#but I do think it's fun to think of some of her interior dialogue because there's just so much going on there!!!

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

fanfic ask game: 6, 11, and 29!! (hoping praying i remembered the right numbers fhkdkhdjg)

Hi, hello <3

6. Are there any fics from others you reread all the time?

Oh my god, so many. I do this really horribly nerdy thing, where if I find a fic comforting enough, I put it in a text to speech format, and listen to it while I try to fall asleep. I don’t know WHAT makes them comforting. Sometimes, I can absolutely adore a fic, and it just doesn’t hit the exact right part in my brain for this treatment. But, I’ll share a couple of the Stranger Things fics that do: -took you for a working boy by pukner -His Majesty’s Jester by GreenQueenofClubs -Sanctuary by SpicedSage -Blood on My Name by VTHX -The Future Mrs. Harrington by BritChick91 -Conversations About Love by MuseumGiftShopEraser

11. Do you have specific playlists for writing fics?

Not usually. I’ve occasionally made playlist for fics, but usually it ends up as more of a distraction tactic. I tend to listen to a lot of indie music when writing because I feel like it sets the mood well without being so poppy that it makes me want to move around. I’m a generally twitchy person. 

19. Give us a small teaser from one of your WIPs.

I chose the Crash Bang Incident since you showed interest. There’s only about 1,500 words of this one, but here’s some of it!: “Nancy?” Steve asks, voice slurring around the name. The guys laughs, all shaky past whatever bravado he’s lightly veneered on. “Guess again, big guy.” Steve squints, making his barely-open eyes even smaller. She’s not sure how he can see anything at all, but he says, “Munson?” all soft and confused as he looks up at the other guy. “What’re you doin’ ‘ere?” he asks, voice slurring alarmingly.  The guy, Munson, laughs again, and removes one of his hands from Steve’s cheek to tuck his wild hair behind his ear. Max can see his face now, and he might’ve laughed, but he’s not smiling as he asks, “I could ask you the same thing,” in a tone of voice that doesn’t hide the worry behind all that forced nonchalance.  She can feel their window of opportunity closing. This guy’s going to commandeer the car, whisk Steve to a hospital, and that’ll be the end of her night. No more quests. No more delay of the inevitable.   Her palms are sweaty, and her windpipes shrinking in on itself like it’s one of those milkshake straws that gets stuck together if the shake’s too thick.  Billy’s going to kill her when he sees her again. There will be no Steve Harrington and no inexplicable bat full of nails between them. He’s going to kill her, and that’s not something she can fight.  But this? This is a plan with steps they can take to make sure everyone comes out alive. She’s a dead man walking, but Will doesn’t have to be.  And that girl with superpowers could probably use all the help she can get, no matter how cool she is.  She steps on the gas pedal, careening past the guy’s van where it’s still blocking the road, and continues on her chosen path even as the backdoor shudders with each turn of the wheel, trying to shut on mystery guy’s legs.

[lynxgriffin]

Eldritchrune - Dreemurr of Jokes

1 | 2 | 3

Story Setup Eldritchrune Masterpost

Toriel stops by Sans' shop for some goods, and for some more cheery distractions! Unfortunately, all this time later, it's still too difficult to escape reminders of what's been done.

It was fun finally getting to do some stuff with Sans in this universe! The last part for this trio of scenes will be up sometime next week!

Alt text for these pages is under the read more:

Page 1 Panel 1: Interior shot of a small store, with displays of goods, loose plywood, sacks of things. Two circular woven hangings bracket the door through which Toriel enters, a heavyset woman in a polka-dotted dress with a basket over her arm. Sans watches her enter, though we see only the back of his head. 

Panel 2: Toriel enters the shop and we see more displays, mostly food. There are large potted trees as well, and the shop’s counter, draped in patterned cloth and decorated with candles. Toriel: “Well, hello again. I was wondering if you had-” Sans, a jovial, bearded man dressed in loose robes and always smiling, waves a hand and cuts her off. “Hold on, you hear that?”

Panel 3: “...Hear what?” Toriel asks, nonplussed. Up close, her face is soft but distressed.

Panel 4: Sans leans over his slightly messy counter, still grinning. “I HERB that you needed some more cinnamon cloves, and look what I have here!” He offers a handful of herbs. Up close, the cuffs on his robe sleeves are patterned with little bones.  

Panel 5: “Just what I needed! How did you guess?” Toriel exclaims, reaching out with a real smile to accept the herbs. She and Sans are framed by other mysterious shop wares- jars of things, open sacks, rolled-up mats. Things you might find in an open-air desert market. 

Page 2 Panel 1: Sans: “Was just thinking it’d been awhile since I saw you making the neighborhood rounds with some of those pies of yours… Figured you were planning to start this month’s soon!” Sans gestures up at Toriel in explanation. 

Panel 2: Toriel smirks, setting down a handful of coins.  “And perhaps hoping that I would stop by your place first with them?” Sans: “I pride myself on my forward thinking, y’know.” His grin is conspiratorial as he leans towards her and he taps his temple with one finger. 

Panel 3: Toriel, eyes sad despite her smile: “All right. How about this: Tell me a good joke, and you have my word you will have the first and freshest one.”

Panel 4: Sans: “Just a good joke?” He raises an eyebrow. 

Panel 5: Toriel clutches her chest- we don’t see her eyes. “I find myself in desperate need of levity these days.” 

Panel 6: Sans waves his hand as if to keep her from feeling like she need say more, scratching his chin in thought with the other.  “Sure, I got one…” 

Page 3 Panel 1: Sans, with the smug grin of someone about to tell a terrible pun: “Why was the empire soldier happy to get demoted to horse groomer?” Toriel, with her hand on her chin in thought: “I do not know, why?” 

Panel 2: Sans shrugs widely like the answer is obvious. “Because he finally had STABLE employment!” 

Panel 3: Toriel laughs in genuine delight, although maybe a little harder than expected. 

Panel 4: Toriel: “Thank you, I needed that.” She smiles a relieved little smile. Sans: “No problem. So hey, aside from the pie… Can I maybe get an invite to those little get-togethers I see some folks around here doing once a month?” He steeples his fingertips together. 

Panel 5: San’s dialogue continues: “I’m so curious as to what goes on then!” We only see Toriel, though, shocked and dismayed. She’s thinking of the Ritual gatherings- townspeople gathered in their robes and animal masks- reindeer, fish, but most centrally, the goat masks she and Asgore wear. 

Panel 6: Toriel: “Unless you are completely enraptured by tedious talk of planting schedules and building repairs, I believe I can sate your curiosity by saying you would find them quite boring.” She waves a hand in front of her, dismissing the thought- her expression is once again drawn and weary. 

Page 4 Panel 1: Toriel turns to leave, waving goodbye. “You should look forward to your well-earned pie more!” 

Panel 2: Sans gives her a slightly skeptical look. “Alright.” is all he says. 

Panel 3: As she leaves, Toriel looks down and sees for the first time a small statue set by the door, surrounded by candles- it’s not a merchandise display, more like an altar. The statue is a horned figure holding a bowl filled with greenery- an offering of some type. The figure is rounded like a sitting child, and simple, with closed eyes and little other detail. 

Panel 4: Toriel’s dialogue over a close up shot of the figure: “What an interesting little figure you have. It does not look like it is for sale, is it?” The little horned one has three toes and four fingers on its stubby little arms and legs, and a detail on its forehead that could be a suggestion of hair, or it could be a symbol. The pillar candles surrounding it have been burned enough to have long wax drips pooled around them. 

Panel 5: Sans: “Nah, that’s just a holdover from my home country. Supposed to help keep demons out of your space.” He seems uninterested in this bit of lore, but Toriel, still facing away, is wide-eyed and shaken.

Panel 6: Toriel whirls back to him, sweating. “I-Is that so?” 

Panel 7: Sans’s expression intensifies, eyebrows dropping dramatically. “Sure thing. You know what happens when demons get in your grain stores?” 

Page 5 Panel 1: “They’re OATsolutely RYE-ined!” Sans holds his hands wide, like he’s waiting for the rimshot effect. It’s almost like his shop counter and back wall are suddenly a stage. 

Panel 2: Toriel hides a giggle behind her hand, relieved. 

Panel 3: “Is that something you have had to deal with previously?” she asks, stepping a little closer in her interest. Sans makes a slight gesture of dismissal. “Nah, I don’t really go in for that sort of stuff, honestly.”

Panel 4: Sans: “My brother, though… He’s all in on charms and wards and that sort of thing.” He gestures up, as if to point to wherever it is in the town that his brother might be now. 

Panel 5: “Keeping customs from your home country, I suppose?” Toriel asks, drawn again into the shop and closer to Sans. “Something like that,” he responds, leaning forward on his counter. On the wall next to him, there’s another woven wall hanging like the ones over the door.  Toriel: “Do you have any customs that have a reverse effect?” 

Panel 6: Sans looks as skeptical as one can while constantly grinning. “You mean like, if you want demons in your house?” 

Page 6 Panel 1: Toriel puts a hand up in denial. “N-No, that would obviously be undesirable! I meant more… just out of curiosity about your home.” 

Panel 2: Sans stares up at her, for a beat of silence. 

Panel 3: “Maybe? Again, this stuff isn’t my thing.” He leans back in his chair with his hands behind his head, nonchalant as can be. “And anyways, we left our country for a reason. Old customs aren’t relevant in this town, y’know?” 

Panel 4: Toriel once again turns to go, with a rueful smile. “Maybe not… but I cannot imagine letting go of your entire history.”

Panel 5: Sans shrugs and looks away. “There’s worse things to let go of, honestly.” 

Panel 6: Toriel, gritting her teeth, thinks of a happier time tucking Kris into bed. 

Panel 7: Close on Toriel’s expression, now more haggard and pained than it was when she came in. She clutches her chest tight. 

[performativezippers]

The most underrated dialogue, according to me, is “lies.” I try to only use it once a fic/manuscript but it’s so powerful!!! Check it out:

Two examples, one more fun than the other. For both, we’ll use the line: “I’m fine,” she lies. “Just clumsy.”

Example 1 (less fun):

She’s trying so hard not cry but her eyes are full of tears. She has to get out of there, but everything is blurry, and she trips over a chair. Of course, it happens right in front of Meg, who dramatically leaps from her seat.

“Oh my god, Bee,” she says, reaching out. “Are you okay?”

Bee clears her throat, pasting on a fake smile and looking in the direction of Meg’s blurry form, forcing her tears not to fall.

“I’m fine,” Bee lies. “Just clumsy.”

What do we get here? Bee can “say” it, sure, but “lies” packs a bit more of a punch. It’s hitting even harder that she’s lying, but it doesn’t really change much. Still love it, though!

But what’s even better is if the interaction below is the first time Meg and Bee ever interact. This means every single thing we know about their dynamic happens in the following lines:

Bee’s stomach roils at what Matthew is saying to her. She’s so angry she can’t see straight. She makes up some excuse about having to feed the parking meter—he doesn’t need to know she took an Uber here—and flees.

Or we’ll, tries to flee. Her foot hits a chair and she almost falls face-first into the overly polished marble floor, but someone catches her. It would be a cute moment, a superhero sweeping her off her feet, if the strong hands didn’t belong to…fuck.

