#and the Mysterious Moments are actually mysterious to me. love love the worldbuilding as well <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[wyverwithy]

mrs plithiver losing her shit and scaring rest of The Band shitless was so funny. go grandma go !!

[ot3]

What Is ORV?

The number one question I get asked on this blog, now answered better than ever. Today I am going to formally introduce you to Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

To start off this recommendation: ORV might very well be my favorite thing I've read. Ever. If I could only reread one thing for the rest of my life it'd be this webnovel.

My elevator pitch is this: something with the cosmic-scale goofy video game nonsense and intricate setting comparable to Homestuck in its prime, paired with the deft emotional poignancy and emotionally-driven fights of Mob Psycho 100, topped off with the sort of compassionate and heartwrenching metanarrative of Undertale.

ORV is a love letter to it's own readers. ORV revels in the joy of losing yourself in fiction, even when it's the kind of fiction that tends to be considered lowbrow or worthless. It's something that dances the delicate line between recognizing the difficult nature of using media as escapism without condemning it. I've rarely seen anything else that accomplishes everything it sets out to do in its narrative with such remarkable precision. Frankly if you're reading a tumblr media recommendation post in 2023, I can almost guarantee ORV has the kind of meat you're looking for in a narrative, whatever that may be.

The story follow the antics of protagonist Kim Dokja, a 28 year old office worker on an expiring contract, whose only real joy in life is reading his favorite massively long and massively boring webnovel. One day, the novel’s events - worldwide deathmatches aired for the entertainment of mysterious higher beings called ‘constellations’ - begin playing out in reality in a sort of reverse-isekai. Kim Dokja, the only longterm reader of this webnovel, finds himself uniquely poised to succeed based on the advantages given to him by his knowledge of future events, but the webnovel’s actual protagonist, Yoo Jonghyuk, is a violent monster who will stop at absolutely nothing to complete his goals, no matter the cost to anyone else. Kim Dokja finds himself in a delicate dance of guiding the events of the story to play out more favorably than the version he read while trying to avoid being massacred in the fallout, all while trying to see it through to the story’s end. 

Below the cut I'll go into a more in-depth (but non-spoilery) explanation of what exactly makes ORV so unique and worthwhile, and what you're in for if you choose to read it.

Clocking in at 550 chapters, and over 1.3 million words in English, ORV may seem incredibly daunting to dip your toes into, but I assure you it's worth every moment. I would read 1.3 million more words if they had them for me. Here are some things about ORV I consider to be selling points, not necessarily in any particular order:

The tone. Its funny, for starters. It is extremely funny, which is very high up on my media priority list. In ORV, there will be incredibly grim things that make you laugh, and incredibly cringe and silly anime bullshit that will hurt you as heavily as any other media you’ve seen. I always love this kind of tonal whiplash when it's well executed, and ORV probably executes it better than anything else I've seen to date.

It’s got fun and fascinating worldbuilding mechanics. the core concept being ‘reality now operates on the rules of a shitty novel’ means that the worldbuilding doesn’t have to function logically, it functions thematically. It’s explicitly stated in ORV canon that some of the internal rules governing this new reality are objectively really stupid and illogical, but they just have to roll with it because that’s what was in the book, and i think it’s a really enjoyable way to do it. This may at first sound like a copout to excuse bad worldbuilding, but I promise it isn’t. The worldbuilding is actually incredibly deeply thought out, but it doesn’t exist for the sake of rational function, it exists for the sake of furthering orv’s thematic arcs. The rules by which this universe operate do a magnificent job of strengthening the core concepts the authors are exploring.

It plays with the trappings of isekai/litrpg in a really thoughtful way. These are genres I'm not super familiar with, so I can't comment on this point too heavily, but with my limited knowledge ORV feels a lot less of a deconstruction of it's genre and more of a celebration/interrogation of it. Despite that, it's still accessible to readers such as myself who are not super familiar with these genre conventions.

It deals with morality in a really wonderful and nuanced way. there are almost no characters in ORV’s extremely large cast who are just explicitly morally condemnable, and almost every conflict allows you to understand exactly why the antagonists believe they’re in the right by opposing the actions of our protagonists. The central conflicts are never pure right and pure wrong; they’re always about contrasting goals, conflicting worldviews, and different priorities between ends and means. this makes the conflicts all feel so much more dynamic and engaging than those where the only stakes are physical harm.

The characters interpersonal relationships are some of the most interesting I've ever seen. ORV is very slow burn and it takes a long time for a lot of these to come out of the woodwork, by design, but by god once they do they fucking hit. Similar to the plot conflicts, the interpersonal conflicts also almost never occur where there’s one side clearly in the wrong. The characters are almost all genuinely attempting to do their best by each other, and the tension comes from the ways in which human communication is fundamentally imperfect and part of our feelings and intentions get lost in translation. it’s very heartwrenching and heartwarming to see unfold, in equal measure.

Following from that, it’s a narrative that really meaningfully prioritizes non-romantic relationships over romantic ones as the central focus. Orv is about love, but not about romance. Obviously there’s shipbait and the ot3 is real and good and my friend but if you’re looking for deep complex platonic, (found or otherwise) familial, and antagonistic relationships that never get ruined with forced romantic arcs, we got em baby!

The pacing is unlike anything i’ve ever seen before. from a purely technical standpoint, it is genuinely a fascinating case study in how to execute a narrative that is almost constantly escalating without exception. there is very little downtime or breathing room in orv, which is insane for something that clocks in at over a million words, and somehow, it still works. i’ve never felt more like a frog in a pot of slowly boiling water than i did when i was reading orv and i can’t believe they pulled it off. it’s so interesting to read something like that.

It is a tragedy without resorting to cynicism and a very adult narrative that’s really steeped in childlike wonder. I’m a big fan of cartoons made for children. Cartoons made for children are some of my favorite things to watch, but of course children’s media will always be simplified and not very relatable to an adult audience. ORV is very much a serious and heavy adult narrative, and a deeply tragic one at that, but it never delves into torture porn. It’s a very compassionate piece of media overall, that holds a lot of reverence and sympathy for the ‘naive’ optimism of children that gets stripped down over time. if you, like me, feel more like a grown up child than an adult some days, I think it’ll hit for you.

It is extremely cathartic and meaningful. I am not exaggerating at all when I say that reading it gave me the closest thing I have ever felt to any sort of spiritual breakthrough. It helped unfuck my head a ton during some very grim times and i think the perspective it offers on the value of human life and our relationship to storytelling is a really really good one.

And if my word isn't enough, here's some reviews from satisfied customers. With that, I'll leave the rest to you, and hope you one day reach the end of the story.

[dinadumas]

Hiiii~

Dear novels lovers, I sincerely want to recommend you one of the best works I've read. So if at the moment you are in search of something interesting don't pass by!

This novel actually has a manhwa with the same title, so if you're not interested in the novel you can find and read the manhwa! It does not have any plot discrepancies from the original.

"Turning" by Kuyu (쿠유).

It's a novel in the bl, fantasy, and omegaverse genre.

Wait wait. Those who now thought that the omegaverse is not interesting or poorly written, you are sorely mistaken! The novel itself doesn't pay that much attention to this genre, so you won't feel any discomfort while reading it! I even forgot about this genre at times. (Although most of the hot scenes are related to it, but you'll be satisfied, I promise.)

There are approximately 970 chapters in the original, and 305 are available in English (free).

If you are already a bit interested, please read the description first~

Yuder was a commoner Omega who rose to the top with his ability.

When he woke up again after being falsely accused and executed, he was back 11 years ago before everything began.

He must not repeat the same mistake he did before.

A chance to get back……

To survive, and to save the world, now he had to save the man he had killed!

Are you more interested? Jesus, I love you already. Keep going!

If you want to hear the opinion of someone who has already read all the chapters available in English, @armed-teddy-bear answered some questions especially for you!

Q : Dear reader, please tell us what you liked most about the novel "Turning" by Kuyu?

Teddy : It’s hard to pinpoint a single part of it, since all of it is perfect in my eyes. The characters are well-written and never act like walking tropes with no common sense, the worldbuilding is one of the best I’ve ever seen, the intrigues are taking and all well-linked together to form an enduring mystery and drama that, as of 300 chapters, is still just as interesting…

If I really had to pick, I would say the relationship between the two protagonists is honestly a high point. Heavily influenced by the past only Yuder can remember, it still manages to progress naturally while never having a boring moment. Every scene where the two of them interacted became one of my favorites.

In short, I would say: If you think you’ve read a novel like this before, no you haven’t. In my opinion, this novel is the best you could achieve in the genre of rebirth/time travel.

Q : Do you think the omegaverse genre is ruining the novel?

Teddy : It’s not a problem to me at all. But there are a lot of people who are uncomfortable with it. I don’t understand why exactly, but it’s like that.

On the contrary, I think the way Turning handles it makes it even more interesting. It hasn’t played too much into the story that far, so it could even be ignored by people who don’t like it, but I think it adds to the story quite a bit by adding more worldbuilding to the “awakeners” characters and the powers of this world.

The reason given for why it happened in universe is also good in my opinion. 👍

So it’s a complete OK for me!

Q : Can you highlight any flaws in the novel?

Teddy : I became the number one fan overnight. In my eyes, Turning can do nothing wrong.

