#a lot of text is just placeholder stuff

[connorinabeanie]

[misfortunegirl]

nerdy guy is sooo obsessed with me <- definitely sees me as a quirky girl hes just friends with

[jcollinswrites]

How the fudge are you writting so fast??? I sit down to write and end up with nothing or reworking plot instead of writing 😭Have any tips you want to share? Perhaps the ingredients to the dark ritual you perform to get the motivation and remain focused 👀👀👀

So, first of all, you'll need half a newborn, shaken, not stirred…

lol jk (don't shake babies)

Believe it or not I'm the same as you, so here are some stuff that helped me tremendously, especially with my squirrel ADHD brain:

NUMBER ONE that I needed 20 years to learn, is that… forget editing, man. You can't edit if there is nothing to edit, so first you have to sit ya ass down and just fuckin' do it. It doesn't matter if it's shit at first. It's called work in progress for a reason. Who cares if it's shit? You can edit it LATER when the whole thing is already done. What you're reading in my game is literally my first draft. Lots of scenes might change later. In fact, I'm already changing scenes in the background, I'm just not always telling you. It doesn't matter. If anyone gives you shit for it, tell them to kindly fuck right off.

Have a plan for the book (written down. Not just in your head). Don't even start writing until you have a plan for the entire book. It doesn't have to be detailed. Mine is just bulletpoints, but you should know which chapter will contain what, including plot points, character development, relationship progress etc, otherwise you'll get lost, especially in a big IF. And then as you get closer to the next chapter, you can work out more details in the plan to help the actual writing.

If you don't feel like writing a scene, then don't write it. Leave a placeholder word there (I use 'mandarin' because that word likely won't come up anywhere else in the text), and instantly move on to another scene that you have inspiration for. Later, you can just search for 'mandarin' and add the scene when you feel like it. If you accidentally come across any MANDARINs in my game, that's the reason lol.

If you are writing an IF, it helps to start simple. Write the story until a choice comes up, then write the title of the choices, and continue ONLY with the route you feel the most inspired for atm (use mandarin for the rest). Don't let your momentum die by getting bogged down in choices. That's why I have so many greyed out choices when I start a new origin or chapter. I just write write write until the end of the chapter, THEN I go back to whatever choice is the simplest to add, and put the variations in the already-existing text if needed. Repeat until all the choices are written and coded in. This way, the text might feel more organic too, because you already have a pre-written skeleton that you can just add variations in.

Keep notes. It helps to have them on paper, next to you, so f.ex. when you make 9 different deities to choose from, you don't have to go back to the beginning of the chapter every single time to look up which deities those were and what they mean, you can simply turn your head to the side lol.

Take regular breaks. Exercise, stretch. Keep a daily schedule. Eat and drink enough. Try to keep a good health. Your brain won't work if it's starved.

Know yourself and your habits, and be honest with yourself. I know of myself that once I start working on the big plot points, I won't have any motivation to come back to the beginning again. That's why I'm writing all the origin stories first, because I know that if I start going into chapter 2, I definitely won't feel like coming back to start yet another route from the very beginning. So if you don't feel like doing something, then just… don't do it. Or do it simpler. Do it smarter. Trick that asshole brain into cooperating.

Last but not least, guys, 90% of my motivation COMES FROM YOU! Your engagement, your messages, your feedback, every little interaction is what keeps me going! So write me! I will answer! (if you aren't a dick). Literally, about anything. Even if it's just "hey I really liked this small detail here", that will already make my day, seriously. I LOVE talking about my work, and I'm pretty sure every author is like that, so keep engaging with writers, because that's 90% of the reason when a novel gets finished! I'm writing for YOU! Your enjoyment, your fun, because I love telling stories, but those stories don't mean anything if no one is reading them.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I broke up with my partner for mot replying to me enough?

I, (15) and my partner Jam (placeholder, he/they 15 also) have been dating for about a month and a half. Jam has been really excellent at times, except for when he's. Not. I am a very vocal person, and text and send funny images that reminded me of him to Jam often every day. Oftentimes, though, they'll only reply with an emoji, a dry text like "damn" or not reply at all. I suspect myself of having BPD along with ADHD and being autistic, and when he doesn't reply I feel severely rejected and begin spiralling.

A while ago, I reached out to Jam and told them how this made me feel, and how I'd appreciate it if they put more effort into replying or reassured me more that he wasn't ignoring me it being rude on purpose. Jam replied with a huge message about how I was draining for him to talk to mentally, and how he thought if my mental health depended on his replying to my texts, we should take a break. (I never mentioned that my mental health depended on just him. This happens with my friends also.)

I, in turn was obviously a little stunned and asked for time to be alone and process, but a while later he ended up apologizing profusely and asking me to not leave him (which I had no intention of, I was processing what he told me)

After all this, Jam has now been a lot more distant and it feels like they don't want to even talk to me anymore. Some of the stuff that's changed is: they don't say good night or good morning, barely reply to my I love you texts, never compliment me, don't reach out unless I do first and even then it feels as though it's mostly for them to vent.

So, would I be TA if I told him I didn't want this anymore?

(I think it's also worth mentioning there was an event where he had given me permission to infodump about a topic I loved deeply, and wanted him to share in my enthusiasm. When I finished, they seemed disinterested and just kinda replied dryly, which sent me into an upset spiral.)

What are these acronyms?

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

Here's another long-winded post about me combing through BG3 early access files in search of Aylin and Isobel tidbits - rummaging that already resulted in this post right here. Let me just say I'm pleased to have brought Aylin Silverblood some attention because, again, I think it's a dope name.

Now, obviously, Isobel and Aylin are both Act 2 characters, and early access only covered Act 1. So anything related to them is partial stuff that wasn't scrubbed from the game files for whatever reason, and a lot of placeholders (these are usually indicated by |the text being in vertical lines|). This all means that sometimes (usually!) there are no nice voice lines indexed by UUID and parseable dialogue trees, and you have to trawl through a giant localisation XML of every bit of text in the game instead. An additional complication is all these stories were in flux, but older bits of writing from deprecated iterations didn't get immediately removed from the files, so it's sometimes hard to tell what belongs to which version.

The biggest luck I've had with regards to these two is the 24/11/2021 version of the game - EA Patch #6 Hotfix #19, aka game version v. 4.1.1.1356845, aka the source of Aylin Silverblood (my beloved). Here's a handy list of the patch and hotfix history, if you're like me and interested in this stuff. I'm actually wrangling files from 5 versions of the game right now, ranging from March 2021 to July 2022 - it's been a fun time. This old datamining post on reddit really helped narrow down the timeframe for me to look into.

Why am I doing this? I genuinely find it fun and interesting! There's some neat writing to be found! I crave more Isobel at all times! And I'm always into WIP and "how the sausage is made" type stuff. Also, tons of cool inspo for fics and headcanons.

Note, because I know that's a popular EA tidbit: this is all from after the Halsin killing Isobel variant was scrapped. This is, in fact, the version where she gets killed and soul trapped by Balthazar, and Aylin gets framed for it.