It’s fucking Meg. Meg holding her up, Meg’s face drawn in exaggerated concern. “Oh my god,” Meg says, too loudly. “Bee, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Bee lies. “Just clumsy.”

We get from that one dialogue tag what would take sentences of interiority. We learn:

Bee is not fine

Bee is not clumsy

Bee is not willing to share with Meg what Matthew said that made her so mad—why not??

Bee is not repeating the lie about the parking meter to Meg—why not??

Bee lies twice—once to Matthew, once to Meg—but it’s only called “lying” in the text once (to Meg). That likely means she assigns more value/meaning/weight to lying to Meg (a person who matters) than to Matthew (a person who doesn’t). Why?? Who is Meg?? What is their relationship??

The reader gets so much more to think about, so many more hints, than in the first example. You can give so much with one little word swap.

It’s funny because, on its face, “lies” is a more overt and telling (rather than showing) dialogue tag than “says,” but it actually allows you to show so much more if you use it right/judiciously.

What are your favorite dialogue tags??

[denimbex1986]

'...People have called your Emmy-nominated part in Ripley your “first real adult role.” I have to admit, when I was watching the show, I did a double take at your first appearance as Marge. Did it feel like a new direction for you or a different type of project?

It’s funny, everyone’s been saying that. It’s hard to think of yourself in that context, but I guess it is, in a way. I’ve been acting for 24 years, so I do know what I’m doing — but you can sometimes get caught into thinking, Oh, it was just the back of my head today, or Oh, I don’t have any lines. We all do that eventually, in a self-preservation kind of way. But in this, everything was important, every detail, and it always should be.

Your character is important even if she doesn’t have a ton of time onscreen. She and Tom Ripley don’t get along. I like what you did with her. She was fun, and you could feel her interior life.

It was about doing as much with a six-page scene of dialogue as with a silent moment and trying to make those equally as powerful. I think Marge is an opportunist in her own way. Andrew Scott and I talked about how, between them, it’s the sort of thing where you don’t like things in other people that you don’t like about yourself. She’s enjoying the fruits of this lifestyle; they kind of see that in each other, and they share similar class positions with each other more than with Dickie. So playing with that was really fun. It was very fulfilling work because I felt like what I was doing was not going to get lost. I watched it again recently just for fun. Marge is a punching bag for everybody toward the end. And I’m like, What did she do to any of you? I get defensive of her!

What was the shoot like? How long were you in Italy?

In total, it was about nine months. We started shooting in the summer of 2021, through the winter, and then into the spring; we traveled around. There were still COVID protocols. I think that contributed to some of the difficult moments. My brain sometimes was like, Wait, am I on vacation, or am I working? It was quite challenging and intense. And then I’d have a stretch of four days off and I’d be like, Okay, well, I’m in Capri, I guess I should go do stuff. But then you’re just by yourself. It was all those emotions but really ultimately a great period of growth for me.

What kind of growth?

I’ve never felt lonely. I don’t have a problem being by myself. I’ve traveled to all kinds of places by myself. I love it. But this was the first time I felt really lonely. If there was no COVID, I don’t know that I would necessarily have felt that way because friends and family could have visited. But it felt isolating. Andrew and I helped each other through, but even we would be on the phone being like, Should we go to dinner? Totally afraid to go have a cocktail together. I think a lot of people during COVID had to confront the fact that they were lonely. We distract ourselves most of the time. Ultimately, I think it was good for me to have to admit that to myself, that I do need help sometimes...'

[amarantine-amirite]

A Piece of Cake, an American Housewife Fanfiction

Summary: Taylor has trouble securing a cake for a party

Oliver turned to Taylor and asked, "You think I'm straight, right?"

"Yeah, about as straight as a gay person," she chuckled

"Are you making fun of me?" Oliver asked.

Taylor responded, "No, you're making fun of yourself".

Suddenly, Katie came downstairs in a hurried manner. She kindly asked, "Could you both please go to bed now?"

Oliver responded with a yawn. "We're not feeling sleepy yet," he said. Meanwhile, Taylor already dozed off right there in the living room.

Usually, passing out in the living room means you spend the night in the living room, but that wasn't the case for Taylor. At some point during the night, Oliver noticed that Taylor woke up in the middle of the night and started walking around.

Oliver looked at his clock. "It's 1 AM. Why are you up?" he asked Taylor.

"Can't sleep," Taylor replied.

"Why not?"

Taylor took a deep breath and said, "I'm anxious"

Oliver shrugged, "What do you want me to do about it?"

Taylor then tentatively asked, "Can you play with my hair and distract me from my anxiety?"

Oliver shook his head and refused, "No"

"Why not?" Taylor asked.

Oliver pointed out "Because you're not a dog, and the anxiety came from something that was 100% your fault!"

He wasn't wrong, but it wasn't truly a Taylor problem. It was actually a Katie problem.

Tara Summers hired Katie to plan a gender-reveal party for her new baby. Not wanting to deal with Tara, Katie offloaded the setup for the party onto Taylor and Oliver. Oliver had to book the venue, while Taylor had to get the cake.

Katie had plenty of reasons to do this. She can take credit if they do a good job. If they screw up, she can blame it on them. Most importantly, she doesn't have to deal with stupid, stupid Tara; the kids do.

Taylor had one job, and she didn't do it. She didn't want to get the cake because she couldn't figure out how to fill out the form to place the online order. She offloaded the cake onto Anna-Kat. She had heard nothing about the cake since telling Anna-Kat to order it. What if she ignored it in an attempt to get Taylor to do it herself? It was totally possible.

"That's why I'm anxious," Taylor said, "they're going to find out."

"Find out what?" Oliver asked.

Taylor took a second deep breath and said, "You ever ask someone to do something and you know exactly what's happened even before you ask them before they did it?"

Oliver tipped his head to one side and raised one eyebrow. "Is this about making Anna-Kat handle the cake?"

"Yeah," Taylor nodded, "I asked her to order the cake for Tara's party, and I haven't heard a peep. What if she didn't do it?"

Oliver shook his head. "No, if Anna-Kat refuses to do something, you hear about it. If you haven't heard anything, you're in the clear. She probably ordered the cake and forgot to tell you." He was tired enough that the sentence blurred together.

"You're right. I got nothing to worry about,'' Taylor remarked as the both of them went back to bed.

The next day was Tara's gender reveal party. Things went great until they cut the cake. Tara was expecting a girl, and cutting the cake revealed a yellow colour instead of pink.

The unexpected yellow colour of the cake's interior led to confusion and speculation among the party guests. Some guests may have wondered if the cake was a mistake or if she decided to keep the gender a secret.

Other than Greg's joke about Tara having a minion, it didn't lead to humorous and light-hearted banter. It led to Tara glowering at Katie like a wet cat. "Why is my gender reveal cake yellow?" she barked.

Katie gestured to Taylor. "Talk to Taylor," she said.

Taylor said, "Talk to Anna-Kat."

To Taylor's surprise, Anna-Kat turned and said, "Talk to Franklin."

"I'm colour-blind," Franklin spoke honestly and directly, "it all looks the same to me."

@dialogue--prompts

[penname-tbd]

omg i have SO MANY thv questions, please brace for impact:

3, 14, 15 for wren

14, 18, 19 for doctor professor AND vale

OH BOY!! Let's start with Wren's questions:

3. How did you choose their name? 

I picked Wren because I was picturing them with light brown hair, kind of the color of a wren - so a little bit arbitrary, lol. For their last name, Argent, I think I just picked it because it sounded cool.

14. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

Thing Number One: They're too confident for their own good, and this will always get them into trouble. Thing Number Two: They're too witty for their own good, and this also gets them into plenty of trouble.

15. What is something about your OC that can make you laugh? 

Oh, always their dialogue. Either in villain form or civilian form, Wren has been funny from the beginning. I was rereading an early draft today where they (as Phantom) said, in the middle of a fight, "I'm new at this whole villain thing, am I doing okay?" and I laughed out loud.

(I'll put the rest of the questions under a cut; this got long.)

Doctor Professor's questions:

14. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

First thing, Doctor Professor is dry and sarcastic as fuck; this is generally their default. Second thing, though: although they do this to Vale, too, they can never directly undermine him in front of other people. They just won't do it; they know it'll piss him off too much.

18. What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC? 

I discovered that Doctor Professor is a super fun first-person narrator! I wrote a short story from his POV for my fiction class and I had a great time with it. He's very good at balancing humor with seriousness, which is incredibly important in his profession as a villain-medic.

19. What is your favorite fact about your OC?

Doctor Professor was her drag name in college!! She only stopped doing drag because she just doesn't have enough energy for performing, lol (and probably because med school was eating up a lot of her time). She picked it as her villain name because she knew it would annoy Vale.

And last but not least, Axton Vale:

14. If you had to narrow it down to 2 things that you MUST keep in mind while working with your OC, what would those things be?

First thing: Vale handles himself with a surgical precision. Every action and word out of his mouth is incredibly deliberate - if it's not, then something has gone horribly wrong. Second thing: He must be in control of every situation at all times. He cannot, under any circumstances, show vulnerability, which includes any indication that he cares about anyone other than himself. (There are some universes where he's progressed beyond that a little bit, but not in canon, lmao.)

18. What is the most recent thing you’ve discovered about your OC? 

Axton Vale is queerer than I thought! He's actually demiromantic and demisexual, in addition to being bi - not that he would ever claim any of these labels for himself. He believes that he's an average heterosexual man, and nothing will convince him otherwise. But he feels genuine attraction much less often than he thinks he does. It would probably be useful for him to at least learn that there's a difference between romantic and sexual attraction, but I'm not sure that he ever will.

19. What is your favorite fact about your OC?

Oh, boy. It's hard to pick one that's unrelated to me laughing at him for being a repressed cishet man. I guess a fun one is that he has unexpectedly strong opinions about interior design. He prefers a certain modern minimalist aesthetic, but he doesn't like stark white HGTV hellscapes, either. He and DP used to watch home design shows just to make fun of them.

Thank you for the questions!! :)

[whoslaurapalmer]

look. I love good things come in threes and I packed a lot of stuff in it and it's like quietly one of my fav twin peaks fics I've written because of all the little world building things and I have notes I've held on to about how I wrote it

-sometimes I do think the fic is a little slow -- but not. In a terrible way?? In a sweet way. It's supposed to be a slow little afternoon. Just a little time

-ed has a tammy wynette tape bc he and norma listen to her in the pilot.

-there was a line I really wanted in there – “so you’re gonna stand by your man her into a prom date?” but it didn’t really tonally hit anyone’s dialogue, which I was having a hard enough time with. harry and hawk and ed are out there sharing a braincell and hawk has it 100% of the time

-the Fall Football Game Of Some Renown, where, according to the access guide, hawk ran the wrong way, and according to the secret history, hank fumbled a play, took place in fall 1968, so this fic takes place a couple weeks before that. I was imagining it as like a, thanksgiving game or something, bc the schools where I live always have a high school thanksgiving day game (or they USED TO), and the fic takes place like, early october.