But if I try to see it from someone else’s eyes… Maybe the length would be too long for someone else. You have to wait 200 chapters for the main couple to kiss for the first time, and at times you see characters and situations being set up.. and then you don’t see them begin to unfold for another 50 chapters!

There’s also a very, very large cast of characters, some of them named only to never properly appear… although that can also be seen as a quality! The novel feels very realistic and profound thanks to this, as allies and antagonists fade in and out of the storyline in accordance to the plot, never overstaying their welcome or standing uselessly in the background of a scene.

The supporting cast is also characterized and explored, even if they don’t stay for long, meaning that every character is inherently interesting. It’s thanks to this length in chapters and depth in characters that the novel gains in worldbuilding and intrigue with each new chapter.

Q : Please tell potential readers why they should not pass by this novel?

Teddy : Not reading Turning means passing by a novel that can and will satisfy anyone!

If you don’t like romance, then you’ll find your happiness in the worldbuilding, magic systems, and political plots.

And if you don’t like worldbuilding, magic systems, and political plots… well, think again! I thought I didn’t like those either before, but reading Turning, I found myself on the edge of my seat with every word. Everything is explained clearly and logically when it comes to intrigue, making it easy to understand and all the more interesting — but that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in emotions either! This novel masterfully meshes both plot and character building, making each moment count.

But most importantly, you’ll miss reading the developing relationship between Yuder and Kishiar, which I think is the biggest appeal of all. I’ve never rooted for a couple more in my life. Despite a past together filled with pain, they still manage to be one of the healthiest and most sincere relationships I’ve read in a long time.

So, to whoever is listening, please read Turning. You definitely won’t regret it.

Wow if you read to the end we really appreciate it! Thank you for your attention.

Please read Turning~

[quinnydoll]

You should watch Eureka Seven

So there's this neat little show I watched before I turned 10 when I couldn't understand a goddamn thing, and it caused me to think about the cool aesthetics of giant robots flying around stylishly on boards as naturalistic trails flow behind them.

I rewatched the show recently with my lovely nesting partner, because I wanted to revisit its world, and I was offered so much more than I remembered. Yes, the show is absolutely what I just described in the previous paragraph/run-on sentence(fuck you this isn't a school assignment) but it's also SO MUCH MORE.

I'm not going to beat around the bush, there's a singular gif I can show people that usually convinces them to watch it with the added info that this isn't just a super highlighted moment, it's just what the show looks like:

(side note: if you haven't seen this show in its entirety, do not, I repeat DO NOT search for gifs of it on this site, never have I ever seen such a dense wall of spoilers)

Still with me? I'd hope so after that display! Also, for non-mecha fans, PLEASE I am begging you to still give the show a chance, it's so worth it!

So we need to start off with this show's worldbuilding. The giant robots can wait, because first we have to address the most glaring thing: everyone seems to have access to these boards that seemingly allow them to levitate and travel in midair on these almost fluid-like trails. These are explained as Trappar Waves, and not much is explained about them early on. I'm going to keep my explanation brief, because it's way more satisfying to watch the mystery unravel through the course of the show.

Basically, the planet this takes place on is full of these waves, and that's one of the main things that everything relies on, and why we can see effectively airships that are just perpetually suspended in the air without need to refuel constantly. This is what allows them to stay up. Also the reason why we see characters with their nifty little boards. Oh yeah, the giant robots have those boards too.

That's the main thing I wanna address about the world of this show, because explaining the rest would genuinely spoil so much of the show, and the experience would be extremely reduced by me explaining. Just trust me, it's really good.

Now, the format of the show is actually masterfully done. The first arc involves the immaturity of the main character, and the format of the show reflects it heavily in the very slice of life format as our main character is enchanted with the conditions he's been put into. At this stage of the series, it's not very serious, and its stakes are pretty low.

As it progresses though, it eases you into a far more coherent overarching narrative in a way that feels really natural and well done. You'll never really "notice" the point at which "shit gets real" or anything, you'll just find yourself way more interested in the bigger picture of what's going on, because the show puts a larger focus on it.

There's a romance story in it too, and it's actually really well done, which is something I haven't really seen effectively done in a lot of action anime, but I think in this case it's because they don't really treat it like a "subplot." They do a really good job of tying it into the main story, and they make it feel pretty real as a romance, and by the end, the payoff is the most satisfying one I've seen of really any romance plot that isn't necessarily the actual main focus of a story. I genuinely feel like they could've conveyed the story they did without the romance plot, but something truly impactful would've been lost had they gone that route.

I think it's not unfair to compare this show to Neon Genesis Evangelion, but at the time, it would be doing both stories a serious disservice. Evangelion is a really effective exploration into nihilism and mental illness, but Eureka Seven feels like a direct response in the way it delivers its story. It feels like it did a Better Rebuild™ before the Rebuild movies even came out.(let it not be said that I don't like the Rebuild series, it's legitimately in my top ten.) Early on, they communicate a lot of the same themes, but then Eureka Seven diverges hard with how it explores the intricacies of interpersonal relations and how people will strive to do better and how people can genuinely be better to each other. I feel like the way it delivers that is genuinely way more effective than even the extremely cathartic conclusion to Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0.

Seriously though, if you're not interested in watching this show, I don't know how to convince you. It's truly a fantastic show, and it's honestly taken the spot of "favorite anime" in my book. I am no longer a Gundam fan, but an Eureka Seven fan who also likes Gundam. You're going to love this show, even if you're not into mecha anime.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 心宅猎人/Psych-Hunter.

Psych-Hunter is a 2020 drama about a hot young amnesiac who, accompanied by a rich psychiatrist with major daddy issues and a rich girl who cosplays as a cop, uses his Inception-style psychic powers to solve crimes that are part of a shadowy conspiracy orchestrated by a mysterious figure.

True story: Once I couldn't remember the English name of the drama, so I called it "House Haunters," and now my brain insists that's the real English title. If only!

Do not, under any circumstances, labor under the impression that this show is good. It's not. It's incoherent. The writing is bad. The villain is absurd. The vibe is comically melodramatic. People make inexplicable and out-of-character decisions all the time. Countless complex mysteries get set up with no way to resolve them. There's a thin lampshade hanging over it that blurs the line between bad decisions made on accident and bad decisions made on purpose, but the net result is largely the same. This is the show that first inspired my wife to declare something dumb as a guinea pig in a roller skate.

But it's fun. It's a sea of colorful chaos with brilliant pieces that shine through like strange gems. It knows how to work an atmosphere and does so to create some legitimately creepy moments. It spins a wild yarn filled with bizarre and loveable characters. And it has some twists that truly have to be seen to be believed. In the mood for some beautiful nonsense? Here's five reasons that despite everything I warned you about in the previous paragraph, I think this one's worth watching.

1. Psychonauts for Jazz Age homosexuals

Honestly, that phrase alone should let you know if this is the thing for you. But just in case, let me explain the basic premise of the show:

Jiang Shuo, a man who has lost his memory and been adopted by circus folk, is capable of jingling his keys and diving full-body into someone else's subconscious, represented by lovely and thematic dreamscapes. He does this to solve crimes. Sometimes he takes along a handsome doctor who seems like he might know more than he's letting on, by literally tying their hands together with a red string.

Also, when they do this, they get gorgeous steampunk magical girl costume changes, complete with the cutest little pony nub you've ever seen.

This show can be stunningly beautiful. It knows how to manifest dream logic eerily well. Most of these cognitions are gorgeous, and many are done with primarily practical effects, like it's a stage play. ...And it's good it relies on that so much, because the CG it has is kinda cheap and terrible! So, yeah.

(Side note for the DMBJ fans: This is directed by the same guy who directed Sand Sea, which I assume is related to how this both is a visual treat and completely falls apart on the back end.)

The reason I'm a bit surprised that this hasn't taken off more among the creative set is what a great piece of worldbuilding this Psych-diving is. These boys (and, once, the girl) get to short-term manifest bodily in someone else's materialized mental state, where the person whose brain they’re in neither controls the experience nor remembers what happened after it’s done. Were you writing weird Arthur/Eames fic a decade ago? I got a new best thing for you. Can you say freaky dream sex? Because I can.

The base premise should be more than enough to get your gears going. Come ready to get weird with it. There's so much potential here, and so much of that potential is incredibly gay and wearing impeccably tailored suits.

2. Your friendly neighborhood circus family

As I mentioned before, Jiang Shuo lucks into the best possible fate that can befall an amnesiac: being picked up by carnies.

The troupe includes Ventriloquist Man, Really Big Dude, One-Eyed Acrobat, Other Acrobat, Cheerful Fat Girl, Boy Who Looks Like A Kid But Is Actually Played By An Adult So I'm Not Exactly Sure How Old The Character Himself Is Supposed To Be, and Silver Fox Circus Dad, who manages the whole crew. They're a ragtag bunch of performers who all live together in this cute little compound in some very nice slums, and sometimes they open the gates to their lavish compound and put on a circus show for all the common people!

Now: You know this is not going to be the wokest, most sensitive portrayal of body differences, because of course it isn't. But damn, it's pretty not-bad. The show treats all the circus members as valuable people worthy of affection, whose (occasionally exasperating) quirks are no more or less exhausting than those of the non-circus weirdos in the rest of the supporting cast.

I was half-expecting them to disappear after the first arc, but no! They’re a constant fixture through the show! They’re mostly there to support the show’s more comedic moments, but some of them get wrapped up in more emotional plotlines as well. And every now and then you get to see them actually do their circus shit, which is great.

