#and i spend a lot of time thinking about both the technical structure of a book/analyzing the story and the political implications of it

[reachfolk]

I'm reading George Orwell's essay Why I Write and honestly he really voices so much of exactly my thought process and I'm absolutely living for it.

[thisiswhereikeepdcthings]

There's no "I" in Team but there are two in Migraine

Bruce had no issue with teamwork, despite what his children and colleagues might think. Teamwork was great. If done properly it was efficient, and it was good to have backup. Competent backup, at least. 

Bruce helped found the Justice League. Obviously he was a supporter of teamwork. 

However. 

Some teams he really could have happily lived out his life without them ever existing. 

He had a list. 

One: Dick and Clark Kent

Clark had been the first hero he had introduced Dick to. It was a move he had regretted ever since. 

He was glad the two of them got along, of course, but did they have to get along so well? 

He could withstand torture but the two sets of sad puppy eyes attacking at the same time was on another level altogether. 

Two: The Titans

Pros: Dick was making friends. 

Cons: Dick was either away with his friends, or they came home with him. Really, all Bruce wanted was to spend one week without putting out any fires caused by teenage superheroes. Literal fires, not metaphorical ones. Well, actually there were plenty of those kind too. 

Three: Dick and Jason

When Bruce first brought Jason home he wasn’t sure how Dick was going to react. And so maybe he panicked slightly and didn’t end up telling him for three weeks. In his defense, the voicemail he had left asking Dick to call him soon was left before the newspaper article came out. 

Perhaps not his best moment. 

Eventually, though, the two boys were introduced. 

There was some yelling that took place, mostly directed at him, but other than that things seemed to go rather smoothly. Assuming, that is, that smoothly meant neither of them seemed to care about getting to know the other one, and mostly kept to themselves and their own activities. 

And then, four months, two weeks, and five days after Jason first came to the manor, Bruce came home to discover the two of them had bonded over some unspoken activity that neither were willing to divulge. Alfred knew and didn’t disapprove so it couldn’t be that bad, but from then on out it was…well…

Bruce began the daily habit of checking his blood pressure. 

Four: Talia al Ghul and Lois Lane

Bruce didn’t know how the two of them had met and he didn’t want to. See, Dick, he was okay with not knowing things. Sometimes. In this one instance, at least. 

Five: Dick and Slade Wilson

Worst three weeks of his life. 

Six: Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn

He was happy for them, he really was. He just wished they could be happy together somewhere less structurally damaging. 

Seven: Jason and Harley Quinn

Explosion therapy was not a thing, despite both their arguments otherwise. They didn’t even give him a Joker effigy to blow up. They could have at least asked. He would have happily paid for that one and all the rest of them. 

Eight: Tim and Barbara

 He wasn’t that old. He knew how to use his computer. 

Nine: Jason and Cassandra

Too competent. They should never have been allowed on the same team for any game ever. If he heard one more complaint from any of his other children he was going to seriously lose it. 

And then there was that one time the two of them disappeared for a week and no one, not even himself or Clark, could find them. They had turned back up with grins and minimal injuries, and Bruce had tried to not investigate, he really had. But he needed to know, regardless of how much he regretted it later. (A lot. He regretted it a lot.) 

Ten: Dick, Jason, and Constantine

Bruce hated magic. 

Eleven: Jason, Diana, and Barry Allen

No one knew how or why the three of them had teamed up. It had been four months of secret meetings and pointed looks and minor heists that couldn’t technically be traced back to them but Bruce knew. And then there was the regular day-to-day hero-ing. Diana, he could understand. That’s what she did. Jason? Had always been vocally opposed to getting too involved with the Justice League, but had also always looked up to Diana, so maybe that was understandable? Allen? The man was retired. And he wasn’t suddenly out of retirement for some reason, no. He was just there to “lend a hand” to the other two. 

At least Bruce could comfort himself in knowing Jason was spending time with two respectable individuals. It was certainly a step up from his unfortunately ongoing acquaintance with Rayner. 

Twelve: Stephanie and Hal Jordan 

They should never have been allowed to meet. It was a disaster. For Bruce. 

Jason had been the one to introduce them, as he had proudly let Bruce know after the first breaking news cycle hit.

Thirteen: Duke and Damian 

Bruce would have told Jason how thankful he was that he was acting as the moderating adult influence with those two if he didn’t think Jason would start doing the opposite out of spite. 

Jason would make a great parent someday. 

Bruce would love a six month vacation. 

Fourteen: Alfred and Martha Kent

He didn’t really need to explain this one, right? Everyone could just move on, continue with their lives and so on and so forth. 

Fifteen: Damian and Batcow

Because a boy needs a cow and a cow needs an emotional support duck, turkey, cat, dog, rabbit, goat, and raccoon. Apparently. Tim and Jason were, in Bruce’s opinion, far too enthusiastic to provide research as evidence whenever needed (or not needed, as was usually the case). 

[copepods]

the oc refs i made for artfight :) character descriptions below

Reluctant Abstinence:

A dedicated and curious iterator with a great interest with the physiology and neurology of scavengers. Her latest project heavily involves luring local scavengers into her structure and performing neural and behavioral experiments to see if she can make them more similar to her creators. Her primary experiment is The Student, a kidnapped elite scavenger who she’s trying to program with traits from the Ancients. She speaks to it often and tells it stories about her creation and upbringing.

She is close with her fellow local group members, but often forgets to check in with them in favor of her work. Prior to Mass Ascension, she was very close with her creators, and losing them hit her hard. She became much more withdrawn, and what before was a fascination with the fauna surrounding her superstructure quickly became an obsession. She’s quite difficult to contact if you don’t live nearby, so both Many Rocks Orbit and East-Facing Pillars keep Overseers in her can to get her attention if they need to.

She and East-Facing Pillars are romantically involved and used to be very close. Their shared respect for their creators and mutual dedication to the Great Problem brought them together, and she found EFP’s social nature to be a refreshing break from her work. Once they spend more time together, though, their differences began to grate on each other; EFP tolerates RA’s interest in scavengers, but doesn’t care much about it otherwise and finds it disrespectful to dedicate so much time to a task uninvolved with universal ascension. In turn, Abstinence regards Pillars as fickle and high-strung. She doesn’t bother to respond much to him anymore, in favor of her work.

She has a more positive relationship with Many Rocks Orbit, who tries to keep themself largely uninvolved in relationship drama. Orbit also dislikes her hobby, but would never say so to her face, so she finds it easier to converse with them about her work without facing constant judgement.

East-Facing Pillars:

Studious and dedicated to the Great Problem, although he is also nosy and easily distracted by interpersonal drama. He takes great pride in himself and his work, and views himself as the most competent and respected of his local group. He’s very close friends with Many Rocks Orbit, and often takes over tasks a group senior would do when MRO neglects them. He always has his nose poked in as many anonymous boards as he can, and the two of them spend a lot of time gossipping together.

EFP was also close with Reluctant Abstince, and the two are technically romantically involved, although RA is often reluctant to respond to any kind of messages these days, and while her interest in fauna used to be endearing to Pillars, it now seems annoying and somewhat embarrassing to him. He checks in on her still every so often, with increasing reluctance.

Many Rocks Orbit:

The senior of their local group, older than East-Facing Pillars and Reluctant Abstinence. They are quite negligent in their duties, as they find management work to be stressful, especially when it comes to resolving conflicts with others. Many of their work ends up offloaded onto East-Facing Pillars, who mostly doesn’t mind but occasionally objects to too much work shoved onto him at once. If he ever broaches the subject of Orbit handling their own affairs, they will stop responding to messages or steer the conversation elsewhere. They prefer to quietly iterate and converse with close friends, avoiding topics they regard as difficult. They are uncomfortable with many of the flora and fauna that have evolved in their creators’ absence, finding most animals disgusting, and they’ll use their inspectors to shoo out anything that finds its way into their structure. Despite their dislike of animals, they find unnecessary violence deplorable. They also think Reluctant Abstinence’s latest project is highly morally questionable, and have spent a great deal of time with Pillars complaining about it.

The Lure: A creation of Reluctant Abstinence, used to gather live creatures for her to experiment on or use as spare organic material. It’s become incredibly unpopular with the scavengers surrounding RA’s city. The Lure doesn’t seem to care much, though, and it takes joy in completing tasks for RA, who it sees as its mother. The Lure is intelligent and quite curious, and Reluctant Abstinence has begun on the side to teach it to crudely write glyphs in her language.

The Student: Reluctant Abstinence’s latest pet project. she’s observed the intelligence scavegers have, and believes they’re capable of becoming the next great civilization. The Student is a test run to see if she can imprint the ideals and behaviors of her progenitors onto a living scavenger. surely there will be no consequences from this?

The Student was once highly regarded in their pack as a great warrior. Nowadays, they have a shy and nervous disposition, and spend most of the time missing their family. They reside in a lab chamber that was formerly used by the Ancients as an interface to connect with Reluctant Abstinence.

(Shifting Towards Red is a newer iterator from a different group that i havent conceptualized much yet :,3 )

[starlightshadowsworld]

Bsd except Dazai was never part of the Port Mafia.

But he keeps somehow getting involved with them. To the point a lot of the Port Mafia think he is.

Like Dazai was just going for a walk through Suribachi city, because he was bored.

