#also fixed up some details and grammar errors

[peachyhoolagan]

“And you would’ve loved it.”

P1

-

[s1xthirty]

the smallest man who ever lived

pairings : aleksander morozova x fem!reader

summary : someone from your past come back from the dead and knocks on your door with no warning and empty promises.

warnings : rules of wolves spoiler! slight details of the reader being a metamorphmagus.

A/N : please please pleasee, ignore all the grammar mistakes and errors! english isn't my first language. Buy me a coffee!!

He didn't know where to go. He hadn’t thought past the need to become whole again and finally return to himself. He doesn't exactly know who he is right now. He doesn't even have a plan yet—he doesn't know what his purpose is, but his mind keeps echoing your name.

He had pushed you away and left you behind back when his mother meddled with his plans to expand the fold. Maybe he doesn't want you to see him as the black heretic, but that's no excuse because you had seen him evil and you never once blink an eye on the way he did things for Ravka and its people. Yet somehow that wasn't enough for him because you are not what he was looking for—you are not the sun summoner.

What was he thinking abandoning you like that? You were the only one who understands his ways—the only one who understands him. You stayed when nobody could, but yet he still left you once his sun summoner tried to fight against him.

Something painful stirred in his ribs, a feeling he once knew all too well.

Without knowing it, his legs carried him to a beautiful cottage deep in the woods. Many winters ago, you had told him that you wanted to live somewhere far away from the world, somewhere peaceful. You've always believed that you'd be more than content with your own company.

A lot has changed since the last time he visited. The plant has caught up in time, it has sprouted and covered some spots of the stone wall of the cottage. Aleksander also doesn't remember the wildflowers being so lush, he can barely see the pathway to the front door.

His feet were already approaching the front door, but something in him hesitated.

Are you even gonna let him into your home after all these years?

A creek sound of the door snapped him out of his thoughts and his heart raced rapidly in his chest. He doesn't know why he was so anxious to see you. He was the one who left first.

The sight of a familiar man in front of your door made your heart almost leap out of your chest, making you drop the basket in your grasp. "Saints!" You gasped and froze on the door seeing Aleksander standing before you.

For a moment, Aleksander was starstruck. Your face was still beautiful just like the day you both met, it's like you haven't aged a bit. Though, your hair is darker— what happened to your blue hair?

Your eyes roamed through Aleksander's body, making sure you haven't seen a ghost. The last time you saw him, his face was covered in scars. He was weak and wounded, begging for a fix and once he was, he's back on his feet to get his little summoner and you haven't seen him since. You eventually stopped waiting for him.

"Ma?" a voice of a little girl came from inside the house, "Who's at the door?" the little girl came up to the door hiding behind you.

Aleksander could see a glimpse of the blue hair he'd always known but then it turned back to black when the little girl saw him at the door.

"Oh, it's just an old friend, dear." You managed to say, but Aleksander could sense the shake in your voice. "Would you mind collecting the strawberries for me, today?" You picked up the basket on the floor.

"Really?" the little girl lit up in excitement, her hair turning to yellow but then she quickly shook it off again to turn it to black.

"Of course!"

The little girl immediately grabbed the basket and left you alone. Once you were inside, Aleksander sat down by the couch. The atmosphere of your home doesn't change at all. The first thing Aleksander smelled when he first came in was sage and cinnamon. He would always ridicule your old-fashioned ways, but maybe it has rubbed off on him because right now he felt at ease as if he knew he'd be safe inside of your home.

You sat by the armchair facing him with eyes shooting daggers into his very soul. Aleksander could sense the anger that's boiling inside of you, but he knows you know very well how to keep it at bay.

"I thought you were dead."

"Everyone does."

"Exactly, Aleksander. And you're supposed to stay dead!" You hissed, not wanting to shout knowing your child was outside. All these years you thought that you were over him and you've made peace with whatever reason he left you for, but after seeing his face again, you can't help but be angry at him.

"You know I'd do anything to—"

"Save it. What do you want?"

Ravka back in his hand, people kneeling over the starless saint, the throne, to be feared. But that one voice somewhere inside of him said your name. "I wanted to see you," said Aleksander.

"Me?" You chuckled, "I thought you're busy changing the world with that sun summoner of yours."

“I was wrong.” Aleksander said firmly, “I was blinded with greed. I shouldn't have left you.”

“And how am I supposed to believe your words after everything you put me through?” you seethed. “That day, I was planning on telling you, but you left so sudden without telling me a single thing. You could've told me you wanted to go after your summoner—I would've told you right then immediately. Instead, I had to pull myself together while also carrying a baby, all alone!”

"Was that little girl.. ?"

You said nothing, only looking out through the window trying to ignore the way your throat is starting to tighten up. That little girl is Aleksander's child. You haven't been able to tell the kid about her father yet. You couldn't. Not when his father is now resurrected from the dead.

"What is her name?" asked Aleksander,

"Lea."

“She's beautiful.”

“She looks so much like you, it makes me forget how much I hate you for leaving me.” Hell, was he so fixated on being feared than seeing what was actually important in front of his eyes?

Maybe Alina was right, it's not too late for me. Maybe Aleksander could make up for lost times and actually do better—not for ravka, but maybe for Lea.

“Does she know?” He asked,

“What do you think?” You snapped, “She can't know, Aleksander. How do you think she'll react after knowing her father is probably one of the most hated men in the country?”

“I'm willing to stay. For her—for you.”

“No,” you shook your head, “I'm not falling for your stupid games anymore.”

“Please,” He begged and you almost melted from how sweet your name was on his lips, but you know you can't. You've made a promise to yourself that you'd never go back to whatever you had with him. You'd never put yourself in that position again. This is the last time.

You shook your head, “Get out of my house.” The words came out a little more sharper than you intended, but to your surprise, Aleksander didn't fight anymore. He just looked into your eyes for one last time and left.

Buy me a coffee!!

[dr-spectre]

Splatoon - Callie 101!

I have gathered EVERY Callie analysis and ramble I've done and complied them together into one post for your viewing convenience! I go over all the different aspects relating to Callie's arc in Splatoon 2, diving deep into Hypno Callie and clearing up ALL of her misconceptions. Some of these posts are just me rambling and some of them do have overlapping information, but these posts still provide valuable and important information regarding Callie.

In the posts i go over the following:

Clearing up wrong info (She was kidnapped and brainwashed)

Pre-hypnosis

During hypnosis and her behaviour

Explaining hypnosis and it's differences compared to brainwashing

Her being flung out of hypnosis

How she remembers the Squid Sisters

Why she put the shades back on

I love this character to death and i only want the best for her, i hope more and more people come to learn about her true arc and i hope i can inspire some change in the community. Either via more people in the community saying the right terminology across social media and changing the wording from "brainwashing" to hypnosis.

PLEEEAASSEEE!!! reblog and share with others in the Splatoon community because I really do want some change and i want this wonderful character that i love to death to be treated with some more respect. Although she may not seem that important, Callie is one of the most important and significant characters in the franchise and i want more people to treat her as such, rather than some airheaded idiot.

Hearing people say the same stuff over and over again like "Oh she was kidnapped, overpowered and then brainwashed, losing all of her memories, etc." Genuinely gave me a lot of discomfort and i avoided consuming Splatoon 2 content because i was actually scared of seeing Hypno Callie and hearing those words.... That was until i actually did research and began making all of these posts that i shall link.

So here you go and i hope you learn something new about Callie Cuttlefish! (Press Keep reading to view the posts.) 

[evelhak]

Would anyone be interested in beta-/proofreading my KnB fic series?

(Spreading the word helps too. 🙏🏻)

Unfortunately I lost both of my beta-readers due to dramatic life changes a couple of years ago, and I've been doing my best to manage on my own but it's becoming a struggle.

There must be someone out there who craves for the same kind of intense longfic as I do, to get immersed in, and would like to be a part of it.

Plus there are some new/returning KnB people around recently, so who knows? Maybe one of you, who would already be interested in reading an insanely long fic for your own enjoyment, would like to devote, probably a few hours a month or so (I don't have a strict schedule), to relieving the writer's anxiety before they post a new chapter? I'm not looking for anything super in-depth. Basically just another pair of eyes to help me fix:

1. Scenes/sentences/word choices that are too confusing.

2. Factual errors.

3. Typos, grammar mistakes etc.

Low pressure, basically just anything that catches your attention as out of place or needing clarification. Definitely not asking for perfection or anything that you wouldn't catch on the first round of reading. I'm just looking to reduce mistakes I can't catch on my own.

I guess the chances of me finding anyone who is already reading the series (since to my knowledge my long-term readers never came from Tumblr in the first place) are pretty low, so

What will you get if you take a chance on me/The Other Things series?

Aside from a devoted friend (who will also always be ready for in-depth KnB talk)...

🏀 basically a lifetime supply of KagaKuro, seasoned with AoMomo, MidoTaka and other less prominent and at times rare ships (Stay tuned for Yagi Yuuta/Male OC) and also a lot of supporting OCs who exist for reasons other than shipping, including several characters' family members

🏀 one detailed and elaborate version of the main KnB characters' life journeys/basically an enormous character study

🏀 a very psychologically explicit story <- a pair of words (reader approved xD) I recently came up with to describe the emotional intensity that sometimes takes people by surprise

🏀 so much slice of life, so much dialogue, so much angst and fluff, so, so much character development that is definitely earned the hard way

🏀 snail speed slow-burn, I am not kidding, but intense love scenes and also no smut for over a million words but once we get there I promise it's worth it

🏀 so much intertextuality, myths, fairytales, analogies, symbolism that you can reread and reread if you want and I'm sure you'll keep finding new connections

🏀 a lot of fun stuff like our dorks in a group chat, disaster house parties and basketball idiots playing quadball, tons of everyday silliness

🏀 heart wrenching stuff and psychological depiction of hardship, personal growth as well as different kinds of relationships

🏀 deep-dives into topics including mental and physical health, dysfunctional family dynamics, a variety of queer experiences, neurodiversity and more, and particularly characters struggling with how complex things are

🏀 at times counterintuitive interpretations of canon but everything is in one way or another, canon-based or canon-inspired

🏀 to read seven fics before you actually get to beta-read the new stuff😇

Send me a DM if you're interested! 🩵

You can also try and decide it wasn't your thing. The series can be found here on AO3.

[santaclaushohoho1]

writing blog 4 you little bitch:

i got a lot of worldbuilding and basic plotting done in my head. motivations, archetypes, names, landscapes, architecture, races, culture, and images are swimming around in my head. most have been written down

tomorrow i am hoping to draw a map and start expanding on races and cultures in my notebook. writing draws ever closer. the cultures will probably change as i move on through the story, as i am sure the (college (subtle brag 😎 (shut up xxprogamerxx)) anthropology class i am taking will give me so many ideas i want to include.

george r.r. martin, stephen king, and andrzej sapkowski are providing a large amount of inspiration but it is not a crossover fan fiction where Jon Snow fucks Geralt and a mother, mother, daughter, son, and weird fucking uncle relationship forms between yennefer, sussanah, ciri, jake, and eddie (i listed them in their respective roles).

this is entirely original

i swear

i plan for the map to be super detailed and i would like to start tonight but i am wiped out so instead i am going to watch the click in bed, sleep, and start on it in the morning

if i dont wake up early enough to do mapping before i start school i will work on basic plotting and maybe design a couple languages

some will be ancient and out of use, but somehow still relevant to important things (fucking latin) and others will be used regularly, though most humanoids will speak my version of common

i also have 12 religions to create

this will be a lot of fun, and considering how much of my time i spend thinking about this stuff, i am hopeful i finish quickly

i ALSO developed a schedule that i will do for writing when the time comes around. my goal is 95,000 words, and i have mathed it out so that if i can write 3,750 words a week (not that much, 750 words, 5 days a week or 536ish words a day) then it will be completed in in less than six months. this is doable and also gives me a LOT of wiggle room, both to get extremely ahead of schedule (if i get really into it) or really behind schedule (if i can only bring myself to write 500 a day for a week, i have another 2 days to write that extra 1250) (for context, this is over 400 words, so i will need to write less than 2 of these a day, this only took me maybe 20 minutes but that's including going over a couple times with my eyes and with Grammarly to fix any spelling mistakes and grammar errors (as well as adding tags and this side note, we are more like at 547 in this whole thing, including the tags), i will not be doing that on my rough draft because that shit is supposed to be rough and editing it will kill my motivation so hard)

i got my shit together raccoon!!! woohoo!!!

[salty-professor]

Degree Mills

The Department of Education defines a degree mill as a school that has fake accreditation and where the students do not have to do any work. That is certainly true.

However, insiders, that is me, and a lot of other folks who do the work in higher ed agree that a degree mill is a place where the fix is in from the moment the student walks on campus. They find it sick to know that regardless of performance, as long as the student has a pulse and is in good standing with one or twenty student loan services (this is the real key, students=$$$), that student will graduate with a legitimate degree even though the student will not have learned a fucking thing.

It is gross. I hate it. Blech.

I have a confession to make…

I accidentally got a job at a degree mill. I didn't mean to. I was looking to pick up some summer teaching. Teaching full-time doesn't pay all the bills and sometimes, we get sick of teaching the same few classes over and over, so, while we don't want to leave our full-time teaching posts, we pick up adjunct jobs at other schools.

So, I saw this ad for an adjunct job at a BIG school. This is one of those schools that is so big that it will survive the coming edpocalypse without so much as a blink. When the small, liberal arts schools fail, and shut down these mammoth, too-big-to-fail schools will roll on until there is just one monster Hydra University. It is an online job so I didn't have to commute. It pays better than what I would make doing overload work at my current job. Most importantly for me, the school is a non-profit and accredited, so I wasn't going to be doing garbage…or so I thought. I did my training and was impressed. I mean, they use an online learning management system designed by sadists. Still, it wasn't the end of the world. I've used it before. It isn't my full-time job. I could suffer for a few hours per day of this bullshit. No problem. I signed the contract. I read the text. I whistled a merry tune.

Then, I saw the course shell.

I have zero ability to change anything. I can't alter the due dates to meet my schedule. I can't close the discussions after they are graded. I can't even change the late policy. OK. So, I guess this is all about quality control. They need to be sure folks are doing it "right" so OK. I can give good, thoughtful feedback and do some teaching on the back end. Individualized learning is awesome anyway. Then, I saw the rubrics. They are already filled out with approved written feedback and they only have three levels. The student either gets all the points, most of the points, or NONE of the points. Really? Really? Who would EVER give a student a zero unless there was a missing assignment? No one who isn't a total fuckhead, that's who. I am not, for the record, a total fuckhead.