I will admit that my fondness for them is related to how much I generally love fictional Freaks — you know, misfits who have banded together because society considers them unacceptably weird, but together their weirdnesses make them strong. When you find them, they’re usually the bad guys (e.g., the Gung-Ho Guns from Trigun, the Scorpion crew from Word of Honor) whose freak statuses make them formidable and occasionally sympathetic antagonists. But not so here! The Psych-Hunter Family Circus is good guy support all the way through to the final episode.

I know "found family" is a term that suffers from overuse, but that's the best way to describe what's happening here -- really, it's a family that's already found itself even before the show starts, and now they all live together as an unconventional collective of astonishingly flexible people. How did they find one another? Doesn't matter! What matters is that they all love and would do anything for their newest member, and they think it's great when he comes home with his attractive rich friends, who often arrive bringing snacks, which is really the best use for rich people, if you think about it.

3. Two hands, one ring

Now, if you've seen the series already, you know the moment I'm talking about. But if you haven't (and, statistically, you haven't), know that what I mean is the relationship between these two losers.

Together, Qin Yiheng and Jiang Shuo form the emotional core of the series. They're both drawn to one another because of mysterious circumstances that have started to align. Jiang Shuo's memory is missing, Qin Yiheng's dad has vanished, and all signs point to those absences as having something to do with one another.

Very early in the show, we see Qin Yiheng pull a "come with me if you want to live" on Jiang Shuo, giving the impression that he knows just what's going on in this crazy city. Except, no, he doesn't. Or does he? No, we're pretty sure he doesn't. Or he does, but he's forgotten what he knows, if he ever even knew it in the first place. Anyway, time to tie their hands together and jump into someone else's brain!

I'd say they're in love, but that's not quite it. Dr. Qin Yiheng, high-class homosexual, is in love with Jiang Shuo to the point where he's about to murder someone (possibly Jiang Shuo himself) out of frustration about it. Jiang Shuo, on the other hand, is much more sticking his fingers in his ears and going LA LA LA YOU CAN'T CATCH ME GAY THOUGHTS while trying get a girlfriend in an effort to pretend that all the shit they get up to together isn't tremendously romantic.

That is, until the scene that leads to the which-hand ring guessing game, at which point the burden of their relationship falls on Jiang Shuo (and the Inception parallels get unignorable) for exactly as long as the show will allow it to, before it freaks out and has to add another girl love interest just to make sure all the homos got no'd.

It's not textually gay, because seriously, have you met Chinese television? But it's pretty gay. Or, rather, I think Liu Dongqin (Qin Yiheng) is playing his character as a dedicated homosexual on purpose, and Hou Minghao (Jiang Shuo) is just ... kinda like that? I mean, everything I’ve seen him in, he gets real dreamy-eyed around strong men who pay close attention to him. Maybe it's just his thing as an actor. I'm not judging.

However, the main cast isn't just the two of them. One of the things that led me to this show was the promise of an OT3. And does it deliver on that promise?

Well ... sorta.

Qin Yiheng, Jiang Shuo, and Yuan Muqing are a pretty standard MFM not-love-triangle trio of Male Bestie, Main Guy, and Girlfriend (respectively). There's about five seconds at the beginning of the series where it looks like Yuan Muqing might be into Qin Yiheng, but no, that evaporates almost instantly and is never spoken of again -- and with it disappears most of their interactions with one another, period. So it's less an OT3, and more a case of bisexual cutiepie Jiang Shuo getting both a boyfriend and a girlfriend in a world where censorship will only let the latter relationship exist textually.

But damn if these boys aren't made for one another. Sure, there's a level of conscious comical queerbaiting to it -- I mean, there's straight-up an "only one bed" moment, so you know the show isn't stumbling into rainbow territory on accident. No matter how sexual or nonsexual or whatever you read it as, though, their dynamic is the spine that holds the story together. Really, it's almost sad how often the relationships are set parallel to one another, because when you do that, it becomes obvious how intense Jiang Shuo's bond with Qin Yiheng is, and how largely lackluster and comphet most of his canon romance with Yuan Muqing is by comparison.

Like so.

sidebar: The Girl

I am not going to go into a full-throated defense of The Girl this time, as I am wont to do, mostly because I think Yuan Muqing is full of potential in concept but so badly executed that there's really no hope for her. Her entire personality is whatever they need her to be in any particular scene. It's just that once in a while, what they need her to be is completely insane -- like, seeing-things-that-aren't-there insane -- and it's so great that it makes me mad! She could have been like this all the time! But noooooo

As it is, she has a perfunctory canonical romance with Jiang Shuo that's about as endgame as anything is capable of being (see point 5), and it actually gets pretty cute when it finally gets to the point where it's not just awkward obligation! But alas, it only does that so late in the series that it's not even worth it getting invested in it.

She is a creation of the show. She has no novel counterpart. Her entire function in the drama is to un-gay the dynamic between the boys. You can tell that she was initially supposed to have a different role -- to be the muscle of this trio -- but the narrative forgets pretty quickly that she's got that skill set, and she regresses to being The Girl. She makes dumb decisions that forward the plot. She gets put into danger whenever it's convenient. She demands Jiang Shuo do manly things for her because that’s what a girl is supposed to do, I guess? And then there are moments where she’s cool and crazy and it’s awesome! But they never last.

So if you are going to watch this, be prepared for the fact that the female lead is badly written to the point of frustration. I feel her actor is doing the absolutely best with what she's got; the problem is that what she's got is pretty crappy. Still, Muqing gets some pretty charming moments here and there, and I think it's worth hanging onto those and imagining the character she could have been, if the writers had cared just a little more, or even at all.

4. Powerfully surreal worldbuilding

I'm not even talking about the way people's psyches are structured according to dream logic -- the "normal" waking world is almost equally bizarre. The story takes place in sort of the real world c. 1930, except that a lot of things are off. For example, Japan and England are real locations, but China kinda isn't -- instead, the show takes place in a Shanghai-like city-state run by this moustachioed generalissimo with a faux Latin American dictator aesthetic. The place has its own flag and government and police force (where all the cops have coordinating surnames) and diplomatic relationships with other countries, so it’s clearly its own thing. But what that thing is? What it’s even called? Look, don’t worry about it. Nobody else is worried, so you shouldn’t be either.

You will, at every point in the series, be wondering if the show is trying to telegraph to you that Something's Not Quite Right Here, or if it's just making weird decisions for the sake of artsy weirdness. But don't worry -- there's absolutely no way to tell the difference between the two! Just roll with it.

There's a weird mix of universe rules happening throughout, where everything is mostly period-appropriate for a while, and then somebody builds a clock with levitating parts, or causes someone else to have very specific memory loss — or, again, swings some coins in front of a person’s face and gains the ability to treat their subconscious like a VR amusement park.

You can sort of reconstruct the evolution of this weirdness: The book has actual factual ghosts in it. Well, that’s fine for books, but TV isn’t allowed to have ghosts. But TV can have people who imagine ghosts, so long as it’s all in their heads. Okay, but you know jumping bodily into those imaginations isn’t actually a thing real people can do, right? Well, then let’s make it scientific. How can that be scientific? I don't know, it’s psychiatry. I don’t think that’s psychiatry. Look, it could be. Well, it’s definitely not psychiatry in 1930s Shanghai, and that’s the set we’re allowed to film on. Okay, what if it weren’t actually Shanghai? What if it weren’t actually 1930? What if all of this were at best a weird approximation of the period that adheres to no rules except the ones we want?

Once you’ve thought that, the sky’s the limit.

The show has a very inconsistent grasp on reality, and I am listing that as a pro instead of a con because I am choosing to embrace it as a deliberate choice rather than assume it’s the result of craven incompetence. There's something to be said, though, for how pervasively inconsistent it is. It'd be one thing if there were just a few plot holes here and there (and there are), but this is more along the lines of: We woke up in a mysterious boat and got taken to an island with a giant sea monster skeleton on the shore! What's that all about? Couldn't say! Was it real? Maybe! Moving on!

Let the number of "it's fine! who knows!" comments I've made throughout this rec indicate how much this is the kind of show you just have to roll with. If you are a nitpicker or someone who is troubled by unexplained nonsense, this is not the thing for you. If you love artistic magical realism and high strangeness, you will eat this up with a spoon.

And the lampshade that hangs over all of this worldbuilding is...

5. THE STUPIDEST POSSIBLE ENDING EVER

Okay, usually I am coy about when I think an ending has problems. I am going to drag this one out front and center: Psych-Hunter has an ending so jaw-droppingly, head-clutchingly stupid that I'm actually listing it as a selling point, because it has to be seen to be believed.

When I first watched it, I suspected the show ran out of time or money or something and just had to slap together the quickest possible ending ever. But no! This is the ending they meant! If you go back to the rest of the series, you can see that this is what they were (kinda) setting up the whole time! They just set it up so poorly and decided to make the twist hit at such a late point that not only is it complete nonsense, it actually renders moot the entire emotional stakes of the show! Absolutely incredible!

Now, as I've said before in other places, I don't begrudge the actual twist itself. I mean, it's stupid on its face, but I think they could have done something with it — if they'd had it happen halfway through the series, when the characters would have had time to adjust to the new knowledge. Instead, they slap it on at the last possible moment, when there's no time to have any reaction to it. It's just jarring and baffling, and then the whole thing's over.

