add more on the subject than what has already been said, but I hope this summary can provide a brief overview of what stood out among the over two thousand answers given in response to this survey. That said, due to the sheer volume of answers, I could not read every single one in depth—however, I did skim all of them, and some that stood out or were representative of several responses have been highlighted below. If you would like to see what every fan who consented to share their response had to say, you may view the full list of responses here. Note that these responses have not been edited in any way. This document may take a long time to load, as it is over 100 pages long.

(Warnings for mentions of suicidal thoughts in the following essay.)

Several responders loved the theme of choices mattering in Undertale. Whether people played the pacifist, merciless, or neutral routes, they enjoyed how the game reacted to their actions. For some, it even made them consider their own morality. One touching response explained the impact that the theme of mercy made on them. “I realized that Mercy isn't something that's given to those who deserve it. Flowey didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it myself. Shoot, we ALL need Mercy in our lives.” Many fans left similar comments about how the themes of Undertale made them better people.

Undertale changed how its fans treat others, and it also changed how fans treat themselves. The theme of staying determined and the messages of hope in the game were a light to a very large portion of fans. I cannot list all of the fans who said that Undertale helped them out of a dark place, or that they would not be alive if not for Undertale. “DETERMINATION became a metaphor for not killing myself at a really rough time in my life and I’ll always cherish that. Undertale isn’t afraid to go to really dark places but at the same time holds on so tight to its hope.”

Undertale brought fans together in unexpected ways. Some said they met friends or significant others through the fandom. “I wouldn't have met my now husband without Undertale,” one fan said. A different fan who is non-native English speaking mentioned that the game and the fan community helped them to learn English.

It would be impossible to discuss Undertale without mentioning the fan community. Whether for good or bad, many responders mentioned the fandom in their responses. Overall the feelings towards the fandom seem positive, though many made references to “toxic” parts of the fandom without specifying which parts they consider toxic. Others rejected the idea of toxicity in fandom. One response said: “[SLAMS FIST ON DESK] I KNOW MOST PEOPLE SAY THE FANDOM IS TOXIC AND CRINGE OR WHATEVER BUT OH MY GOD. The Undertale fandom, both the UTMV and the actual UT fandom, has been so much fun to be a part of. I've met countless friends because of our shared interest in something related to the game! The art people create can be breathtaking and so inspirational, and the fanfics are so so good!! I've seen people write incredible things for this fandom and it's what made me continue writing!”

One thing that makes the Undertale fandom unique is the way it embraces various AUs. Some fans are tired of AU content, but the majority of responses show a love for the creativity behind AUs. “Roll your eyes at the 50th AU Sans all you want, it's encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of fanart and pushing people to make their own ideas! I mean, hell, it was how I gained the confidence to start making my own original content.” The lack of a judgemental atmosphere seems present in the AU community, according to the responses we saw. There is an interesting balance between AU and canon (sometimes referred to as “classic”) content that another responder pointed out: “The fandom helped keep the game alive all these years, with all of its AUs. Although personally, I always enjoyed AUs that kept characters as close to the classic material as possible (dancetale, outertale) I do appreciate the creativity of the fandom. They almost created entirely new stories with new characters of their own! If it weren't for those people, the Undertale fandom would have probably not been as active as it is now. I do feel like we're getting a resurgence of classic content now too! (In 2021)”

Regardless of the many AUs the fandom has created over the years, the original game of Undertale still feels like home for many fans. They wished they could reclaim the feeling of playing the game again for the first time, but even though we can’t reset time in real life, there is still a special feeling for fans each time they play Undertale. One fan said, “Even the best fics I've read can't capture that feeling of nostalgia/almost-"coming home" that comes with hearing the music and talking to the characters.” This feeling is one that can be cherished time and time again. In the words of another responder: “It always feels welcoming like home or like comfort food that I never grow tired of no matter how many times I go to it.” Others pointed out the strength of the found family trope in Undertale, which likely contributes to this feeling of “home” as well.

As mentioned briefly earlier, the music is part of what makes Undertale feel like home for fans. Even when responses focused on other aspects of the game, many would throw in a comment about the soundtrack at the end. One comment focused on the music said “IT'S SO GOOD like I will literally go through the entire thing over and over and not be bored with it. It makes my monkey brain so happy you have no idea.” Like with the game itself, the music has incredible replay value, an amazing feat considering most of the tracks use the same few motifs. “I think what I like the most about Undertale is how the music attaches you to the story,” another responder said. “They're simple melodies that stick with you throughout the whole game, and they can remind you of both good and bad times.”

If the music sticks with fans in their hearts, then the game’s lore sticks with fans in their minds. Even six years after the release of Undertale, fans are still creating new theories and digging up new secrets. The way the game breaks the fourth wall in particular intrigued many fans and has stuck out through all these years. The awareness that the game shows for the RPG genre makes it memorable. The game plays with the player’s expectations and turns them on their heads, all while reminding the player that they’re in a game. There are few other games that do this on such a large scale, so it’s no surprise that fans cite this as one of their favorite things about Undertale.

Lastly, the LGBT+ representation in Undertale has been a huge draw for fans. Especially in 2015, the sheer volume of non-cishet characters was unprecedented, as one fan pointed out: “It's practically unheard of to see so MANY from just one source, especially during its heyday in 2015-16. Hell, you can't even GET the true pacifist ending without helping two gay couples hook up. It's really nice to see all of them being accepted for who they are and not judged for their sexuality or gender, at least in-canon.” The LGBT+ cast including Frisk, Chara, Napstablook, Monster Kid, Mettaton, Alphys, and Undyne each connected with fans in unique ways. It’s clear how important this is from responses such as: “There are canon nonbinary characters 🥺. i have never seen representation of myself before.” “It made me gay and trans so thanks for that.”