Thus, even when my students totally miss the point, like swing and miss, I have to mark that middle row on the grading rubric. That means, as long as the student turns in something, even if it is crappy and has a grammar error in every sentence, the student will earn a C. The school is accredited because every week the faculty clicks the pre-made rubric and thus the students get regular, substantive feedback. Also, as long as they submit something, the students will pass. The retention and graduation rates put me through the roof. Student satisfaction must be sky high because when asked if they like the place and if they feel the teacher was engaged, students will say yes. After all, how could they not?

I can't change the system. It is a massive school with lots of lawyers and I assume, one or twenty lobbyists as well. For now, I am taking detailed notes. I have videos and screenshots. I am building a file that I will send to the DOE and the regional accrediting body. They will likely not give a shit, but I give a shit and it is all I can do. I am not going to walk away from the students I currently have. I can't quit on them. That isn't fair. They can still learn some good stuff. I will fight the good fight within the virtual confines of my classroom. I will give different feedback. I will push them to do better. I will make audio comments or video comments and I meet with them and I try, and try, and try, to get them to learn. To be better. I will explain that while they are going to pass, that isn't the point. Grades are pointless if they don't learn anything.

I know there will be students who care. I know there is some great information they can take from my class. I can do the work. The extra work. I can be the shining light in the degree-milled darkness. I will work hard because I care.

#educationisaright, but it must be earned.

I need to take a shower.

[dennisboobs]

How could a guy get involved in helping out with the wiki? I've never done it before and I don't think I'd necessarily be any good at writing the content (I'm too biased and I know it) but I love doing repetitive organisational stuff like linking pages together and keeping an eye on formatting and stuff.

We all started somewhere! The nicest thing about wiki work is that every little bit helps (and nothing is ever catastrophic, the rollback and page history features are a godsend, and I have a bot set up in a private server to give me live updates for the wiki). Even if you don't think you'd be great at writing, someone else could come along and spiff up the stuff you wrote, edit it down, change your wording, etc. In many cases, it's better to have something on a page than nothing at all, even if you don't feel it's adequate. Trust me when I say that starting from scratch is worse for someone like me, especially when the subject has fifteen seasons you're now faced with recapping because at some point someone decided Dennis' page should be full of jotnotes detailing his sexual exploits instead of an actual per-episode or even per-season summary.

If you think you're biased, stick to facts, cite your sources, and don't extrapolate a ton; it helps to work on pages you don't have any particularly strong feelings about too (though this isn't always the most motivating, it might still be a good place to start out).

I'm going to work on writing up a style guide for the wiki, probably something similar to the one I wrote for the Disco Elysium wiki, but until then, small edits and just doing what you can (fixing spelling errors, watching for consistency - US English on the Sunny wiki is a bit of a struggle for me because I'm Canadian, I slip up - with grammar and regional spelling), and if you're familiar with how interwiki links should be handled (something like... [[Dennis Reynolds]] or [[Deandra Reynolds|Dee Reynolds]] or ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'', only first mention on a page should be linked, first mention should be the full name/title, etc.) my suggestion is just going to the topnav and hitting "random page" and seeing if you hit on a page with a glaring problem that you can tackle.

Right now, most pages have lazy and unnecessary templates like this: {{Dennis}}, {{S8}} that I'm working on getting rid of and replacing with the standard links: [[Dennis Reynolds|Dennis]], [[Season 8]], so if you're up for the task, that might be an easy place to start, and should also serve to get you acclimated to the wiki and the editor (speaking of, I'd suggest using the actual source editor - not the VisualEditor or the VisualEditor - source mode, but the actual Source editor - which can be found in My Preferences > Editing.)

If you need anything at all, you can hit me up on my profile's talk page, on Discord @ Literally Satan#3262, or here on tumblr, and I'd be happy to help. Thanks for your interest!!

[foggycuriosities]

About

Hi! This is Vincent and this is my roleplay blog featuring muses from several fandoms and cannons. My main goal is to have fun and interact with people in fandoms I’m passionate about! ATM I'm selective but I will interact no matter the skill level if I'm interested. I will not have more than 2-3 detailed rps at a time. But funny short rps I will have as many as I feel like juggling.

Im 22 so I prefer to interact with people 18+ sorry! If you don’t have your age in your bio or about I wont interact. I currently have muses for Dead By Daylight and Trigun! (Mostly with 98 and manga with slight influence from stampede) I do have some sideblogs that are attached to this one that I moved from my main account they are @hauntedmoonstone @wonderingduke and yes they count to the detailed rp count

I will be upfront I have a learning disability and other brain issues so there will occasionally be spelling or grammar errors in replies! 

I go over all my writing multiple times to try and ensure the best quality I can offer despite this but I ask you to be kind and understanding if I slip up a word here and there. I'm also working really hard currently to further my writing ability so you may notice the way I write changes every so often as I develop better skills and my own style.

I do have a chronic illness and may disappear for a day or two with no heads up (I'll try to give a heads up if I can tho!) If I come back and it seems like I may have forgotten our rp feel free to poke me! I really do not mind reminders at all! 

I rp on Discord as well so if you’d rather do an rp there for whatever reason feel free to add me! Or even if you just wish to plan and such over Discord rather than dms/asks here on tumblr my user is bimbobarbie! 

All common triggers will be tagged in the post as tw: trigger and also just the word without the tw: if any replies have extreme violence/gore/mature themes there will be a warning above the reply and the reply under a read more. Very minor violence etc will not be under a read more. If I miss a tag or if you need an uncommon trigger tagged let me know and I will fix it asap.

This is a multishipping/multiverse blog so don't expect if our muses get in a relationship that they will be just shipped with your muse.  Though unless discussed assume all ships take place in a different timeline (basically everything is the same but they date person B instead of person A.)  

Ask memes do not expire but I request that you send the full ask meme if its older than a day or two instead of just the emoji etc. I’m willing to rp smut (another reason my blog is mdni) but we have to have done at least one meaningful thread with said characters and talked about them ooc some as well before I will do any smut threads.

[makomore]

Why New Writers Really Need To Learn Grammar

Is it worth taking the time to learn grammar for new writers?

Today, you have online tools to correct, rewrite, and even auto-generate text.

But writing is more than simply being correct. It’s about developing your style, voice, and clarity and learning what works with your readers.

The best way to achieve this is to have a basic understanding of grammar, but you don’t need to be an expert.

In This Article Hide

Why bother learning grammar?

Grammar is to writing what recipes are to cooking.

When you know about the ingredients and techniques, you can cook better.

The same goes for grammar and writing. The more you understand about the building blocks of language, the better you will write.

But don’t worry about trying to learn everything. However, if you are curious, you can add a little to your knowledge almost every day.

It might sound strange, but when I was studying to become an English teacher, I was concerned about the depth of my grammar knowledge.

One of my tutors gave me a great piece of advice.

“Don’t worry. Your students will teach you!”

It was true because, during my first couple of years of teaching, it was questions from my students and marking their assignments that helped me improve my grammar knowledge at a rapid pace.

The same is true for writing, as long as you are willing to ask yourself questions.

The more you write, the more mistakes you make, the more errors you fix, the more you will learn.

What is grammar?

Grammar is a set of rules governing how we use language and construct sentences.

In essence, grammar defines the proper order of words and the relationships between them.

It also gives you guidance for the correct use of elements like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions.

For example, you capitalize nouns when you start a sentence.

Another is that when you use prepositions, they are always followed by nouns or pronouns.

Grammar also includes some other general guiding elements.

Syntax (sentence structure).

Morphology (word formation).

Semantics (meaning).

Register (formality).

Grammar helps organize words and phrases into meaningful, coherent sentences for more effective communication.

Do you need to learn all of this? No, of course not.

However, taking the time to learn grammar at a basic level always helps new writers improve their writing skills.

What are the basics?

You probably know a lot already, so you’ll only need to brush up on a few grammar points.

But here are the five key aspects to always keep in mind.

Parts of speech: The different types of words you use, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Sentence structure: The way you combine words to form sentences.

Punctuation: Use commas, periods, and question marks to help organize and clarify your writing.

Agreement: The words you use in a sentence should agree in number, gender, and case.

Usage: The correct use of words and phrases within a sentence.

Let’s look at some of these in more detail.

Here are what I believe are the most essential grammar points for new writers to master.

1. Subject-verb agreement

This is usually very easy to get right.

The dog barks whenever someone comes to the door. (Singular) 

The dogs bark whenever someone comes to the door. (Plural)

My manager was not much help. (Singular)

My managers were not much help. (Plural)

But some subjects can sometimes be more challenging to get right.

One is with entities, groups, or teams. In this case, the correct verb agreement is singular.

My team are winning! (Incorrect)

My team is winning! (Correct)

Neither-nor sentences can also be problematic. Look at these two examples.

Neither the boss nor the employees seem satisfied with the situation.

Neither the employees nor the boss seems satisfied with the situation.

As you can see, the correct agreement can change depending on the order and number of the subjects.

2. Pronoun-antecedent agreement

Check that a pronoun agrees in number and gender with its antecedent, which is often the subject of a sentence.

Here are two quick examples.

The cat chased its tail. (Singular agreement)

The cats chased their tails. (Plural agreement)

3. Commas

We use commas to separate independent clauses, items in a series, and nonessential information.

While there are a lot of comma rules, most of them are easy to learn.

The only one that causes confusion is the Oxford or Serial comma. It is the comma before the last item in a list.

Some style guides recommend using it, while others say no.

It’s up to you to decide, but then to make sure you are consistent in your use.

4. Understanding parallelism

Parallelism in grammar is using similar grammatical structures in a sentence or phrase to create balance and emphasis.

You can use it to join two or more words, phrases, clauses, or sentences.

Words: She ran quickly and quietly.

Phrases: He ate breakfast, grabbed his coat, and ran for the bus.

Clauses: I like to swim, play tennis, and sing.

Sentences: The cat jumped on the table, knocked over the vase, and ran away.

Errors with parallelism occur when you mix structures.

She likes to swim, running, and dancing. 

The verb forms are not parallel. Swim is the infinitive form, while running and dancing are gerund forms.

5. Active voice

Identifying the grammar structure of the passive voice will help you find it and change it to the active voice.

When you use active voice, it makes writing more concise and forceful.

Of all the grammar points in my list, this is the big one for new writers to master.

Passive sentences are usually less engaging for readers because they don’t know who or what is actively performing the action.

The meeting was canceled at the last minute.

In the phrase above, we don’t know who canceled the meeting.

A quick fix would be to add the operator, by. However, it makes the sentence much longer than necessary.

The meeting was canceled at the last minute by the managing director.

The best solution is almost always to use active voice.

The managing director canceled the meeting at the last minute.

Now, the sentence is clear, direct, less wordy, and informative.

6. Identifying adverbs

Adverbs are a necessary part of grammar. We use them to describe verbs in a similar way to how we use adjectives to describe nouns.

I walked past a store in the high street and noticed an unusual teapot.

In this example, past is the adverb, which is essential to the meaning of the sentence.

But too many adverbs can dilute a piece of writing. Stephen King called them weeds.

You usually find them directly after a verb; however, this is not always the case. You can see how adverbs can move in these examples.

I very quickly ran to the store.

I ran to the store very quickly.

Very quickly, I ran to the store.

In most instances, you can remove an adverb by using a stronger verb.

I dashed to the store.

When you learn to identify adverbs, you can easily make changes to improve your writing.

Summary

You don’t need to aim to be a grammarian.

All you need is a basic understanding of some of the critical elements in grammar.

For new writers, taking the time to learn grammar is a step-by-step process. You won’t do it in one day.

The best way is to want to learn and stay curious about grammatical elements that can improve your writing.

Yes, use all the online tools at your disposal, but learn from them.

Before you do a one-click correction, take a moment to analyze why.

Online writing correctors are not 100% accurate, so it’s up to you to make the right decisions.

I use Grammarly a lot, but I only accept around 60-70% of its suggestions because many are either wrong or inappropriate.

For new writers, when you take the time to learn a little about grammar, it helps put you in charge of your writing.

Related Reading: How To Edit There Is And There Are Sentences

Read more here https://bookmarketingandbookpromotiontools.blogspot.com/2023/06/amazon-kdp-categories-also-see-bottom.html

[justjaynemansfield]

Why New Writers Really Need To Learn Grammar

Is it worth taking the time to learn grammar for new writers?

Today, you have online tools to correct, rewrite, and even auto-generate text.

But writing is more than simply being correct. It’s about developing your style, voice, and clarity and learning what works with your readers.

The best way to achieve this is to have a basic understanding of grammar, but you don’t need to be an expert.

In This Article Hide

Why bother learning grammar?

Grammar is to writing what recipes are to cooking.

When you know about the ingredients and techniques, you can cook better.

The same goes for grammar and writing. The more you understand about the building blocks of language, the better you will write.

But don’t worry about trying to learn everything. However, if you are curious, you can add a little to your knowledge almost every day.

It might sound strange, but when I was studying to become an English teacher, I was concerned about the depth of my grammar knowledge.

One of my tutors gave me a great piece of advice.

“Don’t worry. Your students will teach you!”

It was true because, during my first couple of years of teaching, it was questions from my students and marking their assignments that helped me improve my grammar knowledge at a rapid pace.

The same is true for writing, as long as you are willing to ask yourself questions.

The more you write, the more mistakes you make, the more errors you fix, the more you will learn.

What is grammar?

Grammar is a set of rules governing how we use language and construct sentences.

In essence, grammar defines the proper order of words and the relationships between them.

It also gives you guidance for the correct use of elements like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions.

For example, you capitalize nouns when you start a sentence.

Another is that when you use prepositions, they are always followed by nouns or pronouns.

Grammar also includes some other general guiding elements.

Syntax (sentence structure).

Morphology (word formation).

Semantics (meaning).

Register (formality).

Grammar helps organize words and phrases into meaningful, coherent sentences for more effective communication.

Do you need to learn all of this? No, of course not.

However, taking the time to learn grammar at a basic level always helps new writers improve their writing skills.

What are the basics?

You probably know a lot already, so you’ll only need to brush up on a few grammar points.

But here are the five key aspects to always keep in mind.

Parts of speech: The different types of words you use, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Sentence structure: The way you combine words to form sentences.

Punctuation: Use commas, periods, and question marks to help organize and clarify your writing.

Agreement: The words you use in a sentence should agree in number, gender, and case.

Usage: The correct use of words and phrases within a sentence.