I'm going to start this off with my favourite part, and that is snippets of an early version of the Aylin/Isobel reunion from 2021. I've done my best to put them in order, but be aware a lot of this is still me speculating.

|[CINE: Nightsong teleports the party to the plaza in front of Last Light. As she looks around trying to familiarize herself, Isobel notices your arrival from the balcony. Her reaction is pure shock, followed by an immediate rush down the stairs.]|

|[CINE: Isobel dashes out of the front of the inn, wide-eyed and out of breath. Nightsong stares at her, stunned.]|

Aylin: |(distant, shocked) Isobel.|

Isobel: |Aylin...|

|[CINE: Nightsong takes an instinctive step towards her but stumbles, collapsing to her knees, eyes blown with pain and disbelief. Isobel closes the distance between them in hasty steps, trying to help Nightsong up, but Nightsong tightly grips at her arms - as if the contact makes everything real.]|

|[CINE: Isobel's eyes fill with tears as she drops down to the ground, throwing her arms around Nightsong's shoulders in a tight embrace. Shaking, almost fearful, Nightsong returns the embrace - the first kind touch she's had in a hundred years.]|

|[CINE: Nightsong draws back from the hug, looking Isobel in the eyes. Isobel helps Nightsong to her feet. As the two of them stand, they keep their hands linked.]|

Aylin: |A hundred years. Isobel, light of my heart, where were you? (choking up) I found your body, I....|

Isobel: |I was dead, Aylin. For so long. It was Balthazar - he trapped my soul, he-|

Player: |[Doesn'tKnowRelationship] You were lovers? Did Ketheric know?|

Aylin: |(jaw tightens) We were lovers. Her father was against it. He saw nothing but future misery. I'm immortal. I would never age, but she would.|

Isobel: |He didn't understand. It doesn't matter when... (fearful, as if worried Aylin's feelings might have changed) ... I still love you so much.|

Aylin: |(her first genuine smile) And I, you. No trial or pain could ever change that. (relaxes a touch) It is why I couldn't leave your body, even when they came. Balthazar and that Sharran witch told your father that I was to blame.|

|And he believed them over you?|

Aylin: |(frowns) He believed what he wanted to believe. Ketheric saw his daughter dead, and he saw someone he wanted to hurt. Shar took that cruel thread, that moment of mortal pain, and used it to corrupt him to the core.|

Aylin: |I was put on trial, and I had no defence. The moment it was over, I was taken down to the temple and... well, you saw what they had done.|

|Isobel presses against Nightsong's side, face tight with worry, running her fingers in slow strokes up and down Nightsong's arm.|

|[CINE: Nightsong tilts her head back towards the player.]|

Aylin: |These heroes saved me. Without them, I'd still be trapped in Balthazar's soul cage, with Ketheric gripping my heart like a leech.|

|[CINE: Isobel's face falls at the mention of her father's name.]|

Isobel: |A *soul cage*? Gods.|

Isobel: |I didn't know. Gods, he didn't say a word to me. I ran away because it was Balthazar that brought me back. As I ran, I heard my father shouting... but I'd seen enough. There was no saving him.|

Aylin: |You are not your father, Isobel. (sad, wry smile) You were the only thing that kept me alive in the dark. When hope began to fade, I simply thought of you.|

Isobel: |[To player] Thank you. (smiles wide) I... I can't possibly thank you enough, for bringing Aylin back to me.|

|Nightsong smiles too, but she's lost looking at Isobel, completely tuning out everyone else around them. Isobel leans in, resting her brow against Nightsong's and closing her eyes, Nightsong's hand clutched to her chest.|

Then, there is an option to press Isobel for details:

|You said the necromancer trapped your soul. Why?| |Was Balthazar the one who killed you, Isobel?|

Isobel: |(hesitant, visibly guilty) I think Aylin would know better than I do. The last thing I remember is a blade in the dark. Too fast to feel pain. Then silence.|

Asking Isobel to go with you to Moonrise was possible at various points, leading to different responses:

Will you come with me to Moonrise? I could use your help. If we're going to stop Ketheric, you have to come with me.

Until there is a way to keep Last Light safe, I cannot leave. All I can do is pray. |Not if everyone is killed at Last Light in my absence. I'll do everything I can to help you from here, but I won't go with you.| |Not if everyone is killed at Last Light in my absence. If someone else could take my place, I would go with you. I swear it.|

|Nightsong is here, she will protect Last Light - let's go to Moonrise, like you promised.| |I want to spend the night with Aylin. Meet me at Moonrise tomorrow.| |Nightsong will protect the people while together we can stop Ketheric.|

Isobel: I... we need to get close to him, don't we? And Aylin can protect Last Light in my absence. Aylin: Isobel, I have just gotten you back. To put yourself in his hands again-

Looks like we would've had a flip of the current Act 2 boss fight, and Isobel would be the ally for the confrontation with Ketheric, not Aylin. Also, that one line right there that is our first indication of Succor™, gotta love it. Sadly, post-reunion I only have:

|TBD: Post Nightsong Reunion.| |How are you and Aylin doing?|

To borrow release version Isobel's stock line: KEEPING VERY WELL, I HOPE? In any case, I'm putting the rest under a cut, featuring options for calling Isobel out on her parentage, Aylin being from Mt. Celestia, and Balthazar being gross - among many other things.

At one point quite early on, Isobel's protection from the shadow curse wasn't a spell, but an ointment:

|Ointment of Selûne| |Ointment Container PLACEHOLDER| |Isobel filled this with precious doses of her sacred Ointment of Selûne.| |First get the ointment from Isobel.| Have you received Isobel's ointment yet? What protection can her ointment offer, exactly? You should see Isobel. If Marcus does crop up, I'd sooner you had her ointment to protect you. Can use that cleric's ointment to get you on your way. But I have to move out - now. Can I get some of your ointment? No more theories! It's time for action. Our secret weapon needs to travel to Moonrise Towers, which means they'll need your ointment. You have the ointment. You have the Gate Stone. Moonrise Towers awaits. Are you sure the ointment will last long enough?

What is now Isobel's Ominous Cough was a gradual weakening that was remarked upon and seemed to be there to create more of a sense of urgency:

I won't claim to know Isobel's craft, but Selûne's light is bright in her. Isobel's tough - though she was tougher at the start. I've rarely seen a cleric so in tune with her goddess, but the curse is taking its toll. The light used to be stronger, Isobel. How much more of this curse can you take? You look paler than death, Isobel. How much more of this curse can you take?

We have some nice concise infodumps on Ketheric:

After Ketheric turned to darkness, the Enclave joined with the Harpers to unseat him and his Sharran cohorts. We marched together, fought together, bled together... and in the end we prevailed.

Only it wasn't the end. Nothing seemed to kill Ketheric himself, so the Harpers decided to seal him in his own tomb, alive. They thought that would be enough. But they hadn't counted on Ketheric unleashing the shadow curse. We watched it drain all light and life away from this place, saw it twist people into abominations. The Harpers lost hope.

Ketheric wove the curse on this land. The moment he was sealed in that tomb, Shar's poison devoured everything in its path.

Fallen paladin. Champion of Shar. He was building an army bent on unholy conquest, but we stopped him. Killed him. Buried him.

It was not enough. General Thorm lives again. He's built a new army, and this time he marches under the banner of the Absolute.

November 2021 is the earliest mention of Aylin I found, mostly marked as not finalised and placeholder dialogue (and that reunion up there). The Nightsong as present in that patch is still very different from what we ended up getting - nobody was killing her, in fact people were coming to get her "kiss", and there was a whole thing where it seems like Shar would directly take control of her and you could help her overcome the curse, or abandon her to it - or kill her. 

Embrace the Nightsong and be sworn to Eternal Shadow.

Anyway, here are her lines (all of these exist as voice files, which is rare for stuff I put in this post - but they're done by a voice actress who doesn't sound like Helen Keeley, our final Aylin VA, so I don't know what to make of it all tbh):

Shar is the Nightsinger, and I am her Nightsong. I am her instrument, transforming the faithful into shadows. I've been here for centuries. Do you know how many priests of Shar came here, full of faith, seeking my kiss? I've been here for centuries. Thousands of Sharrans came here seeking my kiss. I drink their sorrow, their loss, their grief. Then I vomit it back into the world. All of them are shadows now. That is Shar's only reward. But Ketheric returned for my kiss, over and over. You're the first to survive my kiss intact. You're the only one who can help me. Please, you have to help. No one's ever resisted the kiss before. No one has ever resisted my kiss. But you are not merely *one*, are you? That thing in your head must be incredibly powerful to resist a goddess. Perhaps it's also divine in nature. Because a mind can't survive two masters. It breaks us. Shar's attention must be elsewhere. Speak quickly. She's watching now. She's waiting to steal my voice. But it won't last. Please - listen! I was captured by Ketheric Thorm, Shar's chosen. He turned me into this creature. I'm a slave of Shar. She owns me, just like that thing in your head owns you. I want to sing my own song. Not Shar's. Not *Ketheric's*. Find Ketheric. Kill him so I can be free! Slay Ketheric. His wretched existence binds me to this temple. Oh. That made her angry. The Lady returns! She has me again! *Again!* Stop! You've driven her away!