-the mod squad (which also had peggy lipton) had indeed just started airing at the end of september that year, and the fugitive (which also had a one-armed man) had indeed started airing four years previously (and ended in 1967).

-oh! so i wanted them watching unsolved mysteries, but that aired too late in the timeline. then i wanted them watching the untouchables, but that would've just ended right before fall 1964. so that was how they watched the fugitive, because it started airing fall 1964. they're likely watching the first ever episode.

-oh, was that a weekend? i don't think it was, but. that's where my attention to detail conks out.

-okay the thing about time here. harry and hawk and ed are born in 1950. the fall football game is 1968. that makes them 18, seniors, and they will graduate in june 1969.

-frank is harry's older brother.

-FRANK IS INEXPLICABLY LISTED AS AT THAT FOOTBALL GAME.

-BUT HE CAN'T BE???? BECAUSE HE WOULD'VE GRADUATED?????? I'M???????? i'm still screaming. anyway in this fic frank is in college.

-hand to god I probably attended at least one “under the sea” themed dance in my school career, although I never went to homecoming. i don't even remember what the themes were. i think one prom was like???? a night in paris????? do NOT remember.

-the point is also that time repeats.

-i have never in my life seen the good the bad and the ugly, but it has that Classic Whistle-y Theme, which I figured they’d know. didn’t know if peaks was big enough to have a movie theater or drive in?? and I wanted to pull in the nearby town of newport (where hawk buys a car during high school).

-i picked the 1960 chevy impala bc it’s a cute ass car. love a good old car. that interior?????? to die for.

-guys just Loving their super inexplicably terrible cars is one of my favorite things. Ed's car is inspired by like 3 men I've known I swear to god who were just THAT into their terrible sad little cars. It's the PRINCIPLE of the thing, you know!!!! It's the car!!!! It's the memories!!!!!! You can't put a price or value on sentiment and what even a not well working car means to you. and.....it still WORKS. just needs a lil love.

-a group of guys banding together around their terrible little car and having a ROUTINE to get it to work is also. so good to me

-there's a lot of 'just needs a little love. Is it enough' in the fic bc that's how Harry feels about the town. That's what the town does. The love is not enough. But these friends love each other and are doing their best

-shout out to my mom for coming up with ed fishing out the cassette tape from inside the seat

-I cannot resist mentioning Diane Shapiro. I think it's a fun idea, if she and hawk are vague high school sweethearts and write letters to each other.

-harry has this vague deja vu (???) feeling of s1e6, where coop and hawk and harry and doc hayward go into the woods to find jacques renault’s cabin and find margaret’s first, bc I can’t resist some good time shenanigans

-harry thinks the cabins change because that was the only way I could rationalize them going into the woods in s1e6 and NOT RECOGNIZING MARGARET’S CABIN.

-you wanna tell me they'd never seen her cabin before??? they'd never been there????? really????? in all the years they've lived in twin peaks, of all the years harry's been sherriff????? they don't know that's margaret's cabin?????????????

-especially bc like, look at harry's face in that scene. he and margaret have looked each other dead in the eye and shenanigan'd before.

-anyway.

-the cabin that harry thinks is missing is jacques renault’s.

-the road with the controlled burning on one side and the forest fire remains on the other is 100% real. they do controlled burning where i live in late winter/early spring, to decrease the amount of stuff around in the event of a fire. and you can always see remnants of it for months after, just these scorched little baby trees and the bottoms of tree trunks. but over the summer there was an enormous forest fire, burned for like, three, four days?? smoke lingered for WEEKS after. (no structures were hit, which was good. and i think it did manage to jump the river??) and if you drove through the area, you could see this distinct split where the fire had hit, where stuff was just burned, leaves dead, everything orange and brown. and then just on the other side of the road, there'd be the controlled burn remains, these black branches against the most lush summer green leaves.

-my fav part is harry's flashback to the other fires -- just my favorite parts to write, I think there's a lot in there about. The town and the bookhouse mentality and failures that don't read as failures and. Everything, yknow

-fuck hank, btw, he's just. such a fucker. Harry loves him such a terrible amount here

-the 'good things come in threes' is bc the good things are harry and hawk and ed. They mean a lot to each other. Not you, hank. And harry is gonna have to learn that and it's gonna suck

[alexcaldownapier]

WCM - The Work

I'm completely and utterly burnt out at the end of this term and every other term I have done my blog posts throughout the term, but this term I haven't managed it at all.

I don't think my work on this film needs much explanation tbh, what you hear is what you get. So, for this post, I'm just going to list all the work I put into the film and the creative choices made.

Pre-Production

I spent the early days trying to expand the score I made for the test-shoot. However, once the script was done, I realised it was entirely incorrect for the new story which had moved away from Iris' insularity to focus more on the dynamic between the two characters. So, I brought in more drums and less synth-y instruments for a more natural, less spacy feeling. The score is mainly made up of the violin, which represents Iris' melancholy, leisurely existence; the rising brass arpeggios for Iris' growing curiosity; the guitar, which represents Kallie and her gentle drive; and finally the drums which push the rhythm forward and gives us the excitement that they both feel. The final track, called rising waves, was finished before we began filming. The idea was to create a full score for the ending of the film and then use smaller parts of it throughout the rest of the film to chart the emotional journey. We start with the violin and gently move through the different instruments before bringing them all together at the end.

Another part of conveying Iris' interior mind, was the underwater sounds that I had recorded last term and made a small sound library of. Iris has an attraction to the water, but keeps herself separated from it by her surfboard, only letting her hand trail through the water. This limited contact is then accentuated through sound and because a light splashing isn't very impactful, hydrophone sounds better reflected this movement and desire.

I attended the location recces, but found it hard to offer anything other than "these are the issues, which we can't get really get past". We were filming by a river, a road and the sea and that's what the script required. The river was at least a reasonably consistent tone, just a consistent tone with a wide range of frequencies therein. I decided to just roll with it and do my best with mic placement and dialogue editing, as there was nothing else to be done really. In hindsight, I should've advocated more for my department, as I was very much of the opinion that whatever was best for the rest of the departments would be best for the film and I would be able to work round it.

The shoot ran reasonably smoothly, in terms of sound-recording. I had Hazel George (the absolute boy) from 3rd year come up for a couple days to help me out as location mixer, but the rest I was running solo on. Due to all the water, I often couldn't have a lav mic on the actors, so was relying heavily on boom. I managed to get all the wildtracks on my list (plus some fun extras) which I had gone over with Bethany in pre-production. I also booked out a stereo recorder from the Film Cult to help capture some ambiences. This ended up being a god-send as one of the two boom mics I had booked out was bizarrely unsensitive and had a high noise floor. At the end of the shoot, I put all my recordings together in a lovely little sound library on my hard drive and I was ready for the sound design.

The sound design mainly consisted of a brutal, harrowing, humbling dialogue edit. Broughty ferry is so full of dogs, man. Every recording had some distant dog bark, making me have to cut the dialogue a lot closer than I would like. I initially went in quite hard with de-noisers and equalisers but after a notes session with Zoe, I ripped it all out and started again with a far more gentle approach, also using more environment sounds to mask the often dodgy dialogue recordings. Then in terms of the design, there was some fun stuff in the transitions between scenes and mixing in the score. However, I found it tough trying to chart the emotional journey of the film, as I think a lot of the initial ideas about the central character and the story as a whole didn't entirely materialise in the final cut so all the choices I planned on making felt disjointed from the new film that we were now making. I managed to communicate some of Iris' discomfort at the bus stop with a hard cut in the ambience sound and a harsh recording of some nail biting. hen again on the bridge, where I automated an EQ to change the feeling of the environment as Iris watches Kallie walk away. The main ways I was using the sound to help tell the story was through the score. I'm happy with the way the score develops through the film and it was fun to compose to picture.

My favourite part of my sound design is actually the end credits. Due to some issues with the final scene, we decided to cut it, leaving the film almost on a cliff-hanger, without a proper resolution. My idea was to continue the sound of Iris and Kallie through the credits as they run into the ocean and swim together, despite us not having the footage for it. Thankfully, I thought I would need the sound of running into the ocean as a transition between the two scenes, so I already had the correct wildtrack, I just had to layer in some dialogue between Iris and Kallie, which I took from the beginnings and ends of takes where the two actors were kidding around with each other and making each other laugh. I also added in the dialogue from the final scene that was cut to keep that beat in the film.

Overall, I'm not incredibly happy with my work on this film. I made a few mistakes when recording - the worst one being the huge change of mic position from shot to shot by the riverside, which made each line sound very different. I also should have chimed in my opinions on the edit at some point as I think there are some points where a few more/less seconds on a moment would have helped me in the sound design. I don't think it sounds terrible, but the dialogue is still rough, even after all these days and these extra days' extension. At least I know how to do a MIDI now. I think I might want to keep making music in DAWs after graduation, I had lots of fun making Rising Waves, the main score for Where Currents Meet.

[zukkacore]

hmm yea, that makes sense! I kinda just linked that Sokka is both smart and funny and that so is Dylan, so those are really good points! Still, i kind of like the idea of Suki as Kaitlyn (because those three are also one of my favorite throuples). So, if you're interested; who from the AtLA cast could replace those from The Quarry cast?

Cause i won't lie, i thought of them similarly as i did Sokka. For example, I liked the idea of Katara as Kaitlyn or Emma and Aang as Nick. Since I thought I didn't have to exactly follow the way they were coupled off (Abi + Nick, Emma + Jacob, etc.)

Actually giving it some additional thought Sokka as Dylan analogue is growing on me just bc I do think it would be within his wheelhouse to be like. A class clown but also techy guy like I would LOVE him to be the person who works for the camp station and has to go on the game mission to get the radio working (that is something that happens right am I getting these games mixed up). I do think zvkki throuple with suki as Katelyn analogue could be fun, suki is not nearly as good at having batshit one liners (and we love her for it) but that’s ok. The weird thing abt Katelyn that I’ve always said but maybe never voiced here in tumblr is that like she’s very characterful, like her dialogue’s voice is so distinct and the performance is entertaining, but like I have no clue what her interiority is. We learn so little about her.