Let’s look at some of these in more detail.

Here are what I believe are the most essential grammar points for new writers to master.

1. Subject-verb agreement

This is usually very easy to get right.

The dog barks whenever someone comes to the door. (Singular) 

The dogs bark whenever someone comes to the door. (Plural)

My manager was not much help. (Singular)

My managers were not much help. (Plural)

But some subjects can sometimes be more challenging to get right.

One is with entities, groups, or teams. In this case, the correct verb agreement is singular.

My team are winning! (Incorrect)

My team is winning! (Correct)

Neither-nor sentences can also be problematic. Look at these two examples.

Neither the boss nor the employees seem satisfied with the situation.

Neither the employees nor the boss seems satisfied with the situation.

As you can see, the correct agreement can change depending on the order and number of the subjects.

2. Pronoun-antecedent agreement

Check that a pronoun agrees in number and gender with its antecedent, which is often the subject of a sentence.

Here are two quick examples.

The cat chased its tail. (Singular agreement)

The cats chased their tails. (Plural agreement)

3. Commas

We use commas to separate independent clauses, items in a series, and nonessential information.

While there are a lot of comma rules, most of them are easy to learn.

The only one that causes confusion is the Oxford or Serial comma. It is the comma before the last item in a list.

Some style guides recommend using it, while others say no.

It’s up to you to decide, but then to make sure you are consistent in your use.

4. Understanding parallelism

Parallelism in grammar is using similar grammatical structures in a sentence or phrase to create balance and emphasis.

You can use it to join two or more words, phrases, clauses, or sentences.

Words: She ran quickly and quietly.

Phrases: He ate breakfast, grabbed his coat, and ran for the bus.

Clauses: I like to swim, play tennis, and sing.

Sentences: The cat jumped on the table, knocked over the vase, and ran away.

Errors with parallelism occur when you mix structures.

She likes to swim, running, and dancing. 

The verb forms are not parallel. Swim is the infinitive form, while running and dancing are gerund forms.

5. Active voice

Identifying the grammar structure of the passive voice will help you find it and change it to the active voice.

When you use active voice, it makes writing more concise and forceful.

Of all the grammar points in my list, this is the big one for new writers to master.

Passive sentences are usually less engaging for readers because they don’t know who or what is actively performing the action.

The meeting was canceled at the last minute.

In the phrase above, we don’t know who canceled the meeting.

A quick fix would be to add the operator, by. However, it makes the sentence much longer than necessary.

The meeting was canceled at the last minute by the managing director.

The best solution is almost always to use active voice.

The managing director canceled the meeting at the last minute.

Now, the sentence is clear, direct, less wordy, and informative.

6. Identifying adverbs

Adverbs are a necessary part of grammar. We use them to describe verbs in a similar way to how we use adjectives to describe nouns.

I walked past a store in the high street and noticed an unusual teapot.

In this example, past is the adverb, which is essential to the meaning of the sentence.

But too many adverbs can dilute a piece of writing. Stephen King called them weeds.

You usually find them directly after a verb; however, this is not always the case. You can see how adverbs can move in these examples.

I very quickly ran to the store.

I ran to the store very quickly.

Very quickly, I ran to the store.

In most instances, you can remove an adverb by using a stronger verb.

I dashed to the store.

When you learn to identify adverbs, you can easily make changes to improve your writing.

Summary

You don’t need to aim to be a grammarian.

All you need is a basic understanding of some of the critical elements in grammar.

For new writers, taking the time to learn grammar is a step-by-step process. You won’t do it in one day.

The best way is to want to learn and stay curious about grammatical elements that can improve your writing.

Yes, use all the online tools at your disposal, but learn from them.

Before you do a one-click correction, take a moment to analyze why.

Online writing correctors are not 100% accurate, so it’s up to you to make the right decisions.

I use Grammarly a lot, but I only accept around 60-70% of its suggestions because many are either wrong or inappropriate.

For new writers, when you take the time to learn a little about grammar, it helps put you in charge of your writing.

Related Reading: How To Edit There Is And There Are Sentences

Read more here https://bookmarketingandbookpromotiontools.blogspot.com/2023/06/amazon-kdp-categories-also-see-bottom.html

[tovio-rogers]

Why New Writers Really Need To Learn Grammar

Is it worth taking the time to learn grammar for new writers?

Today, you have online tools to correct, rewrite, and even auto-generate text.

But writing is more than simply being correct. It’s about developing your style, voice, and clarity and learning what works with your readers.

The best way to achieve this is to have a basic understanding of grammar, but you don’t need to be an expert.

In This Article Hide

Why bother learning grammar?

Grammar is to writing what recipes are to cooking.

When you know about the ingredients and techniques, you can cook better.

The same goes for grammar and writing. The more you understand about the building blocks of language, the better you will write.

But don’t worry about trying to learn everything. However, if you are curious, you can add a little to your knowledge almost every day.

It might sound strange, but when I was studying to become an English teacher, I was concerned about the depth of my grammar knowledge.

One of my tutors gave me a great piece of advice.

“Don’t worry. Your students will teach you!”

It was true because, during my first couple of years of teaching, it was questions from my students and marking their assignments that helped me improve my grammar knowledge at a rapid pace.

The same is true for writing, as long as you are willing to ask yourself questions.

The more you write, the more mistakes you make, the more errors you fix, the more you will learn.

What is grammar?

Grammar is a set of rules governing how we use language and construct sentences.

In essence, grammar defines the proper order of words and the relationships between them.

It also gives you guidance for the correct use of elements like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions.

For example, you capitalize nouns when you start a sentence.

Another is that when you use prepositions, they are always followed by nouns or pronouns.

Grammar also includes some other general guiding elements.

Syntax (sentence structure).

Morphology (word formation).

Semantics (meaning).

Register (formality).

Grammar helps organize words and phrases into meaningful, coherent sentences for more effective communication.

Do you need to learn all of this? No, of course not.

However, taking the time to learn grammar at a basic level always helps new writers improve their writing skills.

What are the basics?

You probably know a lot already, so you’ll only need to brush up on a few grammar points.

But here are the five key aspects to always keep in mind.

Parts of speech: The different types of words you use, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Sentence structure: The way you combine words to form sentences.

Punctuation: Use commas, periods, and question marks to help organize and clarify your writing.

Agreement: The words you use in a sentence should agree in number, gender, and case.

Usage: The correct use of words and phrases within a sentence.

Let’s look at some of these in more detail.

Here are what I believe are the most essential grammar points for new writers to master.

1. Subject-verb agreement

This is usually very easy to get right.

The dog barks whenever someone comes to the door. (Singular) 

The dogs bark whenever someone comes to the door. (Plural)

My manager was not much help. (Singular)

My managers were not much help. (Plural)

But some subjects can sometimes be more challenging to get right.

One is with entities, groups, or teams. In this case, the correct verb agreement is singular.

My team are winning! (Incorrect)

My team is winning! (Correct)

Neither-nor sentences can also be problematic. Look at these two examples.

Neither the boss nor the employees seem satisfied with the situation.

Neither the employees nor the boss seems satisfied with the situation.

As you can see, the correct agreement can change depending on the order and number of the subjects.

2. Pronoun-antecedent agreement

Check that a pronoun agrees in number and gender with its antecedent, which is often the subject of a sentence.

Here are two quick examples.

The cat chased its tail. (Singular agreement)

The cats chased their tails. (Plural agreement)

3. Commas

We use commas to separate independent clauses, items in a series, and nonessential information.

While there are a lot of comma rules, most of them are easy to learn.

The only one that causes confusion is the Oxford or Serial comma. It is the comma before the last item in a list.

Some style guides recommend using it, while others say no.

It’s up to you to decide, but then to make sure you are consistent in your use.

4. Understanding parallelism

Parallelism in grammar is using similar grammatical structures in a sentence or phrase to create balance and emphasis.

You can use it to join two or more words, phrases, clauses, or sentences.

Words: She ran quickly and quietly.

Phrases: He ate breakfast, grabbed his coat, and ran for the bus.

Clauses: I like to swim, play tennis, and sing.

Sentences: The cat jumped on the table, knocked over the vase, and ran away.

Errors with parallelism occur when you mix structures.

She likes to swim, running, and dancing. 

The verb forms are not parallel. Swim is the infinitive form, while running and dancing are gerund forms.

5. Active voice

Identifying the grammar structure of the passive voice will help you find it and change it to the active voice.

When you use active voice, it makes writing more concise and forceful.

Of all the grammar points in my list, this is the big one for new writers to master.

Passive sentences are usually less engaging for readers because they don’t know who or what is actively performing the action.

The meeting was canceled at the last minute.

In the phrase above, we don’t know who canceled the meeting.

A quick fix would be to add the operator, by. However, it makes the sentence much longer than necessary.

The meeting was canceled at the last minute by the managing director.

The best solution is almost always to use active voice.

The managing director canceled the meeting at the last minute.

Now, the sentence is clear, direct, less wordy, and informative.

6. Identifying adverbs

Adverbs are a necessary part of grammar. We use them to describe verbs in a similar way to how we use adjectives to describe nouns.

I walked past a store in the high street and noticed an unusual teapot.

In this example, past is the adverb, which is essential to the meaning of the sentence.

But too many adverbs can dilute a piece of writing. Stephen King called them weeds.

You usually find them directly after a verb; however, this is not always the case. You can see how adverbs can move in these examples.

I very quickly ran to the store.

I ran to the store very quickly.

Very quickly, I ran to the store.

In most instances, you can remove an adverb by using a stronger verb.

I dashed to the store.

When you learn to identify adverbs, you can easily make changes to improve your writing.

Summary

You don’t need to aim to be a grammarian.

All you need is a basic understanding of some of the critical elements in grammar.

For new writers, taking the time to learn grammar is a step-by-step process. You won’t do it in one day.

The best way is to want to learn and stay curious about grammatical elements that can improve your writing.

Yes, use all the online tools at your disposal, but learn from them.

Before you do a one-click correction, take a moment to analyze why.

Online writing correctors are not 100% accurate, so it’s up to you to make the right decisions.

I use Grammarly a lot, but I only accept around 60-70% of its suggestions because many are either wrong or inappropriate.

For new writers, when you take the time to learn a little about grammar, it helps put you in charge of your writing.

Related Reading: How To Edit There Is And There Are Sentences

Read more here https://bookmarketingandbookpromotiontools.blogspot.com/2023/06/amazon-kdp-categories-also-see-bottom.html

[geraniums-red]

900 days of Duolingo

I've made it to 900 days of Duolingo.  I'm continuing my loop of doing one language each day (French-Japanese-Welsh), as it seems to be working pretty well for me.  It probably slows my progress down compared with focusing on just one language, but if I wanted to optimise my language learning I'd probably be doing language lessons rather than just Duolingo.  

Duolingo have finally fixed the error that was giving me stuck mistakes on French and Welsh.  However, they've broken (I really hope it's a bug and not an intentional change) English input for all languages, so I have to pick words off a pick list rather than typing my answer in.  This makes my overall experience much worse.  In French and Welsh, I can at least type the first few words of the word, but it forces me to focus on wrangling the UI rather than on what the translation actually means.  In Japanese I can't even do that, but have to use the mouse.  Given that I specifically use Duolingo desktop so that I can type my answers in (just pressing buttons rather than typing means I don't learn anything), I'm pretty annoyed about this change.  At least it's only for translations to English - if it was translations from English, I think that would lead to me dropping Duolingo altogether.  

They also haven't done anything to replace the information in the teaching notes or forums.  Welsh is particularly bad, as pre-UI change there was detailed information on grammar as part of the course, and it’s just been wiped out and replaced with some not very useful examples.  French has some teaching material, but it never seems to answer the questions I have.  Anyway, you can learn about masculine and feminine versions of Welsh numbers here, and the order in which you should put indirect object pronouns in French here. Just don’t expect Duolingo to be helpful for that stuff. 

French

At 800 days I was doing some revision of earlier units, and was having to scroll back to unit 40.  I finished that block of sections, and am now on unit 58.  This is still not quite where Duolingo thinks I’m supposed to be (unit 62), but the end is in sight and I don’t have to scroll so far.  It’s harder work than the stuff in unit 40, but much better than it was the first time round as I’ve now got a firmer grasp of the basics. 

Japanese

At 800 days I was revising the material in units 10-14.  I’m now working on unit 18.  It thinks it should be on unit 20, which seems pretty close, except I’m taking a long time to get to grips with each new set of words.  I told a friend that the main thing Duolingo Japanese was teaching me was humility, and they replied that that was very Japanese of it, so there is that, I suppose.  I am making progress, it’s just very slow. 

Welsh

At 800 days I was on unit 7 in Welsh, and now I’m on unit 9.  Which I guess is not super fast progress, but I’m ambling along quite contentedly.  Because I’m up with where it thinks I should be, I can use the sessions in the Practice section, such as Target Practice and Listening, which are pretty good for consolidation, so I’m hopeful I won’t have to go back and revisit earlier units in the same way I’ve been doing for French and Japanese. 

My main complaint about Welsh is that the Guidebook sections are completely useless (as discussed above).  I’m particularly bitter about this, because before the UI upgrade they had some unusually good course notes, and they seem to have brought Welsh into line with the other languages by getting rid of them entirely. 

[extraassignmenthelp]

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We provide support on both parameters, so you can rely on our experts for these services. For proofreading, which is the last stage of the overall editing process, we will check your material for remaining errors like wrong punctuation, misspelled words, and inconsistent styling errors. For clients who want printed work, we also evaluate the format of the paper, like line spacing.

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[versadies]

may these tips guide you to your writings !

VERSADIES’S WRITING TIPS FOR GENSHIN X READER WRITERS !

SPECIAL NOTE. thank you guys so much again for the 6k milestone! your love and support has always been appreciated and i decided to make this special post as a way to help those who strive to be even more amazing writers ! as always, enjoy these tips my fellow comrades <333 — sincerely, dan 🫶

SYPNOSIS. includes tips regarding the process of writing, content, genshin characters, the writers, and appearance of your blog that’s mostly for beginners !

please take note that you don’t have to follow these tips and that this isn’t the right way to help you write, but a possible way to help you write and improve (p.s. though, you should definitely get grammar, formatting, etc. right in order for your readers to have better experience in reading your fics)

1 — the process

The following tips below this point includes the process of it such as first drafts, editing, proofreading, putting tags, and more. You may proceed to the next points if these are not the tips you’re looking for!