I am not your *spectacle*. Turn away before I strike you blind. Tell them to come and receive my kiss.

Some possible relevant tags, interactions, and outcomes include:

|The soul cage has greatly weakened Nightsong| |Debug: click to save Nightsong (sets the flag to talk to Isobel)| |We sided with Ketheric and doomed Nightsong.| |Companion comment!||But if his power is linked to this Nightsong, there must be a way to unlink it.| |You have taken control of Ketheric's Soul Cage| |You are bound to Ketheric's soul cage, taking his regenerative powers for yourself| |Bound to Soul Cage| |Soul Cage Key| |Soul Cage Research| |The book details the necromancer's research on the soul cage| |There is a glimpse of Isobel's ghost, as she takes her Father with her to the afterlife.| |There is a glimpse of Isobel's ghost terrified and in agony. Both Isobel and Ketheric will disappear.|

At one point Isobel delivers her own, Ketheric's, and Aylin's backstory as "a story", but sadly I can find very little of it, just disjointed fragments:

You seem to know a lot about Ketheric. He was a devout Selûnite who converted to Shar. They say it was Ketheric's purity that drew an angel down from Celestia. You're Isobel Thorm. The daughter who died in that story.

And there seem to be many options to question Isobel about her hiding the truth about her father:

Why are you lying to me, Isobel? Everyone thinks you're dead, Isobel. Tell me the truth, Isobel. Everything. Still, Isobel might have saved us some time had she been honest from the beginning. |Why didn't you tell me what happened from the start, Isobel?|

Ketheric. Don't you mean your father? Ketheric is your father. I know the truth. Ketheric told me at Moonrise. He wants me to bring you home. I need your father to trust me. He wants you back. You sent me after your father - Ketheric. I think we should discuss Ketheric - your father - first. For all you've said about Ketheric, you left out the part where he's your father.

To which I've found some responses:

And would you have trusted her? Ketheric's daughter? Why didn't I tell you that I was murdered, that my soul was locked away for a hundred years? What would I have told her? That my father murdered her fellow Harpers, but that I can surely be trusted?

[Attempt to read Isobel's thoughts.] *You see Ketheric standing before Isobel, although the memory is hazy. His words are unclear, but his tone is not - he is pleading with her.*

Brought back by the same man that killed me. Balthazar. Standing next to my father with a smile on his face.

But I'm not sure it would have mattered. To stand with that man, my father has surrendered to deepest evil.

I would love to know what the whole pleading thing is about, and what Isobel "didn't know" that she claims didn't matter anyway.

My father. After a century, he somehow brought me back. But I saw the monster he had become. I couldn't bear it... I ran. I ran until I found Last Light. It was like a second home to me, once. I've been studying the curse ever since, searching for answers. Trying to restore the damage my father has wrought upon this land. It's possible I may have to sacrifice myself. But this is my father's crime.

And then, there is this nugget I cannot place but that I like: 

|Your father's due will come.|

There is also an option to tell her Nightsong is Aylin (who was, at this point, a full celestial - no mention of being connected to Selûne, though, and in fact, if she was indeed from Mount Celestia as mentioned in the "story", she would not have been):

Isobel: My father's curse still blackens this earth. Have you found anything? Player: A celestial, chained to Ketheric's soul. Player: They called her Nightsong, but she told me her name was Aylin. Isobel: Aylin. She... she's alive. I knew she had to be, I… Player: Ketheric's necromancer took her to Moonrise. Isobel: His necromancer? Gods, you have to free her. Isobel: You have to go to Moonrise and free Aylin. When Ketheric is weak, this can all be over. Isobel: The truth is that I would give anything to see her again, and anything to stop my father. Free her, and you do both. Isobel: At least, the shell of my father. There's nothing left of the man that championed Selûne. Isobel: Find her. Free her. If Ketheric isn't stopped, all of us are doomed.

Player: |[Doesn'tKnowName] Aylin? Care to explain?| Isobel: The angel in my story about Ketheric. That was Aylin.

Speaking of Balthazar. Some lines from him:

[Introductory note: please imagine everything Balthazar says spoken with a wheezy voice, as if he's permanently out of breath.]

[I need to retrieve the Nightsong, but the temple is haunted and my minions cannot make it past the trial grounds. I cannot go there until the ghosts have been dealt with. Now that you are here on behalf of Ketheric, you will do all this for me.]

I, Fodder, am here on behalf of General Ketheric Thorm. Down in the depths of this temple writhes his desire. I am to bring it to him.

I created the Nightsong for General Ketheric, many moons... HEAR THAT SHAR? Many moons ago.

*As you hold the necromancer's mocking gaze, you can tell how it starts to dawn on him you are not the mere minion he thought you were.*

Along the way I found some more recent Patch 8 (2022-ish) gross Balthazar lines, some bits of which have actually survived to release:

She was a unique specimen even before I began my work. Aasimar. A god's blood united with mortal flesh.

Such fine clay she was. We grew quite close as I… remoulded her. Now she is General Thorm's shield. Her strength is his to drink upon. His pains are hers to bear.

If I never exceed her, I will still die happy. If I ever do something as gauche as truly dying, that is.

Utterly revolting! Makes my skin crawl! Man deserves a yeeting into the Shadowfell a hundred times over! But in order to not end on a gross note, I leave you with:

Ketheric Thorm. Murderer. Oathbreaker.

Aylin Silverblood. My true name. Nightsong was only ever a curse.

[phlurrii]

Really hoping I am posting this at the right spot…

Hey there, loving your work, you got me to jump into the theory wagon out of sheer suspense. Here is my try at seeing what will stick to this massive theoryboard of mysteries~

Missingo went from a creature stuck to Meau's shadow to having a body/vessel powerfull enough to kill Palkia.

Which braught me to what vessel could be powerful enough to do so? Meau's first cub died somehow (stillborn? Necktube fatality?) Meau designed Bucket after the Necktube drama to remove the necktube. But a cub that predates or happened to die during that drama should still have the old blueprints of being bigger and having a necktube. Traits Noe physically holds. Noe being a prototype non-ancient mew baby could explain why he and Meau could exist at the same time.

But that leaves an additional questionmark on why their lifeforce are linked.

Which is where I bumped into theory two (the most probable one I think) in which Meau was so done with living that she tried to birth an ancient mew. But if the birth went wrong and the ancient cub died there could have been a glitch. The world must have one ancient mew. If Meau passed her lifeforce to the cub yet the cub still died both should technically be dead. But that goes against the laws of the world. There needed to be something to fix/ballance that glitch. Missingo could be the way the world tried to fix that mess. Missingo might have inhabited the dead cub and taken on a weird alive status of not quite living. And whatever ballance his manifestation created could have allowed Meau to wake up (a lot more weakened than an ancient mew should be but alive nonetheless)

Both are merged to the same lifeforce and function or count as a placeholder for one ancient mew.

Meau + Noe = one ancient mew. Cause of problem? = Lifeforce transference issue.

Why would the world chose Noe over deca? Probably becouse Noe was already present. Being at the right time at the right place. Or technically wrong time since he was way too early…

Basically the ingredients of stopping the whole world from imploding where already in the bowl so the world just mashed them all together into a weird yet functioning chimerical mush. What a way to recycle your resources.

Deca born all late because he became extra. When could this have happened? Why was it the domain of space that had to die? When and why did Noe and Giratina go rebel? My brain does not compute numbers very well. Not touching anything timerelated with a ten foot pole.

Anyways congratulations Phlurri, you got me to use the comment function on this site for the first time. Got me typing out a whole tower of text from the get go, have a good day~

First, let me say I am HONOURED to be the cause for your first even commenting, as a lurker myself I feel that XD

Second, 100% correct place, I LOVE these asks, but they definitely make me go dormant for a day or two in order to proceed and write my response carefully ehe

Anywho, ONTO THE THEORY!!!