Next thing you know, he and Chuuya are facing down the dead Port Mafia Boss.

Chuuya joins the Port Mafia, Dazai isn't even part of it. And they still end up becoming Double Black.

Because their both chaos magnets and keep running into each other during various crisis's.

Mori keeps trying to recruit Dazai and he refuses every time.

There's an executive spot open for him, but no one realises that it hasn't been taken.

There's a whole ass legend about the Demon Prodigy of the Port Mafia. That he's so sinister and evil no one knows what he looks like.

Meanwhile Dazai's just some broke artist that works at some cafe.

He found the Akutugawa siblings starving on one of his walks and invited them into the cafe.

Where he teased em for putting way too much sugar in their tea and they've been close ever since.

They both still end up join the Port Mafia and visit often.

Dazai's given Akutugawa some pointers on his ability.

And because of that, Akutugawa works hard to make him proud. He considers Dazai his first mentor and respects the hell out of him.

This story is interpreted very differently by the Port Mafia. Who see Akutugawa's rage and violence. And assume his mentors to blame.

And not... Him being 16 and incredibly emo.

His actual mentor in the Port Mafia is Chuuya.

But people rarely see them together and assume it's the mysterious Demon Prodigy. A man so dead inside he probably beats up his subordinate and is endlessly cruel.

Cut to Dazai at the cafe, lighting up and bouncing over as soon as the Akutugawa siblings show up at the cafe.

Mori's not exactly helping to stop the rumours.

Dazai still befriends Oda and Ango, they're regulars and they frequent Bar Lupin together. And Mori still uses them against him.

Odasaku dies and Dazai joins the Agency. To make the most out of his life, and to personally spite Mori forevermore.

Dazai meets Atsushi, gets him some food and is just like welp another stray.

Reasons that with Atsushi's lack on control with his ability, and desperate need of a job. Helps him land one at the Agency.

There's like 3 minutes of Akutugawa and Atsushi having a stare off before they just sit, drink tea together and have a nice conversation.

Though they have to put up appearances in battle of course. Since their technically enemies but only at work.

Dazai's "secret" comes out and he spends a good long hour screaming profanities into a pillow before explaining himself.

The layout of the Port Mafia being one Dazai knows, it's because he's been kidnapped that many times and has made fun of the structure.

Mori took that as constructive criticism and made the changes.

Dazai just really hates Mori.

He makes it very clear to everyone at the Agency that everything he knows about Mori and the Port Mafia inner workings is entirely against his will.

But man it took a lot of convincing.

Like yes I might have Port Mafia connections, some personal ones. I might also resemble the vague description of the "Demon Prodigy."

And sure there's an executive spot quite literally with my name on it. And yeah I know Mori, unfortunately better than most people.

But I am not a member of the Port Mafia and I never have been.

... See this is why I kept my past a secret.

Yosano is just like, no yeah that checks out he would do that.

And Ranpo is just laughing his ass off and says Dazai's telling the truth and there is peace... For now.

[janmisali]

Tournament Hype Optimization

after spending the past several days running a number-themed tournament bracket (which at the time of writing is currently on the championship match), I've had a lot of thoughts about what makes a tournament exciting, and how to theoretically organize one in a way that ensures that it's as exciting as possible. bear with me, this is going to get very long and technical.

unpredictability

excitement (or "hype") is a subjective emotional experience that cannot be given an exact definition. nonetheless, it's still a little bit possible to make a mathematical model of what it means for a competition to be more or less hype than another competition.

here is my key assumption: the more predictable an outcome is, the less hype it is. this should make intuitive sense, I think.

imagine a competition between two competitors A and B where A has an 80% chance of winning, and B has a 20% chance of winning. I reckon that it would be generally more hype if B won than if A won, specifically because A winning is more predictable.

similarly, imagine an evenly matched competition, where two competitors C and D each have a 50% chance of winning. both outcomes are equally unpredictable, and I think either outcome would be more exciting than A winning against B, but less exciting than B winning against A.

so, a major factor of hype is what I'm going to call "unpredictability", equal to the estimated probability that a different outcome could have happened instead. so, A winning against B has 20% unpredictability, B winning against A has 80% unpredictability, and either of C or D winning has 50% unpredictability.

from here, we can define the oxymoronic-sounding notion of "expected unpredictability", a weighted average of the unpredictability of all possible outcomes of a competition.

the C vs D match would result in 50% unpredictability no matter what, so that's also its expected unpredictability.

then for the A vs B match, there's an 80% chance of 20% unpredictability (A wins), and a 20% chance of 80% unpredictability (B wins), which adds to an expected unpredictability of 32%.

for an event with n possible outcomes, the expected unpredictability cannot be greater than 1/n, the expected unpredictability in the case where all outcomes are equally likely.

unpredictability and hype aren't exactly the same thing, for some obvious reasons and some less obvious reasons. most of the remaining major factors can't be easily modeled with math (it's more hype when the competitor you're rooting for wins, it's not hype when something unpredictable happens if you just don't care about the competition at all, etc) but what can be turned into math is the idea of long-term consequences.

this is actually pretty straightforward to define. all we need to do is consider the average unpredictability across every match in a tournament.

formal definition

so, now that I've explained the basics of my idea, here's the formal definition of my hype-optimized tournament structure. note that a lot of things are "customizable", in particular the "elimination rule" and "scheduling rule". anyway, definitions and assumptions first:

a tournament is a sequence of matches, played between a set of competitors.

a match is a single event involving a set of competitors (specifically a subset of the competitors in the tournament), ending in some outcome.

the state of a tournament consists of the set of competitors in the tournament and the sequence of matches (including their outcomes) which have already occurred.

given the state of the tournament, there is some deterministic process (the elimination rule) for deciding which, if any, competitors are eliminated.

given the state of a tournament, it is known which subsets of the set of competitors would be allowed to participate in the next match. (the scheduling rule)

given a set of competitors and the state of a tournament, it is known which outcomes for a match between the given competitors would be possible, and it is at least approximately known what probability each outcome has of occurring.

the unpredictability of an outcome is one minus the previously determined probability of that outcome occurring.

the average unpredictability of a sequence of outcomes is the sum of the unpredictability values of the outcomes, divided by the number of outcomes.

the average unpredictability of a tournament is the average unpredictability of the tournament's sequence of outcomes.

the expected average unpredictability of a tournament, given its current state and a method for determining from any state which match happens next (and when the tournament ends), is the weighted sum of the average unpredictability values of all possible ending states for the tournament, with each multiplied by its probability of that ending state occurring.

okay, and now here's the actual tournament structure rules.

if there is exactly one competitor remaining, the tournament ends, and that competitor is declared the champion.

otherwise, use the scheduling rule to determine which subsets of competitors may compete in the next match. let S be the set of these allowed subsets of competitors.

if S is empty (meaning a "next match" is impossible), the tournament ends without declaring a champion. as a special case (to discourage this from happening), a tournament that ends this way is considered to have an average unpredictability of zero.

otherwise, for every set of competitors C in S, determine the expected average unpredictability of a tournament starting from the current state where the next match is between the competitors in C, continuing from that point by following the rules outlined here.

hold a match between whichever set C in S was found to have the maximum expected average unpredictability in the previous step.

use the elimination rule to determine which, if any, competitors should be eliminated, and remove those that should be.

return to step one.

potential issues

this definition is recursive, and also very general. there is no guarantee that it would actually like, work. I also haven't actually been able to get a simulation of this working, but that's probably just because I'm not very good at coding.

for some rulesets, it's possible for a tournament to never end. theoretically, the rules for determining which matches are more unpredictable discourage this already (the definition of the expected average unpredictability of a tournament implies that if there's a nonzero probability of a tournament never ending, then that would count as a tournament with average unpredictability zero), but that's still a pain to actually calculate.

the fact that the matches happen in a linear order means that this tournament structure isn't very parallelizable. you kinda need to do all the matches one at a time. however, this can be worked around by crafting a scheduling rule that avoids having the same competitor go twice in a row whenever possible.

counting the unpredictability of every match equally means that the hypeness of the championship match is given the same weight as everything else. this could be addressed by altering the "average unpredictability" metric to give more weight to later matches, but I'm not sure which method of doing that would have the best results.

[moltensmusings]

I'm thinking about it a lot so here are some personal canon beliefs for various guild characters as kids and connections they had, featuring my renditions of the guild members.

In canon Gray and Cana are supposed to be close, so I imagine they actually were housed together when each of them first joined the guild. Cana would've been a few years older than gray and she appeared first being taken in by Vijeeter, who in my version would've been about 22 at the time. His calmer nature made it easy for him to handle the more moody kids who often got on the last nerve of other guild members. She left to live on her own when she turned 18. Gray on the other hand still stays in Vijeeters place as he only just hit 18 and hasn't moved yet. But wanting to exist without an adult constantly watching him leads to him crashing at Lucy's place way too often.

Natsu actually stayed with Macao and only recently got his own place. It's part of the reason Romeo ends up with such an attachment to him because by all technicality, Natsu is his older brother. It does however mean that Natsu knew Macao's ex-wife and considers her a mother figure in a way. Natsu being the absolute terror of a child he was set Macao up to handle one as bad as him in the future, but Romeo is a lot less stressful of a kid.