1. OUTLINES !

A tip I always go for whenever I want to start writing fics are essentially to make outlines. If you don’t know what an outline is, it’s basically where you give a general description of what you want in your fanfic without the full details just yet. This is super helpful especially when writing a fanfic series because you know what to do and what you generally want by the time you reach to writing that part of your fic :DD

Once you’re done with your outline, you can now start writing your first draft based on it, this is where you can now write all the details (dialogues, scenes, etc.) you have in mind in your fic!

2. WRITE YOUR IDEAS

If you ever come up with new ideas, list them ASAP! Even if you don’t think you won’t write it, keep it – it can help future you if you couldn’t think of anything to write about.

3. FOCUS ON YOUR THOUGHTS

Avoid procrastinating as you let your thoughts barf out, be determined no matter what until you finally finish with letting your thoughts out. 

4. SHARING IS CARING

You can also chat with other writers – you can even chat with me if you want to talk about your passionate brainrots – because writers can spark your ideas even more with ideas they have in mind if you allow them to.

5. STORYTELLING METHOD

Another tip is to recite the words you’ve written as if you’re a narrator and see if the fic sits right with you. Doing this can help some people who want to know if there’s something that’s unclear or doesn’t sound right by reciting it. Whether you’d like to read it out loud is up to you!

6. GRAMMAR

Speaking of which doesn’t sound right, grammar matters! It’s alright if you don’t have a beta reader or someone who’s willing to help you out in checking your grammar like me, I recommend using google docs and some websites that can check my grammar.

Google docs is where I write most of my fics in and I can guarantee that it helped me out with my grammar and sometimes capitalizations. Although it doesn’t exactly fix all the grammar errors you have, it’s still decent enough for it to be used. A few grammar websites I sometimes use are writer.com and quillbot.com, so you can try using them as well if you wanna try my tip out.

7. FORMAT

My next tip is regarding the format of one’s fic. When I say format, I mean by how the paragraphs are shown in one’s post, specifically paragraph breaks. Leave some space for your fics, let them breathe. Readers like me get scared when we see the whole fic being one whole paragraph. Change paragraphs when:

A new character shows up

Dialogue, specially when someone else speaks next

New topic, idea, subject, etc. is introduced

Change of settings

When you want to pull something dramatic (oh, oh.)

When the mood of the scene changes

With spaces, it’s easier for readers to understand and process what you’re trying to say in your fics.

8. PROOF-READ IT

Another tip is related to the last process of writing fanfiction: proof-reading. It won’t hurt to reread your fic (even if you feel like you want to cringe) and see if there are some errors or typos. A tip of mine is something I came across to google when I was still new around tumblr – and it is to simply list your errors that you’d commonly make and to keep an eye out for them. 

The errors could be misspellings, misinterpretation on what a certain word means, even mistaking the reader’s gender, and more. 

Either way, always double check on everything until you feel like you’re satisfied or sure of your fic. 

9. CW / TW

I advise you to put detailed content warning / trigger warnings in your post. Readers should know what’s going to be on your fic, especially if your post is dark/angst/mature content. Don’t forget to specify whether your fic is SFW or NSFW, not everyone who uses tumblr are adults. 

10. READ MORE

By the time the fic is done and is ready to post, make sure to add a read more function. It’s going to be a hassle if your fic is really long and it’ll take a long time on swiping, so it’s best if you add the function in your fic if your fic is at least more than 700. 

For those who don’t know how to put a read more function in their post on mobile, just write :readmore: and enter.

11. TAG

Lastly, the next tips are about tags. I really advise you to properly tag your fic. Use tags that are relevant and related to your fics. Some people would be disappointed if you use a tag they’re looking for and isn’t something that your fic has (example: you tagged your fic as angst but the fic is fluff for the entire post), and yes, although it’s a way to get your fic to be seen by others more, it’s better to be safe than sorry. 

2 – the content

The following tips below includes writing angst, vocabularies, use of italics and bold, show-not-tell tips, dialogues, and more. You may proceed to the next points if these are not the tips you’re looking for!

1. WRITING ANGST

Be in the mood, listen to sad songs, watch series and movies, or even read books that absolutely wrecked you – the same can go for writing fluff. 

Ask yourself these questions as a reader when you’re writing: is this enough to make me feel sad? Is the impact of the angst strong enough? If you say no to these questions, try to add or change something that could make it even more tragic, be it dialogues or more scenes (just not too much of course)

A favorite tip of mine is to describe the overwhelming feelings the character or the reader has. Describe how painful it was for them. Describe the agony they felt than everything else they’ve felt throughout their lives. Sure, it’s fine if you say: “He was devastated when he saw them.” But you can also say, “He felt like the world was crashing down on him the moment he saw you in such a broken state – and it’s all because of him.” Describe it, but not too much. 

Try not to drag it too much. When I mean by that, I mean don’t try to make it too slow (too much dialogues, unnecessarily describing too much of the scenes, etc), it will ruin the pain for the readers. This also goes for making sure not to make your paragraphs be confusing. People won’t suffer but instead be confused if you add something that can be confusing.

2. COLORS IN TEXT

Refrain yourself from using colors on the text of your fics. It's difficult for most readers to read if you often use a lot of colors in your stories. It’s completely acceptable if you’d use them on your author note, warnings, etc., as long as it’s not in the fic. Using black is definitely a no-no because it won’t be readable at all for readers who use dark mode tumblr. 

3. VOCABULARY

Vocabulary is also something important to keep in mind. Readers can pick up on how there’s a repetition of a certain word or phrase easily, so it’s best if your word choices are a variety. If you’d like to improve on your vocabulary, you can just read books, listen to music and read its lyrics – anything that requires you to read. You can explore new words you haven’t heard before and can use it on your fics.

However if you just don’t have the time, google is free comrade <33 You can either go to a few thesaurus websites (thesaurus.com, collinsdictionary.com, etc.) or ask google for synonyms of certain words so you can use those instead of the one you often use. (This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stop using the word you always use, it just means you can go for other options so you don’t have to use the same word over and over again). 

4. USE OF ITALICS AND BOLD

When it comes to italics and bold, you’d often see them in novels and fanfiction. Besides using italics to let readers know if someone is thinking, you can also use italics when you want to emphasize a lot on something! Be it the feelings of the character, a word or phrase that hits the spot, and more. If italics isn’t enough to emphasize your text, use bold instead – or even both. 

5. SHOW-NOT-TELL

I sort of disagree with the “always show-not-tell” since the fic would be filled with too much description – especially unnecessarily ones. 

One tip that helped me alot is to show emotion and tell feelings. It’s alright if you also show feelings if you feel like it’s important to note it. 

Don’t tell how “You became happy when you saw him”, show how “Your eyes sparkled at the sight of him entering the room, your mouth twitching upwards as you watch him walk towards you with the same expression on his face.” 

Don’t show how “You feel like you could barely function at all and tears keep on coming out from your eyes due to the amount of times you’ve yawned, holding onto your pen with determination of finishing the report.” Tell how “You’re fighting the urge to sleep as you try to finish your report tonight.” 

It’s also okay to do a mix of both (show and tell feelings/emotions) “You almost stumble on your steps, swaying back and forth as you yawn quietly. You continued walking around the kitchen to find coffee; the events that happened last night made you not be able to sleep.” 

Overall, just visualize the reactions/thoughts of the characters – be it body language, facial expressions, etc. It will be able to help readers understand more and imagine about it easily. It doesn’t have to be long and can be as short as you want as long as the thought is there.

6. DIALOGUES

When it comes to dialogues, there are few things you can use that’s based on what people do in real life (Take note, you don’t always have to do this).

When someone is thinking about something, you can interrupt their line of thought with a sudden new one. Example: 

Thoma thought to himself, what could be the reason why Taroumaru has been going out a lot recen – He then gasps quietly to himself, does he have a crush on someone?!

Use filler words such as “like”, “literally”, “uhm”, “uh”, “i think”, etc. It makes it more relatable especially if the reader is the one saying them! Example: 

Thoma nodded eagerly. “Yes! Taroumaru was literally barking and the general was – like speaking for him as if he understood what Taroumaru was saying! Can you believe it?!” 

You can also mention their hand gestures, noises they’d make to emphasize on their words, facial expressions, etc. as they talk – it will definitely help readers imagine more as well on how they say the dialogues. Example: 

Thoma nodded eagerly. “Yes! Taroumaru was literally barking and the general was like, uh,” he then proceeds to silently snap his fingers a couple of times, trying to think of what Gorou said, “he was like ‘Taroumaru, you fought the traveler too?!’ It’s like the general understood what Taroumaru was saying! Can you believe it?!” 

You can also have them repeat themselves when others don’t understand what they’re saying or to get their point across. Example: 

Ayato tilts his head. “So… Your point, Thoma?” He asks, lowkey amused by the housekeeper’s astonished reaction from his experience. 

Thoma couldn’t believe how the young master is so laid-back from what he had just said. “My lord… General Gorou can understand Taroumaru.” 

“What?” Ayato asks, knowing fully well what the blonde-haired man had just said. 

“General Gorou can understand Taroumaru.” Thoma repeated. 

7. SAID IS NOT DEAD

Said is not dead and can in fact be used often. Don’t use it otherwise if you want to get a description of how the character is saying something, it makes it more interesting. 

You can do: “Yeah, Arataki Itto is one interesting guy.” Thoma said with a smile. 

You can also do: “Happy birthday to you, OWA OWA, happy birthday to you, OWA OWA–!” Itto sings dedicatedly.

8. SUMMARIES ARE IMPORTANT

Summaries are important because they’re the ones that can let the reader know what to expect. Don’t say “idk how to summarize this. i dont have a summary.” – I know it’s difficult to think of one, but you have to keep trying – instead, you can just say “basically you feel insecure and the character comforts you” or “you’re tired, he’s doing his work. so you came up to him to cuddle with him while he’s working.” 

It’s an exception if you’re doing a request and the anon’s request basically has a full summary already, that is, unless it’s an event theme and doesn’t have a summary on what it’s about.

9. PUNCTUATIONS

Punctuation marks are also important to know. Commas can help you put a soft pause on your sentence, question marks (?) and exclamation points (!) are helpful in expressing dialogues, semicolons can make a gap between two sentences smaller or introduce a new completed sentence with “however”, “therefore”, etc. Use them if you feel like you have to! 

10. SAVE THE BEST FOR LAST

Lastly, a quick tip I learned from this app is to put the most important information at the end of the sentence. Try “By the end of the year, they became a couple.” instead of “They became a couple by the end of the year.” It just makes it seem more dramatic, don’t you think? 

3 – the characters

The following tips below includes analyzing genshin characters and what to do when writing the reader. You may proceed to the next points if these are not the tips you’re looking for!

1. OBSERVE THE CHARACTER

Google is free. Genshin wiki is free. Reading genshin lore is free. If you have no idea how characters act, analyze them based on what their lore and voiceline has given you. When you write the characters and feel like they’re ooc even if it’s unintentional, imagine them acting on what you wrote and ask yourself if this is accurate enough.

2. IT'S NO LONGER A CHARACTER X READER FIC IF READER HAS A NAME

Refrain yourself from calling the reader with someone else’s name. It’s no longer a genshin x reader fic if you decided to give the reader a name. Not everyone has the same name and your fic would be considered as a genshin x oc (yes, even if you refer to the oc as “you” instead of “I”). It won’t be enjoyable the moment the reader has a name that isn’t what they’re usually preferred to as. 

3. APPEARANCE OF THE READER

If you’re going for a neutral-appearance reader, an important thing to note is to avoid describing reactions that could describe the reader’s appearance. An example of this is blushing. When you say “You smiled softly, the light pink became evident on your cheeks.”, it’s no longer appearance-neutral since blushing can’t be seen on some people’s faces. What you can do to refrain from that mistake is to describe the feelings of said reactions. 

Instead of the example I’ve mentioned, try to do “You smiled softly, feeling your cheeks starting to become warm.” 

Refrain from mentioning hair as well, not everyone has the same hair and not everyone has hair. Instead of “The wind was blowing your hair”, try “You relax from the cool feeling of the wind coming past you.” 

Again, one of the goals of a character x reader is to make the reader feel like they’re a part of the story, and giving them a name, appearance (unless specified), etc. won’t do it.

4 – the writer

The following contains tips regarding the mindset, thoughts, interactions, and motivation of a writer. You may proceed to the next points if these are not the tips you’re looking for!

1. CONFIDENCE IS KEY

You may not know it, but your writing is always better than you think. You just think you don’t like it because you already know what’s going to happen because you wrote it. 

Be more confident in yourself and your own writing! It can make you even more determined and have more passion in writing. Avoid comparing yourself to other writers – that’s an unhealthy behavior. Don’t let hate anons get to you because in the end, they’re just people who waste their life by looking down on others for no reasons at all. 

It’s scary to publish your first fic, and that’s completely okay and reasonable. You can gain the confidence to publish it by just straight on or blindly pressing the post button and leave the app immediately— distract yourself from your what-ifs and buts and just hope for the best that people will like it.

2. NO PRESSURE

Always take your time and never force/pressure yourself. Writing should be something you enjoy and not something you should stress out about. Make schedules and follow them, either that or do timers where you write as many paragraphs as you can within the time limit if you’re the type to like doing challenges. 

Take breaks if required. Prioritize yourself more than your blog, give yourself some self-love! If you suddenly have an emergency, feel burnt out, etc. and you won’t be able to post your fics, you can let your followers know and apologize for the inconvenience. Don’t worry about it, people will understand and will wish you well!

3. GET ATTENTION

If you want your posts to get attention, tag as many as you can (at least 20) and make sure it’s related to your fic. 

You can also interact with a blog network that reblogs works for more people to see, especially those that’s only for genshinblr, so feel free to join one if you feel like it.

Interact with your followers often. If you’re a mobile-user genshin writer, please take note that the anonymous option is turned off unless you turn it on in the tumblr website/desktop version. You don’t really have to turn the anonymous option on if you feel uncomfortable, it’s super okay. Remember, prioritize your comfort over anyone else’s. Your blog is not your job, it’s your passion. It should be something that makes you comfortable and happy. 

Observe your followers. Take note of when people are active the most and what time you usually get the most likes/reblogs. Use that time to be your post time (if the time is too late, you can use the queue post option whereas it’ll automatically publish your post at the time you chose.)

If you cannot reply to others in the reply/comment section due to your blog being secondary, you can just reblog your post and reply to people (with a tag that’s for you replying to comments). 

Take note, don’t force yourself to reply to other people! Again, take as much time as you need.