I've seen lots of people say "season 2 when???" Season 2 never, friends. There was never going to be a season 2. The only reason you think this was an even remotely acceptable narrative move was that you were assuming that this would be the midpoint, not the end. You're having the same reaction I did, only I can tell this was always meant to be their spectacular dismount.

(To me, it's clear what happened: They J.J. Abramsed themselves into a cool premise for a mystery with no idea how to solve it, hoping they'd figure it out along the way. When they got to the end and still hadn't figured it out, they simply ... opted out of solving it.)

Now, if you want a normal viewing experience out of this show, watch to the end of the next-to-last episode, close your browser window, and have imagination adventures about how you think all the mysteries should resolve. But you're not going to. You are going to continue on to that last episode, and you are going to realize that nothing I could have said here could possibly have prepared you for this. And somewhere, I am going to feel the urge to cackle wickedly and not even know why. Except I'll know why. We'll both know why.

Want to watch this hot mess?

That baby's an iQiyi exclusive! But you can watch the first episode on YouTube, if you feel like getting a taste that way.

Look, I know I may have spoiled my pitch somewhat with that last selling point. After all, why would you bother watching a series if you know it has a shit ending?

I refute your objection thus: Knowing it has a shit ending changes the whole game, because it removes the feeling of betrayal that hits upon your discovering that the ending isn’t what you wanted. You know that already now, so there can be no betrayal. The ending goes from being an unpleasant surprise to being exactly the unexpected thing that you expected. With that in mind, you can dive right in (ha ha) knowing that you’ll never get the closure you crave, and therefore whatever you make up along the way is perfectly valid.

This is obviously a turnoff if you prefer shows that are like seeing someone start a magic trick, perform it without breaking a sweat, and walk off calmly, leaving you wondering how on earth they accomplished such an amazing thing. Think of this more as someone starting a magic trick, accidentally letting the rabbit fall out of their hat, saying “I meant to do that!” like thirty times, and suddenly vanishing through a trapdoor, leaving you wondering what the trick was even supposed to be in the first place — but they were really good-looking and well-dressed, so at least whatever they were doing was nice to look at while it was happening.

See? They're having fun.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

For some weird Firefox security reasons I couldn't leave comments while I was reading, but I just wanted to say, TTO:U was an amazing read. I've been wondering if social media had deteriorated my ability to get sucked into novels and actually focus on them, and I'm sure that's true on some level, but I got so invested that I've done jack shit in terms of irl productivity for the past two days. I immediately subbed to your patreon to catch up with the latest patreon chapters and I'm super excited to start reading Curse Words (potentially after final projects are due, before my groupmates catch me slacking too hard reading). I still have so many questions about the characters and their pasts and I love them so much and I love how you intertwine big conspiratorial mysteries with worldbuilding and lighter character bonding moments and emotional character backstory moments and AAAA i aspire to be as good at writing as you, thank you for reigniting my passion for reading. I'm sure you've heard it all before but still, 10/10. now that i'm on the patreon i'll start leaving comments there instead but hopefully i'll be able to conquer wordpress and leave comments on curse words as i read because i'm sure it's just as much of a mindfuck

Huh, I wasn't aware of any trouble leaving comments. Anyone else having this problem?

Glad you're enjoying the story, and thank you for your patronage! We're just about to enter the final arc, so soon you will be free. Well, probably not soon. But eventually.

[readingtoinfinity]

Secret Level: Part 1

Note: not "extra level". I kept searching for that and not the actual title like a mom who doesn't know who Sanic or Dankey Kang are.

I love anthologies. Even if none of the episodes are good there's something interesting to talk about. Love, Death and Robots had some interesting stuff even in the second season. So when I heard the news about Secret Level I was hyped, especially because Tim Miller was working on it as well.

I had forgotten it came out yesterday whoops. Anyway, let me give my thoughts to each episode so far. There will be seven more after this, which I will review at a later time.

Dungeons and Dragons: The Queen's Cradle

It was mostly just fine. The characters were pretty flat, and the action was just okay. It did effectively encapsulate the themes of D&D being friendship and teamwork, which I liked, but beyond that it wasn't much of anything. And the animation style focused a little too hard or not hard enough on realism, resulting in character models that were uncanny at times, especially for Tally.

Sifu: It Takes a Life

This put me back where I wanted to be! The animation is wonderful and stylized, the choreography is tight and brutal, and it adapts the core mechanics of the game to tell its story of the price of revenge. I loved this one quite a bit!

New World: The Once And Future King

Wow I wonder why Amazon has a game series represented here over any others it's truly a mystery. I am annoyed by most of Amazon's creative endeavors, as even when they turn out good they market themselves extensively and pester me with ads. I tried not to judge this episode but it was in the back of my mind.

It, unfortunately, was very funny, and weirdly emotional at the end. I'm a little disappointed we didn't get to see more of the resurrection mechanic, but the core story about someone who's never had to try and learns to work at something was inviting, and even fun.

But Anrold Schwarzenegger is a weird choice for this role. He sounded stiff and not quite comfortable with the role, and it never matched the character. Whether or not this is a result of the animation or the acting, I'm not sure. All I know is, it sounds better when his voice is muffled.

Unreal Tournament: Xan

The introduction is extremely effective in its storytelling, from Xan's rebellion to the worldbuilding of this hyper-corporate death match tournament. I feel like I'm missing context when I watch this one, and I found out through le google that Xan is an established character in Unreal Tournament.

Whatever the case may be, this one was a lot of fun. It felt like watching a matchup in-game but with emotional stakes built in, a kind of sports movie meets dystopian novel. The designs of the mining robots are delightful, interlocking and bending in ways humans can't to surprising use. And the finale is truly wonderful, brutal and heroic and captivating all at once.

Warhammer 40,000: And They Shall Know No Fear

I am a tangential fan of WH40K, more from the lore than any particular story (I've tried reading Eisenhorn and couldn't get into it, I've got Ciaphas Cain on my list) but the animations have proved the most fun. The Astartes Project was an especially-excellent introduction to the universe and the near-silent Space Marines.

One thing this universe is good for in any medium is the visuals. From the candles burning around the computer to the lineup of the four giants to the luminescent blood during the pitch-black cave fight, every frame could be a screensaver.

I didn't know Titus was gonna be in this game, as I only know him from the playthrough by Overly Sarcastic Productions and wasn't thinking of him. There's not a great deal of characterization here for him, at least none verbally; the story relies heavily on little non-verbal moments to let us know trust is assured or respect is growing. I thought it quite impressive that there were words for only the beginning and the end, and this short lost no effectiveness. And especially the final boss, the writing really made the marines come across like they were effective but outclassed at the end.

PAC-MAN: Circle

I don't know what went into making this choice. How did they convince the board members to reinterpret their cash cow franchise in this manner? If I had a nickel for every time Pac-Man was re-imagined as a horror franchise, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird it happened twice, the other being the TerminalMontage's excellent Something About Pac-Man (Loud Sound and Light Sensitivity Warning)👨‍🚀👻. But where that one made the ghosts scarier, this one takes the opposite tack.

I liked the animation style quite a bit. Not photo-realistic in the slightest, but a nice texturing on the shadows using multiple dark lines instead of a simple darkening of whatever is being shaded. But it's also capable of being quick and visceral when it needs to be, a very effective choice for a short about devouring. There's also a twist at the end that's pretty-well telegraphed but no less effective.

I don't know how they made this decision, but however it happened I'm glad it did. This was an unnerving short horror story that shows you can use the source material mostly as inspiration, make something completely different and still have a great final product.

Crossfire: Good Conflict

I suspect this will be nobody's favorite. Barring something terrible happening with Concord.

It's a bog-standard military action film, mercenaries vs agents, fighting over a briefcase. There's a theme about who the bad guys are (both sides say "We're not the bad guys" within a few minutes) which is potentially interesting. We see anger and vengeance from both sides after losing a comrade, and a loss scarcely feels better than a victory.

It does falter a bit in this gray-and-grey morality, however; whatever is in the briefcase is viewed as important enough to start a few wars by the agents, and the mercenaries are only in this for the money. It feels weird to try to portray them as moral equals; if it were up to me I would've made whatever they were fighting over more ambiguous, making you unsure if the the "good guys" won or lost.

There was probably something else you could've done with it better than that, but as it is it's basically fine. I probably won't remember it tomorrow.

Armored Core: Asset Management

It's... good. Mostly bolstered by an excellent ending, this short deals with a Core pilot (played by Keanu Reeves himself) as he struggles to connect with his peers and then gets a job to get his high. For the most part, what you'd expect from this kind of short: an easy plot and characterization just to get to the action. The pilot even seems to announce his importance to the audience, saying "There's nobody like me" with a certain level of resignation, signalling him as the God's Specialist Lone Wolf™ to the audience.

But the final ending is a twist on the formula I didn't expect, and it made me see the pilot in a different light by the end. I willn't spoil the twist that comes nor the recoil from the twist, but it makes for a chilling final impression on what otherwise would've been pretty weak.

And that's that! I will wait for part 2 to really blow my mind before I make my final judgement on the series as a whole, but I'm really enjoying myself so far, through the mediocre and the good.

[jazzically]

welcome to yaptown!! population: me!! eps 9 through 11 lesgoooo

magp 9

oh we getting straight into it huh!!