Wendy stays with Erza when she joins the guild and erza sets her and Carla up with areas to store/organize the items they like. For wendy that's her hair ties/accessories, for Carla it's her dresses. Erza is one of the only people in the guild Wendy has a fear/respect for leading to her absolutely following Erza's house rules to a T. The structure of Erza's home allows Carla to feel more relaxed than ever before.

Team shadowgear were taken in by one of the women from the team that saved them from their destroyed hometown and they've been living in one of the floors above the diner she runs ever since. They get an entire apartment to themselves and don't feel the need to move out since they've never been forced to so they don't currently have plans to leave.

Erza stayed with Makarov when she first got to the guild. Her history with the tower and the Magic council's habit of being nosy meant that the best way he could ensure she'd always have someone fighting for her was to keep her within arms reach. He didn't force her to stay when she wanted to move out on her own. He does consider the entire guild to be his children, but erza specifically he views as his own grand daughter. This also means Erza and Laxus have interacted a lot and developed almost a sibling bond from the time of both of them living with Makarov. His betrayal of the guild was something she took hard.

The strauss siblings were raised by an uncle following the deaths of their parents, he lived close by the guild and the kids got drawn to the rowdiness of the guild hall. Their uncle isn't a mage himself and in fact finds guilds for too dangerous for his own liking. He tried to dissuade them when they were younger but ultimately that attempt goes nowhere. Once Mirajane got old enough to live on her own/take jobs she did just that to avoid adult supervision and barred her younger siblings from crashing at her place. That changes when Lisanna dies.

Laki's mom worked for the guild before her and she's a legacy mage. She's one of the few kids to join the guild that came from a family without a major loss. Her powers mean that she spends a good portion of her time repairing destruction from bar brawls. Her mom occasionally swings by to lay into makarov and the other older guild members for working her daughter so hard when she has school before the time skip.

[mewguca]

Me when I self-insert so hard i accidentally take a one-off drawing and make it a whole au

haha i am back on my nonsense...

i guess the idea is basically. twin moons haha. diana is more like. the game version of moon but probably slightly different in some way idk i gotta work on them both...Luna is kinda just. slef insert beam go brrr but also kinda different i guess uh. different kinda strengths and weaknesses?

Diana is more "proper" and better versed in her iterator duties and the knowledge of the world around her. She's more outgoing and assertive and can even sometimes be a little bit sarcastic. She takes on a big sisterly role for the other iterators, checking in on them a lot. She is well-informed on politics and history and other topics that concern her duties, and she monitors the condition of the Regions around her. She tends to be more logical and rational, but that is not to say she is cold by any means. She is sort of the model of a "perfect" iterator, and she is praised as such. This gives her expectations to live up to, though, and she sometimes struggles under the pressure to live up to them.

Luna is less focused on her duties and more...spacey I guess? She's much more shy and reserved and is a bit more pessimistic and unconfident...but she enjoys creating things like drawing and singing and talking to the residents of their can(s) about their creations. She is less concerned about things like politics and history and more interested in looking at cute little creatures in the surrounding ecosystem, haha. She also has a bit of a mischievous side she lets show sometimes. She likes to make people laugh and maybe tease them a bit.

They're both very caring though, of course. They both share that aspect of Moon! They especially care about each other and enjoy spending time together...they also like to dote on their little brother FP. They are both highly regarded, if in somewhat different ways and for different reasons. Diana is revered for her academic and practical contributions, such as keeping the systems running smoothly. Luna is revered for her contributions to the culture and the arts in the cities atop her can. They serve important roles and are seen as inseparable.

Of course yknow theyre not perfect so they can be kinda envious of each other sometimes etc etc hehe...

I suppose my idea for their structures is connecting structures? They have a connecting chamber in the middle, and the combination of structures in general can be either connected or separated. Diana is technically the senior twin so she has the overall authority at the end of the day. They also still share some water with FP because they are still neighbors.

I am unsure what their chat acronyms should be...maybe copy the theme of moon's ingame one and do Big Sis Diana and Little Sis Luna? Though...then thatd be confusing talking to their little brother maybe haha. But having them use LTTMI and LTTMII does not seem...the most practical.

When it comes to ...yknow...I am unsure which direction I want to go in. Should I have them collapse together since it's less scary if they have each other?

or should I be evil and make one of them force their water onto the other so they can get help for the other twin...But then....they'd definitely be separated...and if one side collapses more than the other, I'm not sure how you'd get them back together. Much to think about!

I think it'd be cute to see them interact with monk and surv, though! the little scug siblings! just like them! and separated just like them if we go that route smiles diabolically

I do want them to be happy in the end of course! but yknow we can have a little suffering as a treat

I have much to flesh out...waahhhh the brainrot never ends I suppose

[theeeveetamer]

Avatar the Last Expositionbender: Thoughts on the new Netflix adaptation from a near 20-year-long fan of ATLA (first three episodes)

Disclaimer: I’ve been a huge fan of ATLA since literally the day it dropped on February 21st, 2005. I’ve probably seen the original show at least 200 times all the way through. That said, I absolutely am trying to go into this Netflix show with an open mind. I don’t want to denigrate it just because it’s not exactly the same as the original.

I can't draw any final conclusions because I've only watched through episode 3, but my impressions are... not good. I’m going to try and leave some of the nitpickier stuff to my live tweeting thread and just focus on the big things here.

My biggest takeaway thus far is that the show has decent to great special effects, set design, and cinematography, and it is just ALL completely let down by an atrocious script and bizarre changes to both the plot and characters. I don’t think any one decision is the decision that’s breaking this show for me. I think it’s a death-of-a-thousand-cuts kind of breaking the show for me.

(A lot) more below the cut

Let’s start with the structure. The original ATLA is a serialized show (there is one overarching plot), but each episode is smaller scale with short plotlines that are resolved within the runtime of one or two episodes (leans more episodic). The Netflix adaptation seems to drop this format and centers the main plot in pretty much every episode. Many of the little stories still technically happen, but they’re reframed to be in service to the greater plot. E.g. They no longer visit Kyoshi because Aang just wanted to have a fun little adventure and ride some giant fish, he does so because he needs to learn more about the Avatar from Kyoshi.

This is not an inherently negative change, but it is a negative change in this case and I’ll tell you why: it completely destroys the character building that the original series was known so well for. Let me explain.

I can point to any episode in the series and immediately tell you if it's a Katara-centric episode, a Sokka-centric episode, a Zuko-centric episode, etc. I can tell you exactly what the characters did, what the themes were, and how the characters have grown from beginning to end. I can tell you the threads that were woven in which ultimately serve the larger plot, from huge shifts to tiny threads you wouldn’t even notice.

I’ll take episode 2 from the Netflix series and compare it to the three episodes I believe it’s based on: The Warriors of Kyoshi and The Winter Solstice (parts 1 and 2).

In the original series all three of these episodes are largely Aang-centric, with significant moments developing Sokka as well. Kyoshi is the point at which Aang’s lackadaisical attitude toward being the Avatar is significantly challenged for the first time. He spends significant time in Kyoshi being fawned over and messing around despite realistically having done nothing to earn that praise. It’s the damage to his friendship with Katara + Zuko coming in which ultimately humbles him. The Winter Solstice episodes are where Aang’s determination and goal is solidified and a sense of urgency is developed.

On Sokka’s end, Kyoshi is a significant moment for him as a character. He has some of his core beliefs challenged and not only does it humble him, he apologizes and works to better himself. In The Winter Solstice episodes (particularly part 2) we see, for the first time, glimmers of his ingenuity and his role as the idea/plan guy with how he develops a plan to open the door so Aang can speak to Roku.

In terms of the plot, The Warriors of Kyoshi ultimately doesn’t have much to say at this moment, but it is setup for later payoffs in seasons 2 and 3 (the Kyoshi Warrior ruse Azula pulls in Ba Sing Se, Suki’s presence in The Boiling Rock and subsequently joining the Gaang, etc.) so it’s not wasted. The Winter Solstice is where Aang gets crucial information about the world and solidifies his goal (stop the Fire Nation before the arrival of the comet).

Ultimately we discover something important about Sokka, and Aang has a significant moment of character development where he decides to put aside his own ego, stop messing around, and focus on saving the world.

What do we see in Episode 2 of the Netflix series?

Sokka has a kind of awkward relationship with Suki where she largely just kind of complains about being stuck on Kyoshi and acts like a massive bitch toward him for seemingly no reason (since they completely removed his sexism and thus his entire arc in that episode) but then they kiss anyway.

Aang gets shit on by the people of Kyoshi and then blasted by Kyoshi herself for not being determined enough in his quest and not understanding what it means to be the Avatar (even though in this version of events Aang never ran away from the Southern Air Temple he was just out for a lil fly to cool his head and got yeeted by the storm, and the entire reason he came to Kyoshi in the first place is so he could learn more about being the Avatar).

Katara is, uh, there and plays around with the waterbending scroll Gran Gran apparently had the entire time (so I guess we’re not covering The Waterbending Scroll in this show, aka one of Katara’s early defining character episodes).

None of them develop because they weren’t given any flaws to begin with. There’s nothing for them to overcome. The problems they overcame in the original episodes were taken out from the very start, which means they have nowhere to actually go.