To start off, Meau’s first cub did not die, Bucket is Meau’s first mew child. Bucket is currently comatose in a bubble in the Tree of Life. So I know that throws a wrench in the theory, but dw you have a lot of foundational things correct; just the bridging between points isn’t X3

As for the necktube stuff, Meau did create bucket without many of her own traits/characteristics due to her own experiences. She wanted to remove those issues from afflicting her child!

However, Meau specifically avoided EVER having a child until she felt she was mentally capable of raising one. Hence why she never had one in the nearly 4.5 billion years she’s been alive. Adopting? Sure, but raising a functionally immortal mew? Definitely not ready…. Given she was struggling a lot mentally with… things. So bringing a child into that mix was something she actively refused to do until those issues were no longer severely afflicting her. So she never attempted to have a cub, let alone an ancient cub, to remove herself from the picture.

But, I am genuinely impressed beacuse again, your foundations for things… are mostly correct, which makes me very excited to know someone can go through the comic and asks and get EXACTLY that,,, the foundations correct,,, meaning the rules and whatnot I attempted to put in place has indeed made it though in time for the Noe arc >W<

Noe indeed did not have a vessel and COULD not have one until a certain criteria was meant. Meau did assist in that criteria being meant, however his appearance was early and not how it was suppose to occur. It was a glitch, just like Noe is himself. The way he obtained a vessel… you’re awfully close, but it does not involve dead children I want to be clear!! Regardless, it’s scary and exciting at the same time at how close you are, I think one person (you know who you are.) may figure it out with the publication of this, but until then… I cannot comment further.

The way he obtained a vessel and comes into the world connects into how and why him and Meau share their life force. Though I will say, Missingno. cause the split, not Meau.

Also for the rest of time stuff you are too scared to touch, don’t worry, I spent 3 weeks figuring out how all it would work and then another 2 making. Digestible and simplifying XD

It will make sense, I have made SURE of it. As well as it will be satisfying most importantly. Very excited to be looser lipped about this all with how close it is ehe,,

Anywho, ty for your tower of words I quite enjoyed them and well DONE on the foundations, again that’s huge. Your skeleton is very close, the connecting tissues though would be hard to guess for anyone X3

[adachimoe]

Random stuff from the Persona Club P4 book

I leafed through the Club book and more of the meta and setting stuff stood out to me than the character stuff. 🤓

The origins of Yasoinaba: The meta developer corner notes that Yasoinaba gets its name from the Hare of Inaba legend. Yaso comes from Okuninushi's brethren who are collectively called the yasogami. Samegawa is also a reference to the Hare of Inaba. In the myth, the hare went on the backs of sharks to reach the territory that would eventually be called Inaba. "Same" is shark, and "kawa/gawa" is river. The animal mascot in Inaba is the rabbit. Not because of the myth, though, but because there's a bunch of rabbits somewhere if you follow the Samegawa lol. The town plant is broadleaf cattail.

Tatsuhime Shrine: It's noted that Toyotamahime is the enshrined deity at Tatsuhime shrine. This is a kinda indirect reference to the Hare of Inaba. Toyotamahime was a sea creature who could transform into a human. Her sea creature form was said to be similar to that of a crocodile or a shark (see the above about the Hare of Inaba). Actually, my first blog post on here was about Toyotamahime and the woman at the shrine.

The staging area of the TV world: The design of the people on the ground on the floor of the staging area when you enter the TV world from Junes is the result of the main characters having murder on the brain when they first enter the TV.

The location of Junes: The Yasoinaba branch of Junes is located near the highway so it brings incidental business to town because people who are driving through will also stop there, not just Inaba locals.

Junes wages: Start at 690 yen per hour for high school students, and 900 yen per hour for others. (Per Google, this was like $6.67 / $8.70 per hour in 2008 when the game came out.)

Yosuke's dad's name: Yoichi Hanamura (花村陽一).

The origins of Konishi Liquor: A member of Atlus's battle team is named Konishi and their family actually owns a liquor store. Early on in development, the team just called the place "Konishi Liquor" as a placeholder after the developer and the name stuck. (The text specifically says this is about a Konishi on the battle team, so it's not referring to the composer who is also named Konishi.)

The in-universe history of Inaba: Yasoinaba developed as a mountain castle town with ties to Takeda Shingen. (This is a reference to the actual area in Yamanashi where Atlus drove to and used as a model for the shopping district.) Later, it became a coal mining town. But the coal mine has since closed. (I believe the coal mine part is fictional and isn't supposed to correlate to Yamanashi.)

Mayumi's Room and Saki's Shopping District: Originally, Mayumi's room and the shopping district with Konishi Liquor were a lot bigger and more similar to the size of the other dungeons in the time period after they were pushed into the TV. Once inside, they became lost in the maze and had to confront their shadows. But once the person who created these spaces/images died, these two places shrunk in size, hence the smaller areas you see in-game. The smaller parts are like "cores" of these once larger areas that remain behind. The book likens the small spaces / "cores" to ghosts that haunt the spots where they died.

Magatsu Inaba and Magatsu Mandala: Unlike the other dungeons, which sprung from repressed thoughts, Adachi's Magatsu Inaba was intentionally created to lure in the Investigation Team and confuse them. From the yellow caution tape, you can sense that a part of him still knows he's a detective.

The bit about the caution tape, I think you can read it also as an explanation to why he sends you the letter about the true ending - there is still detective'ing to be done. But like, I'm just gonna pretend I didn't read that. The tape says CAUTION KEEP OUT WARNING because babygirl has a hard time with feelings and people. Fuck you Atlus. Also, I guess his place being "intentionally" created is related to why he got to pick the entrance being in Mayumi's room.

Shadows: The shadows in Persona 4 aren't really the same as Persona 3. The book tells you to think of them separately as the ones in Persona 4 don't really directly harm people - they remain in the unconscious rather than appear in reality and shank people. Shadows in the TV world attack Persona users because they sense danger from Persona users and just instinctively know to attack them. Compared to Persona 3, there are more silly shadows because the Midnight Channel is influenced by the people who watch it.

Mitsuo Kubo's backstory: Mitsuo was a student at Yasogami High until Morooka caught him messing around in a downtown area, after which he was suspended from school for a week. This wrecked his ego / pride so badly that he dropped out of Yasogami High and held a grudge against Morooka. Btw, Hashino also mentions in this long interview that Mitsuo was originally not going to kill Morooka.

References to the Kirijo Zaibatsu: When Dojima tries to reach Nanako in November, he gets a pre-recorded message about the KJ phone service and Nanako's phone being off. "KJ" stands for "Kirijo". Additionally, when Naoto mentions that she did research and found info about shadows becoming Personas, this info was leaked from a Kirijo research lab.

Did Kashiwagi seriously book the kids at a love hotel?: The love hotel on Shirakawa from Persona 3 was renovated (kind of) into a regular hotel by the time of Persona 4.

Yomenai Bookstore: Yomenai means "unreadable". The owner's last name is actually Yomenai, and they didn't realize their last name wasn't a good match for running a bookstore until after they opened up business. School kids started making fun of the store, which bothered Yomenai at first, but they left the store open and now stock mostly books related to their own hobbies. In other words, the majority of the books at the store are "unreadable" to regular people.

[mylittleredgirl]

as i sign up for the rarepair exchange (signups open until may 11th!), i'm having my usual crisis about what to put in the optional details box on the sign-up page vs. whether to have a separate letter i link to in my sign-up.

personally i like seeing likes/prompts in the details box rather than just DNWs (i'm unlikely to want to write treats based on what someone doesn't like, you know?), but i also get self-conscious about making people scroll past my thoughts.

if you don't participate in exchanges this poll won't make sense, but if you want to get an idea, here's the existing rarepair requests page (though lots of people, like me, still have placeholder text instead of full requests).

if you didn't know about the collapsible details feature, it's on the list of allowed html tags on ao3!! it creates a readmore on any ao3 page (and it carries over to the auto ao3 app people use to sort challenge requests):

<details><summary>put the text here that people can click on, e.g. click here for more prompts</summary>

your long list of thoughts and emoji bullet points can go here, and then you close it up with:

</details>

you can then continue to type stuff after </details> that will NOT be hidden, and can use multiple <details> sections in a row.