Self-reblogging your work is a great option in increasing attention as well! Most writers, including myself, would reblog our own works in case those who have us on our feeds haven’t seen our latest posts. 

4. MOTIVATION

Motivation is difficult to get sometimes. So here are a few tips that helped me and will hopefully help you!

Expose yourself to ideas, prompts, etc. One of the things that gets us motivated is the new ideas/prompts/etc. that we made up and instantly start writing for it. If you’re going through an idea that’s in the middle of the story, use that as your motivation to write the whole thing until you reach that part.

As I’ve mentioned before, outlines can really help in helping you write down what you want in your fic. Start doing that first before writing it because you won’t have to worry about getting completely stuck in your wip. 

Don’t feel lazy or procrastinate. Get yourself out of your bed and go to a spot where you can focus solely on your fic. If you feel sleepy out of nowhere while writing, go splash water on your face and listen to loud music that can keep you awake.

Give yourself a deadline for your fic. It’ll make you feel determined in finishing your fic!

Read something. Whether it’d be other fics, stories, etc. – it doesn’t matter. You’ll eventually get some inspiration from reading and get motivated to write.

5 – the appearance

A big tip of mine when designing your blog is to find your colors first. If you already have your profile pic and header prepared, that’s completely okay because at least you know what colors to aim for that can match your profile and header! A huge recommendation of mine is to explore colorhunt.co for color palettes to choose – they’re such a big help to me especially since I sometimes have a hard time trying to think of a color that matches the other.

I also advise you to put your masterlist link in your bio. People will be able to navigate your masterlist easier! You can go to tumblr's website/desktop version > edit appearance > scroll down and find edit theme > paste "<a href="insert link"> between the word you want to link it on </a>" > and then you're done! you can add as many links as you want :DD

If you need to find sources where you can get genshin characters’ faces for your banners, you can just go to the genshin wiki and search for their profile. They provided pictures where their wish art's (basically what they look like when you wish for them) backgrounds are transparent so if you’re the type to think removing their background is a hassle, genshin wilki’s your go-to! If not, then I suggest Picsart’s (mobile editing app) stickers, they surprisingly have a lot of stickers of genshin characters.

use readable fonts + visible color when adding texts on your banners.

As for pinned post, here are the things that you can put: 

Short profile about you such as your name, your pronouns, age (if you’re comfortable with it), your nationality, and anything else you want people to know about.

Links such as masterlist/navigation, mutuals list, dni (do not interact), byf (before you follow), and etc. 

Fandom/s (such as genshin impact, honkai impact, honkai star rail, etc.)

It’s up to you if you’d like to add some quotes, images, banners, stickers, etc. !

[adelle-ein]

Nothing Supernatural Here: Lace’s not-very-nice AINI review/rant

ETA 01/04/23: WAY more people read this than I thought, so I went through and did a massive edit/cleanup. Fixed up the grammar and writing from “hasty rant” to “actually kind of a reasonable essay” level, threw in a few more details, and added some screenshots to break up the text chunks. Sorry it was such a mess, I didn’t proofread too much bc I genuinely didn’t think anyone was gonna read it :’)

When I finished watching AI: Nirvana Initiative on Youtube (because I could not afford to buy it, and I am happy every day that I did not dip into my grocery money to do so), I wrote a review. It was not a kind review. I hated the game and that very much shows. It seemed so harsh and mean when all the reviews were so glowing, when all my mutuals seemed to ADORE it, so I decided it was better to let this extremely mean review languish in the depths of my google drive forever.

I have now edited, added to, and completed this review, and decided to let it out. It is extremely long. Like, stupidly long. And I still left out a LOT of things I hated.

I am not being nice, I am not pulling punches. I think AINI is the worst video game sequel I have ever had the displeasure of knowing exists as well as the worst VN overall I have ever viewed in full. I have really nothing nice to say about it at all. So please know that going in, and also know that if you try to convince me the game is good, I am probably just going to laugh at you because believe me: I cannot be convinced. I have tried so hard to like this game. I cannot, and it is one of my most hated pieces of media ever. This whole review is much more “hate” than “criticism.” Anyway. You have been warned.

Spoilers for AINI and AITSF, of course. Bear in mind: AINI, even if you have spoiler toggle off, inherently spoils AITSF. You cannot discuss AINI in depth without spoiling AITSF. The pre-release press releases were lying.

CWs: All AINI-typical content is discussed, including suicide, death, parental neglect and abuse, et cetera.

PROLOGUE

Nothing sums up my loathing of AINI better than the story of Tokiko’s body. When you find her corpse while playing as Mizuki, it’s a very clear suicide scene. Her wrists were slit, she's part of a cult, she’s been discussing suicide and being sliced in half, the game makes it very clear she's been suicidal in the past, et cetera. And yet Aiba immediately announces, with no further explanation, that she “does not believe this was self-inflicted” aka "this was not a suicide." She provides no evidence whatsoever for this little conclusion (other than the would being “deep?”), but as the player, it would be logical to assume that this is meant to be a "I know what this looks like, and it isn't it, assume this was murder" from the writers to the player.

And then, much later on when the Big Reveals are coming out, it is revealed that Tokiko did in fact kill herself in that very spot, in exactly the way it looks. She slit her wrists and cut herself in half using the Very Realistic Machine because of her cult beliefs and underlying depression. It was a suicide, exactly what it looked like, all along. No further explanation is given. Aiba does not even acknowledge her lie/error.

Great writing, guys.

A good mystery misleads its audience. But, uh...that's not misleading the audience. That's just straight up telling a lie to pretend there's a mystery when there isn't one. It was in fact the thing it immediately appeared to be. I looked at an apple, AINI told me it was an orange, and then later was like “it’s an apple.” Not even “it was actually an apple all along,” just “it’s an apple.” And isn't that just straight up what AINI is about overall? Blatantly lying to the player to pretend it has any depth, mystery, or interesting content whatsoever?

PART ONE: THE TWIST

We all know The Big AINI Twist. At least, if you are reading this, I assume you do. Instead of two timelines, one featuring Ryuki in the past and one featuring Mizuki in the present, Side Ryuki and Side Mizuki are intertwined (like DNA, for some reason, which isn't even really relevant to the story's alleged themes other than its almighty biological superiority unlike those icky adopted families...actually wait, that probably is the point. oops. You And I Are Halves Of A Whole Let’s Go.) You've been going back and forth between past and present all along, playing either as Ryuki (past/present), Mizuki (present), or Mizuki Two-Only-Exists-To-Pull-Off-This-Twist (past.) Only "Jin's" body was found in halves six years apart. All other bodies were found in the past, minus Tokiko who was found in the present. There was no mystery at all. And knowing what the player does about Jin and Uru by this point, the rest can quickly and easily fall into place.

Particularly clumsy that they have to spell out the DNA thing, huh. Of course, the characters have known this all along. To sum up, the "mystery" in AINI is entirely based upon the player being told a lie right after starting the game that continues throughout the entire story. A lie that was only told to the player, not the characters. When the lie is revealed, the answer becomes obvious. As soon as you see the timeline you learn that there was in fact little to no mystery all along, the obvious answer is the real one, and the only reason you as the player didn't figure it out hours ago is because the game was lying to you (and only you - not the characters, which would, you know, actually require some real fucking writing.)

This is where the game fails. Everything in AINI happens to pull off this ridiculous and yet boring literal twist. This is why Bibi (while I can't have anything against a character who is just Mizuki Again as a person, god I loathe Bibi as a plot device and the fact that she exists) is a thing and why she is inexplicably exactly like Mizuki. This is why Ryuki, Amame, etc don't get timeskip designs. This is why Shoma doesn't age. This is why Date was shoved hastily off-screen. This is why the AI Balls have so many conveniently timed memory issues. This is why nobody experienced any significant development in six years. This is why character interactions feel clumsy and forced, such as why Shoma's feelings about his dad's death ping wildly back and forth (because sometimes it happened six years ago.) Everything in AINI - characters, pacing, gameplay, FUN - was sacrificed in the name of one big twist, and that twist isn't even good. It's boring. It retroactively ruins everything about the game. It serves zero purpose except to yell "gotcha!"

AITSF misled the player, leading you to suspect Renju, Iris, So, Date, Boss, Shoko, and Falco in turn and all at once (because, in a sense, it was all and none and each of them.) AINI, on the other hand, doesn’t mislead. It just...lies. To me, that isn't really fun or interesting. It doesn't impact the characters, it is utterly meaningless -- except for making the player think there was actually more to the plot than the obvious answer for several chapters. In the end, the real solution to the entire case was just the obvious, boring answer. Jin and Uru share body parts and Uru was Tearer. The only real reveal is that Amame killed Uru and moved Tokiko's body, but that comes far too little far too late (especially bc after a few genuinely good and heartfelt scenes with Mame, we go to the final battle scene which frankly reads worse than the Harry Potter fanfiction I was writing on the Scholastic kids’ forums at age eleven.)

Seriously though, as an aside, that final battle scene is so horrifically bad I feel like it deserves its own paragraph. Maybe multiple paragraphs. I mean, what can I say? There’s no real final boss, just nameless mooks (one has a red shirt on, wow!) It’s another boring fight scene with no fun or creativity using the AI Balls’ abilities, just “press Z to jump” Heavy Rain-ass QTEs. Using "there are only three AI Balls, and whoever doesn't have one just kinda sucks" as a plot device is stupid. Ryuki's "death" was stupid and really served no purpose at all. There’s even more of Mizuki and Date's relationship being completely discarded, and Aiba being weirdly cruel to them both. Somehow a prerecorded message is capable of predicting every single thing that happens because...reasons, I guess. Kizuna has a gun and yelled the fuck word for the screencappable moment. Wow. And I guess the mopeds can fly now?? Maybe that should have come up sooner?? Not to mention poor pacing and bad lag making the whole ordeal feel even longer. It sucks that this clusterfuck came right on the tail end of Amame's somnium, which pretty much the only story/character thing in the whole game I genuinely cared about and the best scene. But Mame was absolutely overshadowed by this trash fire (and a playable epilogue even worse than the first game’s, which I also hated ftr.)

Back to “The Twist,” I cannot describe how much I hate every choice that went into this nightmare. So many terrible, terrible decisions had to be made to make the timeline change work, and it shows. Just for starters, we have Mizuki's backstory being rewritten and flung out the window, we’ve got characters willfully acting very stupid about when things are happening and exchanging painfully awkward dialogue, and important and meaningful and emotional reactions and scenes are constantly being skipped — all in service of one twist. One twist that only matters to the player. The timelines being scrambled does not affect Mizuki or Ryuki or anyone else one iota, because they already know what order everything is happening in! They have nothing to discover, since they’ve known from the beginning, even if their dialogue is crafted to tiptoe around that fact. The entire thing is only for the player. Why does Mizuki apparently forget Date is missing after the first thirty seconds of the game and never express any care for him, Iris, etc ever again? Why are there two identical Mizukis who somehow decorated their moped identically despite completely different upbringings?? It’s all literally just so this twist can work, so that there can be two interchangeable Mizukis. Other characters have to behave identically in past and present, and other obstacles have to be safely out of the way. There is no other way for the twist to work, and none of these actively game-ruining elements serve any other purpose. The end result is that AINI is…so stupid. It doesn't feel like a story. It feels like a bunch of elements put together around a central twist. No character gets to be an actual character. They're all walking clues and nothing more, and their development is purposefully stunted so they can act the same way in past in present. It hurts Mizuki most of all, and as devotedmizukilover420, this is what makes the game unsalvageable to me. The two Mizukis might be the dumbest "clue"/element/twist of all, because the whole thing makes entirely zero sense with AITSF (or any kind of logic, really.) You're telling me that all along, Boss has been raising an adopted daughter named Mizuki who looks exactly like Mizuki and that just didn't impact AITSF at all? Mizuki was living with Boss and Saito left Hitomi tied to a bomb in Boss's house — so Mizuki 2 just...wasn't home and missed that? Didn't care that her mom went missing? Meanwhile, Boss is just keeping this secret all along bc she wanted a super secret agent who was loyal only to her or whatever? (see my thoughts below on AINI's hot anti-adoption agenda.) Yeah, sure, right. Not to mention, "AITSF/Classic Mizuki was adopted by the Okiuras" is also bullshit. Even putting aside the way it slam-dunks the message and themes of AI1 Mizuki route into the garbage. Okay, she coincidentally has Shoko's unique hair color and exact face shape, and Shoko recounts when she was a newborn and hated her stroller and wanted to be held all the time, and Renju makes a clumsy comparison between Shoko and captive animals who give birth….but the Okiuras adopted Mizuki when she was three and there's no genetic relation. Complete and utter bullshit, and character-hurting bullshit at that. But it’s a necessary twist to pull off the dual timelines because we need to be able to have an 18-y/o (identically dressed….) Mizuki running around six years ago. I wouldn’t mind this so much if it didn’t impact Mizuki’s character, and her AITSF route, so heavily, but...it does. It ruins everything. AINI just hates adoption so much that it had to wipe out the pro-adoption message from its predecessor too (I will get to all this in more detail later - there’s just so much to hate about this game!)

Gotta say though, bold move to have a clone character and have the game’s conclusion be “Yes, the two clones are exactly the same in every way, they don’t have independent identities, nothing about their lives or experiences shaped them in any way, they are literal halves of a whole with no differences between them, and they’re totally okay with that and have no negative feelings about it.” Don’t think I’ve ever seen a piece of media do that before. Because, well, it sucks. It’s silly and stupid and just awful, awful writing.

I'm sure all the Horidori Institute stuff was coined solely to pull off the timeline twist — including the two Mizukis, our Mizuki's new backstory/canon superpowers (also stupid and takes all the fun out of her cartoonish super strength - just let things be fun, AINI!), and everything with Shoma. That only adds to the way this game just feels like a singular house of cards with one sole goal, and that goal is "to lie about the timelines and then reveal it was a lie at the very end." It's not even cleverly obfuscated, you just have an incorrect timeline and then you get a correct one. The big reveal just being "Mama tells you bc she has supernatural powers now — than straight up says there's nothing supernatural about the case" doesn't help. There was no way to skillfully incorporate that so they just drop it. And then move on. Because in the end, like absolutely everything else, it doesn't matter. The final battle is pointless and has nothing to do with the rest of the game because every aspect of this game was built around a twist that has nothing to do with its characters. Even the killers were designed and created completely in service to this twist. And yet, despite all of that, no real time or effort is devoted to revealing the twist, it’s just hastily dropped and then abandoned for good. Even the writers don’t like the twist, I guess!