And that might be fine if this wasn’t an Avatar the Last Airbender adaptation. You know, the show that is so well known for its character development that it’s often cited as one of the best examples of a redemption arc in fiction? That Avatar the Last Airbender show? Yeah…

Another problem, and I really can’t overlook this, is the atrocious script this show has. It feels like the characters spend 90% of their talking time either delivering bland exposition that was usually just shown to us in the original show, or monologuing about something. It feels like the writers had no confidence in their audience to actually follow what was happening or understand the themes, which is… embarrassing. This show is clearly not made for children at all based on the levels of violence depicted, and it’s not a great sign when the show made for ten year olds has more faith in its audience's intelligence than this one.

And really, I get that you’re probably going to have to combine episodes and cut out some things to fit a 20 episode season into an 8 episode season, but some of the choices for episodes they combined is just bizarre. Who on earth decided it would be a good idea to combine Jet, The King of Omashu, and The Northern Air Temple into one episode?

The original Jet is largely a Sokka-centric episode, dealing with his own insecurity as well as the group’s lack of confidence in him and his abilities. Yet Katara is almost exclusively the one interacting with the Jet plotline in the Netflix adaptation, and all of Sokka’s best moments from that episode are lost. Instead he spends most of this episode hanging out with Teo’s dad and establishing his interest in engineering (and weirdly shitting on Hakoda for some reason in the process?) which could have been established in an episode which shares a less Sokka-important plotline.

The Northern Air Temple is about Aang reconciling his conflicted feelings about refugees moving into a place that once belonged to his people, changing things, and adopting/adapting some of the Air nomad’s culture (such as the gliders). He ultimately comes to the conclusion that the Air Nomads are gone, but he’s happy new people have come along and carry their spirit. Because this episode takes place in Omashu in the Netflix adaptation, there is absolutely none of that conflict or growth over others using the space which used to belong to his people.

The King of Omashu is just a sweet, Aang-centric episode where he realizes he still has friends in the world, and establishes Omashu and Bumi for the world/later seasons. Bumi isn’t even in episode 3 of the Netflix adaptation physically until the end, and when he’s mentioned he basically gets shit on, treated as completely incompetent, and almost murdered by Jet. Though from what I gather based on the episode blurbs the substance of The King of Omashu is probably contained more in Episode 4, so we’ll see if my opinion changes after episode 4.

The act of combining episodes is not the problem. It’s the episodes they’ve chosen to combine. What they’ve done so far does not in any way take advantage of what the original show gave them to work with.

For example, Why not instead combine the Southern Air Temple, The Storm, and The Northern Air temple? All three episodes connect with the theme of Aang dealing with his loss. Just move Teo and his father to the Southern Air Temple instead of the northern one and keep their plotline the same. In the process Aang can walk the run down buildings and learn more about what happened, and at some point he can find Gyatso’s body and there can be flashbacks to him leaving the Southern Temple and he can talk about how guilty he feels.

(While I’m at it I think they could have more smoothly combined Jet with The Waterbending Scroll. Katara can steal the scroll and as they’re escaping they can run into the merry band of freedom fighters who hide them. Katara practices with the scroll while Jet encourages her which is part of why she takes such a liking to him, and Sokka has his arc with Jet. Maybe Jet could even dangle the prospect of getting rid of the pirates chasing them along with the town to try and bait Sokka to his side/convince him by exploiting his protective instinct, but Sokka still refuses.)

Basically, I wish they’d combined the episodes more on the basis of their interconnected themes rather than… whatever it is they were trying to do here.

Anyway I think that’s the big thrust of my criticisms of the show. Now I’m just going to do random miscellaneous complaining about character changes.

First, Aang is such a bland pile of nothing, and despite the writers claiming he’s more determined and a go-getter he has never, not ONCE stopped getting pushed around in the plot.

He doesn’t intentionally leave the Air Nomads of his own volition, he just happened to be out for a little fly to clear his head when a storm oopsied him into the plot. He gets bullied by Kyoshi for like four minutes straight into doing the thing he was already doing (going to the Northern Water Tribe) because she psychically knows that the Fire Nation is going to attack them later, not because he actually… y’know… wants to learn waterbending/wants to find Katara a teacher.

2) Sokka gives sociopathy with the delivery of some of these lines. The jokes are REALLY hit or miss and the acting is more miss than hit in this show (goes for everyone tbh, not even just the kids). I already complained about them removing his sexism and I can confirm the sexism is indeed gone. He does at least maintain his role in the comic relief department, but I can’t say I’m that thrilled they kept the literal least interesting part of his personality.

3) Katara is genuinely one of my favorite characters in media ever. Seriously I could probably make a whole other post about how much I love her, and I am so disappointed by what a bland ball of nothing she is so far. She has none of her edge.

You’ll notice that they’ve so far covered The Boy in the Iceberg, The Avatar Returns, The Southern Air Temple, The Warriors of Kyoshi, The King of Omashu, The Winter Solstice (1 and 2), Jet, The Northern Air Temple, and if I am being EXTREMELY generous The Waterbending Scroll (as in, there is technically a waterbending scroll and Katara does now have possession of it).

None of which are what I would consider Katara-centric character development episodes, and the moments she does have in those episodes appear to be mostly cut out or overlaid with bizarre PTSD flashback nightmare fuel. I’m not trying to imply that the show won’t get better about her, but I’m not a huge fan of having a lot of her moments stripped out and her characterization reduced to “yeah she’s traumatized”. Honestly depending on how the rest of this season goes you might have to deal with a big long ramble just like this on just Katara. Katara Alone, if you will.

4) I have no idea what’s even going on with Zuko. They covered Aang’s half of The Storm in pretty gruesome detail but completely neglected Zuko’s entire half of that episode. Thus far he feels like he’s getting pushed around by the plot just as much as Aang. And he has to share villain screentime with Ozai and Azula for whatever reason. Also, they wussed out on that scar.

Iroh is in a similar boat to Zuko. It just feels like the Netflix adaptation doesn’t have nearly as much interest in developing Zuko and Iroh as the original show did. Which is really disappointing. One of the things that made Zuko’s redemption so good was because he and Iroh were such a presence in the show from the very beginning. They very frequently, even if they’re not directly interacting with the Gaang, dominate the episode B-plot. His redemption simply does not work if you don’t have that.

5) Zhao is such a dweeb. A dork. A weenie. I don’t even understand why they made this change to him. In the original show he’s ruthlessly effective and ambitious to a fault. He’s an antagonist not just to Aang, but to Zuko as well. Aang is his meal ticket to even greater acclaim and Zuko is a banished princeling who has nothing of value to offer him. He has it made in the Fire Nation and he’s not afraid to flex his power or show it. He is also hot headed and rash, which gets him into trouble on more than one occasion and ultimately probably leads to his downfall. He is not some weenie hut junior loser who slides into the Fire Lord’s DMs while trying to play nice and team up with his banished prince son after failing his Commander Exams™ three times.

6) I’m sensing an Ozai woobie arc with that “don’t pretend to know anything about loss” line he said to those guys trying to assassinate him and I swear to god if they try to give him an uwu sad backstory and/or try to pretend like he gives a shit about his wife or either of his kids I am not only not watching the rest of this trainwreck, I’m never paying Netflix money for anything ever again. Don’t even start with me on that shit.

[cartoonrival]

ive talked about this one million times but heres my canon compliant timeline between the end of shippuden and the start of boruto

sasuke leaves on his shit trip because he thinks its a trip for atonement and in order for it to count as atoning naruto can't come with him, since atoning is something you're supposed to do solo and is synonymous with suffering. if naruto comes with him he won't be suffering.

naruto is not in love with sakura anymore

hinata is still in love with naruto

naruto isn't really doing anything. he feels sort of aimless. he still wants to become hokage obviously but he's not chasing sasuke anymore and since sasuke is technically "saved" he doesn't really know why it still feels like there's a hole in his chest. kakashi is hokage right now anyways. so in the meantime he'll just train and help rebuild/reconnect. iruka forces him to study.

hinata gathers the courage to ask him out. he's flattered, and says sure because she's nice and she wants to, and he doesn't think he DOESN'T want to, so .. sure. ok

hinata and naruto are dating. this is fine i guess. people seem happy for them, and hinata seems happy so he supposes he must be happy too. sasuke is fine. they exchange letters, but the turnaround is slow. naruto keeps all the letters he gets from sasuke but he isn't really sure why he's doing it. sasuke's fine now!

hinata proposes. naruto is flattered, and says sure because she's sweet and she's nice to spend time with. if she wants to, sure. everyone is really excited and happy for them. he figures marriage must feel like less of a big deal when its yours than when its someone elses.

he sends a letter to sasuke saying that he's getting married. he didn't really tell sasuke that much about his relationship with hinata, which wasn't exactly a conscious decision, there was just other stuff he'd rather be telling sasuke about.

sasuke sends back a letter that says nothing other than "CONGRATULATIONS" in big text. he isn't at the wedding, even though naruto told him when it would be. that's fine, he's busy. he's fine now, he's allowed to be busy. he's bettering himself and it's gonna be good for him. naruto wonders what it would've been like if sasuke was there, and he tries to pretend he's not scanning the crowd for him during the whole event. kissing hinata has the same emotional impact as giving a high five. why do people make such a big deal out of this sort of thing?