[ashen-crest]

I am halfway through this garbage draft of ACC!! 39k of utter trash. 😌

Hoping to finish the second half in the next two weeks, then slow down and take on a chapter a day to dig in and actually for realsies write each chapter.

Right now, my garbage draft is a lot of stuff that looks like:

- Ambrose sighed and said I’m sad

- Eli: I can get you cookies from [X food stall]

- Ames; no that’s ok. He walked to the thing and sat

Word-vomit dialogue, placeholder text, absolutely no proper punctuation, grammar, or spelling. It’s all there just to make sure I’m jotting down the micro-structure of the scene, clearing out lingering plot holes, and testing the structure of my post-alpha reader outline.

Once I get to the end of it and am happy with the shape of the story (gods, finally) THEN I will finally go in and make it read like an actual book that is hopefully nice to read.

And then it will go to my line editor 🫣 then back to me for revisions, then to my proofreader 🫠 then back to me again for the final polish and read-through.

[brambletakato]

ok i havent drawn a lot so ill do a big artdump of some stuff i abandoned or at the very least wont finish for a long while (id in alt and story/thoughts below the image)

In a server that I'm in, we briefly talked about Descole hypothetically returning in NWOS and somebody mentioned he should bring Keats along. Inspiration struck and I drew this. I was hoping I could use Blender to make the buildings and whatnot, but I was intimidated by the task and ultimately ended up dropping the entire thing.

The building that Keats and Descole are on is… Meant to be a rough placeholder, I didn't mind redoing the entire thing but I wanted to at least have a vague idea before the entire draft slipped from my mind.

(More images in cut that are either old or kinda detached. also theres crossover stuff in there. be warned)

HAHA YOU CLICKED READ MORE NOW I CAN SHOW MY INSANITY. MWHAHAHA. MWHAHHAHAHAHAHA. ok so errm this is campaign des that i mentioned a few times and yes that is The Mario from The Paper Mario. I think about them so much and its a bit pathetic bc its like "you're overthinking a kid's mascot" ITS SO SILLY YOU DONT GET IT...

Oh right the doodle uhh so I was thinking about them and just drew a hypothetical scene for funsies, it didn't happen in roleplay (and also because I wanted to draw paper mario without a reference and see where that went). It's an ex-villain and struggling hero dynamic and i love it sm

Segments of a comic I drew for a friend in a super silly AU with dante from the limbus company hand on hip . Id get super embarrassed if i shared the details of the au because we kinda said "fuck it we ball" and made up stuff that shouldn't work at all lol. It's also why there's no text in the speech bubbles.

But the general gist of why I drew this is because we kept discussing a scenario where Descole has to fix up something in Dante's clockhead (vaguely inspired by that april fools episode) and i had a strong vision ab the comic. Also I had to make their head in blender because i was struggling with the perspective and wanted a flexible reference. First time drawing something not made out of flesh fur or fabric!! had a blast rendering the fire and the shine though. SUPER fun super recommend

I just like this little doodle,,, the expression vaguely reminds me of a ghibli villain and it scratches my brain. im expecting him to move on twos at 24 fps very subtly at any moment now.

And finally... um... yeah. "draw a character in this pose" sort of beat. sometimes I alternate using the sketchbook and marker pens in firealpaca and this is one of my rare marker doodles. Also this is pretty old afaik but i still think about it sometimes

happy sycamore sunday (even though hes not anywhere to be seen in these doodles)

[fictionfixations]

playful land (part 2)

contains spoiler for the movie pinocchio so and like book 7 spoilers (its literally just 2 words relating to lilia and its a card that exists)

😭 as a glasses wearer i can relate. when i didnt have my glasses id squint a lot but the people around me just thought i had my eyes closed so they thought i wasnt paying attention D:

its even crazier to think that lilia, a war veteran and everything was legitimately stressed over this 💀 but to be fair if grim was in danger of getting out of like the seats that lilia had to hold him back id be panicking too cause who knows what could happen

heres your reminder that vil was kinda baby (well child but thats still baby to me) when being in the industry and considered good at playing the villain even though children (and teenagers) are literally known for changing, are in the prime time of their life to change and experiment and try different things theyve never done before and so typecast him is literally to stunt his growth and potential !!! and remember there were those kids who thought vil was an actual villain and like tried to attack him or some shit so he did play villains when he was younger. and it probably really hit him hard because kids dont (and shouldnt) be hit with the reality that not everyone is nice and that people can be out to get you for no reason other than 'you exist' and will run with any reason they can to hate on you even if its entirely fake and they dont even know you but they just think youre a bad person despite the truth and theres nothing you can do to change that because they dont want to be wrong. if you cant tell i have a lot of things against it. like. like child prodigies n celebrities are great good for you for being good at something and being recognized for it, but ohh my god its like suddenly they're an adult and cant make mistakes without people condemning them even though literally everyone has made mistakes before and children dont know any better until they do it and mess up and thats okay and i just. i just want vil to be ok cause hes still really young.

the text being like pLAcehOldeR TExT PLaCeHoLDer TeXt is so fucking creepy for the puppets 😭 why cant it just be normal like when like AIs or like the systems of shit talk (like like the navi system that was normal?? and i thought the voices for the rollercoaster was normal too but i mightve just not noticed considering im playing it right as the update came out and i havent slept yet so yippee)

JIMINY CRICKET IS THAT YOU 💀

the way i missed all these references the first time but now im actually getting them cause i saw the movie

heres where i say i already forgot like a part of the middle of the movie and what happened and why. i was watching it with friends so i got distracted trying to talk to them and im really bad at multitasking when trying to watch something (like reallly pay attention) and talk to someone at the same time so i forget one or the other and i forgot the movie so i dont remember what the apple core was about but i doubt it was good intentioned

i know that leona's older than them but i still like that he calls them kids like d'aww

flashbacks to kalim mentioning he didnt know how to pay for things or how cash registers worked and stuff like that cause usually merchants came to him also him mentioning he got like lint rollers for the carpet but he just kept buying new ones when he ran out instead of buying a new roll, and when being informed that he could buy a new roll instead of an entirely new roller he just called whoever thought of that a genius 😭 his obliviousness is genuinely harmful to him no matter how good intentioned someone may be to try to spoil him and make him live the most comfortable life ever because theres so much life experiences hes lacking. and theres so much i could say about this but ive yapped enough about this in other posts and ive also already yapped about vil so um

HES LICKING THEM BECAUSE OF THE OVERBLOT STONES ISNT HE? ???? ????? GRim PLEASE

…hes got a tail because he went to pleasure island and was slowly turning into a donkey like i mean i guess i can understand because in twst the stories were twisted so both the hero and the villain got a happy ending technically? like remember i think jasmine married like 'a street rat' or something (I cant remember exactly? maybe he was like a thief but changed his ways?), while jafar caught someone who was pretending to be a prince to marry her (described as two different people btw)