Nick does have this soft spoken energy that could analogue to aang pretty well. He’s maybe more easily led than aang tho. Also as much as I do like Jacob I would feel too bad making anyone in the gang like. beholden to Being The Guy That Got Us Trapped Here. Not sure who would be abi or emma. Either suggestion would be fun for katara. Ty Lee is maybe the person I could see being the most successful as an influencer so make of that what u will. It’s all kinda up in the air

[bitternanami]

#twewy anime had NO tact #remember when it had shiki outright state that rhyme's entry fee was her dreams? granted it's been a while since I watched the anime #but that was 100% something you could extrapolate from the game on your own. ESPECIALLY with Beat going on a whole rant #about rhyme having so much potential and so much to live for #(sidenote I'm also peeved at the anime for saying that Beat really did dream of becoming a famous skateboarder when HIS WHOLE THING #was berating himself for not being able to be like rhyme #anyways. this is about joshua) #characters talked about how much neku changed at the drop of a hat too #it was just...bleugh #I like the anime. it's fun to watch. but I wouldn't consider it to be a good adaptation for the exact reasons you pointed out #'grappling with other people's interiority' and 'it kinda should be hard to understand at first' YEAH!! #this game is ALL ABOUT striving to connect with people you might not always understand or share the same values with #its work but its worth it! #having joshua spill everything removes that effort! #thats the whole point!!! slamming my fists on the table!!!! --@scramble-crossing

no but exactly!!!! this!! i had forgotten abt the entry fee stuff 😭 its a pattern of writing that extends to everyone in the cast, like they wanna make sure you get it, how cool the story theyre telling is, and im like. i know !! i know its cool already. newcomers could feel the same way if you let em!!

one of the best parts of this game for me is how it seems to reward you near-endlessly for digging into it and drawing out parallels, comparisons, meaning in the text. ive described it before as a work that curls in on itself, structurally. for however long you want to look, there will keep being cool shit to find, because almost everything about it informs everything else! characters are constructed in the context of the other people around them! youve got arcs that mirror each other, that directly contrast each other, ideas that become exponentially more interesting when they are in dialogue with each other, i could go on.

but when they lay all their ideas out on the table like, dissecting intricacies of the work for the consumption of a wider audience (ntm the stuff thats just. literally incorrect rip beat 🙏), you lose that capacity for exploration. theyve added some things that we didnt have access to for sure, conversations about why scenes were storyboarded a particular way, what each shot might be trying to do, what particular changes do to the text. traditional film crit stuff. but undeniably the idea that there is more to the people on-screen than precisely what theyre giving to you is a casualty of the adaptation, and i cant think of a single more important concept to have lost track of for twewy 😔

still miffed abt the anime tbh. i just dont think it makes any sense for josh to air out his dirty laundry like that??? to mr h of all people lol. like. i suppose he reminded me of myself, and seeing him change made me realize i could, too ✨✨😌 paraphrasing but who the hell are we talking to here? it feels like holding the audiences hand thru an inference that theyre already capable of making, and imo (given that you Dont have access to the secret reports immediately in-game), its a specific artistic choice to make you think through why he didnt destroy everything, figure out what his thought process was--thats exactly what the whole game is about, is grappling with other peoples interiority. not to be pretentious or elitist or anything but it kinda should be hard to understand at first. i wish they had a bit more trust in the work to speak for itself, and in the audience to hear it

[acepalindrome]

I’ve spent much of 2021 thus far playing Stardew Valley in the hopes of distracting myself from the horrors of reality, and I keep meaning to make a list of mods I recommend! Because I am running a truly embarrassing number of mods and there are some really great ones that really improve the gameplay or add fun content or just make everything look really pretty! So without further ado, here are some of my favorite mods:

- Lookup Anything: This is probably my favorite mod. It basically eliminates the need to have to keep consulting the Stardew Valley wiki while you play. The title says it all: this mod lets you look up anything. Need to know what’s a good present for Shane? You can pull up a list of all his loved and liked gifts, with items you have on hand highlighted for ease, plus his birthday, how many hearts he has with you and how many points you need to get to the next heart. Need to know if you should hoard that pine sap or sell it? You can pull up all the uses for it, items that can be crafted with it, anyone who might like it, community center bundles it’s used for, and how much you make by selling. How many days until your melons are ready to harvest? What items can drop from that stone in the mines? What are all the items you can make with the furnace? It’s such a fantastically handy mod and I refuse to play without it!

- NPC Map Locations: One of the most frustrating things in the game is trying to remember everyone’s schedule and then not being able to find someone to give them a birthday present or turn in a quest item. This mod shows exactly where everyone is on your map and solves that problem for good!

- Automate: This mod automatically pulls items from nearby chests into machines, so you don’t have to keep running back and forth to your furnace to pick up the finished metal bars and toss more ore in there...it just spits the finished item back into the nearby chest, pulls in whatever available items you’ve got in the chest and starts running again without you having to do a thing! Just be careful of where you place your chests and machines or you might end up processing items you didn’t want to. Luckily, you can set individual chests to not have items pulled from them.

- Fishing Made Easy Suite: I suck at fishing. I almost never bother with fishing if I don’t have a mod to make it bearable. I like this one because it has different levels of easy-ness, so you can make fishing just 25% easier, or 50%, or 75%, or 99%! And there are some other fun perks too. You want to catch all fish regardless of weather or season? Want to catch legendary fish multiple times? Want to catch prismatic shards? Go nuts.

- Stardew Valley Expanded: This mod is absurdly huge and adds SO MUCH CONTENT. New areas! New characters! New events! I was a little hesitant to start it just because I knew there was so much to the mod and was a little concerned of how well it would mesh with the rest of the game, but the characters and story and style fit in perfectly with the vanilla content. I could almost forget Andy and Sophia weren’t there all along! The purpose of the mod was to make the game feel fresh and new for people who had already played the game and that’s exactly what it does. I love it.

- Artisan Valley/Project Populate JsonAssets/Starbrew Valley: I’m lumping these together but this is a collection of mods that add a TON of new items, crops, trees, flowers, machines and recipes to the game. You don’t have to download them all! You can pick and choose the ones you want, or download the PPJA content pack to get the bulk of these mods all in one go! I personally really love Artisan Valley because it lets me make floral candles and soaps. And an espresso machine so I can make fancy coffee. And Starbrew Valley so there’s actually a fun variety of alcohol in the game.

I’m putting the rest under a cut because this is getting too long.

- Chests Anywhere: Lets you access all of your chests from the menu! You can add some limitations, like only being able to access chests in the same location you’re in, but I’m dumb and constantly forget that I was supposed to bring a present for a villager with me today, or that I wanted to upgrade one of my tools but left all my metal bars at home. So instead of having to run all the way back to my farm, I can just open my menu and switch through the chests until I find the item I need! Labeling the chests also makes this a lot easier for organization.

- Seasonal Villager Outfits: Finally, the villagers have more than one set of clothes! This mod gives them different outfits in different seasons, different weather and special outfits for holidays! It’s cute and really improves the immersion to see the villagers wearing tshirts in the summer and bundling up in the winter, and dressing up for special events! Some characters will change their hairstyle too, which I love.

- Canon-Friendly Dialogue Expansion: Gives all characters more stuff to say so they won’t just repeat the same lines over and over! Also gives them varied dialogue for festivals starting in year 2, so they don’t say the same thing every year at the Egg Festival or Spirit’s Eve.

- Immersive Elliott: Add more dialogue! Lots more dialogue! I downloaded the Elliott version of this mod because that’s who I plan to marry but I recommend looking up dialogue mods for whoever your favorite characters are (I think there’s one for almost all the marriageable candidates.) You’ll probably be chatting a lot with whoever you’re trying to woo and it’s nice to get lots of new lines!

- Stardew Foliage Redone: There are tons of mods that change the colors and style of trees and buildings and stuff but this one is my favorite. It’s very soft and earthy and pretty without being overkill.

- The Love of Cooking: Actually makes cooking fun in Stardew Valley! It adds a cooking skill, an upgradable cooking tool that lets you cook with more ingredients (at the start you can only make one ingredient dishes), a cooking community center bundle, star levels to cooked items, an animation when you cook...cooking was very bland in the base game, and this mod really spruces the whole system up.

- Medieval Buildings/Medieval craftables: Again, there are so many mods that change up the look of your farm buildings and stuff but these are really pretty and cool and absolutely my style. There’s a mod to make all the town buildings have this style too, but I kind of like keeping the town normal and just living on my mysterious and beautiful farm apart from the rest of the world. My sprinklers are magic moss covered rocks now!

- Elle’s Dog/Cat/Horse/Barn/Coop/etc animals: Super cute animal skins. They look so huggable and soft. Also one of the dog options looks like my real life dog and that’s very important to me.

- Adopt ‘n’ Skin: Pairs well with the mods above, this mod lets you have multiple dogs/cats/horses and lets you use as many different skins as you like. I’ve got four cows and they’ve all got different patterns and colors. I love it. Also Marnie starts taking in stray animals and you can adopt them from her, which is a really cute way of letting you have more pets.

- Seasonal Garden Farmhouse: Its a pinch overkill especially in the early game, but I really like this farmhouse layout. It gives you a small kitchen from the start, a bathroom you can use to restore stamina, big open windows that change with the seasons and time of day...it’s a luxury house and it’s very nice to live in!

- Industrial Kitchen and Interior/Industrial Furniture/Rustic Country Town Interiors: These mods give the interiors and furniture a more rustic style, and the last one changes the town interiors to match. There are many furniture/interior mods, so if this style doesn’t do it for you, check out some of the others! There are lots of very pretty mods!

And I’m going to stop there but that’s only the tip of the iceberg and I highly recommend looking around NexusMods or ModDrop and seeing what kind of stuff is available!

[lazzledazzler]

Lazzle's Rune Factory 5 Review

Alright so here are my thoughts and experiences with RF5! This is a big boy so buckle in earthmates...

Obviously this review will contain spoilers, read at your own risk.

Initial thoughts upon playing...

Great opening! I enjoyed the jazz music~ I did feel like it leaned a bit more towards the male player though. It definitely feels like a rune factory game. It's familiar, and controls are easy to get accustomed to for the most part. The mold is there and rf5 doesn't stray too far from its predecessors which is comforting for veterans. That being said, I'm not going to pull any punches and will critique this game harshly. Keep in mind as updates for the game are released not all things discussed in this review will be as relevant overtime!

Let's hear some thoughts on...

The story/plot. The plot is enjoyable overall. I'm not crazy about the whole Seed organization thing but it was a neat idea. They address the Sechs Territory and it is confirmed that the game takes place some decades after RF4. But by the end of it, I didn't feel like I really accomplished anything because it felt like I barely did anything really. Also they left a lot of stuff unanswered. I'm not even sure I understood the message they were sending, if they were trying to send a message at all. The main story is too short, and it doesn't involve enough of the townsfolk. You're basically doing everything yourself in secret the whole time and the townsfolk barely know what's actually going on. Out of the love interests, Lucas plays the largest part in the story, followed by Priscilla and Scarlett. The story feels targeted at male audiences--at least that's how I felt. You, the player, have a larger role in the game, much like in RF3 and I was glad to see this. As of right now there are only two arcs. Praying for DLC 3rd arc...!

Protagonists. The latest protagonists to join the crew of Earthmates are...decent. Their designs are nothing special unfortunately, though I appreciate Alice's more than Ares's. Appearance-wise they lack personality and creativity. Personality wise I am pleasantly surprised with how sociable they are. They're not exactly quick witted and sassy like Lest/Frey were in rf4, or as endearing as Micah in rf3, but they have a certain realness to them that makes their reactions to things believable. I'm certain Xseed will see to making them a bit more sarcastic in their localizing efforts, so let's all look forward to that. Overall though, while I appreciate their mannerisms, they don't really measure up to all the previous amnesiacs we've grown to love over the decades.