sakura has been talking for a while about how she misses sasuke. she and naruto both feel a little lost without building their lives around his rescue.

sakura gets restless and frustrated very quickly when she doesn't have something she feels like she's working towards or something to structure her life around. she decides its been long enough. she wants to bring sasuke home.

naruto wants to come with her, but sakura tells him he's married now, and he should stay home with hinata. this seems like it makes sense, and both of them believe it, so he does. sasuke's fine anyways. the letters are spaced further apart.

sakura finds sasuke outside the land of fire based on information from kakashi. he's surprised to see her, and doesn't tell her to leave, because despite everything she represents a piece of home that doesn't hate him. they don't really have a lot in common, but they both represent something that the other can't get back.

sakura confesses for the same reason she always does, which is because she wants something that doesn't exist but she's hoping that she can lie to herself that it does, and sasuke remembers naruto and hinata and says "okay" even though he doesn't really remember telling his mouth to say that word

when sarada is born, sakura convinces him to come with her back to konoha. out on the road is no way to raise a child anyways, and he's not so stupid that he doesn't know this, so he says okay, and he comes back to konoha even though walking through the village feels like being stripped naked over and over

naruto has a kid now too, with a stupid name. he looks just like his dad, and sasuke doesn't even mind holding him.

being back in konoha makes sasuke want to rip out his hair. he feels suffocated, and no one who glances at him on the street is too shy to remind him that being forgiven by naruto will never mean forgiveness from the rest of the world.

at the very first sign of a chance to leave konoha, he takes it, and he leaves without saying goodbye. he tells himself it's because the mission is time sensitive, but he still has time to see naruto before he goes. he decides that sakura is better with kids anyways. she's always taken care of sarada more than he did, mostly because he strayed from home as much as possible

10 or so years pass, boruto begins

[m1d-45]

1.4k words of how well i think genshin characters would do in a slapfight competition

summary: what it says on the tin. here’s an example if you’ve never seen a slapfight. skip to ~3 min in.

i delayed the second part of ‘dearly beloved’ for this. /srs

spoilers for albedo, diluc, and childe lore. technically also for mondstat’s archon quest. i swear excessively and have heavy biases.

cast, in no order: beidou, albedo, kaeya, diluc, childe, kujou sara, tighnari, heizou, shenhe, xiao, kuki shinobu, ayato, hu tao, yanfei

masterlist

beidou

- don’t think i need to explain this one. number one, she’s a sailor. number two, she’s a claymore user.

- she’s built like a brick and i do not take criticism on the subject. you’re wrong.

- she’ll walk in, taking a wide stance and crossing her arms, staring down whatever unlucky individual is her opponent. doesn’t matter how cocky they are, how many comments they make about “i thought this was supposed to be a real challenge!” or whatever. as the guy passes off his coors lite beer and prepares, she doesn’t say a word.

- she’ll just lift her chin, maroon eyes daring them to move.

albedo

- “ooo but albedos made of chalk, he’ll just shatter”

- nope. as funny as that image is, you’re wrong. incorrect. false. he has the bone structure of a person, he bleeds, he bruises, all of it. even if he isn’t organic in nature, everything that he is is human.

- now that we’ve got that aside, he can take a slap. absolutely. he probably has in the past, for whatever reason.

- his skin is pale—what with being chalk—so the redness shows up easier, but that’s the only evidence he ever got slapped, really.

- the most reaction you’ll get from him is a small flex of his jaw, maybe his eyes will slip shut or flutter. besides that, it’s like he never got hit.

- god forbid his opponent try and taunt him. i don’t know if that’s allowed within the rules but it is an awful idea to try.

- every movement of his is calculated, the careful fold of his gloves as he slides them off not betraying any emotion. the countdown starts but he doesn’t even try to wind up, barely giving his opponent time to prepare before it hits.

- don’t let the pretty boy alchemist look fool you. that opponent is walking out bruised, both on his cheek and his ego.

kaeya

- need i go on /hj

- can and will talk shit. it’s a given, sorry

- doesn’t matter if his opponent is a wall of muscle, he’s putting a hand on his hip and flipping his hair back, a scary gleam in his exposed eye. even if he has to tilt his head up to make eye contact, he will not let that stop him.

- when the slap comes, his shoulders will turn and it’ll definitely twist his body—he’s thin, lean instead of bulky, that’s expected. what isn’t is the laugh that immediately comes out of him, his stare as sharp as the spikes on his wrist when he lifts a hand to cover his mouth.

- “oh, is that all?”

- such a shit talker he gets the only line of dialogue in this piece. i love him.

- firm believer that he would give a better punch, just because his hand is probably better built for that, but his slaps still hurt like a bitch.

diluc

- so many opinions on this guy.

- first point, he’s a claymore user. automatically gets a leg up, just because his arms are used to swinging quickly with a lot of force behind them. he’s built beneath that jacket, and it shows.

- another that would make a display out of taking off his gloves, except his is less dexter level clinical and more ‘quiet victorian man winds down for the evening with a cup of tea and his latest read.’

- i think he’d have a hard time regularly swinging with intent behind it, but then he starts imagining his opponent with a fatui’s mask and it gets a lot easier.

- speaking of: his batman darknight duties?

- he literally spends his nights swinging around a claymore, you think he can’t hit one (1) guy??

heizou

- i encourage every heizou-haver to reread his story about the martial arts competition or whatever at the tenryou commission.

- his fists were his weapon and he was the undisputed winner. it’s the exact same here. another pretty boy that hits harder than you’d expect.

- sorry his section is short but i cannot elaborate. it’s so obvious.

- he’d get far, but maybe like. top 15? he’s not built for the heavier hits, and would definitely get dazed after a hit from, say, beidou.

- he couldn’t tackle the harder hitters, he would 100% pass out if he went into like top 5 territory, but everybody up until then better pray.

shenhe

- need i go on pt2

- she would 100% crack a man’s jaw. straight up.

- her face barely moves from a hit, and her opponent’s hand? its like they hit concrete.

- another short section just because i don’t feel the need to explain myself.

- she’s like the better version of childe: all the intent and strength, but with enough concentration to follow every rule, even when it looks like she doesn’t.

xiao

- xiao

kuki shinobu

- she is the literal definition of ‘talk shit, get hit’

- replay her story quest and go down the option that has her saving the gang members. the whole ‘gang rules’ arc??

- her only barrier would be taking off her mask, and though i’m not gonna touch on that specifically, were she to compete?

- she’d get far. she’s not really built for giving out or taking slaps, but she’ll do pretty good. 6.75/10

yanfei

- similar vein to shinobu.

- not really one that’ll get far, but will compete for bragging rights and get a respectable distance through the tournament.

- definitely nothing to scoff at, she may be a catalyst user but she’s also half adepti.

- she’s also a lawyer, so you can bet she’s following every single rule and still kicking your ass.

- also, that giant book she lugs around everywhere? the one in her idle? she has to have some sort of strength to her slap.

honorable mentions:

tighnari

- he could tank hits!! but he cannot give them out

- could take a slap like he was made to do it. would have to put away his hair but that won’t stop him. it would look like it hurt, but he waves off whoever asks if he’s fine.

- however, he could not slap hard enough, i don’t think. bows aren’t really brute force weaponry, and he’s more a healer in practice

- (not in-game, like in-lore)

kujou sara

- same problem, really.

- could take a slap, could not dish it.

- probably has a lesser chance at it than tighnari, really.

- it’s not her fault! she’s a ranged fighter! bows just don’t require the same muscle

childe

- i know what you’re thinking and the answer is no.

- now, he can take a slap. wont be fazed. he can give a slap. his opponent will be knocked out instantly.

- but he could never compete in a slapfight.

- he’d walk up, his face probably barely moving from its spot. but when it’s time to hit… he could not follow the rules at all.

- he’s too eager! he’s gonna play dirty! instinct can and will kick in and he’s either gonna slide his foot for a better stance or just fuckin deck the other guy.

- if he were to follow the rules, he would win hands down. but he cannot follow the rules, and so he is disqualified.

- sad days.

hu tao

- do not get me wrong. she could and would do excellent in a slapfight.

- she has the strength, the muscle, she could take a hit, the only thing she’s lacking is the will.

- in lore, she is not one for fighting. that is the one and only thing keeping her from wrecking every other competitor.

- she literally wrangles spirits day to day. she’s a polearm user—dude the strength required to spin those things around daily, especially with her kit?? she drains her own hp daily and still does it

- she’s not here because of a skill issue, but because of her beliefs. and that’s fair.

ayato

- dainty pretty boy that would be more affected by slaps than he’d let on, but it’s obvious in the way he sways and his hand shakes.

- he’d do well initially, but would 100% lose to even heizou.

- sorry king :/

[nuu-art-blog]

spoiler warning for Last note of the Golden Witch

1: Me, happy that I get to experience Last note of the Golden Witch for the first time through the nezumiva streams, since I hadn't gotten around to seeking it out for myself yet

2: My darling beloved dearest who I liveblogged Umineko to when I first read it so they sort of know everything that happens but didn't read it themselves, however, likes reading wiki pages: "No way, Asumu had a witchsona"

1: "Huh, must be a manga thing, cause I don't remember that."