BAHAHAHAH JONNY SAYING "Nooooo" IN MONOTONE

i thought that whole thing was the title of the podcast but then he kept talking so i guess it's just The Podcast

eh

ok so im pretty sure we've established that the dedications at the beginnings have plot relevance

sigh i guess it's kinda sad that sam and alice (or gwen or celia or even whatsherface lori ? lena) don't get to read out statements but tbf they don't seem to me like characters who would do that

not in tHe HeAd aRcHiViSt'S tHeAtEr KiD sTyLe anyway

Sooo in tma the statements were canonically dramatic because the eye likes a bit of flavour - seasoning, if you will - to its spooky stories

but why are they like that in tmagp? (genuine lore question not passive-aggressive criticism)

ooh maybe sam has superpowers like he can call on specific statements the way the archivist could /j

or maybe "chester" is just a butthead who likes yapping at inopportune moments

ooooooooo i did think that artefact storage had a lot of podcast/canon potential. this is one of those worldbuilding bits that isn't hurting the original story in an overexplain-the-mystery type way jonny was talking about in the tma qnas

hehe i see them sneaking in ttrpg

AYE THAT WAS A REALLY GOOD ONE!!!!!! YAAAAHHHHHSSSS CORRUPTION OF POWER SYMBOLISM BABYY

magp 10

:OOO so are the dedications canon or not - ??? am i missing something really obvious??

OOOOOO A TV INTERVIEW THIS IS COOL AS WELL

THIS IS A SICK STORY WHAT

hahahah gsjg i love how rq basically actualized a magnus archives AU

HE DID NOT JUST ACCIDENTALLY FREE AN ELDRITCH MONSTER OH GEEZ OH NO

magp 11

STOP I LOVE THEM

Of course referring to past tma lore sometimes is inevitable given that we're dealing with The Literal Magnus Institute but it's still very well done. a mystery no matter who listens

sam and alice are giving twilight sparkle and rainbow dash

RRRREEEEEEEE i nearly forgot about jonnys whole "must make every side character important later" thing EEEEEE... the lore goes hard

i realllllly like how natural it feels

it's truly reminiscent of both the beginning and the middle of a story (beginning of sam's story working at the oiap or whatever, middle of the larger plot timeline) - so much so that it's hard to forget the episodes are fictional and are actually being recorded and edited chronologically eeeeeee theres so much setup already and it's only ep 11 props to rq

aaahhhh is lena a villain or not!!!!

what is an external? lol i don't Know Things

mate do people's voices just not change over time? it's bonkers (in a good way) to me how similar jonny (and everyone else tbh) still sounds after five years

[thecourtsknight]

So. Side Order, huh?

I've been chewing on my thoughts over this for a good few days now. Want to spit them out somewhere. Vague-ish spoilers ahead.

I want to preface this with saying that I love Splatoon, I've been playing it since 1, really dropped off near the end of 2. Nintendo made Octo Expansion for me, they released it on my birthday and I love it so fucking much.

Side Order is fun, but lacking criminally in content.

You can argue Roguelites are like this in general, its the core princible to replay them over and over again and as someone who enjoys Roguelites, I agree!

However, a key thing that good roguelites do is continously give you a reason to keep playing- whether that be addictive gameplay or, usually, good story and lacing that in with difficulty that becomes the players goal to lessen- It rewards the player for being curious, experimental and above all else persistant.

I am fully aware that difficulty, due to Splatoon's target audience, in something like a roguelite was never going to be an easy thing to balance let alone pull off but having the main plot resolve itself once you hit the top of the tower was, in my opinion, the first of its blunders.

I feel as if the Splatoon developers know how much the lore and worldbuilding of these games matter to players. Side Order was advertised in very similar veins to Octo Expansion. The trailers had mystery and intrigue with clear connections to the well recieved and loved Octo Expansion to the point of having the same protagonist among other simularities.

They were clearly teasing this to be a successor of SOME capacity to Octo Expansion. And even as I went into this expecting it to be nothing like OE in terms of it's personal weight, I wasn't expecting something so short.

Classically, in roguelites that focus on story, you would gain story beats the more you replay. And techincally you gain this with the keys gathered from each fully cleared palette. But usually your story rewards in roguelites come from clearing or attempting runs and rewards:

With Side Order's story being resolved the MOMENT you step onto floor 30 with no real context unless you've intentionally avoided the top or have genuinely been slowed by its difficult (which I assume is what the devs intended) makes it's climax feel fast paced and lackluster- undeserved, even.

And, yes, I am fully aware that when you climb the tower agani after the credits role, you begin gain more lore about whats going on. But with the actual, main threat neutralized in every possible way it feels as if this lore should've been offered to us much sooner and much more spread out for a better pay off.

It's story feels like its being told out of order and, in my personal opinion, the themes and actual telling methods of Side Order we're a largely missed opportunity to tell something a bit more indepth. Climbing a tower that gives you essentially nothing until you reach floor 30 (which in my experience takes about 35-40 minutes) only to recieve about two scentences of lore is incredibly tiring and feels dissastifying when the main plot is already over.

It's lack of variation in level design, tasks and chips doesn't help with the climb each time if you're looking for the lore or just to 100% either. And you can argue this is a roguelite problem, but Splatoon's scenario's for a tower climb are pitifully small and you will start to seem repeat almost immediatly on your second or third run.

I also feel like it relies far too heavily on the player knowing and caring about Octo Expansion. I'm not saying that I think it was a bad idea to have most of what's going on in Side Order happening because of Octo Expansion's events. Hell, I was happy when they were very blatently showing this early on.

But it does very little with its ties to Octo Expansion, making Side Order feel like its constantly struggling to be its own thing away from the original DLC.

I think I can almost see what they wanted to go for here, and its frustrating, it felt close to something at least telling a decent story.

Every single little beat I've gotten has helped me understand more and more what they were going for, but since the main conflict is already resolved I find it hard to be excited and more frustrated that I wasn't given these during my initial playthrough.

I feel as though the roguelite formula was an interesting idea that they polished the best of their ability and to make work both for casual and experience players- but I think thats where the problem comes in.

With Side Order being the same price as Octo Expansion and offering very little in terms of replayability and most especially for me, story, the whole thing ends up feeling like a muddled mess that would've worked better had the roguelite aspect perhaps been dropped in general for a general tower climb.

Missed opportunies feel like they decorate Side Order in a way that leaves me fairly disappointed.

I think, overall, Side Order is a fun time that can be enjoyed but the way it was implimented into the gameplay formula was largely a mistake, especially coupled with the marketing of this being something more indepth with its story when it's not, and I can absolutely understand why I'm seeing a lot of disappointment for it.

[grifff17]

Audiodrama Sunday 4/14/24

Here I go again doing one of these writeups at 11:30pm on Sunday evening. Anyways, here's what I've been listening to. I started a new show this week, and caught up with another show, and there were new episodes of several shows.

Starting with the new show, I started listening to Mockery Manor from @longcatmedia. This is a really cool show and I'm hooked. I love the setting, it reminds me of the cartoon Dead End Paranormal Park which I was a big fan of. The overarching mystery really grabbed me, which is hard to do in audio fiction. I'm 4 episodes in and there's so much going on.

The show I caught up with is @kingmakerpod! I don't know quite how to put it into words, but the setting of Kingmaker feels so full. The worldbuilding is so rich that it feels like everything happening is part of a larger world. Also, the season 2 finale was great, Telesphore killing a trained sniper with cinnamon powder is possibly my favorite moment in the show yet.

There was a new @worldgonewrongpod this week. Great episode, I think that Jamie's dad is my new favorite character. I love him so much. Also, I found myself automatically trying to memorize the ways to check for a body-snatcher, as if that knowledge would ever be useful to me.

@midstpodcast continues to be incredibly fucked up. This week it was a repeat of season 1 in a way, with someone trying to threaten Weep and it not turning out well for them. This show has been revealing a lot of backstory recently, with Lark a few episodes ago and now Weep. Is this going to be the last season? I don't actually know. Also, Phineas is unemployed now. I get the feeling that's not going to be good for his mental health.

Arc 3 of @worldsbeyondpod has begun! There was so much that happened in that episode, but the standout to me was Steel's "Geas + Modify Memory" plan. Suvi choosing to become a sleeper agent really shows how deep the Citadel has its hooks in her. I'm ready for so much drama next episode.

I've reached up to episode 12 of Skyjacks: Courier's Call. I love the tone and themes of this show. It was interesting to see more magic appear in the setting, so far its been fairly low magic. I'm very curious if we're going to learn more about the bathhouse and what "cursed water" is. Also, the cast realizing halfway thru a scene that they are encouraging kids to start forest fires and frantically backtracking was unintentionally one of the funniest moments of the show to me.

[lord-squiggletits]

For the fic-writers' asks, if you fancy them:

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

4. What detail in We Are The Music-Makers are you really proud of?

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

Ask source

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

Is it cheating to say Pay Unto Evil? It's not just because it's my most popular fic by all metrics, the longest project I've written, and the first complete novel I've ever completed, though. I just feel like, particularly in the later chapters, it's a good introduction to the themes that I often write about (mental health/suicidality, searches for meaning, bonds with other people, etc) and is the most complete summary of who I am as a writer in a way.

Though, if someone were to prefer something lighter, I'd honestly recommend An Endless Form Most Beautiful because out of all my fics that I started a year or two ago, I feel like AEFMB is the one that holds up the most strongly w.r.t. prose, characterization, romantic pacing, mystery, and so on. It's also dark, but far less grueling than PUE.