Once again I am overwhelmed with just how much there is to say about Undertale. One responder really understood when they compared Undertale to an iceberg, explaining that there are so many layers to the game that there is something for everyone: “everyone can find something to enjoy in the lore/game regardless of what kind of fan they are! Being able to appeal to various types of fans—from simple happy shipper people to deep dive lorediggers—is the mark of the coolest games!” I would have to agree with them.

It’s been six years, and despite everything, it’s still you. Thank you for reading, participating in this survey, and above all, staying determined.

Highlights:

DETERMINATION became a metaphor for not killing myself at a really rough time in my life and I’ll always cherish that. Undertale isn’t afraid to go to really dark places but at the same time holds on so tight to its hope.

I think the coolest thing was having the opportunity to watch the AU community grow from its bare roots. It's nearly insane how big and complex it's gotten, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Roll your eyes at the 50th AU Sans all you want, it's encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of fanart and pushing people to make their own ideas! I mean, hell, it was how I gained the confidence to start making my own original content.

i love how the lgbt rep is so naturalized... there are just gay people! and its nobodys business!

The music is my go to answer, but what I really really REALLY love is how the minor characters have so much personality to them when you talk to them. They aren't incredibly important to the overall story, but they're all so likeable and diverse that you just can't help but like them immediately!

I think it was the first videogame I have played that broke the fourth wall that much. Of course there has been other videogames that broke it but just for one or two tongue-in-cheek jokes. The guilt of killing mama goat was also something intense as well that I appreciated as an experience and that I didn't think a videogame could cause on someone.

I love how no character can be seen as completely bad! Everyone builds up Asgore as some horrible villain, but he turns out to be a 'fuzzy pushover' who's broken and just wants his family back by the time you meet him. Then you think Flowey's an irredeemable killer who engineered the suffering of the monsters across many timelines, and he is... but he also used to be the kind and beloved Prince Asriel Dreemurr, traumatized by his death and subsequent rebirth, projecting his best friend onto you.

The fact that choices matter in the game. Your first playthrough and getting the golden ending for the first time. I can never replicate those feelings again, wish I could erase my memories and replay the game from the start.

I wouldn't have met my now husband without Undertale.

(Toxic parts of the fandom aside) The community is possibly one of the kindest I've ever met. Cringe culture is completely dead, and I feel like I can be myself. I felt a very close connection to many of the characters, and I loved consuming content about them when I was in a rough patch in my life.

just everything, the whole game has just impacted my life so much. i know it sounds really lame, but when the game first came out, i would purposely put my hands in my pockets and sway slightly, like sans' idle animation. of course i dont do that anymore haha, but undertale still really impacts me to this day, and i wouldnt have it any other way :)

it made me gay and trans so thanks for that

I realized that Mercy isn't something that's given to those who deserve it. Flowey didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it myself. Shoot, we ALL need Mercy in our lives.

The thing I love most about Undertale is no matter how many times I play or watch a playthrough it always makes me genuinely happy. It always feels welcoming like home or like comfort food that I never grow tired of no matter how many times I go to it. Toriel still makes me feel all warm and cozy in her home, the Skelebros always make me laugh, and I still cry on the inside watching Frisk comforting Asriel. And on the flip side the No Mercy run still invokes the negative emotions in me as well. In short Undertale just feels like a second home to me and I always wish I could stay.

The reader inserts are my favorite way to decompress after a hard day

I think Undertale helped me discover my love for 8-bit games, and made me realize how IMPORTANT music is in video games.

the worldbuilding and character design are my favorite parts of the main game apart from the music! I’m also a huge fan of the random AU music- not for like underswap or underfell i like the stuff where someone makes a megalovania for a random au where gru from despicable me replaces sans as the character. i think its funny

Just... the vibe, honestly? Even the best fics I've read can't capture that feeling of nostalgia/almost-"coming home" that comes with hearing the music and talking to the characters.

there are canon nonbinary characters 🥺. i have never seen representation of myself before.

[SLAMS FIST ON DESK] I KNOW MOST PEOPLE SAY THE FANDOM IS TOXIC AND CRINGE OR WHATEVER BUT OH MY GOD. The Undertale fandom, both the UTMV and the actual UT fandom, has been so much fun to be a part of. I've met countless friends because of our shared interest in something related to the game! The art people create can be breathtaking and so inspirational, and the fanfics are so so good!! I've seen people write incredible things for this fandom and it's what made me continue writing!

There's a scene where Frisk (the player) is going towards what is presumably going to be their death. They will fight Asgore and he will use their human soul to break the barrier and free his people. The music, despite the player's impending doom, is... triumphant. You are not the triumphant one here, and yet, the score invites you to experience the monsters' joy and happiness as they tell you the tale of their subjugation. The monsters are going to be free. This is their victory, but they don't hate you or want you to die. They're just... happy. That scene has always struck me very deeply. I feel it represents the best parts of Undertale.

I loved how well thought out the Geno route was. It really made me feel like I was doing something horrible, and the characters were very obviously reacting to dire circumstances.

I dunno? I like Undertale for it's characters, story, music, secrets and many more. I am not good with Headcanons but I also like the neutral endings and how different they can depending on who you spare and kill

I was very bad at english before, i thought i couldn't progress because i was very shy and not confident. But my sibling and i wanted to have the best experience with this game so we wanted to play it in english. It's this game and the fandom which helped me to make huge progress in english !