THIS. THIS IS WHAT I MEAN. he is so unaware that hes going to make dumb and insensitive comments that could definitely offend someone but he doesnt understand what the problem with it is this boy is like the heir right?? someone please teach him politics and like diplomacy shit ???? like ok you want him to have the best life. his best life is not making mistakes in front of important people that can fuck things up without him realizing and ruining relationships because HE DOESNT KNOW BETTER. like theres only so long you can baby someone and i know hes baby and still young but stop coddling him. like i mean i want to coddle him i want to wrap him in bubble wrap but like come on. and i know hes smart, he knows people arent the best because people have tried to poison him and tried to kill him (even some of his family have tried) but come on. like what if he comes off as insincere? as a person who couldnt possibly understand? HE ALREADY DOES COME OFF AS THAT HAVE YOU SEEN JAMIL?? and you know what thats gonna breed? RESENTMENT. aAAAAAAa AND PEOPLE ARE GONNA TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HIM BECAUSE HE WANTS TO SEE THE GOOD IN EVERYONE EVEN THE PEOPLE WHO DO BAD SHIT TO HIM AND ITS JUST. i dont want him to be hurt and hes gonna get hurt and he already has been hurt and hes still managing and i feel so bad for him and i just. ..you can tell i have a lot of feelings over thsi fhaidwsuiahfd

d'aww hes hugging him 🥺

yknow kalim probably has the funds to get like a water breathing potion and explore underwater like i mean tbh it kinda scares me. wasnt there that story during like one of the halloween events one of the leech twins mentioning how they saw like one of them?? except it wasnt them. and that like people went missing or some shit??? the coral sea (..that might not be the name i forgor) has its own dangers i hope he stays safe during so

wouldnt it be the coolest for a hometown event with the leech twins and azul and kalim is there actually i wonder what kinda outfits they'd wear. also in caters birthday bloom vignette floyd mentioned that he could take cater to the coral sea and show him places land people dont really get to see (then warns him to watch out for shark attacks) to which cater replies that he'll pass. …still i think itd be really cool for him to go too. maybe we could make it a pop music club trip! has lilia been to the coral sea? i cant remember 🤔 i dont think caters phone is waterproof though (hes also mentioned it in that vignette) and hes mentioned it in this event where he was scared his phone would get waterlogged during the whale rollercoaster cause they were getting drenched in water and he didnt get time to prepare

leona. you get me.

kalim just automatically being worried about poison makes me feel really bad for him cause he always has to be cautious like i know he doesnt say it but its implied and it makes me sad

FIGARO MY BELOVED I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOU PRECIOUS BABY AHFDASUDIHAIUDHW i love cats so much the moment he showed up on screen i just couldnt pay attention to anything that was happening in the movie and i just love the way he was animated he looked so fluffy and cute and i just wanted to pet him so fucking much aGHHHH

leona: I REFUSE to ride the carousel no matter what right after leona: on the carousel

so confirmed kalim does have a magicam acc huh

[beesmygod]

Bloodborne questions rattling in my head -

Why does the shaman bone blade have shaman in its name? That's such a specific, almost regional term. Just a translation quirk?

How seriously do you take cut content in studying lore? I just learned about the Great One Beast, and there's a hell of a lot going on in that name alone. A Great One that became a beast? A beast that became a great one? Maybe just a placeholder name since file names refer to it as a silverbeast? Or, as it never made it in, should it be essentially ignored entirely?

ok business as usual, pure speculation is in italics.

this first answer is going to suck so bad: i basically don't have a single clue. the japanese word they chose to translate as "shaman" (祭祀者) doesnt appear on jisho or literally anywhere else in the game. like i just did a ctrl-f on the re-translation text dumps and found nothing. they seem equally baffled but one of the two translators notes that it's used to describe people involved in ancestor worship. the full word is "祭祀者の骨の刃". so like literally "_____'s bone knife".

there's no surprise ambiguity in the description. it doesn't resemble anything else in the game. the green goo (not blood, notably) oozing from it is not seen elsewhere. that emerald green color is unique to the blade.

what the fuck! they are also extraordinarily rare: the only place you can find them are in the nightmare of mensis in the "nightmare apostles" (big spider) room, where you can pick up six from the corpse of a healing church doctor in front of a little vestibule containing nothing. the only remarkable thing about this room is that it once contained a cut version of the giant nightmare apostle with the head still on. this is interesting only because it suggests that they're not just giant spiders, they are giant HEADLESS spiders. the connection the player was supposed to draw, perhaps, is that the headless nightmare apostles seen throughout the game have already been harvested for their goods.

this is uninteresting because there's 7 headless spiders in the room, not 6. maybe one broke?

the only other places you can find them are in the pthumerian labyrinth root dungeons in, specifically, treasure coffins. only after obtaining the lower pthumeru chalice will the item be added to the insight shop, so whatever those shamans were doing, it was very secret and very ancient. they are a 5% drop from brainsuckers...except for the ones in the cathedral ward and the orphanage, which are 2%. hey i never noticed that before. so that's where those brainsuckers running around yharnam came from.

the creation of this item is apparently linked to augurs/phantasms.

the spider guys are their own. thing. i haven't even touched them yet because, segueing into your next question, so much surrounding them was cut. there's a bunch of stuff in the game, especially relating to byrgenwerth, about reflections and symmetry that kind of hangs in the air awkwardly unless you start poking around under the hood and start looking at how much spider-related shit there is. and like. isn't a spider an invertebrate. isn't "apostle" another word for "messenger". anyone else seeing this. aren't these things augurs?

not for nothing, but amygdala is referred to as the "lost apostle" in the alpha.

when it comes to cut content, i take a very liberal approach and inhale all of it into my brain where i can sort it and determine what bits are even useful. i think this kind of thing comes entirely down to personal taste; some people think the completed project in its retail form is what should be analyzed on the reasonable basis that it's the story we were intended to experience. i don't disagree with this approach; my approach is like if i wanted to read "pride and prejudice" and decided after reading it to analyze all of jane austen's letters and biographies. like it's absolutely not required to enjoy or understand the story and themes of bloodborne; it's just a good example of how much a reading of a text can differ depending on how you approach it.

i wish we knew why the great one beast was cut because it was basically finished outside the textures being low-res. people have hacked a working version into the game and it looks like a hell of a fight. and you're right, it raises a lot of questions about what the hell a great one is. prior to this it was assumed that beasts were the opposite of great ones. but...maybe beasts are ONLY intended be compared and contrasted with kin. and a kin is not a great one. very mysterious.

[ratwavegamehouse]

Terminal and the Inspirations from Other Places

Around the start of the month I did a big post on Terminal and how the Matrix inspired it as well as generally espounding on my thoughts around influence, pastiche, and analogues. I found it interesting, and some people enjoyed reading it, so I figured I'd do a post on all the other things that inspired Terminal.

Ok, almost definitely not covering all the other things. But some of them. The big ones maybe. Or the thing that are easiest for me to explain.

(This will also involve previewing some of the full game. Any art in this post is by Gormengeist and any completed layout was done by me, while any text will have been written by me and edited by Alyssa.)

Let's start of by sharing the Inspirations and Influences pages from the book itself.

Some of these will only probably ever make sense to me, and that's fine, that's how creating things goes. I won't go linearly, I guess I'll go in order of what seems important. At least to start, I'll probably end up following some whims.

Black Sails/Treasure Island

I think this is something I got asked on both The Weekly Scroll, by Zach on This is Your Lifepath, and also just by people. "Why'd you add pirates?"

I actually tried looking through some notepads where I first jotted down ideas to see if I recorded my actual thought process as it happened. No dice. "Zion as Pirates" is one of the earliest notes I have.

I think my early logic was about avoiding just doing a complete 1-2-1 of how reality was in the Matrix. First this just started as "I don't wanna do the sun blocked out thing and the energy stuff" and I think that evolved into the shattered moon and flooded Earth which made arriving at pirates logical; sailing the seas rather than jetting around underground tunnels.

It was in righting and exploring these early ideas I found a resonance with pirates that made me excited to make that such a core part of the book; themes about rejecting society and civilization, loyalty among a crew, the idea of being an outlaw, the Robot Authority as the British Navy.

Being honest the line I often used of "The Matrix x Black Sails" was more using Black Sails as a touchstone to convey an idea, rather than crediting for my conception of pirates. It speaks to a pirate epic and the focus on pirates creating a home.

Libertatia was down as the placeholder name "Pirate Island" for much longer than you'd expect (I think I had some crews written at this time but nothing about the setting). Someone suggested the name when I asked for ideas and doing some research the pirate legend ended up informing the development of the setting. Libertatia is implicitly anarcho-communist rather than the more heirachy based structure of Zion seen in the Matrix films.

