#but!! I think I executed my vision fairly well

[sri-rachaa]

Man of the year || Milo Greer

[alevolpe]

Please tell us about Luna (and Artemis)!

Alright!

Luna as I mentioned here was a part of the rebellion group that included Beryl and the 4 kings back in the silver millennium, she was a crucial part of the operation as she was the only one with direct access to the Moon Kingdom and the Queen.

Though let me take it back a second and explain who Luna is. The name Luna isn’t her name per se, but more of a title/position in the royal court that is passed down. The role of a Luna is given to a human woman whose job is to be a caretaker, specifically she’s the caretaker for any reborn senshi.

Say the current Mercury does anything that gets her executed, the new Mercury will be reborn on Earth and it’s Luna’s job to take her from her human parents and raise her til the age where she’s mature enough to be independent.

Additionally, since it happens that a whole life of a Luna can pass by without her even needing to take care of any senshi ( read more on how old the senshis are here, in the comments) she also is entasked with small roles as advisor for the queen and mediator during Earth expeditions, both of these jobs are her responsibility ONLY if it has to do with the senshi.

Our Luna didn’t raise any of the senshi, they are all adults when she is given the title of Luna, despite that Luna still tries to be there for (most of) them like a mother would. She feels for them and understands the terrible situations they’re in. That said she’s not treated well by all of them, really the only ones that treat her nicely and with respect are Mars and Neptune, and in her own way Mercury.

Luna is very passionate, even in her current life, she’s very driven by a sense of justice, while also having a very compassionate heart toward the people she’s supposedly betraying. Though she’s never swayed to think that what she’s doing isn’t right, the people of Earth deserve better and for that, the Moon Kingdom has to fall, even if she knows it means most likely means the death of the senshi and the princess.

She’s eventually discovered and executed, Mars tipping off the Queen to her doings. Mars is a very interesting character in silmil and she’s def the most “lawful good” out them all, but with her future vision, she does what she has to make sure the pieces fall into place for a better future. She knew Luna’s execution was the only opening for such future, so she regrettably did what she had to do. There’s 0 animosity between them, more like a mutual respect and liability. They never talked about such issues openly between each other, but there was always a silent mutual understanding. Mars understood Luna’s actions and Luna’s understood Mars’.

Skipping to the current time, the same Luna that was executed was reincarnated into the body of a cat, my theory is that cats are nimble, low key creatures who are able to fairly easily integrate into society while still not being human and so that’s why the Queen chose such form. She didn’t want Luna to be a human cause she doesn’t need Luna to stick around long, cats live much shorter lives and she only needs Luna to care of the senshi during their ‘transitioning training’ period and then die, having fulfilled her purpose.

All Luna’s memories were erased, only keeping very foggy, but clear goals in her mind. Awaken the senshi, find the princess and stop the evil Dark Kingdom. I like to think Queen Serenity chose this past Luna to reincarnate instead of just getting a fresh new soul because Luna already carried that sort of experienced motherly vibe with her, making it easier the ease the senshi into accepting their new destiny, but also maybe as a sort of taunting punishment. This is your punishment for your betrayal, you’ll unknowingly help defeat the same group you were a part of all those years ago and that empire you tried to destroy, will rise once again, with you knowing no better and dying before even getting to witness it.

As for Artemis, my ideas with him are definitely not as fleshed out. I most often tend to see him as the royal advisor of the Queen, his name also being a title. He really believes the Queen to be a sort of superior being, but he does also have a deeper attachment to her, seeing the more human side to her, which no1 else really gets to see.

He’s a bit more on the cynical side when it comes to the Earth people. Not that he sees them as completely inferior, but he believes people like them need beings like Serenity to mantain peace and order, even if they don’t know better. Humans are inherently selfish and self-destructive, he witnessed it, being a human who grew up on Earth.

He regularly interacted with Venus, being another victim of her manipulations, even if not to the level of Serenity, and holds her to a standard higher than the other senshi, seeing the rest of them as unmotivated and ungrateful of being a part of the court.

Unlike Luna, he retained his memories when he got reincarnated. Lying and withholding information to the true extent of what the senshi, the princess and the kingdom truly entail to the future of the girls and Earth itself, even from Luna.

He believes he’s doing the right thing, that Queen Serenity knew better and that this is how things should be. Though in the back of his mind something doesn’t feel right, he feels hurt and betrayed. Why was he reborn as a cat? He understands why Luna was, but why him, he showed nothing but devotion and loyalty to the Queen. Did he really not mean anything to her or does she really know best and knows that Artemis’ fate is ultimately inconsequential to the rise of the new kingdom?

This conflict within him is a major part of his growth as a character, learning to unwind and truly rethink what being human means through the girls and especially through Mina.