Now, gaze upon what I genuinely believe is the stupidest line in the entire game, and what sums up exactly why it fails.

That’s right! There’s nothing supernatural here! Nothing fun, interesting, or entertaining. Nothing characterful, nothing that adds meaning or development. It was all just a very straightforward lie. What, you expected better? You thought, after the last game harnessed a supernatural twist that developed and added to its world and characters, that this game would too? You thought in a world of exploring brains and dreams, machines that slice perfectly in half, magical suicide plagues, and bodyswapping, that there might be more to the story? You goddamn dumbass. The game knew that you would think that, and it laughs at and mocks you for it. You thought the writers put in actual effort? You thought they cared about the world they were creating? That was your idiotic mistake. How silly of you! The most straightforward, boring explanation was the correct one. Nothing supernatural here!

And that's...part one of four. I said this was long and I meant it.

PART TWO: THE CHARACTERS

Another big issue with AINI is that it has no idea if it's standalone or a sequel, and as a result, it utterly fails to be both. AITSF characters get no development in AINI, to avoid spoiling their game. But they aren't really playing any roles at all. They stick out like sore thumbs because they have no reason to be there. They get no real introduction. The new characters are shallow, sure, and they only exist to serve the Plot Twist, but they do exist and serve a purpose. Why the fuck was Hitomi even in this game for all of two scenes? This seems like it'd be really jarring for a standalone player, since they now need to keep track of like…ten potential suspects. Except they aren’t really meant to be suspects, and they actually don't matter to the game at all. So Sejima, for example, is being super suspicious, but we returning players all know he can’t be up to much of anything. How is a new player supposed to guess that? Meanwhile, even on "no-spoiler" mode, massive spoilers get dropped for AITSF. Character backstories, motivations, the connections between them — they’re either implied or stated outright. You're kinda not supposed to know a lot of this stuff going into AITSF and, well, if you play AINI first…you will. Even "Mizuki gets adopted by Date" is a spoiler and that isn't hidden at all, but that's by far one of the more minor things. This isn’t even touching on Date being in his Saito body and voice by inexplicably wearing a custom mask, which is not only bizarre but terrible, terrible character writing (though I give it a pass because it keeps DC Douglas out of this game.) The writers tried to have their cake and eat it too, and as a result they just set the whole cake on fire.

The cast feels completely flat. Tama and Ryuki fit right in with the classic crew…because they serve no purpose, play no real role, and develop in no way at all. Ryuki is always just kinda There, with nothing much to do but pine over Date, fail to solve mysteries, and act “crazy” until he gets magically cured at the end. All the new characters kinda feel like retreading old ground with tweaked personalities and designs. Kizuna is a less bombastic Iris -- she gets kidnapped a bunch and likes conspiracy theories and sings and dances. Her dad is the Morally Dubious Rich Dad Bad At Parenting With A Shifty Past...Gen is a diner owner hopelessly in love with a teenager...Bibi is literally Mizuki Again...etc. I'm not surprised the AI1 cast has pretty much nothing to do — considering this is meant to be a companion game that doesn't spoil AI1, they can't really do much with them. They can’t even be considered as murder suspects, obviously (minus Amame, who really isn’t a returning character at all.) But also it's really disappointing how shallow they all feel. Iris is like…at least 80% more manic pixie dream girl than usual. Iit's not even being offset by her tumor, or her faking, or Saito faking, so that's exhausting. Date is literally just standing around making porno mag jokes or having them made about him (and they ruined the funny part, which is Aiba repeatedly lying to him and him repeatedly falling for it. Instead he just yells PORNO MAG POWER and gets tougher which is just...so not remotely funny at all.) Mizuki feels like a passive side character in her own game. Ota and Moma still just perv on Iris and do nothing of substance, with even the better aspects of their character now cleanly wiped away to prevent having to do any actual writing. The cameos were shallow at best. Even for our alleged MCs - it felt like instead of actually having Mizuki, Date, etc, we just got pieces of cardboard with "Mizuki", "Date", etc written on them in crayon. Cheap imitations.

Meanwhile, the writers still hate women, so that's fantastic. Seriously, revealing last minute that actually Gen has a thing for Amame (an incredibly creepy and obsessive thing) while she sees him as a fucking FATHER FIGURE is absolutely disgusting, and ruined their entire route as well as Gen as a character for me. To these writers, every woman immediately becomes a sex object once they grow tits, so of course their male characters are the same way. This makes me really glad they tossed Date to the curb and he and Mizuki barely interacted, because I would be miserable if they ruined that relationship the way they ruined Falco and Iris and now Gen and Amame. Mizuki’s of age now, after all, so she’s officially a sex object! Similarly, starting off Kizuna and Lien's relationship with an age gap and stalking was a shitty call and ruins their whole storyline too, when it could have been really sweet. Lien can't mature as a person because it would spoil The Twist, and Kizuna just goes from "mostly not sad" to "sad all the time" as the entirety of her development, so that really only adds to how flat both their characters are. (Don’t get me started on her whole disability arc, which felt thrown in for brownie points at best and was terribly handled as usual.) Mizuki makes sex jokes now. which feels really creepy coming from a school-age teenager we’ve previously known as a twelve-year-old, comments on how cute and young she is a lot, and constantly whines about wanting a boyfriend. Aiba even complains about Mizuki being flat-chested?? There's maybe a little less of the perviness than there is in AITSF just bc Date isn't playable, but what there is feels very creepy. I’m not surprised they kept this aspect but damn, it still sucks.

The side ends - you know, the CHARACTER ends, where much of AITSF's best work shone - feel like they were just kinda thrown in because they're expected. They don't feel as finished as the endings in AITSF. Gen/Amame's was just all over the place (I'm not even clear on what HAPPENED in half of it, let alone why, and Uchikoshi has since said a bunch of weird lies about it being followed up on in a “third eye” on his twitter. I’m not even getting into that, but if you believe a word he says, I invite you to look into all the times he claimed Santa and Snake would make a comeback in ZTD, or how Alice’s legend from 999 would be relevant to VLR.) Kizuna/Lien just kinda randomly cuts off. Shoma/Komeji was something at least, but it was really short and premature. I don’t know if explosion really counts as an ending, but it sucked too — why would a new player care about a big rock falling on the guy who only exists to talk about porn and neglect and bicker with his daughter? Just because Ryuki's in love with him (maybe, sort of, it will never be made explicit canon)? Meanwhile, returning players know they wouldn’t kill Date off, plus he's been in his most basic boring form all game, so they have no reason to really care either. What is even the point of this ending? Kizuna is just there to become disabled so Lien can have someone to be obsessed with and sad about, and he's just there to pick locks. Mizuki losing her eye -- you know, the thing a serial killer did to her parents, including Date -- is an afterthought at best. Blah. If this is supposed to be the "annihilation" of AINI, it…really, really falls flat.

The game doesn't know if it's a sequel or not, and like I said, trying to both have and eat the cake means the cake just gets set on fire. Hitomi is here for two scenes with no significance and just bloats the cast (I am not even going to get started on how flat and lame her and Date’s relationship has become. Feeling super bad for anyone who shipped them.) Ota and Iris keep showing up just to kinda be stupid for a scene (seriously Iris is EXTREMELY dumb in this, something went really wrong with those nanomachines and they fried all her gray matter) and then they vanish again into the distance of No Purpose. Date is an insufferable ass who only cares about porn magazines, mentions them in every fucking scene, now yells "porno mag power" when he activates that power (OVER AND OVER IN ALMOST EVERY COMBAT SCENE HE'S IN) and treats Mizuki like shit. And poor, poor Mizuki gets it worst of all — she's still a snarky, kinda bratty, tough kid, but that's all she is now. All that love and devotion and determination and kindness and intelligence? Gone. If she cares too much about her loved ones or thinks about herself too much, she would be unique from Bibi and the twist would be spoiled, and heaven knows we can't have that. Aiba is the only character who feels like herself, and even she feels overly cruel to Mizuki sometimes (and Date often.) I don't know why a new player would feel any attachment to these characters, and as someone who did play and love aspects of AITSF, I just felt cheated. It would have been better to not include any of them at all than to have these crappy imitations. Meanwhile, "no AITSF spoiler mode" spoils a ton of shit. Just reveal a connection between Iris and So on "no spoiler" mode, why the fuck not? Reveal that Shoko was abusive, she and Renju both died, and Date adopted Mizuki? Mention Iris having a "condition" that is now "stable" in one throwaway line for no goddamn discernible reason??? The game does all this and more. On no spoiler mode!!!

This game unashamedly hates its characters. And thanks to that, so do I. It really is a shame. It’s the epitome of “flanderization” in one single game, but it’s for every character, over and over again.

This is easily the most-reposted screenshot I’ve seen from AINI, which...says a lot about the quality of its humor and the relevance of its returning cast IMO.

PART THREE: FUCK ADOPTION

This is the first piece of media since Once Upon A Time on ABC that presents the unique and controversial moral of "fuck adoption." All in order to make Mizuki have an older clone sister. For the Twist. The same reason we do everything around here. Mizuki’s parents can’t just be shitty parents. they must be shitty ADOPTIVE parents, because ADOPTIVE parents suck and don’t love their kids.

But don't worry guys. Because Mizuki and Bibi are clones. Therefore they are biologically related. Therefore they GENETICALLY love each other. By the end of the game, Mizuki and Bibi, despite having barely met, love each other desperately, are the most important people in one another's lives, are never seen apart from each other and treated as a singular character, and are literally Two Halves Of A Whole, Let's Go. Because, you know. They're sisters, but the GOOD kind, the BIOLOGICAL kind, the ONLY real kind.

Gag me.

I saw screenshots of Date and Mizuki doing "I'm home" / "Welcome back" after he returns and thought, well, at least I'll get thrown a few crumbs to lap off the floor. Nope. Aiba has to specifically prompt Date into saying "I'm home," saying that Mizuki wants to hear it. He begrudgingly does so, Mizuki responds...but then says she didn't want to do that anyway and they move back on to the all-important Plot. Ouch. I seriously don't know how Mizuki route came from the same team. Date and Mizuki are barely tolerating each other at best here. They actually showed a lot more affection on the AITSF B routes, which is insane since that’s the route where OTA calls Date out for being neglectful. Meanwhile, Boss uses Bibi as a special agent and keeps her very existence a secret. Kizuna's dad doesn't really seem to care about Bibi either despite having raised her for years, and prioritizes his bio daughter. And as the cherry on top...the Okiuras treated Mizuki like shit because she was adopted all along, of course! Adopted parents are evil and bad, right? And bio parents would never mistreat their bio children, right? Right. Who cares if this totally throws Mizuki's arc in AITSF out the window? Even Bibi and Kizuna's relationship is never really given focus once Bibi is revealed. Bibi only really cares about Mizuki. Her REAL sister. Because they are related and that is all that matters.

Even the villains love their biological son and will do lots of evil for him! Tokiko gives an entire speech about how much she loved her bio son even though she didn't raise him, to the point where she and her ex kidnapped a random child, groomed him into a cult, and gave his organs to her bio son. Kidnapped child meanwhile views her as his mom. On its own, I wouldn't think too much about it, but in conjunction with the Mizukis…this how adoption is treated in AINI. It is A Very Bad Thing. Adoptive parents do not love their children anymore. Both Mizukis go through two adoptive families and are treated badly or ignored by both, and this is just normal, I guess.

Also So suddenly seems to care about Iris, at least a little bit, despite his not giving a shit in AITSF. But, hey, they are biologically related....(I actually wouldn’t mind this if they like, did anything with it. But they don’t. Instead they totally destroy any depth So’s character ever had by making him a total horndog who runs around conceiving various serial killers. Wheee, the killer is the half-brother of the previous killer, and they are both the half-brothers of another character, because So can’t keep it in his pants. Seriously, what a stupid twist. Hilarious but stupid.)

The Komeji-Dois love each other and are very sweet. They are the only ones that seem to, though. Because blood. Genetics. DNA. As the only bio family with significant screentime, of course they actually love each other, right?

Also, side note, remember Ryuki's twin brother who died? He sure was significant huh :)

Part Four: Miscellany

The most baffling thing of all about how bad AINI is is its glowing reviews. Don’t get me wrong: people can like things I don’t. But the reviews I read were on so many occasions blatantly false. I saw claims that AINI has fewer or even NO dirty jokes, that it does not sexualize the 18 y/o characters, that Date and Mizuki’s relationship was explored more in-depth, that the game runs great on Switch, that the AI Vision lag was fixed, that spoilers are avoidable. All of these things are objective, and they were blatantly false. Every person I have talked to who played on Switch had lag and framerate issues even worse than the first game’s, and most of them reported at least one hard crash. AI Vision loading in high-res models is still a major issue that disrupts the game’s flow on lower-end consoles and PCs. Bibi’s mess of a Somnium just got its bugs patched a few days ago, in NOVEMBER, so you can actually play it without getting thirty game overs from touching unrelated objects. The dirty jokes are abundant and often about 18 y/o high schoolers (they even aged down Amame, which really wasn’t necessary at all - a 20 y/o and an 18 y/o can be friends, after all - just to keep her barely legal!) Date and Mizuki loathe each other. And “no spoiler mode” is, as discussed above, a fucking joke. I don’t know how this game of telephone got started or why so many big names lied in their reviews, but damn, it sure made the game even more disappointing when I realized that most of what I had read wasn’t even true. I have no idea why so many people who received review copies felt the need to lie. I have to assume they weren’t deliberate lies. But...how on earth could they have convinced themselves that this game no longer has dirty jokes? Or that there’s no lag, or bugs, or weird crashes? I get that Uchikoshi is funny and nice on Twitter, but we’re allowed to say negative things about his games!

And, on the note of Uchikoshi games, can we just say that the second time you come up with “disease that makes you kill yourself” it is less effective? Seriously, isn’t this just the same basic apocalypse plot as VLR/ZTD?? Why are we doing this again, it doesn’t work a second time!!!! aaaaaaargh

The quicktime events in this game suck so much. Just press a button to parkour. There’s no creativity, no unique use of Aiba/Tama’s abilities, no silly elaborate traps for the baddies or jokes or teamwork, just. Flip punch kick jump. Woo-hoo. The one time we do something vaguely creative it’s just exploding the damn porno vending machine and we already did that in the first game. AINI has no identity of its own.