Characters. Overall I enjoy all the characters introduced in Rune Factory 5! I feel like there is someone for everyone in this game on some level. The voice acting was pretty good for every character. The designs are very much Rune factory. Like OG runefa, compared to rf4 ( 4 kind of strayed from their usual style) which I like. Characters still have their own signature quirks that you find endearing. Although I would have liked to see more variety? Like we've had mermaids, univir, half monsters, vampires, etc in previous titles but rf5 only gives us the usual (half) elf, dwarf, and then a succubus (physically she doesn't have unique features aside from the ears and heart eyes), and some were-people. I was hoping for something more unique to really give that classic runefa vibe.

Dungeons/Battles. I'm pretty split on this one. On the one hand, the dungeons have more depth due to the 3D aspects. They've included more contraptions that are very fun to see even if they aren't executed that well. So I'm grateful for that. On the other hand, the dungeons are insanely short imo. It doesn't take long at all to get to the boss. The puzzles are also pretty subpar and few compared to RF4. Fighting monsters is similar to the other games. You can lock on now but I only use it when I'm trying to use my Seed Circle. The lock on feature is actually counter-intuitive and makes it harder to dodge. Weapon mechanics have shifted a bit. There’s a feature that makes you invincible to damage if you time the R button dash correctly. Axes and Hammers are significantly slower than in older games? Like. I thought I was in slow motion it was so slow. Lances are also harder to use as well? I'm questioning my sanity here. I don't know if it's a bug or intentional either.

Farming. Not much has changed from previous games mechanics wise. They added new types of special crops which is neat. The camera view changes to overhead when you go near your fields though, and it can make you dizzy/uncomfortable. It actually makes it a bit difficult to see at times so I wish there was a way to adjust the angle. If you are tilling corn or dried weeds to improve the soil, you need to place them separately if you don't want to use the entire stack. Otherwise, it will till the entire stack on the land if you place them all down at once. The flower shop is unlocked late in the story. Weird thing to do considering you need flowers to make medicine. Not to mention the fact that you wont have access to the fertilizer that increases defense against typhoons? During typhoon season? Thinking emoji...

The town. I have to say Rigbarth's design is poor compared to Sharance, Selphia, etc. It's too big and it takes too long to get around. Everything is too spaced out and there aren't enough warp points to make it easier on players. I don't want to walk an entire mile up a hill to talk to one person and then walk all the way down to the beach to speak to another. It doesn’t really feel like a ‘town’.

OST/BGM. Music was good, though nothing really stood out to me where I'd go "damn this slaps" or something. I think they might've had some old soundtracks from rf2 or something because it felt really nostalgic at times.

We need an exterminator. (Bugs Bugs Bugs)

Marvelous, I don't know how to tell you this buuut...your customers are NOT your testers. When you release a game, you need to make sure it's not littered with glitches because customers don't enjoy dealing with them and will drop the game!

Here are some of the types of glitches I encountered:

Crashing. Game would randomly crash or freeze and close at any moment. Sooooo frustrating! Sometimes you get lucky with the autosave feature, but the autosave only activates every morning at 6am in your room and then when you warp to a dungeon level/floor. So when you're in the middle of your daily tasks in town and it crashes, you have to start all over. Marveloussss no one enjoys losing their progress in a game I promise you that much.

Lag. The dialogue bar is seriously slow, especially after loading your file. Crafting/Cooking screen lags. When you press the Y button to skip through dialogue it lags like hell. Pretty much after every time you load the game will lag, the audio will lag if you're in a battle, everything is just. so. slow.

Repeating dialogue. So if you close your game entirely (or if it crashes) naturally you'll reload your file to continue where you left off. There's a bug that will cause all NPCs to repeat the last dialogue that occurred from whatever plot related thing you did last. So for example, if the last thing you did in the story was unlock Ludmilla, everyone in town will naturally have some dialogue about her. But even after seeing all this dialogue and even saving, if the game is closed and reloaded you'll have to read all that dialogue again from townsfolk. It got really annoying after a while.

Monster taming. One time I tamed a monster but once I named it and hit 'ok' the monster never showed up in my barns? Just. gone. Okaaaay then...? Additionally, I expanded one of my monster barns but all of the monsters I tamed wouldn't appear in the added room. You get 4 monsters for each room but the monsters I tamed would show up in the original room. Meaning I had like 7 monsters in one room! I tried to bring them into the newly added room but they would just warp back to the other room. Sad.

Pond Glitch. I fished in the pond located in Sasayaki Forest and left the fish I caught but didn't want laying around the water's edge. If you leave fish around the pond's edge and go to sleep, the next morning you will be teleported to the pond and trigger the fairy dialogue as if you had thrown all of the fish into the pond??? So the dialogue of her telling you she wants 'X item, not this!' will trigger over and over for all of the fish you left at the water's edge. RIP.

Party member Bug. I had Martin in my party and I made him leave. Then when I went into my monster barns to get a monster pal to join me instead it showed me Martin's portrait???? Also I've encountered a bug where I can no longer ask anyone to join my party for some unknown reason. The R &L button prompt was just gone when I reloaded.

Errors. When cooking or crafting, the dialogue box shows up sometimes...

Typos. Random average typo here and there. Not a real biggie but there is one instance where the heroine will use the japanese male pronoun "boku" instead of "watashi" which really convinced me that this game was completely intended for men lol.

Let's talk about Pros

The good stuff. The stuff that makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.

Plot Advancing. Now I'm gonna put this as a pro because I'm certain the average player will enjoy this even though I do not. There are now markers on the map to show you where to go to advance the plot. This is all well and dandy, but it also made the story less appealing for me because you don't need to go around town and speak to residents for clues or assistance to advance anything in the story.

3D Graphics The 3D models are all amazing. The interior designs of the houses/buildings are also incredibly detailed and realistic.

Collecting items. Now there's a feature that will allow you to collect items into your inventory just by walking over them. This is pretty neat and welcome for the most part. Once the item is sparkling, you can walk over it and it'll go into your rucksack automatically. This also makes lumbering and mining go much faster. Yay!

The miraculous L pocket. Now you can customize the categories that appear in your L pocket by going to the rucksack tab in the menu. This is a super neat feature that makes things easier on players who want to manage their items in a format that suits them.

Weapon/Tool Toggling. You can now toggle between your equipped weapon and tool by pressing the left or right buttons on the trackpad.

Collecting lumber/material stone. Oh lord this is probably the most welcome improvement moving forward from the previous game. You can now put all of the lumber and material stone from your inventory into its storage at once. This also applies to fodder for tamed monsters. Well done Hakama.

Autosave. This feature is a welcome addition to the series. The game will save your data every morning and every time you enter a dungeon. Autosave has really saved my ass a few times when I made a huge error in judgement so I'm incredibly grateful for this feature. And it doesn't save over your actual save file--there's a separate autosave file at the very top. So if you messed up something but already saved on your main file, you can still salvage your mistake by reloading the autosave! I just wish it activated a bit more often sometimes.

Warping. Now we can warp to each level in a dungeon as well as certain places on the map in town. It's pretty convenient for the most part.

Increased party members. Now you can have up to 3 members in your party! Hooray! Party members act more intelligently than in older games. Scarlett can use the Seed circle to assist you in fights. I think she also tosses healing potions at you occasionally. So far, no one has tossed a dish at me if I haven't eaten like Kiel and Clorica did in rf4. But I have been hit by a failed dish (from reinhardt?) and a healing potion (from scarlett). Scarlett, Priscilla, and Reinhardt are the most helpful when dungeon crawling in my experience. Some of them however, (looking at you Doug) don't shut the hell up with their one line of dialogue they have and repeat it constantly.

Seed Circle. This neat feature allows you to capture monsters. By charging it and releasing you can capture monsters for the bounty system or add them to your party temporarily. If you throw it without charging it, you can stun monsters in place momentarily or grab things from far away. When stunning monsters, it can also give you the monster's drop item occasionally. Unfortunately it uses a lot of RP so it can be difficult at times.

Combo attacks. This is a neat feature that I appreciate and use often for boss fights. They do some serious damage so it's good to save them for the bosses. The actual cutscenes aren't that impressive, and feel kind of subpar when you get down to it but I think it's a start in the right direction.

Farm Dragons. I'm listing this as a pro although I really just see it as a new feature. Farm dragons have fields on their backs that you can place monster barns on and farm on. Giving them certain crystals will give your fields boosts in certain criteria, like length of growth, soil quality, you get it. I personally don't use the crystals because I couldn't give a shit lmao I have men and women to woo here. But if you're into this kinda thing then it's a pro.

Storage. When opening your storage box, fridge, etc. you can actually hit the R & L buttons to switch between ALL of your other storages. Looooove thissss. Great addition. So much faster to put items away in their respective places.

Crafting/Forging. Now we can also use the R & L buttons to alternate between the different weapon types/accessory/gear types instead of having to exit the menu and going back in each time you want to make something different.

Cooking. More recipes have been added. Yay!

Days are longer now. More time to get shit doneeeee ayyyy

Fishing. They've added many more fish to the game! Now the player will shout something when you get a bite, making it easier for you to hit B at the right moment. Nice. Also if you fail or press B too early, the fish doesn't vanish most of the time. Also nice. There is now a feature to fish with another person's assistance. Once a day you can investigate the sign near the fishing station and someone might offer to lend you a hand. Press the B button at the right moments on the slider and you can get a rare fish that can't be caught normally.

Monsters. New types of monsters! Love the designs. Even the monsters that are the same but just have different skins are really neat. They look great in the 3D format too. You can even ride with up to two people on certain monsters! Some bosses had awesome designs while others...were bad.

New Types of Furniture. The carpenter store has a wide arrange of furniture you can buy for your home. It also has wallpapers and stuff which is really neat. Though unfortunately you can't even sit on some of the furniture so that's a shame.

Events. Now there is a system where events are triggered by approaching an icon on the map. This is probably an improvement to RF4's randomized system, though personally I found it annoying because it meant that I had to see the events before I could just enter a building normally. Sometimes I just wanted to get shit done and not have to read through walls of text for someone's love event when I just want to buy something.

Voiced Lines. The protagonist seems to have more voiced lines, as do other characters. Good!

Let's talk about Cons

Not including glitches. Oh boy. So many cons. Where do I start?

Dialogue. Probably the most notable con in the entire game. The dialogue is drastically minimal in comparison to previous games, especially rf4. There is probably a quarter of the amount of dialogue compared to rf4's insane amount of content if not less. Townsfolk repeat themselves. Often. Too often. Am I playing Harvest Moon? Originally I thought it was because the dialogue is randomized, but I think it's actually because more dialogue is unlocked as you raise townspeople's FP. Despite this, there's no linear build up where you start off as acquaintances and eventually become very close like in rf4 because of how sporadic the LP/FP is. Townsfolk don't even talk to each other. One of the greatest perks about runefa is the conversations townsfolk can have with one another. Residents randomly gathering in small groups to talk about anything. Previously you could add someone to your party and sometimes a dialogue will occur if you speak to the right person at the right time with that person in your party. This is nonexistent now. The only time they do this in rf5 is during the festivals. But, it will only trigger if you have unlocked all the characters in each marriageable lineup and they can't be in your party. The residents will talk about one another but that's pretty much it outside of town events. They got rid of all the minor dialogue that occurs too. Trying to sleep in someone's bed while they're right there? They wont comment. Inspecting objects in stores while the shopkeeper is present? Wont say anything. Take a character with you to a dungeon/boss fight? Their lips are sealed. Where's my sense of community? :(

FP/LP This ties into the dialogue issue. The rate at which LP/FP increases is sporadic as hell. You can go from 1FP/LP to 4FP/LP just by giving a gift sometimes. I wouldn't even speak to people and their affinity increased by like triple for no reason. Then it increases by like 2% for the longest time. Argh!!!