THE SOUNDTRACK. IT'S SO GOOD like I will literally go through the entire thing over and over and not be bored with it. It makes my monkey brain so happy you have no idea.

to avoid writing an essay i will say one word. Mettaton

It is like Toby specifically made the games to fit the iceberg meme and it's awesome, everyone can find something to enjoy in the lore/game regardless of what kind of fan they are! Being able to appeal to various types of fans - from simple happy shipper people to deep dive lorediggers is the mark of the coolest games!

I love almost everything about Undertale as a game on its own. The music, the art and especially the characters and how they interact. They made me feel at home. Undertale means a huge amount to me. (I even got a tattoo of the castle when you and MK walk together!) The fandom helped keep the game alive all these years, with all of its AUs. Although personally, I always enjoyed AUs that kept characters as close to the classic material as possible (dancetale, outertale) I do appreciate the creativity of the fandom. They almost created entirely new stories with new characters of their own! If it weren't for those people, the Undertake fandom would have probably not been as active as it is now. I do feel like we're getting a resurgence of classic content now too! (In 2021)

the mystery. toby fox refused to give answers to anything and i think thats very sexy of him.

I just feel guilty for liking it so much when I'm in my 30's. But I recently got diagnosed with ASD, so I guess it explains things a bit. Many ppl consider Papyrus to be neurodivergent, and some adult fans are too, so seeing that makes me feel a bit better.

i think about "Despite everything, it's still you" everyday of my life.

I like how it's just as funny as it can be serious. All routes are this way. I laughed as much as I cried when I played the Pacifist route and then once I opened the game again and Flowey was telling me to let them be happy, I immediately turned off the game. I somehow felt bad.

The Found Family Trope

The True Pacifist Ending is just...man. And the fanworks about saving everyone even when the game doesn't let you? MANNNNNN

I think what I like the most about Undertale is how the music attaches you to the story. They're simple melodies that stick with you throughout the whole game, and they can remind you of both good and bad times.

there's honestly a LOT to love about this game, but i think one of my favorite things about it is just how many lgbt+ characters there are??? i can think of alphys, undyne, frisk, chara, mettaton, napstablook, monster kid, asgore, mad mew mew, the dress lion, the royal guards, and arguably even papyrus off of the top of my head, but im sure i'm forgetting a few from just undertale alone (there's even MORE in deltarune)!! it's practically unheard of to see so MANY from just one source, especially during its heyday in 2015-16. hell, you can't even GET the true pacifist ending without helping two gay couples hook up. it's really nice to see all of them being accepted for who they are and not judged for their sexuality or gender, at least in-canon.

[Image description: A wordcloud in the shape of the capitalized word UNDERTALE. The text is white on a black background, and uses the font found in the game. Some of the most visible words are: Game, Love, Music, Life, AU, Store, Friend, and Feel, which represent the most common words in the essays people wrote about their love for the game. End of ID]

#undertale #analysis #results #undertale fandom census

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zgongjin · 2 years ago

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Is it true that in an earlier version of ROTK, there is a scene where Zhuge Liang tries to kill Wei Yan by using him as bait to lure Sima Yi into a valley and then launches a fire attack to kill them both, but a sudden rain downpour ruins it?

TLDR: yes!

So the ROTK has many version over the years since its first release in Ming. The mainstream 120 chapters that most people are familiar with was an recension done by the Mao family during Qing's Kangxi era. This is commonly known as Mao's edition (毛本), which had quite some changes from the Ming ones.

In one Ming edition known as 三國志通俗演義 (roughly, A colloquial romance of Records of the Three Kingdoms) published during Ming's Jiajing [1521 to 1567], there was indeed a story on Zhuge Liang trying to kill Wei Yan. I've attached the Chinese text link to the title above, and I will cite relevant portions (and contrast them with Mao's version, which can be found on ctext) below. First, on description of task (to burn the valley). Mao's version on top, followed by the Jiajing version.

孔明附耳囑之曰：「可將葫蘆谷後路塞斷，暗伏兵於谷中。若司馬懿追到，任他入谷，便將地雷乾柴一齊放起火來。」 Kongming by his ear said: "[you] could blocked the back roads [out] of Hulu valley, silently ambushing troops within the valley, if Sima Yi were to chase [until] here, let him enter the valley, then use mines and dry wood to at the same time start a fire." 孔明附耳囑之曰：「可將葫蘆谷後路塞斷，暗伏兵於谷中。若司馬懿追到，任意入谷，但見人馬塞滿了道路，便將地雷乾柴一齊放起火來，乃是汝之功也。……吾素知汝忠義，故委此大任，切勿有失。」 Kongming by his ear said: "[you] could blocked the retreating roads [out] of Hulu valley, silently ambushing troops within the valley, if Sima Yi were to chase [until] here, let him enter the valley, then use mines and dry wood to together start a fire, this will be your meritorious contribution.... I have long known you to be one of loyalty and righteousness, therefore entrusting such important task, do not make any mistakes."

We see that Mao's version is truncated, and that the Jiajing version included a special talk of loyalty and righteousness. Next, the lines about the actual fire. Mao's version on top, followed by the Jiajing version.

孔明在山上見魏延誘司馬懿入谷，一霎時火光大起，心中甚喜，以為司馬懿此番必死。不期天降大雨，火不能著，哨馬報說司馬懿父子俱逃去了。 Kongming on the hills saw Wei Yan baited Sima Yi into the valley, and immediately fires broke out, in his heart felt great happiness, thinking that Sima Yi would surely die on this occasion. But suddenly huge downpour fell from the sky, and the fires could not continue, scouts then reported that Sima Yi and his son had both escaped. 卻說孔明望見司馬懿被魏延誘入谷時，不勝忻喜。馬岱一齊放火，將欲盡情燒死。忽天降大雨，火不能著，人報走了司馬懿。 When Kongming saw that Sima Yi was baited into the valley by Wei Yan, [he was] overjoyed. Ma Dai at the same time started the fire, wishing to burn it all to death. Suddenly huge downpour fell from the sky, and the fires could not continue, scouts then reported that Sima Yi had escaped.