I also like how this created such a different relationship with your home setting that the one in Inevitable, the books system influence which focuses on protecting a kingdom. In Inevitable you are given quests by your king, or more often the king's advisors, and you're an agent of a crumbling monarchy. In Terminal people suggest things that someone should deal with but none of the NPCs have any authority or ability to command your characters, you have to choose to listen to them.

Twin Peaks/Lost Highway/Blue Velvet

I'll go to this next as it was the third influence that got shouted out in articles. The answer to "why" Lynch was such an influence is basically that I'm a fan and so his work is on my mind frequently enough that it's a common influence.

The sort of eery dream-logic is part of the influence, though that also draws from lots of other things. I notice dream logic or living dreams are a recurrent theme in a lot of my work, which is interesting for someone who never remembers any dreams. The way your dreams are walked through by sinister forces was definitely aping some of Fire Walk with Me.

The inclusion of doppelgangers, of yourself, of people you love, people who loved you, that's coming from the Return for sure. It's also hitting a theme of embracing your own imperfections and messiness as some of these antagonist doppelgangers are explicitly versions built around expectations characters couldn't or wouldn't live up to.

The Puppeteer, a villainous program who strives to manipulate people emotions to inflict psychological torture, has some of the Mystery Man from Lost Highway in him as well as the Man from Another Place's desire for armonbozia" (pain and sorrow). The fact that The Seer, our prophetic program who serves as a tense pirate ally, is always met on a lost highway is more in the realm of a reference.

The Crash, the name for Terminal's major story arcs, Tortures of the Killer combines a lot of Lynch influence. The Killer has influences from Frank from Blue Velvet and BOB from Twin Peaks though without the sexual violence being a major aspect of the character, instead the Killer's focus is in blackmail and threats. The video tape element draws from Lost Highway while the setting of that scenario draws on Blue Velvet as well.

A pair of linked characters, The Arm and someone more mysterious, are another thing more in the realm of reference rather than attempted analogue. I think the big influence for those characters is my own interest in the ideas of partitioning off aspects of yourself, and then having to deal with those aspects brought to life, because of some of my personal experience.

Paprika

Paprika was the fourth big influence I explicitly shouted out in marketing. This relates to the dream hopping element.

In Terminal freeing someone from the simulation involves delving into their dreams and guiding them to a door they must open to wake themselves up. The reason I came up with this was that basically because of how the red pill/blue pill symbolism got used after the release of the Matrix I felt I needed to avoid anything to close to that. Dream delving came to me probably because of my aforementioned fixation on dreams in fiction, and also the way that distinction between dreaming and waking is so blurred in Neo's early life.

It also put me in the mind of Paprika, which in turn influenced the Crash The Dying Dream, specifically the Dream Parade influenced a lot of how that developed. I think following a whim I'll do a section on all the stuff that ended up combo-ing to form this Crash, cause it's maybe an interesting insight into how I wrote.

The Dying Dream

My memory isn't super exact but I recall the early writing process in Terminal, once the big central idea and themes were sketched out, involved some jotted down ideas for Crashes and then I ended up writing a big list of characters. I think I wrote a document of routine programs, a document of obsolete programs, a document of Robot Authority characters, a document of Special Agents (at that time called officers) and a document of pirates. I think with some characters written I began combining them with Crash ideas that i started writing in full.

There was a lot of jumping around. This wasn't an linear process at all. There were some ideas for Crashes that could quashed and then ended up creating other parts of the story (initially finding the Omen was a Crash and they were going to be an NPC, quashing that Crash came with jumping to writing the stuff about characters becoming Omen, together). I interrupted this to properly sketch out Libertatia and with that came a lot of new pirates. I think there's a chance the Hedonist has an associated Crash at some point before I decided I liked her better as an a sort-of-not-really ally.

Anyway when I wrote the Special Agents I had a few ideas; a "standard" agent who exposed the ways other deviated, a agent deliberately created as a woman to poke at gender-based hang-ups some characters could have, 0 our agent-turned-malware and then a pair of agents; one who'd been corrupted and deleted and their partner who's reaction to this was question everything they thought they knew.

(The reason I initially named the Special Agents Officers was to make them seem a little further away from the Matrix agents, but once I decided on this angle with a character questioning their role I enjoyed the wordplay in fact that the agents lack agency so renamed them.)

So I had this pair but no idea what Crash they'd end up in. The Archivist was an early Crash, the idea for Multipled by 0 came early on, "hacked pirates" was the note that lead Corruptions of The Passenger. But I was a little stuck on Crashes full stop and none of them served as a home for these two agents, and I wanted these two in the book.

I ended up thinking about Inevitable and what purpose the story arcs, called Dooms there, played. The Tower Wizards Doom takes your cadre into the dangerous Wizard's Bluff to retrieve a dangerous artefact that's crash landed there. I tried to think of what a Crash could look like where the threat wasn't a specific character but a situation.

This brought me to the Dream Parade from Paprika and so I settled on a dying dreamer's nightmares corrupting a domain. The corrupted agent I had in my notes (Special Agent 7) got changed to have been corrupted by this situation and their partner (Special Agent 5) had a place as a possible obstruction, ally, or strange encounter.

Figuring out what the artefact at the centre of the Dying Dream was was part of what lead to Transmit, the last Omen, emerging as such a major character (the other thing that contributed to this was the need for the Omen code to have been modified) and that lead to a hidden story arc in the book that reflects some of the core themes about the power of positive connection being able to save you from people who want to control you and make you feel crazy.

Some Smaller Inlfuences, Explained as Well as I Can

The Wizard of Oz is on the list partly for doppelgangers, but also partly for the way its influence is felt in The Matrix and David Lynch's work (hence Lynch/Oz, the video essay film, being included). It's also there because the character of The Wizard, an obsolete program with the power of recognition, the ability to see what's already there, is an extended Wizard of Oz joke.

Inception is there because of dream hopping, even though my version of dreams is much more Paprika than Inception.

Stuff like Fallen Angels, Taxi Driver, and Fight Club are there for a mood that I was channelling in writing at certain points. I find making these lists interesting, when I do them, because I could restrict to to the obvious, explainable stuff, but personally I like including things where my only explanation was "I was thinking of it while writing and maybe that bled in".

Pacific Rim is there because the description of drift compatibility and the neural handshake influenced the way I described becoming the Omen and connecting your hearts to share the code. (I do find it interesting which things I knew were influencing me as i was writing - Matrix, Twin Peaks, Paprika, etc - vs things I only really noticed after the fact like this Pacific Rim influence).

I mentioned in the Matrix influences post that The Hedonist was partly influenced by Carrie Ann Moss's character in Mass Effect 2. That's part of why that's on the list. The other thing is that the eventual way I settled on travel (a map for the Wake with various mind docks that you travel to via sea and then plug you into different domains) was partly influenced by the way the overworld space travel worked in the game.

Transistor influenced depictions of certain places; the inner workings of the Terminal, corrupted domains on the verge of system crash. Additionally it was something that I think, this is a part in reflection, influenced two character's relationship.

Metal Gear Solid was an influence of the tagline "Digital Pirate Action", I think there were other reasons I added it to the list though I can't recall them right now.

Finding Yeezus, a pop culturual investigate docu series about the creator of a viral ARG game, is on the list for being part of what got me thinking about the Matrix again so much.

The music list is mainly music I listened to while writing, in some cases certain lyrics felt very resonant to me.

Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World are there, and there together, because there's an optional move around physical intimacy and in developing that I read back over the sex moves in both games.

Dream Askew and Dream Apart is credited because of how the "Pick questions to ask left and right" technique became a big part of character creation.

Orbital Blues is there as it influenced some of the ship creation stuff.

Influence Comes from Lots of Places

So like I said a YouTube series is there because it was part of what got me thinking about the Matrix again. It wasn't the main thing though. That was because my therapist at the time used multiple Matrix metaphors with me in sessions. (I managed to resist replying to her first question of "Have you seen the Matrix?" with "Yeah, I'm trans" and I'll never get enough credit for that).