Graphics. I don't consider myself very picky when it comes to graphics. I don't really mind that the foliage and scenery are at the level of a ps2 game at best. I tried playing on my television initially, but the lag and camera operability was too much so I fully switched (haha puns) to handheld. One thing that sucked is that I literally cannot tell the difference between medicinal herbs, antidote grasses, and green grasses without the captions because the graphics are so indistinguishable. So when you're trying to pick up multiples of those items by holding the A button, you're just randomly walking over anything green in the hopes that you'll get the right ones...

Lack of Sound Effects. Something I noticed is they got rid of the sound effects that will play when you complete a puzzle or add someone to your party. When you try to brush a monster there's no sound for the '♪' they make when you successfully brush them. So it was hard for me to tell if I had actually brushed them or not. I was a bit saddened by the lack of cute sounds.

Too much free range. From the very beginning of the game, you're allowed to go pretty much wherever you want when leaving town. It was too easy to stumble into high enemy level territory without knowing, so when I was like level 5 so I got KO'd immediately.

Artwork. The portraits seem to be lower in quality somehow. Runefa has always had shitty portrait art imo but this time it's even worse. Many character's eyes looked fucked up. Though the 3D models are insanely good for mostly every character except Terry. Terry's 3D model looks Terryfying and I prefer his portrait.

Festivals. They've added some new festivals. Some I enjoy. Some not so much. They changed the format of the eating contest. It's horrible. Good luck with that one.

L pocket + R button? They got rid of the feature that lets you skip to the other end of your items when opening the L pocket by pressing R button. I really liked that feature because it made it faster to reach my items so I was bummed that they got rid of it.

Gotta go fast. Now when you speak to someone, it doesn't 'stop time' as you might say it did in previous games. So people are still moving about as you speak to someone, making it harder to catch up to people! Annoying!!!

Catch and release? Not in my farming simulator! Say goodbye to being able to toss a fish you caught back into the water. In fact, say goodbye to tossing anything you don't want anymore into the water. Now you just have an army of fish flopping on the ground around you. And with the auto pick up feature, they're probably going to end up in your inventory anyways once you try to move. There are still certain ponds with fairies that you can toss stuff into, but you'll have to deal with the fairy harping at you for giving her something she doesn't want.

Shop Hours. Oh god. The shop owners don't even open their stores at the correct hours? It says open at 9am. If you speak to them they won't open their store until like 9:07??? But Priscilla and Lucy will show up to work their part-time jobs at around 8:30am and you can buy stuff through them before 9am. So the actual shop owners (for the bread shop and general store) are pointless usually. Additionally, if the store is empty (but open) you can no longer add a shopkeeper into your party and then enter their store with them to buy things from them. Why. Just why. When you want to buy something that only a specific person sells (Only Hina sells fish, only Heinz sells misc items) you have to wait for them to finally decide to work in their own store. Wonderful.

Monster Item drops. Maybe I'm crazy but the monster drops are seriously a lot harder to get than in previous games. Especially boss drops. It's almost impossible to get the rare drops now. I don't even want to try anymore. And as far as I know, the only place to buy monster items is through Heinz, but his items are actually misc. items, not specifically monster drops. So you'll be lucky to check his store (whenever tf he decides to actually work) for any monster items you might want instead of farming for the drops. Sighs.

Difficulty. This game is too easy. There is little to no challenge whatsoever. I had to increase the difficulty setting to hard mode and it was still too easy. I beat it at level 139, never once did I need to grind or level. In fact, your character levels up way too quickly for the pace of the story. I had zero trouble with any of the bosses and even the final boss was a breeze. Quite sad. Though because I am not new to the franchise, it's likely that newcomers would have some trouble in the later parts of the story.

Fishing cons. Idk how you fck up fishing but they sure did. You have to stand further back now because the pole is so long that you'll miss the fish you're aiming for. In fact, it's seriously hard to aim period. You'll end up recasting more often than not. Fish come in the various sizes but they don't seem to have the darker or faded characteristics that can indicate whether it's a rare fish or not. The graphics make it hard to tell. The pros that i've already mentioned are welcomed but it doesn't negate the fact that I do not enjoy fishing like I did in previous games.

Mining/Lumbering Cons. You can no longer strike three times consecutively when mining/lumbering. This sucks lol. Even when you upgrade your axe or hammer, powering up the tool does nothing for getting wood and material stone--it only expands the area of your strike. So it takes longer to get wood/stone from stumps and rocks now since you have to strike the full 9 times but it's not too bad. It's also harder to aim now as well so that's also unfortunate.

Seasonal Fields? Kiss them goodbye! That's right, there are no seasonal fields in rf5 because devs are insane! You instead have the farm dragons that seem to look seasonal based on the fact that they are designed after elements like earth, water, and fire. But no, these dragons are simply extra fields for you to use. Here's a spoiler: you're not going to use those fields. You're just not. They're kinda useless unless you're obsessed with farming. Now you have to grow your crops out of season like the sad farmer that you are.

Farming cons. Seeds no longer tell you how long it takes to grow the crop. Why. As of June 29th, they fixed this with an update. But I still had to play the whole game without it so fuck you marvelous. The joystick is really sensitive? So when you're trying to use a fertilizer or something on your field you're likely to place it on the wrong 4x4 tile, wasting your fertilizer. So it’s best to hold down the R button when farming. Also the crops look uglie as hell.

Sleeping and warping cutscenes. Just like in rf4 there's a cutscene when you go to sleep that can be skipped easily by pressing A. In rf5, there's a cutscene to sleep and a cutscene when waking up. It takes a bit more than a second to skip these scenes so it gets annoying after a while. Warping is this new feature that replaces our beloved escape spell. Overall I appreciate the feature but I hate it for two reasons. One: there's an annoying ass cutscene for it each time you use it that could be much shorter. And Two: townsfolk now use warp even when inside the town. In previous games, someone exiting your party in town would just manually run to wherever they need to be. So you could easily chase after them if you need to talk to them or give them something. Now, party members use warp regardless of where you are at the time. So say you have someone at 7 hearts and you want to try confessing to them. You would have them join your party, save your game, and then have them leave your party and immediately speak to them and confess before they can run off. If it doesn't work you reload until it does. In RF5 this wouldn't work anymore because they will warp. Now you would have to save, run around town trying to find this person and hope they accept the confession. Otherwise you'll have to play hide and seek again because reloading your file will randomize the resident's locations (if they are not working in a shop)!!!! I often just waited until a festival day because then they will be at the plaza for most of the day and it has a warp point there.

Crafting/Forging/Cooking. They've removed the feature where you can press Y on the ingredients in the menu to add more of that particular item. I miss this feature :'(

Lacks incentive. There is no trophy room from my knowledge. The final dungeon that is meant to be like the sharance maze/rune prana isn't that hard to beat for skilled players and is only 20 floors. After you beat the main story and this dungeon there's not much else to do really.

Request Board. Unlike in rf4, you need to make sure you have accepted requests before you complete them or else it will not count. Previously, you could complete all sorts of tasks and Eliza would still recognize your work even if you accept their request after the fact. ie, shipping goods, harvesting crops, etc. So make sure you don't harvest your special crops before accepting the request it's for!

Return of the "Loli" Dragons... Yeah you read that right. We got more dragons in children's(???) bodies with skimpy clothes. I don't know anymore????¿¿¿

Can't marry the Milfs or Dilfs. Tragic.

Still no homo. Grow up Marvelous.

Reverse Proposal? Reverse Uno card-- Laid low by the patriarchy. You now have to buy the double bed and craft an engagement ring to propose to your man if you're playing as Alice. Marvelous this isn't what we meant when we said we wanted equal rightsssssss This can be seen as a pro if you're a softhearted babey who doesn't like rejecting bachelors' proposals because you feel bad :'( But this is a con for me because I don't want to spend money and materials on a double bed dammit!!!

Misc. Still can't stack dishes or fish. There's no green elemental fairy???All the other elemental ones are there except the green one? why??? Still can't tame the giant Wooly. Some bosses that have insanely awesome designs cannot be tamed and makes me wanna eat glass.

Let's talk about Love~

Relationships. We want them. And half of us only play these games for them. I've only played as the female heroine so far but I'll be updating this review as soon as I finish with the bachelorettes as the male hero.

Confessions

As usual, we must raise the love points of our beloved to 7 hearts before we can attempt to date them. However unlike in rf4, if you fail at a confession once, you will need to raise the LP up an entire level before you can try again with any chance of success. It's imperative you save before attempting a confession now.

Love Events

Each love interest has two love events that must be seen before you can date them. They're reminiscent of older game's style but I felt they could have been a biiiit more interactive or so? Or involved the town a bit more for some of them.

Dating

Once you get your honey to be your bf/gf, you get to choose the nicknames as usual. Then you can go on dates. The first three (non-festival) dates are actually events. You need to see all three events to get married.

Marriage Event

The final event you need to clear before you can marry your sweetie. In my honest opinion, so far for the boys, these events were rather disappointing. They lacked the drama and angst that sort of 'test' the love between the two when compared to rf4. Also this is a huge con for me personally and a minor spoiler but there are no special cutscenes at the end of the marriage event like in rf4. Instead, the cutscene takes place during your actual wedding. I was saddened by this because it took away the depth from the marriage events and the actual character? As it is just a cut and paste type of thing instead of an original cutscene for each person. They lack individualism this way. Also it kinda felt like a way for devs to avoid gay relationships and cut corners :^/....sus.

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes...

Children!!!!!! This is actually one of the coolest additions in the game. Just like in rf3, you can have up to 3 children again! Your first child will resemble you, and you will have the option to choose its gender as well as its personality. There are 6 different children, (3 boys and 3 girls), all with different hairstyles, mannerisms, and seiyuus. Your answers will determine which child you get. A year after your first child is born, you will get the option to have a second child. You'll end up with twins, both resembling your partner. You won't get to choose the genders (it will be a boy and girl) but you will get to choose the personalities once more. The children all have canon names too and each kid is incredibly cute. And of course, you're still able to take your kid with you in your party~ ...Though you can only take one kid with you at a time.

So is RF5 good?

Yeah it's a fun game! My theory is that Marvelous forced the devs to release the game earlier than they were ready for, and that's why it's so lacking. But that doesn't mean it's not worth playing! I'd rate it 3.5/5 stars hehe. Not nearly as good as RF4 (full stop 5/5), or RF3 (4/5) but enjoyable nonetheless. I wouldn't recommend it as a first game to play from the series for newcomers though, I feel it's best for vets who can overlook all the cons thanks to loyalty and nostalgia. By the time it’s released in the West, the bugs should all be dealt with too.