2: sends me a Dot Jpeg

1: Me, who had seen the character before but had escaped knowledge of the character's name before now: "THAT'S ASUMU????"

2: "Nooooo she's not Asumu shhhhhh, I must've read that wrong,"

1: "Once something is learned it cannot be unlearned..."

[more stuff under the cut]

Okay, first here I want to introduce a new Witch OC of mine; Zero, the Witch of Chaos

[Witch Description: When most witches discuss fragments, though there are infinitely many, they are mainly focused on fragments that follow the same rules as each other. Zero, the Witch of Chaos, exists outside of those rules and structures. They can see fragments of infinitely many different rules, and of each ruleset, infinitely many scenarios. Zero fights by creating noise and confusion around the truth by using the tool they call the Magenta Truth- statements that have the level of red truth in at least one fragment. Though the Magenta Truth is easily possible to disprove if it does not apply to the fragment taking place, it is more akin to creating a haystack to cover a needle. Some witches dislike Zero, viewing their inclusion of fragments with contradictory rules as disrespectful to the rules of an individual fragment; however, from Zero's perspective, every fragment is true to itself, and thus all hold equal value to each other.]

And now after rambling about all that, I'd also like to talk about the design process too. Their name is obviously the number, 0, and I chose it because 0 is both a real number and an imaginary number.

Their design also incorporates a lot of magenta because the color magenta technically doesn't exist either- there is no wavelength of light for magenta.

Then, with the magenta, I also employed a bit of the magenta-cyan-yellow color wheel, where the left half of the shirt on their design is a darker cyan and the right half of their shirt is a lighter yellow. Even if it might be on theme, I didn't want to use pure cyan and pure yellow because it would have felt too noisy to me.

Of course, speaking about noise in the design, there's a lot of asymmetry. Mismatched hair and mismatched attire and mismatched earrings

To be honest, the idea for the theme originated in joke continuation of the theme from the last time I did art for the stream, that being the Sonic crossover stuff, so the thought process was like Chaos emeralds, Chaos control -> witch of Chaos, but despite that I'm actually really happy with how this oc turned out? I feel like they can stand on their own, even outside of the joke.

However, I am hopelessly and endlessly committed to the bit, so-

Last time I did art and related memes, one of the included things was this,

and now that some time has passed I can say that I have done this Further Research and I'd like to report my findings;

Kanon is not Shadow, but Somebody Else Is. Consider the following traits.

Of course, one of the very defining things for Shadow's character is that he lost Maria and Gerald, who are family to his eyes, and this tragedy changed him

When he's brought back, all he can think about is getting revenge for the family he lost

His mission is the only thing that matters to him at this point

Eventually comes to realize this isn't what Maria wanted for him at all and spends the last act of the game helping to avert the disaster he set up

And with all this laid out, obviously the real Shadow The Hedgehog parallel is Ange Ushiromiya, and though this also started as a joke I've thought about this way too much now. If Ange and Shadow aren't the same characters then um what's this?

Checkmate. So I also drew Ange in the pose from the beginning of SA2 where Sonic sees Shadow for the first time.

"It all starts with this... a Book containing the Single Truth!"

[domini-porter]

🍓🥭🍐! (ooh it's a streetlight)

🍓: I don’t really feel like anything is underrated; that’s not really the vibe of this whole enterprise for me. And I've been really lucky in that a lot of my work has been well-received, which is v gratifying and nice! But in the spirit: I kinda wish my companion stories Honeysweet and Saltbitter were more widely-read, even though they’re certainly not everyone’s cuppa, either thematically or stylistically (vaguely experimental writing about—you know it—trauma and its fallout, written as mirrored pieces). Definitely my most poetic stories, but both antique (originally from 2012/13 on FF dot net) and relatively less accessible than straight prose.

🥭: CRACK (which is basically the fic label for high-concept), then angst and smut are tied (for these two idiots? how could it not be), fluff. I prefer crack/high-concept because you can really do whatever within it; angsty crack, smutty crack, fluffy crack, seriously-treated crack. And since it’s by nature a wild setup it allows for all kinds of extremity and maximalism—when you’re talking about sex pollen or magic dicks or zombies, it’s kind of pointless trying to tone anything else down (even though I do tend to engage with writing crack in a more naturalistic way).

Angst is fine, smut is fine; smut is, for me, more often than not a writing exercise. It’s incredibly technical and challenging (sometimes tedious) to write, not because I lack for imagination, but because it’s almost entirely mechanics, which is up there with the tedium of describing a room. There’s a lot to keep track of from beat to beat, and since I’m under no illusions as to how closely the smut chapters/passages will be read, it’s more like writing stereo instructions—very clear, very detailed, one step to the next. It’s also a good challenge in that there’s a pretty limited vocabulary for doin’ it, so avoiding repetition is another huge element of writing smut that doubles as craft exercise.

Fluff is my least fav not because I don’t value it, but it’s . . . fluffy. It’s meant to be a confection. I’ve done it plenty of times; it’s easy, it’s cute. It’s often an excuse to write humor or comedy, which I find very fun! But it’s difficult to sustain for more than like, a one-shot or a scene without more depth starting to sneak in, at least pour moi. I also don’t love the whole hyper-domesticity angle that a lot of fluff relies on; it’s usually way heteroromantically structured, and I just have zero, or perhaps less than zero, interest in cozy family stories, particularly ones involving babies, which comes up a lot in Rizzles fluff. Just not my bag!

🍐: Oh, so many. Aside from the obvious (canon rizzles), I straight-up refuse to engage with Maura’s mob daughter storyline. It felt cheap and melodramatic at the time, and it feels cheap and melodramatic now. I’m half-convinced they just wanted to take advantage of the similarities between Sasha Alexander and Sharon Lawrence. It’s confusing, underdeveloped, and not something that feels true to anything—maybe it’s in the books, but on the show it just feels like a way to give Maura’s character Something Else To Make Her Interesting, and it just doesn’t, not least of all because the character doesn’t need that, she needs to explore all her other, already-rich backstories and relationships. Her neglectful adoptive parents are compelling enough, and I think narratively more believable and complex (or could be), but that’s also kind of shoved aside. And, per my usual complaint, it’s just unexamined trauma on top of unexamined trauma (like, yes they spend a lot of time on it, but it never feels integral to her—the stuff with Paddy, etc, has its arcs and stuff, but . . . who cares?). Anyway, I hate it! 

(love youuuuuuuu tho)

JUSTICE FOR MAURA ISLES

[thecurioustale]

Two questions:

1. You’ve mentioned before that you write on a very, very old laptop called Joshiba. Do you have your ATH and GF drafts backed up somewhere in case it dies? 2. Out of everything you’ve ever written, what’s your favorite sentence?

1. You’ve mentioned before that you write on a very, very old laptop called Joshiba. Do you have your ATH and GF drafts backed up somewhere in case it dies?

Oh yes. Data loss is one of my least favorite things. Losing some fanfic files on the family computer as a kid cemented that aversion into me. And yet I have lost data many times since then, most notably in 2010 when my laptop Archimedes died out of nowhere, which killed most of my music compositions from one of my most important periods.

I'm quite paranoid about data loss. These days I will typically make a backup every three or four months (or less if I have done a lot of writing or otherwise feel the need to back something up sooner), and I have more than one independent backup device.

I actually got a warning just this morning on my main computer about an impending hard drive failure, so I did a full backup of that one and ordered a replacement drive.

2. Out of everything you’ve ever written, what’s your favorite sentence?

That's a deliciously provocative question, and there are so many different ways I could tackle it.

It would very likely be a fiction sentence, as I both care about my fiction more and put more effort into editing and refining it. But I should at least mention that I've done some nonfiction sentences that I'm really proud of. I love it when I can elegantly bring a thesis together, or synthesize a truly fascinating new idea, or perfectly summarize a thing. In all cases, my great nonfiction sentences are masterpieces of insightfulness and clarity. Clarity and insightfulness are the common factors, the reason you would spend your precious time reading my often-verbose, self-indulgent ramblings.

I don't have any such sentences in mind off the top of my head, sadly, or I would happily share one. I suppose I can leave it to anyone who has been a longtime reader of my journal to volunteer any favorites they can think of.

To get on with the fiction:

I put a lot of thought into first sentences: the first sentence in an entire story; the first sentence in a chapter or section; the first sentence introducing a new character; their first sentence of dialogue. When it makes sense to do so, and when I have the opportunity, I also put a lot of thought into last sentences.

There are the "high art" sentences, the ones that attempt some feat of technical prowess or showcase my skills or artistry. These tend to be longer and/or highly stylistic.

There are the "punchy" sentences: short sentences that comprise their own paragraph to underscore a point, ideally to resounding effect.

There are sentences that I am personally biased toward for external reasons, such as ones involving Silence doing Silence stuff.

There are sentences that have deep, personal resonance for whatever reason.

There are the sentences that depart from literality and become in some way transcendental, often assuming an omniscient voice and openly musing in the company of the reader.

There are sentences that don't look like much on their own but become very powerful in context. (Not unlike the aforementioned "punchy" sentences.)

And of course there are miscellaneous sentences that I just like for whatever reason.

(It's also worth noting that, with the way I write, often the great stuff is only resolvable down to the paragraph level, not the level of individual sentences. And some of it is only resolvable down to the scene level, with no great sentences per se even if the scene itself is very strong.)