Half To Whole is catchy but its lyrics suck. Gen/Amame BS AND Mame doesn’t get to sing. Most of the lyrics are random asides that don’t work with the characters or themes (but hey, Date, Ota, Mama, and Iris HAVE to sing about kappa catching, because it’s not like any of them got fuckall to do in the main game after all!) Mizukis whining about wanting boyfriends and singing in perfect harmony because they are not separate characters (and allegedly crying on the inside whenever they fight?? what??) Changing lyrics to make Ryuki sound straight (gay rights! Seriously why are we pretending Ryuki is gay representation??) It’s just an absolute trashfire. The only vaguely meaningful lyric is “Without you I am only half, I need to be whole” but even that one pisses me off, because it ties into the game’s ongoing weird idea that characters can only exist with one another, that they aren’t whole people alone. Especially the idea that Mizuki and Bibi are “two halves of a whole” - fuck you, they’re different people and they only just met! But no, they will never be independent people again. They don’t even get separate lines in the song outside of the first verse and otherwise harmonize everything (bless Mizuki’s VA for at least trying to give them different singing voices...). The one saving grace of an AI3 is that Bibi probably won’t get to be in it for spoiler purposes, so maybe Mizuki will get to do something without her (but probably not.)

In Conclusion (Fuck This Game)

AITSF felt like it constructed its character arcs, mystery, twists, lore, and gameplay all side by side to make one full story. AINI…only even bothered to have mystery, twists, and gameplay, and only the last one ends up working even remotely because so much was sacrificed for the mediocre twists. The big reveals of AITSF matter to the story and the characters, whereas the biggest twist in AINI has nothing to do with the game's universe and is just for the Frayer…then they do nothing with that concept anyway beyond a bonus ending. In the end, it's as flat and frankly soulless as everything else. So who cares?

My MOST hated thing about AINI is its "only biological family matters" thesis. My second most hated thing is how it takes a massive dump on every single character. And the third is how it just generally is an utter failure of a mystery with no depth whatsoever. I have always hated Bravely Second and held it up as an example of how to utterly fail a video game sequel, destroying the predecessor in the process. This game, however, is at least twice as terrible as Bravely Second. At least the aptly abbreviated BS did in fact manage to have some fun twists despite hating and flanderizing its entire cast; AINI couldn’t even pull that off. Calling it a cheap, forced cash grab the devs clearly never wanted to make still feels too generous. This game sucks.

TL;DR: AINI isn’t even half and will definitely never be whole.

[piggy-i-broke-the-conch]

Lord of the Flies manuscript- an overview

Preamble:

(if you don’t care about this, I start talking about the actual manuscript under the cut. but be warned- it is very long)

So as some of you know if you've been following my blog, I have been wanting to go and see the original first draft of Lord of the Flies (handwritten by William Golding in a college notebook and currently held by the University of Exeter's special collections here in the UK) for a really long time now! It took a while, but today I finally went! I'm sure a lot of you are curious about how it differs from the final book so I decided to put together a list of things I noticed. Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to quote anything from the manuscript verbatim due to copyright restrictions, but I'll try my best to tell you what I can without getting into legal trouble (hopefully). Also, I only managed to get through the first 7 chapters before the library closed (I'm truly devastated) partly because I struggled a lot to decipher Golding's very messy handwriting and also just because I'm not a very fast reader and I only had about 5 hours with the manuscript, so I'll just be talking about what I've read so far. I plan on returning in the summer to see the rest so there will be a part 2 to this post eventually!

Also also, at the time of posting it is 3am and I am too tired to proofread this properly so apologies in advance for any mistakes.

Now, onto the part of the post you actually care about- talking about the manuscript!

The majority of differences between the original and final versions (which I'll be referring to as OV and FV respectively throughout the rest of this post) are just minor changes to phrasing and fixes of grammatical errors, but there are a few more pronounced differences which caught my interest. This post will be split into two sections, one for smaller differences which I found particularly interesting and one for major differences which greatly affect the story and characters.

A note on the typescript:

As well as looking at the original LotF manuscript (the handwritten one), I also had the chance to look at a typescript (a later version of the manuscript typed out on a typewriter) while I was there. The typescript is a lot more similar to the FV than the OV so there isn't as much to say about it, but there are still a few interesting things in there which I ought to mention so you'll see me bring it up from time to time. Some major aspects of the OV stuck around for quite a long time before eventually being cut from the FV (although many had already been toned down quite a lot by the time the typescript was made, I'll elaborate later on). You can see that someone has marked the typescript, crossing out references to these features as well as fixing some more phrasing and grammar errors. I'm not sure who did this as while some of the annotations appear to be in Golding's handwriting, others are not. It was most likely a collaborative effort between Golding and his editor, though.

Now that that's cleared up, let's move on to the differences between these versions of the novel!

Smaller differences:

• Some minor characters had different names in the OV. Johnny (the littlun who likes to bully Percival) was originally called Jamie, and Henry (mulberry kid's cousin who also likes to bully Percival) interestingly had a surname, going by Henry Williams

• I'm not completely sure about this one because I couldn't make out everything Golding was saying due to his handwriting, but I don't think Jack's eye colour is mentioned at all in the OV while it comes up quite a few times in the FV. This interested me because I have a vague theory that Johnny is supposed to parallel Jack, which is why they both have blue eyes (no one else's eye colour is mentioned in the book) and their names are both diminutives of John, so I found it intriguing that Johnny's name and Jack's eye colour were added in later. It's a very minor detail so not necessarily what Golding was going for, but cool either way.

• This is kind of the opposite, but while Jack's physical appearance is described a bit less in the OV, Roger's is described a bit more. His skin tone is said to be olive and he has a lean face. His facial expressions are also a bit... weird, but I'll expand on this later

• Percival's address is slightly different from the FV, with his street name being St Michael instead of St Anthony

• Some lines of dialogue are said by different characters in the OV- for example, in the FV's chapter 2 Maurice suggests that the boys should put green branches on the fire to make more smoke, but in the OV Roger is the one who says this

• Similarly, some actions are performed by different characters in the OV- Simon is actually the one who calms the littluns down by making them laugh in chapter 5 instead of Maurice (speaking of which, I think Golding didn't quite know what to do with Maurice at first since he seems a little bit inconsistent to me in the OV and the lines of dialogue attributed to him are almost random at times. I'm happy that Golding later made him into a more consistent comic relief character)

• Some lines that aren't attributed to any specific character in the FV are given to specific characters in the OV- for example, the person who suggests that the choir could be an army in chapter 1 is said to be Roger in the OV (can you tell i was interested in Roger's dialogue in particular?)

• Ralph's age is slightly different- he is 12 years and 1 month old in the OV, while in the FV he is 12 years and several months old. I'm not sure why Golding made this change, but it might be to make Ralph's age less specific.

• Simon is said to be 9 years old, while in the FV his age is never specified

• Piggy's accent is more exaggerated in the OV- for example, every 'h' at the start of a word is replaced with an apostrophe (e.g.- 'is instead of his). This makes his dialogue very hard to read at times, which is probably why these instances have been crossed out and replaced with regular spelling in the typescript.

• When Jack talks about who doesn't deserve to speak at meetings in chapter 6, he includes Piggy and Roger in the OV but not in the FV (i just find it funny that he insults Roger here, don't ask why)

• Another funny one, this time from chapter 5. While arguing about what the beast is, the argument suddenly shifts to whether there are ghosts in the Bible and whether Jesus is a ghost or not. This argument culminates in Jack essentially accusing Piggy of being an atheist, which is treated as being very scandalous

• If you've done a bit of digging into LotF or studied it at school, you might know that an alternate title for the book before it was published was 'Strangers From Within'. The typescript goes by another alternate title- 'This Island's Mine'. However, the title was crossed out on the typescript and had been replaced with the familiar 'Lord of the Flies'

Major differences:

Ok, this is the part I'm most excited to write about. Some of these major differences are already public knowledge (I knew about a lot of them before I checked out the manuscript, and I've talked about some of them on my blog before), but I'll try to elaborate a bit more on these as well as talking about some others

The first chapter:

As I've mentioned on this blog several times in the past, the reason I was so excited about seeing this manuscript is that there is an additional chapter at the start of the OV which expands on the events leading up to Ralph climbing down the rock at the start of the FV, including the plane crash. However, I found out that this isn't actually an additional chapter but an extended version of the first chapter in the FV. This means that the original first chapter is very long, which is actually a big part of the reason why LotF was rejected by so many publishers at first since most didn't read past the first chapter and so didn't really get into the plot of the novel. The extended part of the chapter has been cut entirely from the typescript, which makes sense. Personally I think the original first chapter drags on a lot and probably wouldn't be too interesting to the average reader, but it was interesting to me since it gave me some valuable extra info about the characters I've grown to love over the years.

Here are some of the key things I found:

• As mentioned by Piggy in chapter 1 of the FV, an atom bomb was dropped on England which seemingly destroyed it

• The novel takes place during a fictional war between England (and possibly others) and the 'Reds' (quote from the FV, although a similar name is used in the OV). I believe this is likely referring to the USSR but I couldn't find any solid evidence

• The boys had been on the plane for 10 days prior to the crash, stopping in a number of countries along the way (chapter 1 of the FV reveals that Simon fainted in a lot of them)

• There is a lot of detail about the boys' feelings during the journey and subsequent crash. The crash is described in full, with quite horrific detail at times-we see the boys screaming and panicking as the plane goes down

• Eventually one boy (I'm not sure if Golding gave any details hinting at which boy it was due to the handwriting thing again, but my theory is either Ralph or Piggy) pulled on the emergency lever, allowing the remaining boys to escape from the burning plane

• After the crash, we see the boys all collapsing and falling asleep in the scar left behind by the plane followed by them exploring the scar/jungle in the daytime and searching for food

• The rest of the chapter follows Ralph specifically. We see a lot of him running around and having fun as he eats fruit and explores

• Interestingly, several scenes involving Ralph having fun in the first chapter were crossed out in the OV, including the whole scene where Ralph discovers Piggy's nickname and the one where they swim in the lagoon (although both of these did make it into the FV virtually unchanged). There is a note from Golding by the former scene which suggests he was not sure if Ralph was being too casual about the situation or not, although it seems that eventually he decided it was fine and kept Ralph's characterisation the same

The Coral Island:

This one is another thing I've talked about on the blog before. Lord of the Flies is essentially a fanfiction of a book called The Coral Island by R.M. Ballantyne, which is an adventure story from the 19th century about three teenage boys/young adults getting shipwrecked on a tropical island and converting the local 'savages' to Christianity (it is very racist as you can imagine). From what I've heard, Golding wrote LotF partly out of spite because he felt that TCI was inaccurate and boys wouldn't get along as well as the ones in that book in reality. He also made fun of the imperialism in TCI, with the posh white British boys being the ones who end up becoming savages in LotF.

TCI is name dropped twice in the FV, but it is brought up a lot more in the OV and has a major influence on Ralph's character. To put it simply, Ralph is a huge TCI fanboy. His obsession with TCI actually quite closely mirrors my own obsession with LotF- he's almost memorised the book, thinks about it all the time, and wants to be friends with the characters. I have a lot of examples of Ralph's obsession which I want to talk about so I'll put them into a list to make things easier:

• Ralph's motivation for climbing the rock at the very start of the FV is because the TCI characters do something similar shortly after they get stranded on their island

• Ralph compares the TCI trio with himself, Jack and Simon very frequently throughout the OV. He considers himself to be like TCI Ralph (yes they have the same name, Jack also has the same name as one of the TCI trio) and actively seeks out the remaining members of the trio even before he meets the other boys on the island. Essentially he wants to live out the novel in real life and wants idealised companions that he can rely on and have a sense of camaraderie with. Because of this he really romanticises his situation and becomes very attached to his relationships with Jack and Simon (but also very disappointed when they don't live up to his expectations)

• When Ralph finds out Jack's first name, he becomes really excited just because he has the same name as TCI Jack and automatically considers the two of them to be part of the same trio

• He decides that Simon is Peterkin (the last boy in the TCI trio) for basically no reason. He just looks at him and feels the two are alike without knowing why, although he is disappointed that he couldn't find someone with the same name as Peterkin to complete the trio

• When Ralph says he wants three boys to go up the mountain in chapter 1, he blushes and the other boys don't understand why- it's because he's thinking about recreating a scene from TCI again

• In chapter 3, the 'He wanted to explain how people were never quite what you thought they were' line from the FV is replaced with an explanation that Ralph is sad that Jack and Simon aren't actually that much like their TCI counterparts, with Jack being too invested in hunting (instead of being the responsible, mature leader who cares deeply for his companions' wellbeing like TCI Jack) and Simon being too quiet and good-natured (while Peterkin is a very adventurous and mischievous character)

• Similarly, when Ralph says 'Only-' and cuts himself off in the FV, in the OV this is followed by an explanation that he wanted to tell Jack about how Simon doesn't live up to his expectations but (I assume at least) he didn't think Jack would understand

• One of Ralph's dream sequences (I think the one where he thinks about the wild ponies in his back garden in the FV? the first one anyway) is different in the OV. Instead of thinking about his childhood, he dreams that his father appears on the beach and they have a conversation about the island. I found it interesting that Ralph's dad gets dialogue here (even if it is in a dream) since he doesn't in the FV. One funny thing from this conversation is that Ralph's dad essentially tells Ralph the onion thing from Shrek except with bananas instead of onions (as in, he calls Jack and Simon bananas and says that Ralph needs to peel them in order to find what he wants, aka his ideal companions/TCI Jack and Peterkin). When he says this, Ralph sees Jack and Simon smiling at him on the beach

While the majority of these things are already omitted from the typescript, quite a few references to The Coral Island remain (although almost all of these have been crossed out by- probably- the editor). Several have annotations above them which replace the TCI references with lines that appear in the final version, which makes me think that these changes came quite late in the editing process.

The fourth chapter:

So originally I was going to scatter the things I'll cover here across different sections, but since they all take place in the same chapter I decided to just put them together. The main interesting thing in the OV of this chapter is Roger's characterisation. As well as being portrayed quite differently in his scene at the start of the chapter (the one where he bullies small children/ throws rocks at Henry), he also gets an additional scene at the end of the chapter which was cut from the FV. I was pretty surprised about the additional scene to be honest, I wasn't expecting that to be there since chapter 4 sort of phases into chapter 5 in the FV and it seems to flow quite well so I didn't imagine another scene being stuck in the middle of it. This is probably why the extra scene was cut though.