The only major difference here is the use of wishing all to die vs thinking Sima Yi will die.

In the Jiajing version, this is followed by Wei Yan expressing unhappiness about Ma Dai's 'burning it all' when he got back:

魏延告曰：“馬岱將葫蘆谷後口壘斷，若非天降大雨，延同五百軍皆燒死谷內！” Wei Yan reported: "Ma Dai cut off the back entrance to Hulu Valley, if not for the huge downpour from the sky, I would have died there with the 500 soldiers!

Later, at Wei Yan's death a few chapters later, it was also written that:

原來孔明火燒木柵寨時，實欲將司馬懿、魏延皆要燒死，故與魏延五百軍為引誘之兵；不想天降大雨，其計不成 It was such that when Kongming burned Mushan Camp, [he] actually wanted to have both Sima Yi and Wei Yan burned to death, therefore having Wei Yan and 500 soldiers as the bait; [but] huge downfall from the sky unexpectedly fell, so the plan did not work.

Looking back at the start, why did Zhuge Liang in the Jiajing version had a special talk of loyalty and righteousness with Ma Dai? Now it makes sense, as Wei Yan was portrayed as one that has disloyal tendencies ( this is retained in Mao's version), having Ma Dai to secretly carry out the plan to kill him was indeed the loyal and righteous thing to do for one's state. Therefore Zhuge Liang's special speech to prepare him for it. In the Mao's version, since the entire part was left out, there was no need for this prep talk and hence it got removed as well.

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amyisherenowitsokay · 2 years ago

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LEAVES.

Pipes my beloved hello

Originally I was going to use Dead Weight, but since it's still in progress, and I want to avoid having to spoiler my files, I'll use Re: MHNY as my example. 'Behind the scenes' previews incoming.

Long answer below the cut. You hath been warned.

Since my tweens I've gotten a LOT more organized about my writing and editing, both because I want a better output quality of story, and because my memory is way more shit than it used to be, and I don't want to lose any ideas simply because I can't remember my train of thought. So I tend to jump between just word-vomiting, a bulleted list of major events, and then go in and organize whatever I just wrote into a coherent timeline. I would say 90% of my editing actually starts with the prep work.

For example, and for starters, this is what the original bullet draft looked like for Re: MHNY. Since I knew I wanted to mimic the original MHNY, but still incorporate the necessary revisions, I wanted to keep in mind the completely necessary parallels while writing so I didn't miss anything.

From there, I start making revisions and throwing darts at the wall for ideas.

Here's an example of some of the revisions. Anything with a (?) next to it was an idea I wasn't firm on. Although realistically, the entirety of this section was just spit balling, and nothing was really firmly in place. You'll note that this isn't in chronological order at all, lmao. The order was essentially what I felt most immediately needed clarification.

You'll also notice some elements were unclear. A lot of it was asking myself questions that needed narrative, sensible solutions. Also, some details changed! Skoodge originally was hanging out with the Resisty during his capture. I had a loose idea of them being in a community cell, such as is shown in Enter the Florpus's Moo-Ping 10, but then felt like it'd create too many problems with why the Resisty wouldn't just kill some Irkens for vengeance. I also felt like Tak probably would've caused too many problems with any budding friendships between them, so obviously, in the final version, they're separated, and Skoodge's reasons for joining end up being far more personal than just because he's kind of dumb and friendly.

For Re, because I needed/wanted the chapters to run so closely in parallel with the original MHNY, I also had chapter summaries. I don't usually do this, but for this iteration, and in this context, I felt it was necessary.

Here's an example for Ch 3. Notice the highlighted portion emphasizes that I hadn't yet made the decision on who was doing what at this point. I wrote/started versions for both. In the end, it ended up being Zim of course who comes up with the lie, but this decision I remember actually was made with a LOT of debate for/against Gaz and/or Zim being the instigator.

Here's another example of some of more major revisions that happened from the original plot. I actually have a ton of deleted scenes from ch 9 + 10 that used this original plot. However, as I started writing, I didn't like it anymore. So in the middle of writing 9, and some major chunks of 10 started, I scrapped the whole thing and wrote and wrote and wrote until I got something I was satisfied with. I thought Dib being there for support was a lot more meaningful to his and Gaz's relationship than him just showing up to one-up Zim.

At some point I may release those deleted scenes the way I did with MHNY 3, as I did keep them all, but for now, they are safely stowed away in my google drive for me to scowl at and berate for not being good enough. A quick glance shows me I have about 5505 words in that file (aka about as much as a chapter's worth of deleted or unused content). Some of it was actually even shifted into Re:MHNY2, as I felt the dialogue was more appropriate for a more mature relationship. As a fun fact, there's deleted scenes for Ch 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17 (pt 1), and 18.

The reason I kept all these is because I am deranged, and deleting them from existence hurt my feelings, but I also didn't want to publish them. So I hoard them like the little emotionally attached dragon I am.

Finally, sometime before, during, or after all this drafting happens, I actually just start writing. I write in whatever order I want. I have and will jump from the last chapter to the first, to the middle, to the semi-middle-beginning-ish with no concern whatsoever about chronology. A lot of times I will write an interaction between two characters that I feel fits better during a different timeline and just copy it over to that chapters document.

Each chapter gets it's own document. If I want to write something where I'm not sure of its position, it goes into a document labeled Random, Blank Document, or something else to emphasize that it's not a chapter and just random blurbs that need to be sorted at a later time. Those documents each get headings inside that I can jump to if/when they get sorted into the story, and are ready to be placed.