Different sentences can excel in different ways, each in turn making a compelling case to be my "favorite." I can like sentences because of some aspect of their structure—their rhythm, for instance, or their alliteration or some other literary quality, or their feel on the tongue or in the eye. Or I can like sentences because of their imagery, the contents they convey, irrespective of their structure. Or I can like them because of their meta function, their role in advancing or pulling together the story or important thoughts therein. And so on. I don't consider these various properties comparable, which makes it very difficult to conceive of one supreme sentence above all others.

Even if that weren't so, the way my memory works also makes it virtually impossible for me to select a favorite without going back and rereading all the fiction I've ever written (lol) or whatever subset thereof I think most likely to produce leading candidates for my favorite.

In lieu of this I am quite limited in what my memory is able to recall at the moment on its own. The sentence that has stuck with me the most in recent months is not especially remarkable on its own; it is one of those "Silence doing Silence stuff" sentences and it really loses a lot of its punch without the context of its paragraph and wider scene, and since it is also something of a spoiler I don't think I will post it here, but it's basically an affirmation of her power, which I love.

Since writing the previous paragraph I spent over an hour looking for a good sentence in order to give you something approaching a satisfying answer, but alack my brain was not plugged into creative writing mode at all today and so I have found this a most unapproachable, inapprehensible exercise tonight. It's funny how, some days, it's like the text itself changes. There are times when I absolutely love this stuff, and times when I just don't connect with it at all, and sadly today is one of the latter.

But perhaps if you could refine the question (and catch me on a better day)? I often find that this helps to unlock my mind, if the derivative question has some new substance which helps me to conceive of the query differently.

Anyway! I've written quite a few sentences in my life. Maybe, given my complete uselessness, it would be better to ask the people who have read some of them what they think. I'd be curious to know, myself.

I can tell you one of the leading candidates for my favorite sentences that I haven't written, however. It's from Dickens:

And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

For context, the preceding sentence is:

He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!"

And I suppose that says a lot about me.

[acircusfullofdemons]

ask game by @/maddgical-boy [link]. didn't answer some bc I either didn't feel like it or didn't have an answer.

how long have you been daydreaming for? (bonus if you can remember: what was your first daydream scenario/paracosm?)

Ever since I was a little kid. My teachers would always make a note along the lines of “good student, but daydreams way too much”. My memory is dogshit so I can only fathom what 6yo Luka was daydreaming about.

if your paracosm had a popular fandom, what do you think it'd be like?

Well. 2/3 of my main paracosms are technically fictparacosms, so I don’t have to imagine. But overall, a nightmare. I would probably get canceled for cursing out a fan lbr 💀

do you have any paracosms that aren't huge, but that you fall back on when The Time Is Right™️?

Yes! Crystalized Dragons & Life After Death are both paracosms that don’t have much, but I get fixated on them every so often and it’s a fun time. 

WOULD YOU RATHER: have your daydreams projected onto a screen attached to your head at all times OR be entirely unable to daydream ever again for the rest of your life?

😳 how big is this screen ... cuz unless it’s phone size/easily coverable, yeah no just erase the daydreams from my brain.

how did you come up with your paras' names? did they come to you randomly or did you spend hours researching name websites?

Some are random/based on vibes, but I like to give their names meaning depending on what happens to them. And there are others whose name is a pun, because they aren’t tormented enough 😂

do you do extensive worldbuilding for your paracosms? if you do, what are some of your favorite elements?

yes … that is. nearly all i do, like 90% of my daydreaming is just lore shit ngl. there’s a lot of things I like about worldbuilding, but I guess the magic systems are my favorite since I think about them the most. 

if your paras found out you were their creator, how would they react?

Not well, I’d imagine! I’ve put them through … a lot of shit. So. I think they’d take turns cursing me out and trying to kill me.

if you have a self insert/paraself, how similar are they to you?

Technically Calypso is a self insert, he was originally supposed to be one but then I thought he was better as an OC. I kind of still consider him one though, ngl. Anyway, he’s nothing like me at all! 

Vincent, on the other hand, is much more similar to me. I’m not gonna state how, because yknow. Personal shit. But they’re more in line with being a self insert/paraself. 

is there any time of the day where you can't/don't daydream?

… not really?? I guess during work, but unless it’s really busy (which it rarely is unless it’s the holidays) then yeah, I basically daydream all the time. Well, not like 24/7, I take breaks and get daydream blocks. And it’s not like I’m doing full daydreams either, most of it is just running on in the background, like a tv show. 

are your daydreams linear and structured, or do you jump all over the place?

A mix of both! There’s a set story, but I jump around in said story. 

what's a song you've been daydreaming to lately, and what's your favorite moment in said daydream?

My Alcoholic Friends by The Dresden Dolls. My favorite moment is during the lyrics “Should I choose a noble occupation? / If I did I'd only show up late and sick / And they would stare at me with hatred / Plus my only natural talent's wasted on my alcoholic friends” because the whole song reminds me of Salem but especially that part and by god are they a mess. That part in particular is them once again comparing themselves to Norman, wondering if she’d be better off getting a “normal job” like he has, but knowing that ultimately she’s not built for that life like Norman is. 

do your paras age with you, or are their ages static? does it feel weird to be older than a para you were previously the same age as?

I used to have them age with me, but it fucked with the paracosm timeline a little bit so now I think they’re more “static”, though they still age in-paracosm. bc of timeline shit.

if you had the opportunity to leave this world and live in your paracosm forever, would you? why or why not?

Yes. I mean, ideally I’d be one of my paras, but sure I guess if I’m just me that works too. Why? Have you seen the fucking world lately. Anyway like always I’d choose to live in Phantasmagoria, even though I’d get killed within the hour.

(if you have multiple) which paracosm of yours is most grounded in reality? which is most fantastical?

Most fantastical is probably just Eternal Labyrinth as a whole. I don’t really focus a whole lot on realism in my daydreams — fantasy bitch through & through — but I guess my current MaaC AU “This Life is Mine” can be considered the most “grounded”, even though it’s a superhero thing.

do you move a lot when daydreaming, and if so, in what ways?

I pace, run around a little bit. Go crazy go stupid etc. But I try to mostly stay still by sitting or laying down so I don’t seem Weird. 

have you ever wanted to make a piece of media of your paracosm (comic, animation, visual novel, novel, tv show, etc.)? what are elements that would be apart of it?

Oh absolutely! I truly believe a lot of my ‘cosms would work well as VNs, but I’ve also imagined some as animated shows. 

when you actively want to start daydreaming, what is your mind's process? do you tune back in like it's a tv show? flip through imaginary files? let it come naturally?

I kinda tune back in with a mini “previously on”, otherwise it just comes naturally since they’re usually in the background of my mind.

do you ever daydream about yourself (not a self insert, just you)?

No. I used to, but it just felt weird. 

what para would you absolutely hate in real life?

Oh…a LOT of them, probably. They are dumbasses, serial killers, and just terrible people after all.

when you experience a daydream block or crash, what are things you do to try and fix it? (or ways you cope. lmao i get it)

I try to consume new media to try and get some inspo or whatever. Most of the time I end up rewatching the same shit over and over again bc I got that flavor of brain that makes getting into new media hard for some reason. 

for fictparacosms, do your daydreams affect how you perceive the media and/or the fandom?

Kind of. I don’t really engage with fandoms that much anymore, and yeah my fictparacosms tend to be why. They’re usually AUs so I already feel…insecure, I guess, sharing them. And I haven’t had good experiences with fandom in the past, either.

With the media it’s based off of, it’s typically something I got hyperfixated on, which means my daydreams are an outlet for that lol. Once the hyperxitation is over the paracosm tends to fade a little bit or disappear entirely (which is why I don’t typically talk about my fictparacosms — they’re so short lived). Still, when it’s active, there comes a point where I stop engaging with the media altogether in favor of the fictparacom. I might watch some clips here and there, but that’s about it I think.

if you ever write down things about your daydreams (truly anything at all — notes, dialogues, descriptions, etc), share a random snippet with no context.

I try to. I was a lot…better(?) at writing down my daydreams — and just writing in general, I guess — when I was younger. idk. I know I should document my daydreams more often, it’s just…hard.

if your paras had madd/daydreamed immersively, what would they daydream about?

Reverie does have MaDD! She daydreamed about having a daughter, though thinking of her daydreams is weird to me. I will say, Rev is the goddess of daydreams & imagination, and made her para daughter, Lucid/Lucinda real, making her the goddess of lucid dreams. idk thats kinda all I know.

I’m sure some of my paras would have MaDD, especially those in AM or have interacted with Arcaynis in some way. Oh, Jervis has MaDD! He has two paracosms: an aiw one, and one about magicians. I don’t really like putting my paras on the daydream spectrum, it feels weird to me lol like breaking the fourth wall in a way. Even if, realistically, a few would indeed be MaDDers/IDDers. 

if you have tried to make your paras in character makers (picrew, meiker, etc), what is an aspect of your para that these makers never/rarely have?

An option for both horns and wings! Usually it’s either or (if an option at all). And the option to make the eyes different colors, or change the whites of the eyes. 

are your daydreams clear in your mind's eye?

Depends on my energy level, but generally speaking, yes. 

if you have multiple paracosms, what would it be like if they had a crossover?