Okay, let's talk about OV Roger:

• As I mentioned much earlier in the post, Roger makes a lot of weird facial expressions during his scene with Henry. He is described as looking like he is in pain several times while watching the littluns on the beach, with his pain seeming to intensify into an expression of agony as he stalks Henry. I don't get why he was supposed to look like he was in pain here? but cool that we get to see more of his emotions I guess

• Continuing with this theme, Roger's excitement at throwing rocks at Henry is described in much more detail in the OV. He goes from a state of extreme pain to a state of extreme ecstasy very quickly. His mouth is also described as moving in a way I didn't really grasp (because of the handwriting I couldn't read half of it)- I think he might have been smiling creepily but it's hard to tell, maybe he was holding back a smile or something else. To be honest I was just imagining him making Kira expressions (from death note, look it up) the whole time.

• We also get more intense descriptions of Roger's physical reactions to this scene. In the FV, after retreating behind a palm tree to avoid being caught by Henry, he is 'breathing quickly, eyes fluttering'. It's hard to describe without quoting directly from the text, but basically in the OV his reaction seems more drawn out- he's breathless, his heart is pounding, he's exhilarated and maybe a little afraid. My point is that this Roger is much more emotive than the one in the FV, who expresses his emotions very subtly (e.g.- through a slight movement of his eyes or a shadow crossing his face). Personally I prefer FV Roger much more, being very apathetic and hard to read fits his character a lot better imo. I guess both are creepy in different ways though.

• Okay, the extra scene. Basically Roger leaves the others while they are all gathered around the fire eating meat and goes down to the beach to continue what he was doing at the start of the chapter. He doesn't find any children to bully, so instead he starts murdering limpets with a rock. He makes it into a twisted game, seeing how many times he can hit them before they die. It reminded me a lot of Roger Elwin (Roger's actor from the 1963 movie adaptation of LotF), who used to throw lizards into a fan to see how many pieces they would be cut into. Life imitates art and all that. Anyway, this scene just sort of ends and cuts very abruptly to the start of chapter 5 (which is similar to the FV). While I do think that starting and ending the chapter with scenes involving Roger is quite interesting, like I said before I definitely think that the transition from chapter 4 to chapter 5 in the FV flows a lot better and really maintains the tension established throughout the chapter (which I will be talking about a bit more later...)

• I should also add that at some point during the scene with the fire there is an author's note that mentions Roger (again I can't directly quote it, but essentially it asks what he is supposed to be doing during this scene). At first I thought he may have been intended to have some dialogue during the argument between Jack and Ralph, but now I think this author's note may be referring to the extra scene at the end

As you can probably tell, I like Roger and he is very interesting in this chapter. It's funny because I hated him for a long time but suddenly my opinion did a 180 and now I like him. Or I find him interesting, at least. Maybe I don't like him that much as a person haha. Anyway, on to the other interesting things in this chapter, because there are quite a few:

• Ralph cries during the 'they let the bloody fire out' scene. This was interesting to me because in the FV he only cries once in the entire book (right at the end), so it's interesting that he is allowed to cry here too in the OV. Simon and Piggy also cry during this scene.

• Jack realises how badly he fucked up (to put it plainly) when he sees Ralph's tears in the OV (instead of his 'scarred nakedness' as in the final version) and thinks to himself that they are the tears of an adult, not a child. I actually like this a lot better than the FV since it has more of an emotional impact and really highlights Ralph's despair and desperation in this situation. On the other hand, I do quite like him only crying once in the FV since it gives that scene more weight- both are good.

• Another place where I greatly prefer the FV of this chapter over the OV is that the tension between Ralph and Jack, particularly Ralph's anger towards Jack (and also Jack's resentment towards Piggy), is much more pronounced in the FV. Instead of the scene where Jack refuses to give Piggy meat which we get in the FV, Piggy just takes meat and sits with the others. It is even mentioned in the narration that he is being included for once. Also, there is a cute moment where Jack and Ralph smile at each other and feel like friends again. Basically it's a lot more wholesome in the OV, which is nice for sentimental fanboys like me who just want to see everyone get along, but not so great for the actual story given that this event is supposed to very nearly destroy Jack and Ralph's friendship completely (and certainly it still plays a big part in this even if it takes a little longer for their friendship to fully fall apart)

Simon:

Alright, onto the part I've been most excited to share with you guys. I wanted to put this section last, but something I'm going to talk about in the next section kind of needs the context from this one to be fully appreciated so it will have to be the penultimate section instead. This is another one of those major changes which is public knowledge, but essentially Simon is a very different character in the OV compared to the FV. While the FV gently hints at Simon having a deeper spiritual significance (aka being Jesus), this is placed front and centre in the OV with Simon being a deeply spiritual and contemplative, something philosophical, individual who has occasional prophetic visions and is basically clairvoyant.

Let's go over Simon in a bit more detail:

• Like in the FV, Simon has a very close connection to nature. When Jack and Ralph first talk about hunting in chapter 1, Simon expresses sadness that they would waste the natural beauty of the island. In addition, it is mentioned that he knows a lot about different types of animals and plants

• In fact, Simon is described as having a lot of knowledge in general. Many passages relating to him talk a lot about knowing and seeing things, possibly relating to him being some sort of prophet/visionary

• Golding spends much more time exploring Simon's perspective on events and characters throughout the OV. He contemplates major themes of the novel like morality and human nature, and in chapters 3 and 7 he analyses Jack and Ralph in great detail. I'll save what he says about Ralph for later because it is very interesting, but I will say that he shows disappointment in Jack's growing madness and bloodlust and appears to feel a lot of pity for him.

• He also mentions in chapter 3 (during one of these long scenes of him thinking about stuff) that he understands Jack's fear and feelings of being hunted while he is in the jungle alone, foreshadowing his own death scene.

There are two major things I want to say about Simon in the OV which are going to require their own subsections. The first is another additional scene which replaces the scene where Simon sits alone in the jungle and looks at the candle buds at the end of chapter 3 (actually the candle buds aren't mentioned at all in the OV, which made me a bit sad because I like them). This scene is much longer than its replacement and leans very heavily into Simon's spiritual/visionary side, but I'll go into that shortly. The other thing is Simon's relationship with Ralph, which is delved into in much more detail compared to the FV and reveals some very interesting things about both characters.

The vision:

• When Simon leaves Jack and Ralph near the end of chapter 3, he retreats into jungle as he does in the FV. From this point, things become very different from the FV. Simon spends some time contemplating Jack and Ralph before he suddenly faints and enters a dream sequence/prophetic vision which continues for the test of the chapter.

• In the vision, Simon dances with a group of littluns who follow him around and try to copy his movements (it's very cute). He then picks up the conch and calls an assembly, during which everyone joins in with the dance. I found this interesting because in the FV only Ralph and, on one occasion, Jack blow the conch. Since Ralph's relationships with both Jack and Simon are given prominence in the OV (because of all the coral island stuff), it makes sense that Simon gets to blow the conch too even if it's only in a dream sequence.

• After dancing for a while, Jack gets bored and breaks away from the group. He runs off down the beach, prompting a lot of the other boys to follow him. They all race each other down the beach. Simon starts to freak out as he watches more and more boys start running off, screaming for them to stop and really panicking. Eventually he just stares after them with resignation, feeling particularly sad upon seeing Ralph chase after Jack with the others.

As you can probably tell, this scene quite heavily foreshadows Simon's death. There are also a lot of references to the Bible which I didn't mention here (I think Jesus might show up at one point? there's also something about forbidden fruit and Eden). To be honest this scene was a nightmare to get through since Golding's handwriting made it so hard to understand, especially since it was like an acid trip to begin with. I did my best to summarise it for you but there's probably a lot of stuff that I missed.

Ralph:

Oh God, Simon and Ralph. I have been itching to talk about them since I first saw the manuscript. Let's get right into it:

• In Chapter 3 (a bit before the vision scene), Simon thinks for a long time about Ralph and Jack. He seems to almost venerate Ralph at times, seeing him as this very idealised but also very tragic figure. Simon feels intense affection for Ralph to the point of it bordering on devotion but also intense pity for him.

• As you might have guessed by now, Simon is canonically, explicitly in love with Ralph in the OV. I was genuinely shocked by this when I saw it for the first time as I didn't think Golding would go beyond hinting at it as he does in the FV. While I can't quote anything directly so you kind of have to just take my word for it, it does say that he loves Ralph multiple times in the OV. I wasn't quite sure if this was meant to be more of a spiritual love like the love that Jesus feels for people or a romantic love, but I think it is supposed to be read both ways. I believe it's relevant to mention that when thinking about Jack in chapter 3, Simon claims to like and admire him equally as much as Ralph but does not ramble about him nearly as much and doesn't say he loves him.

• During the scene where Simon bashes into a tree after 'he ceased to think about himself', it explicitly says in the OV that he is thinking intently about Ralph. He mentions his pity for Ralph as well as his love, which is described as being overwhelmingly intense.

• There is also a lot of physical contact between Ralph and Simon throughout the OV, with Simon often touching Ralph's arms. He does this during the fire scene to comfort him while they both cry, and again in the scene with the tree while trying to persuade Ralph that he doesn't believe in the beast/trying to redeem himself in Ralph's eyes after the humiliation of the meeting in chapter 5. Simon also touches Ralph's arms in the FV but not as often

Several of Simon's more contemplative/philosophical passages are still present in the typescript but have been crossed out, while the entire vision scene has already been replaced with the candle bud scene. It seems that Simon's spiritual side was steadily toned down until eventually it was almost entirely removed from the character. Personally I like FV Simon as he feels a bit more realistic, but I find OV Simon really interesting as well and I like that we get to see more of his thoughts and feelings. Simon's feelings for Ralph are also greatly toned down, and some passages relating to their relationship have been crossed out and edited in the typescript as welI. I wonder if this was censorship from the editor or if Golding just felt that it didn't fit the FV as much? Anyway, I always felt that the trio of Jack, Ralph and Simon should have been explored a bit more since they are set up to be close friends in chapter 1 and Ralph is thinking of them when he starts crying in the final scene, so I like that the OV included some more of this. I do really like the Ralph/Simon/Piggy trio (or the three blind mice as I call them) though so I don't mind the FV placing more emphasis on that.

The seventh chapter:

We finally come to the last chapter I managed to read before I got kicked out of the library. Again, I fully plan on returning later this year to see the rest so I can hopefully tell you guys about the second half of the manuscript in the relatively near future. I'm particularly interested in seeing the interaction between Simon and the pig head/Lord of the Flies, how the manuscript ends and Simon and Piggy's death scenes. I already know about some slight differences to the ending and Piggy's death scene so I'm really excited to see what else this manuscript has in store for me.

But for now, let's talk about chapter 7:

• This is a very minor thing but Jack is described as being flushed when he says the 'Couldn't let you do it on your own' line to Ralph while this isn't mentioned in the FV. It could be due to exertion, but I like the idea that he was embarrassed. This is a bit of a side note, but I was quite surprised to see that not much really changed about Jack between the OV and the FV. He is sometimes a bit friendlier to Ralph and occasionally Piggy but that's the only thing I really noticed. Jack is by far my favourite LotF character so I was hoping I'd have a lot to say about him, but compared to characters who change quite drastically between versions like Ralph, Simon and Roger, he is pretty consistent. This is speculation of course, but my take is that Golding had a pretty clear idea of what he wanted to do with Jack from the beginning. I've heard that Jack was inspired by Golding himself as a teenager, so maybe that's why he had a better idea of what his character was going to be like compared to some of the others.

• The most interesting part of this chapter for me is the 'You'll get back alright' scene between Ralph and Simon. Now this scene does not actually appear in the OV, although there are two author's notes which refer to it- one at the end of chapter 6, and another near the start of chapter 7, where the scene ended up being placed in the FV. My theory is that Golding knew he wanted this scene to take place but hadn't decided whereabouts it should go, so he added it in in a later draft. At first I was disappointed that I couldn't see how this scene was different since it's one of my favourites in the book, but when I glanced over at the typescript I was surprised to find an extended version of the scene there!

• The extended scene (which has also been heavily crossed out and reworded in places) delves a bit more into Ralph and Simon's thoughts, with Simon trying to assess what effect his words are having on Ralph whereas Ralph is unsure whether to believe him or not. Simon also comments on the others calling him batty and seems hurt that Ralph doesn't believe his words because he was humiliated at the chapter 5 meeting, while in the FV he just says 'No, I'm not' in response to Ralph calling him batty and doesn't react to it beyond that. Actually speaking of which, OV Simon seems to be a bit more insecure than FV Simon (or at least we see his insecurities more clearly because his thoughts are explored much more often). In chapter 3 he self-deprecatingly describes himself as a weak boy who has fits in contrast to his idealised image of Ralph. I'm getting a bit side-tracked though, so let's move on.

• At the end of Ralph and Simon's conversation in the typescript, Ralph asks Simon if the others will also get back alright. Simon just smiles and says they will. After this, Ralph thinks to himself that despite still thinking Simon is batty, he feels strangely comforted by his words. It's very wholesome and gives their relationship a bit more depth I think, although of course the FV of the scene also does this to an extent.

• Another very minor thing but Simon is blushing while they have this conversation and I think it's cute. We are blessed with so much wholesome Simon in this version, it's great.

• The final thing I'm going to talk about is a very tiny extra scene (or part of a scene since it's only like a paragraph long) which appears in place of the 'You'll get back alright' scene in the OV. In this scene Ralph eats a bunch of fruit, then Jack shows up and eats some with him. It's described in a bit of a grotesque manner, possibly to show how they've become less civilised since they arrived on the island but I don't know. They talk for a short while about how they want to catch fish and hunt, and again they seem to bond a little bit before Roger shows up abruptly and calls Jack away. I do find it interesting that he specifically calls Jack away in this version, while in the FV he just shouts 'Come and see!' without specifying who he is calling.

Closing words:

And that's it! Can you believe this isn't even everything I made notes on? A lot of the other stuff was just stuff I wasn't sure if I could mention or not due to copyright as well as lots of Coral Island references (seriously there are so many I couldn't be bothered to list them all).

Thank you so much for sticking with me to the end, and I hope you found this as interesting/enlightening as I did! If you want to ask me anything about the different versions of the text or need me to elaborate on anything I covered in the post (or if you just want to talk LotF), feel free to send me an ask or DM me on my main acc (@earl-grey-by-the-lake) and I'll try to answer as best as I can!

Okay, after spending 10 hours on a train, 5 hours trying to decipher almost illegible handwriting and giving myself a headache in the process, and a further maybe 8 to 10 hours writing up notes, fact-checking and composing this post (all over the course of 3 days and while sick), I am going to finally get some sleep. Thank you again for reading, and hopefully I'll have some more things to share with you soon!