I like learning about the things that inspire people. I do a whole podcast about, so you'd hope that's the case. But I know that's not always as clear cut as influences from other works of art. That's a big thing, obviously, and it's a thing that can help with marketing in a way that talking therapy doesn't. But this life stuff is also pretty huge.

This is the title page for Terminal (subject to change, credits for the stretch goal writers need to be added in). I think the thanks are as important, honestly more important, in terms of saying what made the book what it is. In many ways Terminal is a break-up album. If it's a love letter to anything it's to my best friend before it's to the Matrix. It's about the way I've felt crazy, and against the people who wanted me to feel that way. One of the domains is a thinly veiled Canary Wharf because that's a place I really hate. Also auteur theory is bullshit and the book is also only what it is because of Gormengeist and Alyssa in combination with me.

When it comes out I hope people like it, and I sincerely believe this book is great and enjoying it doesn't rely on understanding any of the things I've spent two overly-long tumblr posts going on about.

“The connection we share is deeper than the sea, realer than blood and tougher than steel blades. It’s the connection you feel when you look at someone and know that you are the same, that they’re one of yours and you’re one of theirs.” - Ariadne

[merge-conflict]

8 & 17 for the fic writer asks 🌟

sorry it took me so long to answer yours T-T something happened and now it's 4 days some time later. you know how it is. anyway thank you!! I did want to take some time to answer the second one properly.

questions here

8. if you had to write a sequel to a fic, you’d write one for…

tough question to answer because when do I ever leave anything I've written for more than a few months before feeling compelled to continue writing. I'm going to cheat slightly and say there are two things I'd love to continue:

One is the RP I did with @corpocyborg which I'm having trouble finding right now (why am I such a terrible tagger) where Valentine and Valerie did a gig together. It was just such a blast playing them off each other and they made a surprisingly great team. Hard to find a canon where they can both really shine but gosh. That was so much fun.

The second is also OC-related, the stuff I've written with Valentine and @another-corpo-rat 's Victoria Crane. Those two's dynamic is so funny I don't know what they are but it's toxic af. I wrote some smut about the two of them and now I've been thinking about what that meeting over coffee is like afterwards. (I've been watching a lot of killing eve)

Collabs are fun! I love getting the chance to reverse engineer what makes other people's OCs tick and then try to faithfully recreate them in a story.

17. talk about your writing and editing process

I think I answered this one once but I forget and I'm just going to wing it!

I'll be honest I haven't really figured out "plotting" in an advanced way, and am sticking within shouting distance of canon on the longfic, and have fleeting fits of reason which I don't plot longterm at all because it's kind of a cool-down mess-around kind of fic I add stuff to when it sounds fun.

I guess I'll start with considering the shape of what I'm writing –> what the boundaries are, if that makes sense? rough length, and I do mean *rough* like: <1k, 2-10k, nope we're going to have multiple chapters.

Then I take consider the chapter I want to write, as in: what do I want to accomplish? where do I need to go? taking for example indicators of compromise, my objectives are:

textually establish that Alex has a trained eye for detail and analysis

show the rapport (even if it's uneasy) that she has with Reed and how well she knows him

introduce their opinions on Valentine

Then from there the process is basically:

Think of ways to accomplish objectives in the chapter that sound like fun.

Write them down in *some* way, if it's a wip snippet of a scene, [describing what's going on in brackets] or just a barebones script dialog with no description.

Repeat steps 1-2 as many times as needed to get the raw material for the scene that feels fun and satisfying. This may take a fair amount of time.

Finish Draft 0 - where all the scenes are interconnected, and the text written (even if badly), with no remaining [placeholders] or highlights.

Edit. Edit. Edit. Read pieces aloud. Find a rhythm. Edit. Despair. Edit. Despair. Rest.

Optional Beta Step

Publish.

D'oh.

Republish.

[jichanxo]

senseific update ⭐

am gonna talk about senseific and my writing goal last month, so this is a long post ↓

my goal last month was to add 5,000-10,000 words to my senseific wip, and at 12:05am on the first day of the next month, i made it to 10,000 words 😭🙏 so stoked!! i made some serious tangible progress. for once. lol

it's currently at 45k words. i'm not sure exactly how much i added, since i deleted some of my placeholder writing and that cut into the word count as i worked, so realistically i added a bit more than 10,000, though i have no idea how much. either way, i made it!

i got a first pass done of all the dance club stuff, which is... the writing equivalent of me Eating My Veggies. it's not always the most fun (especially covering things that happened in canon) but it's necessary. feels like i've been stuck there forever, and now i can move onto other things... until of course i have to proofread it, but shhh...

robotics and boxing are next, i think. still very lost when i think about the biker stuff 😭 i did end up mentioning the skateboarding in passing, but i don't think i'll do much with that since the plot is so short. (i guess shikishima will turn up at the finale anyway?)

anyhow that still means there's a whole lot to do, and i need to keep doing my notetaking on the clubs 😔 back to the mines...

since i added so many words to chapter 3 (since i finally filled out the conclusion to the dance club plot) i had to change where i split chapters 3/4!

currently things look like this:

chapter 1: 7,011 words (this one needs minor adjustments when i sort out my shit with robotics club)

chapter 2: 6,895 words (i have a spot marked to add a robotics club scene)

chapter 3: 9,990 words (The Dance Club Conclusion. so she's fucking Big. after i take a break i'll need to give it a second pass)

just from looking at the word counts of these chapters you can see why getting 10,000 words done was a big deal for me... got a big chunk done...

chapter 4 got a new title and i shoved a few of the end scenes of chp3 at the start of this one instead. after that is an unfinished boxing scene, then some kitakata related plot to look at, so those are probably the next things i'll aim to get done.

chapter 4's currently called "talk too much", since the scene of kitakata saying something stupid to yagami got moved here instead of chapter 3. and also uh. gossip gets brought up. usually i need to think a lot for titles but this immediately felt right for once.

speaking of titles though, right now i'm unsure about senseific's title. again. but i have no alternative so i'll just have to keep thinking about it. maybe i need to ask around for opinions... it's not an urgent issue so maybe i'll stop worrying so much.

anyway it was kinda funny writing kitakata and yagami sorta getting along with the full knowledge that kitakata is going to ruin it all in an already written later scene 💀 don't give kitakata too much credit yagami, he's going to make you regret it later lmao

anyway i think that's everything. i wrote this text wall at 1am (though i will post it at a normal time)

[nicedracula]

I don’t have much to show off visually right now because I've mostly been working on coding...but! Here's some evidence I'm still working on the game thingy I mentioned a bit ago. Ignore the crude spriting for now...I plan to go back and make things look nice later on. I'm mostly focused on coding and writing, everything else is kinda a basic placeholder until I spruce things up.

This is mostly just me testing player movement and talking to npcs. You can't see it here, but collision is working, too. And while I don’t have all the game text written out yet, I do have a good structure laid out to store it all in. So once I have it written, putting it into the code should be a piece of cake. The game also remembers when things happen now, like choices or if you’ve already interacted with an npc before, and that seems to be running all smoothly(at least on a small scale).

All these things sound very basic (and they are!), but it’s pretty satisfying after starting out with what felt like almost nothing. Just a blank screen with no player movement, no dialogue system, nothing. All a pretty big jump from the days of fiddling around with rpg maker in high school. Thankfully, there are so many tutorials and resources available, and gml is very beginner friendly. I will also say, while it’s a lot more to learn, there’s much more freedom. And some things that are extremely basic in gml would’ve been a struggle in rpg maker, thanks to its limitations.

With most of the basic stuff laid out—outside of implementing just a few more basic things—my main focus now comes down to finishing making sprites/maps, writing out the entirety of the actual story script, and making sure everything triggers properly in the right order(easier said than done). It’s gonna be a lot, but I'm really hoping to have post something more presentable in the near future, if work and the holidays permit. :-)