(On that note, it kind of amazes me how many people have told me they found PUE to be more depressing/hard to read than WATMM, considering the latter involves a bittersweet ending w/ major character death.)

4. What detail in We Are The Music-Makers are you really proud of?

Off the top of my head, I'd say that it'd be 1. Orion and Megatron interfacing right after escaping prison and basically cementing their love/bond with each other for the high emotion of the moment. I like how it (and moreso their later interface during their rebellion period) is incredibly romantic and affirming and shows how M/OP uphold each other's best traits, but it's also a little dark in that they're clearly codependent on each other and almost... not sane/well when they're not together.

Or 2. The major character deaths in chapter 6, both how I built up to them and how the characters actually died. That one is because that plot point was one I came up with from the very night I conceptualized WATMM, so in my mind, it had a lot of buildup to it. I knew what was going to happen from the start, and it was one of (if not the) most important climaxes of the story, so I was incredibly keen to be sure that the actual execution of it matched what had been in my mind for a year or more by the time I finally wrote it.

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

I'm really keen on the stuff I've been cooking for Cityspeaker AU Tarnma as far as the psychology of a Titan goes. Like, Tarn is a sort of eldritch being (already a fun concept in its own right) that has a sort of collectivist mindset; not in a hivemind kind of way, but his sense of scale and level of awareness is so broad, and he's literally a living nest/colony for his smaller species members to live on. The way that anatomical differences pave the way for massive differences in perspective. Hell, the concept has even opened my mind in general to the concept of like... almost insect colony-esque Cybertronian interspecies symbiotic relationships.

On top of all the mechanical and worldbuilding aspects of it, it's also been really fun to ponder how being a Titan would then in turn alter Tarn's characterization. Pharma's characterization is more or less a slightly different angle on what exists in canon, but for Tarn he has this massive shift in perspective that changes a lot. Not least of which is that Tarn is Tarn without having been converted by Megatron, but he's also not Tarn of the DJD that we know in canon, and neither is he Damus/Glitch. So there's just a lot to play around with there in terms of defining Titan!Tarn's key traits as carried over from canon, and how he'd express himself while also being an eldritch being that Pharma needs training to even talk to without dying.

17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?

IDW1 MegOP role reversal AU in which Megatron is a cop and Orion is a miner. No one else swapped: so for example, Megatron would be around people like Ratchet, Roller, and Senator Shockwave, and Orion would have Impactor and Terminus.

I think it'd be hella interesting to see how differently everything would go if M and OP were in swapped positions. Like as an example, Megatron probably would've been more conscious of stuff like Senator Shockwave putting the Matrix casing in him without asking and be aware that he was being manipulated somehow. Orion would very likely reject Terminus' teachings on how leadership is lonely and you have to cut off all your relationships so you can sit on the heights and do what you need to do. Or then again, maybe Terminus would be a slightly less evil (but still toxic) influence on Orion making him have the same martyr complex he has in canon.

And you could even do further splits from there like how Megatron deals with increasing evidence of corruption in the government, or how Orion would handle killing someone for the first time in the arena. You could fuck around with whether Megatron becomes the Prime or if Orion still does somehow. Honestly, I feel like in this scenario, M and OP would be way more likely to be able to meet peacefully and help each other out because... it just feels right to me that they would be able to see the evils and prevent their moral downfalls, but only when walking in the other's shoes.

30. Have you ever written something that was out of your comfort zone? If so, what was it, and how did it affect your approach to writing fic thereafter?

I think there's a list of fics that've pushed me in some way or another, honestly:

Pay Unto Evil and The Wicked for finding a way to fit reasonably accurate psychology/therapy into a dramatic story, but without falling into purely clinical explanations for things or making it seem "therapy speak" ish

Cityspeaker AU/Un solo cuerpo is currently pushing me on how to accurately translate characterization from canon to an AU that's so wildly divergent from it, given that I'm normally extremely canon compliant and tend to work off canon divergence rather than completely making up a new AU with a different premise and new lore. This is my first plotfic that, imo, could be more accurately described as continuity soup/original continuity rather than being strictly IDW-based (honorable mentions to Let the Poets Pipe of Love for also having this conundrum)

Every single plug and play scene I've written, PWP or plot, for pushing me to try to describe eroticism from an entirely alien perspective without falling back on human-like sticky sex

For Once, Nothing is Burning, because writing a multichapter plot-focused story where there's literally only two characters present and they are each other's sole source of social interaction (and where the POV character is largely stuck in one place for most of the story) is harder than you think it'd be for someone who's been writing Megatron and Optimus as long as I have

Through the bitter, sweetness: Because trying to describe the eroticism of a foot fetish through strictly a written medium was a big challenge for a kink I see as way more visual/tactile and hard to make appealing with words/imagination alone.

No comment on how it's affected my ability to write moving forward because I basically forget about every story I write as soon as it's done AND because my brain is soup and I can barely keep up with real life, much less look back on hobby writing and do some sort of style study/reflection on it.

[kurishiri]

thank you sooo much for your translations!! ngl ever since i’ve seen the arrival of the vogel trio im soooo on edge they seemed so shady from the first moment and with them i actually get more of the villain kinda feel haha but im also so utterly intrigued omg i’d get myself killed so quick if i was kate;; i’m excited to see how this aaall ends at some point 👀

hii anon! and ty for reading them too and leaving this message 🤍🤍 it means sm to me! /gen there r just sm mysteries surrounding vogel, it doesnt help that we know they’re “lying abt smth” either 😅 it definitely makes them seem more villainous compared to crown to me too! i hope you dont mind me rambling abt them, mb some spoilers, below the cut nhfkshfds i would love to hear your and others thoughts on vogel more too 🥹🫶

i do really like how each of their relationship is portrayed with kate. its refreshing to see other dynamics added into the game. like how 🍒 seems to easily wheedle kate to do what he wants, but also kate seems comfy enough to like chat with him and, well, give him a good ole wack every now and then lmao or how 💍 seems to be the one being teased by kate and how he gets easily flustered. hes really cute and im pretty convinced that if he had villainous tendencies it would be bc 🪽 had ordered him and whatnot. and 🪽 seems pretty two-faced but still considers kate a “favorite” of his. hes innocent and yaps a lot but also v calculating and good at diversions, which could check out as he has the curse of rothbart. in fact, i was thinking if theres any rt here that wouldn’t reach the threshold of romance to the fullest the way the others had, regardless how focused on romance it was, it would probably be 🪽. out of the three, i couldnt tell you which is my fav as they r all interesting to me, hehe

aside from that i can also see potential with worldbuilding 🙂‍↕️ what with how the twins seem to have the same curse from their profiles, when it shouldnt have been possible. (though maybe 💍 is actually cursed by odette while 🍒 is odile .. my personal theory, even if it may be a stretch, is that someone possibly associated with rogers dad was finding a way to see if the same curse could affect more than one person, and smth sorta backfired that made them have similar, but still dif curses. bc while both their curses share the same trigger, the effect it has on the recipient is different)

[phoebehalliwell]

not me spamming but uhhhhhhhh writer asks 12, 25, 35, 57, 76

(i can hope this will somehow further inspire continuation of the warren witches after august but i also get it lmao)

12. Do you outline your fics? If yes, how detailed are your outlines? How far do you stray from them?

it depends! usually my ficlets (like the ones for AUgust) are not outlined just bc they're so short i kind of just fuck around until the narrative comes together, but for the longer pieces (like the warren witches or w&s) there are definitely some stronger outlines. for things like the warren witches which is done in an episodic fashion, i actually have a separate doc full of just monster of the week type plots that i'll pick and choose from as needed (one's i've already used include the sihuanaba one and the selkie one, ones to be included are:

the sigbin one actually had been crossed out if anyone remembers the old version of the warren witches that actually made it to print (posting, i guess lol) in vace and virtue (the working title was "the sigbin is sigbout) but the updated version of it has not come out yet. so those would be my little outlines for small plots, for bigger plots those outlines usually live in my brain (for example, we're doing a reintroduction of the demon academy in warren witches bc i think it's slay, but that's gonna be just longer in general) and then of course most longer plotlines come in the form of relationships (viola + kat is an example, as is kat + laurel which kind of snuck up on me lol, pj + her boyfriend obvi will have some obstacles given that he is not in on the secret, and then the mystery max from the sihuanaba episode will def be making an appearance in ale's/melinda's/also effie's too ig uess bc she's there lives again. but these are technically less outlining per se and more dotting. a lot of this centers around singular dots, little points/moments i want to include, and plots are built around them. the only thing that i kind of give more concrete outlining, usually in the form of a small, unproofread text doc, is people backstories, esp those not involved in the family. so viola, for example, has her entire life written in a doc so i can keep going back to it and keeping kind of her actions/character/motivations consistant.