Since this is a competed story, all the scenes have been placed, so I'll use Dead Weight's current random blurb document (one of several) as an example (barely any spoilers)

If you're familiar with Google Docs, you'll know you can make headers within your document to jump to. It's super convenient for me, as a person who just likes to do the equivalent of throw pages on my floor and then painstakingly order them at a later time.

Just for fun, here's just how many documents I have dedicated solely to written scenes that are to be sorted at a later time for Paradorx:

You'll also see there's a calendar and a plot outline in that screenshot that was definitely on purpose and not the result of me just being too lazy to crop it out.

Once the actual draft is written, with words and paragraphs and everything, it gets revised.

Paragraphs get moved. Dialogue is taken out, revised, or thrown somewhere else that I feel fits it more appropriately. Grammar is changed. I reread every chapter about as much as I can stand to, take a break (ideally) and then read it again. I have deleted entire chapters, started entire chapters over, left a chapter halfway finished and decided it will pop up later in the story, etc. Dead Weight's next chapter for example has been restarted 4 or 5 times at this point, and I've only just now stumbled this week stumbled into what the next chapter is actually about.

Once it's been read, reread, reorganized, and picked apart until I hate it, it's deemed ready. Then I sit on it another week or so (depending on my deadline), read it again, and decide whether or not I want to add in any extra tidbits of foreshadowing for some later event that I've already written. At that point I'm just skimming for errors, grammatical fumbles, or anything that seems out of place. Finally, from there, publication!

An incredibly long answer that I hope really scopes out what I'm doing lmao.

As a spoiler/teaser for reading all of this, I can say that Re:MHNY2 is currently past the drafting phase, and is now in the "I throw words at the screen" phase. Not yet at the phase where I actually start ordering them into coherent chapters, but still developmentally in a good area.

#amyisherenowansweringyou #so much words #ravenfollower13 #ao3 #fanfiction #fanfic

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frost-felon · 10 months ago

Text

No worries about the tag essay. I've done it before, often because I thought I didn't have much to say, right before menacing clown music would play in my head. But in all seriousness, I often find myself forgetting to express the full depth of my thoughts in any single post, unless my brain and time align jussssst right. And assuming Tumblr or my phone don't destroy what I was writing. Do let me know if I made any errors in transcribing your tags or name, though; I'll go back and edit the alt text.

While Takaba's CT definitely allowed for interesting scenes and settings in the fight, that's not a big part of my own enjoyment. It's moreso that Kenjaku was faced with a proper challenge and had to assess the opponent on a genuine psychological and human level. This doesn't tend to really happen for most fights for Kenjaku and Sukuna, our main antagonists. Particularly, Kenjaku's behavior versus Yuki in her portion of the "[Noun] and Oil" chapters really put me off, even though I desperately want to like Kenjaku at most times. They easily have the potential to be one of the most interesting characters in JJK, but Gege's attempts at raising the stakes often comes at the cost of the main antagonists' characters, especially for Kenjaku. I can very easily like a super-powered Mad Scientist character, but not if they feel more like the author's "Fuck You For Being Invested In The Heroes" character¹. Way too often, Kenjaku got Get Out Of A Losing Situation FREE cards, simply to force the plot in certain directions. In doing so, the stakes and Kenjaku's character were drastically affected, often robbing Kenjaku of unique interactions and forcing Kenjaku to look as if they were in control the whole time (typically, with a smug expression, which happens damn-near every fight with Sukuna).

I actually do like fights with interesting choreography and/or application of skills, but I don't think that's ever really been one of Gege's strengths. A lot of times, the skills feel poorly-defined, and while the art is pretty and occasionally captivating, the composition of the manga and its fight scenes has been rather poor, in my opinion. It's just gotten worse in these recent chapters. I haven't really been invested in the battle system since Megumi VS. Reggie Star, as there was so much contradictory and stupid bullshit going on in that fight.

So as it stands, character exploration is typically my number one focus.

Kenjaku's fights are rarely interesting, in that regard. Takaba VS. Kenjaku is easily the best, since it shows us more of who Kenjaku actually is without diminishing other aspects of Kenjaku; they're still clever in that fight, with how they recognize what's happening and adapting to it. Kenjaku is still a major threat, and Takaba nearly dies when Kenjaku tries to undermine his confidence. None of their curiosity is cheapened or altered, and so on.

But honestly? I'd prefer them to be dead, but I didn't want them to go out with so many unresolved plot threads. I wanted Yuta² to have a more involved emotional scene, though I am currently ignoring 249's attempt. For my sanity, you see. And it's also like...Yuki died the way she did for this? Tengen's autonomy was stripped to be Kenjaku's rules-changing tool, and then their personality-contradicting backup plan? It's almost similar to how I feel about the narrative waste involved in the Sukuna VS. Gojo fight, and the trashing of multiple resolutions, arcs, and character development moments afterwards, but unlike with Satoru, I don't want Kenjaku to come back. It's my observation that the narrative would likely become more cluttered were Kenjaku to return, and with less satisfying justifications. And by all that is holy, I just wanna see more of Sukuna losing his mind over Yuji's everything.

As a sort of side note, Sukuna getting so flustered at Satoru's taunts in their fight (but not when taunted about "running away from Yuji" or "taking orders from [Kenjaku]") still strikes me as so odd. I really would have preferred getting more exploration into why Sukuna got so hot and bothered during that fight (and literally when it started, lmao), but then 236 made it into the whole...'I was actually in control the whole time!' malarkey, which was blatantly untrue.