So! Definitely buy this game! We want the series to continue and we want RF6 to be better than this--and hopefully Marvelous will make sure of that next time. If you're not a picky person I think you'll enjoy rf5 a lot. If you're like me and have high standards then, well, still pick it up and let it run its course. Then dust off rf4sp and cleanse your gaming palette >;^)

[bex-la-get]

Hello, hello! This week, we are going on a little:

Home Tour!

Notes: Answer the following with pictures (dialogue from your characters is optional!). Collages are highly encouraged if you want to answer a question with multiple pictures because tumblr mobile only allows 10 total pics. Otherwise, tumblr on a desktop lets you add multiple pictures (non-beta)!

For both:

What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc)

Living room and home office (if any)?

Kitchen and dining room?

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Other rooms?

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Hi babe! Thanks for the fun questions! Hope you like them!

So, little bit of context: Nat and Ethan recently bought this house after finding out that Nat was pregnant with their third child [Lydia]. So, I imagine them doing this tour shortly after Lydia’s born and they’ve settled into the house. Enjoy!

(Also, please imagine Nat doing with this with a baby strapped to her in one of those wrap things ‘cause that is the cutest damn visual and I need it to be seen).

Previous Questions

For both: What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc).

Nat: Ethan likes a much more modern look when it comes to houses while I prefer more traditional so we tried to find something that matched both. Instead, we ended up finding this beautiful Victorian and we both fell madly in love with the place!

Ethan: I have to admit, it surprised me how much I love this place. But I can’t imagine us living anywhere else now.

Nat: You can’t see it in the picture but the front yard is completely gated which is a huge weight off my mind. With two kids under the age of six and a newborn, the last thing I want to worry about is my kids getting out of the front yard. The gate has a special lock on it too so only people with the code can get in or out. It gives us so much peace of mind.

Nat: We really wanted the backyard to feel like an extension of the house so we decorated it as such. It’s great in the summer time when we can have friends over and have a big cookout. 

Nat: Ethan installed the hammock for me shortly after we moved in. I had always wanted one as a kid and now we get to curl up there in the evenings whenever we want. Plus, the kids love it. 

Ethan: *smiles* Next on the list is to set up a vegetable garden. I would have done it sooner but with Nat so close to giving birth when we moved in, I decided it was worth the wait. But by next spring, I’m hoping to have it set up and ready to go.

Living room and home office (if any)?

Ethan: Technically, we have two living rooms. The first one is more of a formal living room where you can sit and talk with guests, if you want. It’s not pictured but there’s a large fireplace with some bookshelves around the room. We treat it kind of like a study. It’s also where we plan on putting the Christmas tree come the holidays.

Ethan: The second is our “informal” living room-- or “den” as Nat calls it. This is where the television and game consoles are. This room probably gets the most use out of the house since this is where we have movie nights and just spend most of our time when we’re home.

Nat: Don’t forget the office, babe.

Ethan: Oh, right! We try not to bring our work home with us but with both of us working on books right now, we figured it was important to have a good work space away from the rest of the house.

Nat: I admit, I was worried about the black interior when we first saw it, but I’m kind of in love with it now.

Ethan: *smirks* I knew you would.

Nat: *rolls her eyes* Hush, you.

Kitchen and dining room?

Nat: Ah, Ethan’s favorite place in the house!

Ethan: One of my favorites, at least.

Nat: You know, before moving I never understood the hype for all-white kitchens. But I get it now! Look at this place, it’s so bright and open! And remarkably easy to clean.

Ethan: I could’ve told you that a long time ago, my love.

Nat: Yes, but I probably wouldn’t have believed you. *Ethan laughs*

Nat: You know that chandelier is original to the house? This whole room is, actually. It was basically untouched during the renovations. They just upgraded the windows and re-stained the flooring. The rest of the room is virtually untouched, which I absolutely love.

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Nat: Our room isn’t too fancy. Ethan likes it clean and simple and I like a lot of pillows. I think we managed that alright.

Ethan: We’re trying to keep the kids rooms as neutral as possible right now. Their interests are changing so fast that we don’t want to have to keep redecorating every time they change their mind. We’ll probably do more detailed decorating as they get older.

Other rooms?

Nat: We do technically have a guest room but it’s not considered a “bedroom” since it doesn’t have a closet.

Ethan: It’s a room in our basement that acts as a guest room. The rest of the basement we’re treating like a kids playroom and home gym.

Nat: It’s also where my mom has been staying for the last few weeks. She came up to help us settle in with baby Lydia. She’s been a godsend. *Ethan nods in agreement*

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

Nat: Absolutely we own our dream home. This place is amazing and everything I ever wanted in a family home.

Ethan: I never pictured myself with a big house or living in the suburbs, but here, surrounded by my family... it’s beyond my wildest dreams. This is better than a dream home; this is heaven. *Nat smiles and kisses his cheek softly.*

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Nat: Oooh, that’s a tough one. I love all of the rooms. But I think I’m gonna have to say the den and the backyard.

Ethan: Agreed. Any space where I can spend time with family is my favorite place to be.

Tag list below the cut:

Tag List (let me know if you want to be added/removed):  @genevievemd @jamespotterthefirst @paulfwesley @ethansdique @openheartfanfics @perriewinklenerdie @little-flowers-on-heaven @stateofgracious @coffeeheartaddict @liaromancewriter @potionsprefect @mm2305 @gryffindordaughterofathena @actuallybored @writer-ish @queencarb @takeharryandgo @lsvdw-blog @itsjustwinter​ @imaneditorthankyouverymuch-deac @chaoticchopshopheart​ @ohchoices​ @maurine07​ @oldminniemcg​ @parisa-kh​ @shanzay44​ @uberamsey @izzyourresidentlawyer​ @adiehardfan​ @custaroonie​ @mia143​ @a-crepusculo​ @takemyopenheart​ @toadfrog26​ @quixoticdreamer16​ @barbean​ @headoverheelsforramsey​ @natureblooms24 @jerzwriter

[eldritchwyrm]

season 4 episode 14 ("goodbye iowa"):

oh we're doing frankenstein now. the practical effects must have been really fun to do

the difficulty with killing off prof walsh is that a mad scientist, to me, is a much more interesting villain than a monster? i do love a good practical effect tho.

whoever made that post a while back about clutter in film/tv sets was so right. the spaces in this show are so wonderfully cluttered! panning through xander's (mom's) basement, you see all sorts of random stuff -- some crutches behind the blocky tv, crates with clutter... it's supposed to be a messy space, but there's an implied story to all the stuff that i often feel is missing from productions in the last few years.

on the other hand, there's always the possibility that this impression is totally off-base and is just sort of a media nostalgia thing? the vintage feeling of the sets and the more colorful, brightly lit interiors (as opposed to the frequently mocked ultra-shadowy aesthetic of contemporary film) might be pinging bits of my brain and making me feel it's more cluttered when it isn't.

um. why does xander have a shirt with "i <3 dirt" written on it?

on that note how come riley and co have a poster labeled "Balls." that just has photographs of various sports balls on a white background. how come that's a thing they keep putting in front of the camera every other scene.

why are black characters in this show almost always inexplicably evil............

on that note, how come this fictional uc campus is almost all white??? like????? has joss whedon ever BEEN to a uc campus? i'm suspending my disbelief on the basis that southern california has seen a lot of immigration & resultant demographic change over the past two decades, but even with the time difference factored in, it's deeply weird to not see any brown people on a uc campus?

nooooooooo not spike's tv set omfg....... the casualties of war....

season 4 episode 15 ("this year's girl"):

i think i'm just in a bad mood rn because this episode is not hitting for me at all, despite being fairly well written. there's lots of good stuff: faith is here again, buffy is being evil in dream visions, buffy's side of her romantic dialogue is competently written and sweet in a very realistic way. but it's just not hitting for me. hmm.

in this episode willow wears a dark t-shirt over a light long-sleeved shirt and a floor-length skirt. i know this is just late 90s/early 2000s fashion but i can't help but think of it as "roselalondecore"

season 4 episode 16 ("who are you?")

i put the show down for a few days and returned to it and NOW we're talking. this is THE GOOD SHIT. actors pretending to be their own character who is secretly another character pretending to be their own character. the watcher council is doing something fucked up. faith is vriska.

the motif of faith mocking "because it's wrong!" turning into "because it's wrong /srs" at the end was well-written

tara got to be helpful! and not as a team, but on her own!

the tara/willow development is very good

season 4 episode 17 ("superstar"):

this ep feels like it's partially a commentary on self-inserts and maybe the way people interact with fiction more broadly?

makes me think about all the wild stuff i've seen in self-insert fanfiction. in one longfic from [redacted fandom] i saw several years ago, the self-insert protag was a mary sue of the old breed, and in addition to being extremely good at saving the world, she would take time off to be a world-class figure skating prodigy. figure skating did not exist in the original canon setting and no explanation for the worldbuilding change was given.

and tbh that's GUTS. that's SPIRIT. it's easy to laugh at from the outside, but in truth, that's a deeply honest and sincere approach to writing and i can really respect it.

honestly i need some of that energy in my own writing. i think it was cat valente who said that in order to write a novel in a month, you simply can't afford to waste time not believing you're a genius? gotta internalize that

season 4 episode 18 ("where the wild things are")

spike continues to be delightful. his "well this might as well happen" expression is very good

tara/willow development is deeply charming

i want anya to be just a liiiittle bit weirder than she is, i think. just a liiiiittle bit wackier, meaner, stranger, whatever, so long as it's more.

aww giles gets passionate about treating teens right, that's cute

further reactions to btvs season 4 episode 7 ("the initiative"), previous liveblogging here, and also this is the link to the beginning of my season notes

the transition/reveal for TA guy's secret was really well done, it was perfectly paced, just, the slooooow realization set in and i was like nO. NO WAY OMFG

and. THE PROFESSOR TOO??????? ASJDHFKASJDFKAJSDF ASJFKASJDFKJASDFJKASJD

this episode is unhinged holy shit

buffy and the not-so-random TA are from different genres

spike has spent this whole season running pathetically from various dangers. i am HERE for it.

season 4 episode 8 ("pangs"):

me when i realize this is a thanksgiving episode: oh huh maybe it'll be cute! or ironic!

me when i realize they're centering the plot around a chumash artifact: uh. i am not sure i trust joss whedon with this material

at one point a character says "the chumash used to be indigenous to this region" WHAT DO U MEAN "USED TO BE" there were chumash kids who went to my high school lmfao shut the fuck up

i guess that answers the question of which uc campus "uc sunnydale" is supposed to be.

i really want to concentrate on spike's tremendous poor little meow meow impression in this episode but joss whedon is making it REALLY HARD

i'm scrutinizing this mission interior shot like "is this the [redacted hometown location] mission or were the spanish just chronically uncreative"

season 4 episode 9 ("something blue"):

y'know i was just thinking "hm it's been a while since we had a willow-creates-a-magical-mishap episode"...

me muttering to myself: secondhand embarrassment is the fun-killer

impeccable. no notes

season 4 episode 10 ("hush"):

i had to google weetabix. i've heard of it many times via pop culture but i didn't actually know what it was. i'm distressed by the fact that wikipedia is saying the phrase "breakfast cereal" but showing something that looks distinctly milk-less. it looks like a brick?

poor giles needs a break

did? they say? tara? is that? THE tara?

oooh i KNEW the vocal recognition thing would come up in a later episode, hello everyone it is i, the plot anticipater

lotta great gags so far

i enjoy the blocky monitors and futuristic-for-1998 aesthetic of the underground organization; this episode has a number of quick cuts between them and the main characters that enables parallels and contrasts between the futuristic paramilitary aesthetic and the aesthetic of "we're at giles' house wearing graphic t-shirts and dusty ancient tomes are strewn across the table"

this episode is fun because it highlights how incidental dialogue is to much tv. viewers tend to prioritize dialogue in some ways, but often the dialogue is just filler, or telling audiences what the visual language is already shouting.

periodically this show is like "hi. we would like to remind you that giles has game. it's very important to recall that giles has game. this has been a psa"

[annoyingloudmicrowavecultist]

for the ask game im going to do one character i love and one character i assume you like: midori turn to die hiyori and claire witchs heart

ooh thank you!! okay. okay. hm. hmmm. putting this under the cut because it’s Long.

edit: i had all of this typed out and it got deleted because tumblr hates me i’m sorry it took so long </3

midori:

do i like them:

character-wise yes. very good villain. however uhh *guestures to my icon* i unfortunately care too much about shin and maple. and midori has made me feel physically ill on multiple occasions …

5 good qualities:

oh boy.