25. What’s your favorite part of the writing process (worldbuilding, brainstorming/outlining, writing, editing, etc)?

i would say probably brainstorming sits at number one for me these guys live in my brain and run around just constantly i already have a decent amount of "endgame" relationships picked. (chris and bianca, obvi, that shouldn't be a spoiler bc it's obvious i love them so so much), melinda's endgame is also pencilled in in my mind, as is tamora's and probably kat's, henry's "endgame" has also been picked even if they don't End Up together his main relationship is def sketched out in my mind. beyond ships i just love putting those motherfuckers in Situations. i want a bianca training chris type situation. i want a melinda attempting to date in college while being an empath situation. jumping over to warren and sheridan, i have their christmas planned out, as well as a narrative that spans from valentine's day to st. patricks day that is mainly poking at the bruises that define major relationship issues. i love situations!!

i would say my next fav after brainstorming would be not just writing but creating -- esp in regards to aesthetics. it helps me kind of hone in on a vibe for each character and allows me not only to understand them more but also to communicate said vibes to others. third favorite is getting comments/asks about them haha i loveeeee talking about them (which kind of circles back to the brainstorming part) but like the fact that these are guys who live in my brain but then they also get to exist in your brain!?!?!?? that's crazy!!! it makes me so happy <3

35. What’s your favorite fic you’ve posted?

probably a toss up between The Warren Witches and Warren & Sheridan, just because those are kind of two really big labors of love that I'm really proud of, but I am also really super fond of 2/14/2001 lol

57. How conscious are you about including symbolism or foreshadowing in your fics?

i try to stay conscious of it lol bc there's nothing more fun that seeing all the pieces come together and i really want to work to create that. usually this ties into the "outlining" concept, where, if i have a big moment i want to create, i'm going to try to sprinkle in little pieces here and there leading up to it. (so, like, spoilers for warren witches, but with viola as the twice blessed, when kat is able to locate the twice blessed with chris and wyatt via scrying, it actually is pointing at the cafe were viola works). i don't do too much symbolism lol (skill issue) but i feel like that is something i'd like to try to hone.

76. How do you deal with writing pressure, whether internal or external?

i mean like i definitely try to work within my "tides of creativity" (concept that writing/creating/all that is akin to breathing, you can't just keep exhaling. there are going to be periods where you can't create, and that's cause you need to "inhale": go out and experience new stuff, engage in new media, chat w new people). that and then i am like an adult in my 20s with like a job and responsibilities (i am moving again 😃🔫) so trying to work with the allotted amount of spoons i have a day can be a doozy as well. when i'm stuck i usually try to work with aesthetics/visuals because that can be a different muscle if the writing one is burnt out, and then i also try to write little blurbs that don't exist within anything really. a lot of these tend to just be conversations as i tend to be a very dialogue heavy writer, sometimes if i'm up to it i'll even go back through and add in descriptions to make it more of a proper story. past midnight (an ode to smoking outside the club) was actually written as one of these, i wrote it in early may during a creative block.

[presidentdisastraofgallifrey]

Judging Doctor Who: Thirteenth Doctor

(This is all in good fun, I don't take fandom seriously)

Good episodes I like

The Ghost Monument - Good start of bonding for companions that don't actually know each other that well. Slow in places, but also funny with a good series of ridiculous dangers. Also I like that we're back to companions via accidental kidnapping!

Rosa - There are so many good things here! I appreciate the show finally acknowledging the historical racism companions face. But also the heist-level antics their ever-changing plan has to deal with are so good and amusing. Good familial tension between Ryan and Graham.

Demons of the Punjab - I really enjoyed the historical, and it was really complex but also sweet. And it was time for an episode where the scary aliens aren't the real bad guys.

It Takes You Away - Very literal metaphor for getting lost in grief! A blind character played by a blind actor whose blindness isn't the biggest part of her character! The Doctor befriends a lonely sentient universe who is at the time shaped like a frog! Also there's a passing mention of a sheep uprising, and I now need THAT in the form of a novel.

The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos - Sure the plot itself could be more put together, but I love the worldbuilding of the Ux and their religion, and it has been a while since there was a planet-stealing plot.

Fugitive of the Judoon - One of my favorites! I love the reveal you never see coming, the way this show only using established fob watching for ridiculous things every five seasons or so, the fugitive Doctor's entire character, the mystery around her, and the way that despite seeming to be part of the timeless child arc, she has the TARDIS, which means she comes sometime after the first Doctor and in no way messes up the timeline.

Praxeus - Love the confusion and the companions picking up companions thing. Love the nod to microplastics and pollution. Just generally pretty good.

Ascension of the Cybermen - I like them running around the apparent end of the (humanity's) universe, when we know there is a future but they don't. I like the cybermen reveals. And yes, I don't like where it's going, but the shock of walking onto a dead Gallifrey was such a good moment.

Revolution of the Daleks - This one has everything: the Doctor imprisoned and gaining decades more trauma! (while stewing in other horrific new trauma!) Companions on their own having to be the heroes! Yaz pining! Jack's back! Classic dalek plot! Excellent non-tragic send off for Graham and Ryan, letting them continue to help people!

The Halloween Apocalypse - The Lupari are so much fun!!! I love how much this season jumps around between perspectives and lets you catch up. If the entire universe has to be in danger (again), at least the flux is interesting and different. There could, however, be some more Halloween in this apocalypse.

War of the Sontarans - Hardly anything is set in the Crimean war, so that's fun. Also sontarans are always great enemies, and I love historical revision episodes.

Once, Upon Time - Still loving the jumping perspectives, and the fugitive Doctor backstory.

Eve of the Daleks - Time loop! Daleks! Sweet, awkward, imperfect love story!!

Legend of the Sea Devils - Was this the best use of sea devils? Nope! But it was fun—there was a Chinese lady pirate! And the Doctor and Yaz finally got to talk and yes, I ship them but yes, I think the most in character thing is for the Doctor to explain that she can’t maintain a relationship. She can barely manage the usual companion situation!

The Power of the Doctor - Yes, I hate the cybermasters. But the rest of the episode was too good for me not to like. This wonderful, unnecessarily complicated plan is so very the Master. He's literally Rasputin! Plus, the start of bringing back classic companions all grown up, which is a trend I love. And there's a weird sexual tension in the Master turning the Doctor into himself. And yes, I liked the utter confusion of regenerating into the same body again.

Bad episodes I like

The Tsuranga Conundrum - The setup was good, the conclusion made no sense and felt like they wrote themselves into a corner without an answer. But I enjoyed the characters along the way!

Survivors of the Flux - I struggled with where to put this one. I like it all except the actual conclusion of the season long arc! So it goes here. I loved Yaz and Dan being trapped in history, and Yaz pining again, and the weird doorways to everywhere. But Tecteun was random, and either should be dead or (if she gave herself infinite regenerations) should at least have been hinted at all season. And the flux was an interesting mystery, and the answer being that it's purpose was to destroy the Doctor and all the good she's done was a little boring. What happened to no one ever hearing about this one silly guy and just trying to take over the universe for their own purposes?

Good episodes I don't like

The Witch finders - It was fine, but I found it kind of uninteresting.

Orphan 55 - Also fine, but I really don't enjoy such hopeless climate episodes.

Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror - Again, it was fine but didn't really hold my attention. And not enough of it happens at night.

Bad episodes I don't like

Arachnids in the UK - Strong start, disappointing ending. They set up this evil businessman and then took care of the spiders but did nothing about him.

Kerblam! - What is this?? One of the worst episodes of all time, though I don't hate it quite as much as Listen. They set up cool space Amazon, showed just how awful it was, and then had the answer be a plot by the disenfranchised humans against the customers and stopped that and did nothing to deal with the company. It was awful! Why is it one of Thirteen's only 2 novelizations??

Resolution - I liked the parts of Ryan and his dad, but the dalek plot wasn't the best and we really didn't need to be giving daleks sudden new abilities.

Can You Hear Me? - The idea was alright, but the execution felt clumsy, and like it was trying to do several genres of story at once.

The Haunting of Villa Diodati - I really wanted to like this one, but I didn't. It didn't hold my attention. Plus cybermen don't need additional lore and abilities either.

The Timeless Children - I'm actually ok with the Doctor's foundling backstory. It exists as both canon and irrelevant to me, depending on what I prefer for the current story. But I absolutely cannot forgive, after bringing back post-war Gallifrey and using it for ONE episode, immediately killing everyone on the planet forever. I hate this, I cried so much the first time and hate it even more now after getting into the audios.

Village of the Angels - It just didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the Flux series vibes.

The Vanquishers - I liked the Doctor putting her lost memories deep in the TARDIS for later, but don't care for any of the rest of the way the Flux was wrapped up.

Episodes that were kinda offensive

The Woman Who Fell to Earth - I actually like this intro a lot, but they fridged Grace, ANOTHER Black partner of a white companion. Come on, Doctor Who!

Spyfall - Ok, in some ways this was the perfect reintro of the Master. I liked the spy thing. However. It did so many things that were just offensive. Having the first non white Master work with the nazis, for instance, and then punishing him by revealing his race and leaving him to them! WTF!

[automatisma]

Discovered the allure of Topsters & made a chart of the games that significantly influenced my tastes. Not really a top 25 although I believe most of the games of the list are good. Ramblings under the cut.

TLOZ: Twilight Princess was my first Zelda as a child & while not a particularly interesting Zelda gameplay-wise it cemented my fascination with that kind of dark and decadent aesthetic.

Persona 3 is again the first Persona I've ever played. Not the best & with many larger-than-life sterotypical characters but it does have a lovely apocalyptic atmosphere and the sexiest dungeon concept bar none (sorry persona 4 tv world you were not It)

Hexcells is my favourite puzzle game. Perfect difficulty curve, minimal & functional aesthetic, little spatiality sense required to finish it. The whole trilogy is honestly brilliant.