Kenjaku's never quite had such a major restriction upon their capabilities as Sukuna did in being tied to Yuji, so Takaba forcing Kenjaku to rethink their approach was just. So vital. It all being a sneak-attack assassination doesn't take away from Kenjaku's character, either. I want to see their weaknesses, and that was a fun one. I just really despise everything after Kenjaku notes that they're going to die.

¹Which is easily one of the biggest reasons Sukuna has become less interesting to me during and after 212; my, "Hahah, he's a no-ambition loser!" kind of comments are more due to my frustration that the audience seems to be simultaneously expected to see Sukuna being a loser, but also an unstoppable force of evil. It just doesn't gel well...like Blood and Oil, perhaps. Also, I want Yuji to eviscerate that bored old man.

²I haven't mentioned Yuta much before in my posts, but I am ambivalent to him. However, during my first read-through, he seemed like he was getting altered in powers and history with nearly every appearance, which made him hard to have much of an opinion on. I really don't like how he's been handled recently, but I don't hate him; his character-writing just seems weak, though not as personally infuriating as Maki's.

On Takaba VS. Kenjaku:

Very fun fight, creative reality-warping based on thoughts and feelings of the participants. A complete breath of fresh air compared to earlier fights, like Gojo VS. Sukuna, Yuki & Choso VS. Kenjaku, and Megumi VS. Reggie Star. Although I didn't like the actual fight of Hakari VS. Kashimo, this chapter definitely harkened back to what Hakari VS. Kashimo did right with characterization and tone, except this proved to be way funnier and more entertaining, whilst exploring both characters' philosophies (more akin to Hakari VS. Charles, in that sense). I really enjoyed seeing Kenjaku be more open with themselves (such as revealing how much they knew about comedy over the past few decades), as well as their variety in expressions. One of my biggest problems with a lot of Kenjaku's fights had been the flat 'range'¹ of 'bored', 'analytical', and 'smug', and this fight gave Kenjaku way more room to show their other traits, such as the humor/comedic sensibilities they'd not often expressed.

Takaba's introspection was also quite nice. I tend to be more a fan of subtler character arcs, but the to-the-point nature of Takaba's grappling with his desires and self-affirmation/place in the world was very welcome and effective. Honestly, I consider the way Takaba was handled here to be some of Gege's best character work. Short bursts like this seem to be favored by Gege, whereas resolutions tend to be a weaker point in the overall narrative and in character arcs, specifically. So, speaking of...

Where things fall apart is that ending. Note, I am speaking from only having read properly to the end of Chapter 243--if my thoughts change, I'll amend the post with a reblog.

So, I think that the entire fight being a diversion tactic is a good idea! It makes sense that the cast would put together an idea like this, and allows for diversification of their tactics, which makes the characters more believable and gives the audience more to chew on. It also makes sense that they'd specifically send Yuta, and that Kenjaku had such a fun time with Takaba that they'd subconsciously ignored Yuta's arrival.

However. This was really poorly-foreshadowed. The plan wasn't indicated to the readers, outside of the discussion to send Takaba as the assassin, but without Angel's explanation for why. Yuta was there for the discussion, but his involvement in the final plan was not on-screen or otherwise indicated, as far as I could tell. The following panel is about the only evidence of foreshadowing that I can think of:

In a way, it cheapens Yuta's involvement. This should be a really cool moment for Yuta, and satisfying for the readers, but it's just...out of nowhere. Yuta is easily replaceable, despite his desire to kill Kenjaku for his beloved and respected teacher. This should be a bigger moment for Yuta, and certainly for Kenjaku, if this is how he dies and exits the story. Due to the lack of sufficient foreshadowing, it instead comes off as jarring.

Additionally, Kenjaku's ending dialogue doesn't fit with the motives established in 239, which fit with how Kenjaku had been characterized up to that point.

Kenjaku acknowledges Yuta's confirmation that Takaba was sent as a distraction (and may be implying that Takaba was not aware that Kenjaku would be killed, though this is dubious due to the nature of the conflict with Kenjaku). They then say,

"I see...I hate to leave so much undone..." Which is fine, as Kenjaku is established as wanting to create chaos to experience interesting fluxes in life's equilibrium. Specifically in 239, they phrase it as, "...want[ing] to see what you haven't seen..." and "want[ing] confirmation that what you think is interesting is actually interesting." But then they continue with,

"...But...my will shall be carried on."

Huh? Kenjaku wants to experience wonders they can't even dream of. What use does their will being carried on have to them, if they can no longer experience it?

The only way I can think of this being in-line with how they've been characterized is if they manage to cheat death again, even if only partially, but I'm getting the impression that Kenjaku is not coming back from this, in any way. Perhaps they messed with Tengen's sense of self and included a piece of themselves in Tengen, or there is some weirdness going on with Yuji, or the Kamo Clan. But regardless, it doesn't really work with Kenjaku's characterization immediately and long before this point. It's just odd. Any thoughts? I should hopefully be reading 244 not long after this, so hopefully that will clear things up. I wanted to get this off my chest, though.

¹One of my problems with post-Shibuya Sukuna, and especially after Satoru's unsealing, is that Sukuna also tends to fall in a similar 'range'. Even in his fight with Yorozu, he tends to just bounce between 'analytical', 'unenthused', and 'smug'.

#Jujutsu Kaisen #JJK #JJK 249 #Spoilers #Jujutsu Kaisen Spoilers #JJK Spoilers #JJK Manga Spoilers #JJK 249 Spoilers #JJK Kenjaku #Fellow Kenjaku fans--please don't eat me.#Sukuna Salt #Sukuna Critical #< Just in case.#Discussion #JJK Discussion #I guess the following applies:#Analysis #JJK Analysis

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danikindofwrites · 3 years ago

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Random update in the middle of the night BUT- I am no longer sick! 🎉 I am however battling the sudden heat in my area accompanied by ungodly humidity and it has sapped what energy I did have to do work and has left me unmotivated 🙂 But I am gonna try and push through anyway.