- scarf + green hair good thematically and as a visual indicator

- weird eyes and permanently in a state of leaning in uncomfortably close = effective character design

- creepy enough in 3-1a with the painting and shin ai and still somehow gets worse

- his dialogue is funny… i can’t believe he responds to the yabusame death with yahoo 😊

- uhh uhhh good at acting sometimes kind of???

3 bad qualities:

i don’t even know what to say. he’s… himself… any answer i give would just be the obvious to anyone who’s played the game

favourite episode/etc:

i think my favourite midori moment is definitely the classroom scene with sara and ranmaru? i don’t know why though

otp:

midori x the contract

brotp:

midori + meister but not in an actual friends way i just think the fact that he’s scared of meister is interesting

ot3:

midori x the contract x his pen

notp:

like. all of them? except idk gashu or meister but those are just funny. i saw a surprising amount of maple and midori fluff content in the tags after 3b though and there’s so little maple content as is… sigh

best quote:

hurrghghhhghghghhghhghhhhhh….!!

headcanon:

i can’t come up with a serious one so.. he programmed maple in scratch

claire (🥰🥰🥰):

do i like them:

absolutely she’s a great protagonist. typical good hearted hero while displaying realistic emotion and still acting like a person… love it.

5 good qualities:

- dumbass /pos

- she’s willing to make the effort to understand other people when pushed and despite knowing the bad they have the potential to do she still believes in their capacity to do good. i love her

- she’s blue. blue is good

- she tries so hard to be there for the others and cheer people up… my girl

- maybe this is stereotypical hero stuff but i still appreciate that she sticks up for herself and calls like the fuck out

3 bad qualities:

how the hell am i going to do this

- i like her casual outfit but saturated brown next to strong dark blue has always been…. not my fave. it just reminds me of the tombliboo i used to hate vehemently when i was 5

- dumbass /pos

- basically the first info you get under her portrait is that she works out for fun…

favourite episode/etc:

when she yells at lime in the sirius conclusion like yes girlboss call her out

otp:

her and noel…. they’re so sweet i’m sorry. i want happiness for noel and she deserves to know who he is. if she doesn’t remember he’s her childhood friend when we eventually get noel’s conclusion i’m quitting

brotp:

sirius easy. ultimate siblings they’re so funny together

ot3:

i… don’t know if i have a shippy ot3 with her? claire, noel and sirius make me emotional though. also her, noel and rouge should interact as a trio. i need it

notp:

hm. i mean i see her and sirius as siblings so they’re kinda squicky…. also maybe her and lime because i wouldn’t be able to enjoy it seriously

best quote:

something something SCP.. i would find some of her quotes surrounding trust from bonus stage but i’m lazy

headcanon:

claire really likes interior design. she would download so much sims custom content and probably a few viruses along with it

[mm2305]

Hello, hello! This week, we are going on a little:

Home Tour!

Notes: Answer the following with pictures (dialogue from your characters is optional!). Collages are highly encouraged if you want to answer a question with multiple pictures because tumblr mobile only allows 10 total pics. Otherwise, tumblr on a desktop lets you add multiple pictures (non-beta)!

For both:

What does the outside of the home look like? (Front/back yard, garden, pool, etc)

Living room and home office (if any)?

Kitchen and dining room?

Bedrooms? (Master, guest, others)

Other rooms?

Do you own your dream home? If not, what does that dream home look like?

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Hey Bree! Sorry for responding so late (again lol). I'm no expert at interior design so please bear with me. Once again this was great to do and thank you for doing this my dear. Without a further ado, let's go!

Note : these are answered not as newlyweds but about 6 years into their marriage.

{Previous parts here}

****

Olivia *calling out * : Babe are the girls ready?

Ethan *rushing down the stairs holding two small bags* : Yeah all good, Liv! Vic, Lisa go say bye to mommy.

*the two little girls run over to where Olivia is standing and hug her tightly*

Olivia : Be good for auntie Sienna okay?

Both the girls : yes mommy! Love youu

Olivia : I love you too my princesses. Now go with daddy. Have fun!

Ethan *kissing Liv's forehead* : I'll be back in 30 minutes, love. When is Bree coming?

Olivia : In about an hour or so. Drive safe baby.

Ethan : always

----an hour later----

*doorbell rings and Olivia opens the door*

Bree : Hey Liv!

Olivia : Bree! Come in!

Bree : thank you. How are you all doing?

Olivia : we're good. You know the usual. How about you? Can I get you some coffee, tea? Oh I have some cupcakes too if you want.

Bree : A coffee would be nice, thank you. So a house tour today! Are you excited?

Olivia : Oh yes! But Ethan popped down to leave the girls to Sienna, he must be arriving any minute--

Ethan : Darling I'm home!

Olivia : there he is.

*Ethan comes in and hugs Liv*

Ethan : Welcome to our home Bree. How have you been?

Bree : Everything's good, thanks for asking. So ready to start the tour?

Olivia : Let's go!

Front door, pool/backyard etc

Olivia : Okay, you saw the front door but I assume you need some photos right?

Bree : that's right.

Ethan : okay the let's go from there.

Olivia : We really fell in love with this house because there are so many large windows allowing plenty of light inside. I know it seems like a traditional American home but I adore it.

Bree : It's beautiful.

Ethan : Going to the back is the garden/backyard. We allow the girls only here because it's protected and there's tons of space for them to run around.

Olivia : We also added furniture here because we always love hanging out and eating here. Plus it's great for parties and having our friends over.

Living room and home office

Ethan : technically we have two living rooms.

Olivia : Yes, one is larger and more "formal" while the other is more cozy and the decor is a bit different. The whole house is in tones of white, blues, greys and black,while this room is a bit warmer. We have the TV there and a little bit of something else.

Bree : Wow your home is truly beautiful. Liv, I didn't know you played.

Olivia : Thank you Bree. I actually took years of lessons as a kid and teen. Then with college and med school it was pushed to the back. Ethan didn't know about it till we met my parents who still had my baby grand tuned. *going over to the piano and softly stroking the keys* Ethan got me this as a gift for our 5th wedding anniversary. The girls love to hear me play and they seem interested in music too... Want me to play you a piece?

Bree : Wow.. I mean.. If you're sure...

Olivia *smiling* : Take a seat.

*Olivia plays a soft yet cheerful tune on the piano. She finishes and gets up to the applause of Ethan and Bree*

Olivia : Thank you guys. Alright let's move to the office.

Ethan : We try to not bring work back home, but we need the office on the days we need to work from home. We added the library too, so this room is more than a workplace.

Olivia *smirking* : sure is. Plenty of uses for this room. Right darling?

Ethan : Let's move to the kitchen.

Kitchen and dining room

Olivia : This is our dining room and straight ahead the kitchen.

Olivia : I just love the black wood on the kitchen and there's so much counter space.

Ethan : We spend lots of time here because we both enjoy cooking together, but also because our girls are very into it too. They like to have us cut their vegetables, for example, into shapes and arrange then in their plates. Or baking with Liv. It's a mess after but it's worth it.

Olivia *smiling* : Totally worth it

Bedrooms (master, kids, guest)

Ethan : Upstairs we have all the bedrooms. This is our master bedroom and bathroom.

Ethan : Olivia really outdid herself with our bedroom. The colors are so calming.

Olivia : Thanks babe. The bedrooms next to ours are the girls' ones.

Ethan : in the future, if they agree, we're thinking of them moving into a single room. They are pretty close and even now, they are together all the time, they just sleep in different beds.

Olivia : Lastly down the hall is the guest room.

Other rooms?

Olivia : Back to our bedroom we go!! My darling Bree I present you our walk in closet!

Olivia : I've wanted to have this as soon as we saw the house so we had some alterations to the house plan and ta-da!

Ethan : She's always so excited to be here.

Olivia : It's my paradise Ethan. Now let's go to the basement.

Ethan : This is our bar/adult playroom.

Olivia : Aka his man cave.

Ethan : I am not going to comment on that. Besides your friends are here all the time too so it is not a man cave.

Olivia : Whatever you say babe. He did a good work with the decor. All by himself. I'm still seriously impressed.

Ethan *chuckles* : You are so surprised

Olivia : You can't blame me. Now the last room. Our very own home theater!!

Olivia : definitely one of the best decisions I've ever made. We needed this in our home.

Ethan : I wanted a home gym but she convinced me to do this instead.

Olivia : Pf please. There are plenty of gyms around but this? Our own place to watch movies? Just relaxing and doing nothing but cuddling and --

Ethan : Okay you're right, we know it, love.

Olivia *grinning*: We've been together for years, yet these words remain my all time favorite.

Ethan : *lovingly rolls eyes and smiles*

Do you own your dream home?

Ethan : We do.

Olivia : Absolutely. When we got married we decided we would stay at Ethan's apartment for a couple of years, then look for a house. We did intend to have a family so...

Ethan : We bought this house around the start of Liv's second pregnancy with Elisa and by the time she gave birth the house was ready to be furnished. We moved here about 3 months later, with lots of help from our family and friends.

Olivia : And this home, every part of it, was shaped by both of us so we do love living here.

What is your favorite room to spend time in with each other?

Ethan : Well... Aside firm the bedroom... The "informal" living room. There are days we'll just be sitting, Liv playing and me reading and just being together. It's the moments of calm that we need and keep us going.

Olivia : Plus, it's the place we spend time with our girls as a family. We always make sure to have time for them every day, despite our schedules. We want them to feel close to us and *holding Ethan's hand and looking at him* I think we are doing a pretty good job with them.

Bree : Honestly, I have no doubt that you do. Thank you for having me here guys, your home is absolutely fantastic.

Ethan : It's always a pleasure Bree.

Bree : I'll see you both soon, then. Have a great afternoon!

Olivia : You too Bree!

*****

A/N : so this is it! Thank you for reading this!

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