Disco Elysium literally what is there to say about DE that hasn't already been said. Masterful dialogues and characters, deeply political while being smart and complex about it, it has one of the most interesting fantasy worldbuildings of recent memory.

Final Fantasy X was my first FF. Bizarre & unique if nonsensical world, great party interactions and often dumb but really really rich with overarching thematical meanings so

We Know The Devil I believe it's up to personal taste in the end whether you'll like this or Heaven Will be Mine more, but to me the minimal religious setup & the very realistic teenage dialogue take the cake. Also Saturn is #so me #releatable #girlsbeinggirls

Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 I bet everyone's sick of seeing it on their dash but what can I say I adore its day-to-day routine and the character subplots and its sound design and the beetle battles and

The House in Fata Morgana is maybe my favourite visual novel of all time. Often cheesy, frequently melodramatic, the epic highs and lows of its writing did not stop me from loving its intricate fantasy plot and multifacted characters.

Valhalla cyberpunk ok too long of a name. The bartending part was fun, the fauxanime thing is well MY thing and the #quiet cyberpunk adult disillusionment of its dialogues stuck with me in some way. Not great but really solid & it worked a lot for me for reasons I am not entirely sure of to this day.

Danganronpa is a terrible and complicated horror b-movie with cartoon characters and stupid but captivating mysteries. I genuinely believe the trials are absolutely cool and adrenaline inducing though & I would love more of this except better I guess

Darkest Dungeon a game in which every inch of its systems and aesthetic choices works in perfect synch to convey the hopelessness of this brand of lovecraftian horror. Also the turn-based combat is soooo fucking good

Final Fantasy VII THE final fantasy ecc ecc what can I say. One of the few games I played when the stereotypical version of the characters I saw in popular culture was so much less interesting than the actual story beats and the direction the plot went in. Packed with genre-defining moments and lovingly mystic at times.

Pyre is probably my favourite Supergiant game even though Hades is far superior in gameplay terms. The peculiar worldbuilding and the choices you make are really something unique to this one and they very much stick with you during your playthrough and even after that.

The World Ends with You when I played it Neku and Joshua were on my mind 24/7 I was on that fujoshi grindset which is quite peculiar for me. Weird and fun gameplay too but to me the main thing was the killer premise, its characters and its commitment to peculiarity in the JRPG landscape at every turn.

Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria weird ass sequel of a game I didn't play that spawned my love for this kind of combat. Perfect blend of tactical and reaction-based that's usually a mess but here it works and its glorious. The story was whatever but frankly who cares

Black Closet is probably the most obscure game on this list & I love it. I adore the setting, the writing of some of the subplots, the tight mechanics and even its wonky UI designs. Try it and be captivated by the playful eroticism of mystery and power NOW

Ib foundational as everyone knows. Kind of tied with Yume Nikki in my mind but in the end I played Ib more and I was in awe of its finale systems and the genuinely anxiety inducing gameplay moments. Epitome of you're a kid and something fucked up happens.

Analogue: A Hate Story my favourite Love game even though it's only vaguely sci-fi. Funniest thing about it it's probably that its title works even if it's a silly pun on her previous game

999 I like Danganronpa so this one was a given since it's even less stupid. Puzzles are ok but I was here for the characters & plot because I am a mystery junkie at heart.

Lisa: The Painful managed to work with the legacy of Earthbound without making a lol so random uninspired clone. Profoundly different in its subject matter while incorporating a lot of the bizarre & offbeat humor of its inspiration. It also deals with its themes in a quite brutal and blunt if not at all tactful way which i really respect.

The Stanley Parable is one of the first things I've played as a returned prodigal PC gamer and it blew me away at the time. Full of neat little secrets & mysteries and with a lot to say about the relationship between the player, the game and the narrative frameworks we encase our lives in.

Earthbound is my love and joy and nothing else will ever come close to recreate what I experienced playing it, which is why I never played Mother 3.

Digital Devil Saga yeah I've never played an SMT to the end but I played this duology and I was deeply impressed by its combat system and its weirdass apocalyptic world and even my party of broken people. I was on board for that Gainax ending baby

Dragon Age: Origins was the only good DA actually. I am also the only person who hasn't played it for the worldbuilding and the lore because I'll be frank it's run of the mill fantasy stuff except for some things but I adored my party and the choices I could make and some plot moments so yeah. Still a fan of the saga despite everything

Opus Magnum is the only Zachtronics game I've played but I'll have to play Hackers one of these days. I still have all the gifs saved and I am NOT a minmaxing person irl but this one sinked its claws into my skin and for thirty hours I was an engineer

[froggiefairy]

Now that I’ve finished my first draft, I’d like to share some things that held me back

For context: I’m not writing a novel, I’m drafting a graphic novel before I draw it. So I’m not focused at all on prose, im focusing on content of the story. I’m not sure if this advice would work for actual novels, but if it works for you then I’m glad LOL

1) Thinking about characters too much

I know this sounds counterproductive, but I spent WAY too much time doing character sheets, thinking of every little scenario, and working out all the details of my characters. And then I’d jump into writing and find out that no, my main character (named Leinne) needs to be someone else for this story to work, and so I’d redo it all. After an embarrassingly long amount of time, I was like “fuck it” and just wrote some basic bulletpoints on what she’s like, and then started writing. That’s when it worked. She’s basically a blank canvas, and she can be what the story needs in that moment. She’s so different than I thought she’d be, but oh my god I love her so much more now, and oddly enough she feels way more fleshed out and real. Yes, she’s super different in the first few chapters than she is by the middle of the story, so I’ll have to go back and fix some stuff, but that’s so much better than not being able to write at all (and it’s just my first draft, I have to go back and fix stuff anyway).

Tldr- figure out your characters while writing your zero draft/first draft, and then clean them up after.

2) Worldbuilding, exposition, and wanting to put it all in there

So many fantasy comics start with a whole exposition world dump of lore. And I don’t know about you guys, but I find reading those so boring. They never fit into the story, and half the time I’m like “why couldnt you just put these pieces of information throughout the story”. But when I went to write, I found myself starting chapter one with lore and exposition because I worked so hard on the lore and I want the reader to know it! I completely get it, but I wrote chapter one a million times and I could never make that lore dump work. You have to let go of all the lore, some things are better left up to interpretation.

Tldr- Scatter your lore naturally throughout the story, and it’s better to show instead of tell in most scenarios. If you find yourself unable to do that, maybe the lore isn’t really important to the story after all.

3) Doubting the reader

The reader is smart. Don’t spell it all out for them. I had a hard time with this, I wanted to make sure the reader REALLY knew what was going on. I worked so hard on lore, on foreshadowing, on everything! What if the reader doesn’t pick up on it, I just HAVE to make the characters point it out in dialogue! But … how fun is that? Create more mystery by not explaining everything! That’ll get them thinking hard about the story, making theories, rereading! That’s so much more fun than spelling it all out! The reader will figure out more than you expect if the story is written well, I promise.

Tldr- Omit those boring, useless pieces of dialogue that explain every little thing. Omit more than you’d like. It’s much more fun to let the reader figure things out.

4) No stakes! No action!

If a chapter was dragging, or I didn’t know what to do next, I realized soon it was because nothing was actually happening. The problem was usually that Leinne isn’t active enough, or the stakes weren’t high enough. This is especially important in graphic novels, which are supposed to be fast paced. If you’re stuck, think about if your protagonist is actually doing things or if things are being handed to them. Think about if the stakes are high enough, and if they aren’t, throw some batshit crazy stuff in there and see how that works. The more wild, the better. Take your story to heights and places you never thought it would go!

Tldr- Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks.

5) I want my story to be an epic!

I HATED hearing this advice ever since I was a teenager and writing stories- but none of those epic long stories worked out … because they were all way too long. When I started my graphic novel, She Moves The Sea, I intended it to be a good size, and I wrote my zero draft to have like 30 chapters (which was very short to me at the time, as I have only ever wanted to write four volume long epics before). But as I did my actual real first draft, I shortened it a crazy amount, it has only 23 now. Oh my god it’s so much better writing a shorter story, teenage me would never believe I’d be saying that LOL. I know this advice is hard to hear, but it’s so true, especially for the first story you ever write. If you’re super dedicated to that long epic, put it on the back burner and work on something much shorter first. Trust me on this one.

Tldr- Please don’t try to write an epic. Just don’t.

6) Forgetting what the story is really about

Id end up getting so caught up in logic, id forget the themes and the vibe of the story completely. I don’t know if this happens to anyone else, but it was a HUGE struggle for me. I’m writing a high fantasy- I want it to feel floaty and super fantastical, I want the magic to feel like watercolors and smell like saltwater. But I’d write a chapter and focus way too much on logic instead of what I wanted the story to really be. Again, it sounds counterproductive, but throw logic out the window sometimes (at least for a high fantasy). What I did is on a sticky note I wrote the thing I had the hardest time remembering, and then I wrote what I want the world to feel like. I stuck it on my desk where I write and I looked at it whenever I got stuck. Yes, logic is important, but sometimes the rules need to be broken to make a story interesting and fantastical.

Tldr- Have a solid idea about the themes and feel of the story, write it down and refer to it often. And if you’re writing a high fantasy- sometimes you have to throw logic out the window to strengthen your themes.

If you made it this far- thank you for reading my thought dump! Happy writing! :D