Unsurprisingly my writing has majorly been a lot of coding, but I think that I can say that the Character Creation is completely finished! That was a huge step for myself as it really has a lot of both aesthetic and story important coding that I had to figure out and I went back a few times and completely changed portions I wasn't happy with. The prologue has also been added in and is going through it's first heavy editing draft since I realized I got really wordy, but in all I am looking at about 18-20k of writing for just the prologue and character creation together. Chapter one is where a lot of my trouble has been going forward, thankfully not enough at this point to consider pushing back the demo release, but enough that It keeps me awake at night as I try to write it correctly.

Character portraits are also still being worked on, but have temporarily been put on the back burner as I'm trying to finish the cards I decided to add to Character Creation choices. There is quite a few of them and they are taking up a lot of my time at the moment. There will still be some more basic character sketches coming through this month but it's not a focus at the moment sadly (the artist in me really just wants to draw everything all the time and I am having to pace myself so I can avoid burn out 😅)

For May I am hoping to get more writing sneak peaks and stuff out, and as always asks for n/sfw scenarios, questions or even stuff about your MC for The Rising Night are always welcome and open, I love hearing from you guys even with the craziest ideas or random questions you can think of.

All in all not really a major update on much other than the wordcount, I wish I had something more exciting to announce, but for now this Is what I've got. Not it's time for me to go get a midnight snack and try to get some sleep in this stupid heat 👍

#feeling better but this heat is kicking my ass #I am a thunderstorms person #not a humidity person #dev log #the rising night if #trn update #twine game #interactive if

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lee-scribbles-and-doodles · 4 years ago

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My Top Ten Overlooked Movies With Female Leads In No Particular Order

Note: When you see this emoji (⚠️) I will be talking about things people may find triggering, which are spoilery more often then not. I mention things that I think may count as triggers so that people with them will be aware before going in to watch any of these.

Edited: 3/16/21

Hanna (2011)

So, before I get into why you should watch this movie, I just want to take a moment to say why it's near and dear to my heart. Growing up as a queer kid in the early 2000s, seeing portrayals of people like or similar to myself on anything was rare at best. It was mostly in more "adult" movies or shows that my parents would occasionally let me watch with them that I'd see any lgbtq+ rep at all. Often times they were either walking stereotypes, designed to be buried, evil, or all three.

Then here comes this PG-13 action thriller with a wonderfully written main female lead who, at the time, was close to my age, and who got to kiss another girl (her very first friend, Sophie) on screen in an extremely tender and heartwarming scene. To say the least, it was a life changing moment for me personally.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, Hanna is a suspenseful movie about a child super-soldier named, you guessed it, Hanna (played by Saoirse Ronan) and her adoptive (?) father Erik Heller (played by Eric Bana) exiting the snowy and isolated wilderness of their home and taking on the shadowy CIA operative, Marissa Wiegler (played by Cate Blanchette) who wants Erik dead and Hanna for herself for mysterious reasons.

It also has an amazing soundtrack by the Chemical Brothers, great action scenes, and it has an over arching fairytale motif, which I'm always a sucker for.

⚠️ Mild blood effects, some painful looking strikes, various character deaths, and child endangerment all feature in this film. However, given its PG-13 rating, a majority of viewers are presumably able to handle this one. Still, be aware of these going in.

Sidenote: It's recently gotten a TV adaptation on Amazon TV, although I have not watched it, and do not know if Hanna and Sophie's romantic/semi-romantic relationship has transferred over.

A Simple Favor

A Simple Favor is a "black-comedy mystery thriller" centered entirely around the relationship between two mothers, the reclusive, rich, mysterious, and regal Emily (played by Blake Lively), and the local recently widowed but plucky mommy blogger, Stephanie (played by Anna Kendrick). When Emily suddenly goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to find out what happened to her new best friend.

It's a fantastic and entertaining movie throughout, with fun, flawed and interesting characters. The relationship between the two female leads is also implied to be at least somewhat romantic in nature, and they even share a kiss.

⚠️ The only major warnings I can think of is that the movie contains an instance of incest and one of the main plotlines revolves around child abuse, although both of these potentially triggering topics are not connected to each other, so there is thankfully no csa going on.

Edit: I legitimately forgot there was drug use in this movie until now. So, yeah, if that's a trigger, be careful of that.

I Am Mother

I became mildly obsessed with this movie when it came out. I Am Mother is a sci-fi film that centers entirely around a cast of two woman, and a female-adjacent robot who is brought to life on screen with absolutely amazing practical effects.

The plot is such, after an extinction-level event, a lone robot known only as Mother tasks herself with replenishing the human race via artifical means. She begins with the film's main protagonist, Daughter. Years go by as Mother raises her human child and the two prepare for Daughter's first sibling (a brother) to be born. However, on Daughter's 16th birthday, the arrival of an outsider known only as Woman shakes Daughter's entire world view. She begins to question Mother's very nature, as well as what's really going on outside the bunker she and her caretaker call home.

⚠️ This movie features child endangerment and reference to child death.

Lilo and Stitch

When I decided to add a single Disney film to this list I initially thought it was going to be hard but almost immediately my brain went to Lilo and Stitch, and specifically about the relationship between Lilo and Nani.