Chaos. Pure, unadulterated chaos. My most fleshed out crossover AU is actually an apocalypse au, if that tells you anything. Granted, none of my paras caused the apocalypse, but still. Why can y'all only interact in an apocalypse goddamn.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/31/23

month started on a sunday, ended on a tuesday, very satisfying

listening

Toxic Las Vegas (Jamieson Shaw Remix). this has been on my "silly little walk for my silly little mental health" playlist for three weeks so it's time for its place in the tuesdaypost. part of the appeal is that it's two songs i already like but this remix does something where i go "whoa is that the james bond chord" every time even though it is NOT.

-

reading

Bullet Train, a black humor thriller set on a train full of asssassins by Kōtarō Isaka. i have been having... mmmmmmmm. a time. let us say. and i have been clinging to things that i have lost my mind about (mostly cowboys) in order to get through the agonies. so it is weird, now that i am branching out a bit more bc things are on a slightly different tack, to be like "yeah i liked this a normal amount and i agree with the 3.8 goodreads average. i will not remember this in three months." npr said basically: fun little genre piece with no real depth! i don't completely agree with this, bc the book is not action-scene focused! the very few fights are short, blunt, quick affairs. there's a lot of focus on personal ethics and legacies, and a great deal of terror derived from random chance. but yeah it's not really a literary novel.

this was a fast, fun read. a rare example where i liked the adaptation (the recent movie which is a VERY loose adaptation) much more than the original work.

i try not to be picky about sentence structure or work choice in a translated work, bc translation is a tricky business at best, but there were some funky choices here and there that did throw me out of my groove. it's written in present tense, which is fine, but i cannot remember the last time i read a professionally published non-romance book written in present tense. i described the movies as "really wants you to know it took AP English", and the book is similar in an interesting way-- book!tangerine is constantly quoting English literary-canon novels.

the book (and movie) have a very dry sense of humor that clicked with me. "it's not clear why the man is naming fruits". at LEAST two sensible chuckles.

the biggest book/movie divergence is with the character of the Prince: a fourteen-year-old serial killer, who we spend a great deal of the book with, who asks nearly every grownup on this train "why is it bad to kill people?". a rare book in which i actively wanted a child to die. i think this character is much improved in the movie, since the character is both aged up (a young teen boy in the book, an older teen girl in the movie), and given clearer ties to the rest of the cast. however, this adaptational choice does lose almost all of the terror of the random chance the book makes you sit with. in the movie, the prince has a motive. in the book, that kid just ain't right.

had a fun time but not enough of a fun time that i will be seeking out the other novels in the series on purpose. perhaps if i come across physical copies cheap it will ping my memory and i'll grab them, which is how i acquire a lot of my physical books. this feels like im damning with faint phrase, but i did have a fun time reading this! it's just that my brain is a sieve and lately anything that doesn't completely possess me is immediately forgotten.

-

watching

fallow week bc i have been #gaming. i need to literally put on my to-do list "rewatch The Big Sleep for febslash feb research" maybe that'll get me to actually do it. im going to take this opportunity to complain about how much fucking work it is to write smut. not even the technical stuff bc i do like to write smut that's threesomes where everyone is the same gender and has the same color hair. the hard part is going "okay what's sexy" and then like storyboarding out the sequence of events to make sure everyone's having fun and it CONSISTENTLY stays sexy the whole time. i have never had irl sex with a narrative throughline. difficult difficult lemon difficult

-

playing

still running around in wolfenstein: the new order making this big beefy boy do jumps and slides. went to the moon. came back from the moon. hit a very fun bug as i try to fight my way out of the london nautica where i crash landed, bc i died, the level spat me out at the last checkpoint, and there were no health or ammo or armor pickups anywhere. just what i could scavenge off the fallen. very unpleasant to fight through a room with 20 health but i did do one whole room before realizing this was a bug. i would not like to play the entire game like this. very stressful. the big boss at the end of the level was also extremely stressful.

but let's talk about the moon, the moon in the fucking sky. how was the moon? was the moon fun? no it was full of nazis. it was also jammed full of sixties computer banks tho. many instruments and dials as well.

as i write this on sunday night i am going to attempt Again to finish the second to last chapter in this game. i am So Close to finishing this game in under 20 hours [ed note, monday night: lmao still have not finished this game]. look at some more computer banks there aren't enough pictures to break up this post.

not sure if this is a side effect of the next-location action movie disease, but wolfenstein is very interested in how areas link together. lots of temporary facilities that have grown ad-hoc roots, lots of trains planes and automobiles. we drive a lot of trucks. we’re in helicopters and subs and moon rockets. we blow up a bridge and scramble through several trains, blowing one of them up. we fuck on a train also can't forget that cutscene. we live in the sewers. we scuttle around in vents. we are in some very far-flung locations but they all look the fucking same bc they are encased in brutalist concrete. i'm sure this is bc it's fun to have a gun battle on a train and on the fucking moon and bc like u only have so many guys actually modelling things for your levels.

this is a very half-baked observation bc i think i am beginning to get a migraine (as i finish writng this on monday night) but let's get this out of the way first: all buildings are political. something something things invented and built for war never actually go away, something something transportation infrastructure to ease conquest continues to keep the colonies within easy reach of the imperial core, wartime infrastructure like highways and bridges as a tool of empire, fascism is a constant state of war which in this game is partly represented by constant shooting and also constant building. something something the unsustainability of not only constant building things but constant growth. something something long linked history of fascist architects who love brutalism. this video game has great visual design and visual shorthands is what im trying to get at. i think.

the london nautica museum/labs/spaceport is a big gun. this is not a subtle game.

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making

here's a peek behind the curtain: i talk about cooking when i don't have anything else to report on. but i genuinely did not have anything else going on this weekend bc this took all my fucking literal and metaphorical spoons. this represents like three weeks worth of soup lunch (the red lentil previously discussed on this series) plus two quiches.

why so many quiches lately? i bought two dozen eggs before christmas and thought i would do more baking than i did, which was zero. tried this dal palak recipe, majorly fucked up the proportions of the spinach bc i cannot read the back of a package, and by the time i corrected my mistake i had a fuck of a lot of the spinach/onion/spices. unfortunately i fucking hate the texture of rice plus lentils plus this mixture all together, but felt bad about wasting so much food, so the lentils went into the soup (which i needed to make more of anyway) the spinach mixture went into some quiche (bc i needed to use up those eggs anyway) and uhhh idk what will happen with the rice yet. maybe fried rice to finish off the last three eggs in the carton. this entire debacle used all my spoons for the weekend.

there's also a pork shoulder defrosting (and after that marinating[from last summer's Father's Day Meat Sale i also wish i was making this up]) but that's not very photogenic. i desperately need freezer space and it's been a fucking minute since i had some meat.

[todd-machine]

@milekael tagged me so I thought I would hop onto this!!! TYSM FOR THE TAG MILES UAHAHAHA

are you named after anyone?

Not really! I mostly just picked some random things I vibe with tbh.

when was the last time you cried?

I can't actually remember :'D it couldn't have been awfully long ago tho, for some reason

do you have kids?

nope! I don't really plan on it.

do you use sarcasm a lot?

I think so, once in a while. If I do I normally tend to clarify tho, it does tend to pass over my own head a at times so if I notice it happening to others I'm usually quick to explain myself.

what sports do you play?

I've not been so active in recent years, but I used to love taking dance and swimming classes when I was younger tho! I've also dabbled in martial arts and ball games (football and basketball) over the years and I still really like a good walk or run.

what’s the first thing you notice about people?

Usually? Honestly the way people dress or their mannerisms like hand gestures and stuff, since I sometimes gravitate there to understand how people are speaking.

what’s your eye color?

Brown n green on both :3

scary movies or happy endings?

I'm usually not fond of jumpscare/shock horror and I'm more into the suspenseful or slow type really. Happy endings are sweet and very neat ways to end a plot but depending on the case they can sometimes leave me wanting more, idk.

any special talents?

Can measure out a perfect portion of rice by eye for some reason

where were you born?

That one I'd rather not say here. I have lived the majority of my time in England though 💀

what are your hobbies?

Aside from drawing I like... drawing XD but in all seriousness, I really like doing observational drawings from time to time, it helps clear the mind after spending so long animating for uni! I also love working on some short stories slowly, I collect stamps on the side and I've been really getting into cooking lately. I'd love to pick up traditional art to a more serious level once I have the time, too!

do you have any pets?

I don't :'D I'd love to once I can afford to and have the space to keep them though. Thinking mainly of cats honestly.

favorite subject in school?

Probably history! Art was fun too just wasn't so fond of the programme structure there. At least we had some great field trips for that though.

dream job?

Not really sure! I'm close to graduating from my animation undergrad though, hopefully, and I'm hoping to take that into short form stuff or TV within the industry eventually, probably as an animator. I'd love to be able to improve my skillset over time, though, especially in terms of technical and people skills, and maybe do some animation lead or directing at some point. At some stage later down the line I'd love to spend more time on my bigger personal project's production as well.

Augh tags- uuuhrbmrhrm idk @helio5 if u wanna do it go ahead, no pressure tho ofc!!! Anyone else who wants to pick this up as well feel free (sorry for not directly tagging many people, I simply get nervous easily XD)