On the surface, this film is about a lonely little girl accidentally adopting a fugitive alien creature as a "dog," but underneath that the story is also about two orphaned sisters and the older sister's attempts to not let social services tear them apart by stepping up as the younger sister's primary guardian. Despite its seemingly goofy premise, Lilo and Stitch has a very emotional and thoughtful center. It's little wonder how this movie managed to spawn an entire franchise.

Despite the franchise it spawned (or possibly because of it), I often find that Lilo and Stitch is overlooked and many people only remember it for the "little girl adopts an alien as a pet" portion of its plot, and I very rarely see it on people's top 10 Disney lists.

⚠️ This movie could be potentially triggering to people who were separated from their siblings or other family members due to social service intervention. There's also a bit of child endangerment, including a scene where Lilo and Stitch both almost drown.

Nausicaä and the Valley of the Wind

Unlike the above entry, I did struggle a little bit with picking a single Studio Ghibli film. Most media of the Ghibli catalogue have strong, well-written, unique, and interesting female leads so selecting just one seemed like quite the task.

However, I eventually settled on this particular film. In recent months, Princess Nausicaä has become my absolute favorite Ghibli protagonist and I'm absolutely enchanted by the world she lives in.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world overun by giant insects and under threat of a toxic forest and its poisoness spores, Nausicaä must try to protect the Valley of the Wind from invaders as she also tries to understand the science behind the toxic forest and attempts to bridge the gap between the insects and the humans.

For those who have never seen the film, I think Nausicaä's personality can best be described as being similar to OT Luke Skywalker. Both are caring, compassionate, and gentle souls who are able to see the best in nearly anyone or anything. She's an absolutely enthralling protagonist and after rewatching the film again for the first time in well over a decade she has easily become one of my all time favorite protagonists.

Whenever I see people talk about Ghibli films, they rarely mention this one, and when they do mention it, it's often in passing. In my opinion it's a must watch.

⚠️ This movie contains some blood, and the folks who either don't like insects or who have entomophobia may not appreciate the giant bugs running about throughout the movie. (Although most insects do not directly relate to real life bugs, and are fantasy creatures).

A Silent Voice

A Silent Voice is an animated movie adaptation of a manga of the same name. While I've never had the pleasure to read the manga, the movie is phenomenal. It covers topics such a bullying, living in the world with a disability, the desire for atonement, social anxiety, and depression in a well thought out manner that ties itself together through the progression of the relationship between its two leads, Shoya and Shouko. It's also beautifully animated. Although very popular among anime viewers, I've noticed that it's often overlooked by people who watch little to no anime. So I suppose this is me urging non-anime viewers to give this film a chance.

⚠️ As mentioned above, the movie deals with bullying, anxiety, and depression (with this last one including suicidal thoughts and behaviour). If discussion of those topics are triggering to you, than you may want to proceed with caution or skip this movie all together.

In This Corner of The World

Another manga adaptation, this one taking place during WWII-era Japan. In This Corner of The World follows the life of a civilian Japanese woman, Suzu Urano, as she navigates simply living and her new marriage as the wartime invades nearly all aspects of everyday life. I think this movie is a good representation of what it must be like to be living as civilian in a country at war where the fight is sometimes fought on one's own soil. It was also an interesting look into pre-50s Japanese culture in my opinion. It's also beautifully animated featuring an art style I don't see often.

Despite it being well known among anime fans, I never really see it be brought up, even among said anime fans themselves.

Side note: I've seen many WWII dramas centering around civilians but they've almost always been about American or UK civilians. This was the first movie I'd seen that features the perspective of a Japanese civilain.

⚠️ Features the death of a child and limb loss. There's also a disturbing scene featuring a victim of one of the atomic bombs near the end.

Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki

This film follows Hana, a Japan-native woman who fell in love with a magical shape-shifting wolf-man, and her trials with raising their children, who can also magically shape-shift into wolves, on her own. It's a very heartfelt movie about a mother's love and the struggles of doing right by your children when you have limited resources to actively guide and care for them. All the characters feel unique and alive in my opinion. Also, the animation is so good that my sister and I initially mistook it for a Ghibli film.

Again, like the previous two anime entries, I don't see it ever brought up outside of anime circles.

⚠️ There's some child endangerment present in the film, although none of it is the fault of Hana as far as I can remember.

Roman Holiday

Roman Holiday is about the fictional Princess Ann (played by Audrey Hepburn), who while on a whirlwind tour of Europe, finally reaches her breaking point over having her entire life be one big schedule and all her words and actions being rehearsed. In the spur of the moment, she runs away in hopes of experiencing what life is like for other women. Unfortunately, she was previously given a sedative, meaning she doesn't get too far before it takes effect. Fortunately, she is found by the kind reporter Joe Bradley (played by Gregory Peck). Believing her to be drunk and unable to get an address from her (because she has none) he ends up taking her home for safety's sake and allows her to sleep off her suppose drunken stupor. The next day, he realizes who she is, and decides to take her on a fun sight seeing trip across Rome in hopes of getting the big scoop. Along the way, they begin to fall for each other.

This is my favorite black and white, old romance film. I think the relationship between the main characters is absolutely beautiful and I have a lot of fun watching it.

⚠️ I'm not entirely sure what kind of warning this film would need. However, it was released in 1953, so values dissonance will probably be at play for many viewers to at least some extent. For example, early in the film Ann is given sedation drugs by her doctor for her behavior, something that is very unlikely to happen today. Also, Mr Bradley deciding to take Ann home to keep her safe rather than call the police or an ambulance is a very pre-90s decision in my opinion.

#hanna 2011 #a simple favor #i am mother #lilo and stitch #nausicaä of the valley of the wind #a silent voice #in this corner of the world #wolf chilren ame and yuki #wolf children #roman holiday #black and white film #anime #disney #studio ghibli #movie recs #top 10

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