Regarding their relationship, I really do not ship Luna and Artemis. Through the majority of the first arc Luna is left in the dark by him and lead to make decisions that ultimately will cause the girls more harm than good. They are coworkers at best and even after stuff get a lil cleared out, Luna still holds a huge resentment toward him never really gets resolved (in my hc, Luna doesn’t live past the 2nd season, sorry, ik, I love her too).

This is long I know , sorry. LOL, but hopefully it clears some things up and of course all I write int his asks is still a draft, so stuff might change.

[hotwaterandmilk]

No Accounting for Taste

I've never been accused of having "good taste" when it comes to, well, any type of media. However, when it comes anime/manga I find I'm accused of being contrarian or ignoring genuinely "good" titles in favour of "bad" ones fairly often.

While that's not exactly groundless, it doesn't paint the full picture of what I find interesting and why it intrigues me so I thought I'd write about it a little.

I like a lot of popular, agreed upon "good" titles where a masterful artist or team or artists executes a beautiful vision that may not get everything right, but still manages to tick the majority of boxes and leave the audience remembering the experience for years to come (something like Shoujo Kakumei Utena or Cowboy Bebop, for example).

However, these series don't tend to be the ones I obsess about and collect things from and that comes down to the fact that I just love an interesting mess. Something that catches my attention in a unique way despite not having the story weight/talent/etc. to pull it all off.

You know those series with a fantastic concept but terrible execution? Or series with a couple of genuinely fascinating characters and mediocrity across the board otherwise? Yeah, those are what I love.

That doesn't mean I turn my head and ignore these flaws (Akihabara Dennou-gumi for example has a fantastic backdrop of alchemy, but that doesn't excuse the disgusting fanservice or explain piss-poor overall production).

If anything, I find those flaws intriguing in their own right (how does something with so much promise end up failing to stick the landing? Why were these the directions these titles took?) and learning about why they happened can continue to fuel my interest in the titles years after I've first experienced them.

And of course what is "good" and what is "bad" is extremely subjective, not everyone will agree on what the "best" title of all time is no matter how many fans you survey. I think what matters to me at the end of the day is that, for whatever reason, an eclectic assortment of titles have just hit me at the exact right point in my life for me to become engrossed by their eccentricities, flaws, and yes, even their successes.

That's why you'll find me sharing the odd scan from genre-defining titles like Sailor Moon, but when it comes to tearing apart art books and tracking down obscure pieces of stationery, I reserve that kind of dedication for Wedding Peach because it just hit me different 25+ years ago and I still can't shake it (despite the series being what it is).

Anyway, Saturdays are a real brain fog day for me because Friday is when I take my weekly meds so, err, this isn't a particularly articulate examination of my interests or anything. I just got to thinking last night that I find Ryuu-ou Mahoujin more intriguing than GALS! despite the former being a short-lived, break-neck paced mess of a production and the latter being a clearly thought out and popular title from the same author.

I'm also currently re-watching Kamichama Karin and it is such a hot mess of things I can't stand and things that make me genuinely go "what was Koge-Donbo* thinking?" but these flaws compel me to keep pressing play on episode after episode.

I just feel that at the end of the day there's enough room in the world for all of us to enjoy different problematic faves and to highlight successes without pretending failures don't also exist. Every project whether it ends up "good" or "bad" has a team of individuals doing their best on it and I think that's something that resonates with me even if the end product is a total mess.

Sometimes a project veers away from the course it was meant to take and never becomes what it could have been, but those trace elements of brilliance can get noticed by someone who experienced the title at the right time and vibed with the core concepts regardless of the execution.

So creators, take heed, even if the project you work on doesn't end up an iconic series with millions of fans there will always be weirdos like me out there that love the memorable parts of what you did manage to do while also noting the bits you got wrong. Sometimes one person's trash really is someone else's treasure (and yes you'll have to pry Wedding Peach et al. from my cold, dead hands).

[dangerouscommiesubversive]

Unsurprisingly, I think, "post the nasty one first" has won out on my fic poll. It's looking like it may be a shorter story than the nice one, which is probably good, since after it ends there'll be a continuing gentle palate cleanser. In any case, I wanted to share a couple of snippets from this thing, which I only started writing a few days ago. It's consuming me! Fun! This is a ghost story based on a fairly straightforward divergence from MDZS novel canon--instead of protecting Xue Yang, the Jin decide that he's more trouble than he's worth and succumb to the pressure from other sects to have him executed. Naturally, this turns out to be a much worse decision than letting him live would have been.

The dark thing in Song Lan’s grip was still for a moment, doing nothing more than staring at him, but then those eyes within its lack of face sharpened into something terribly familiar, and a sweet, soft voice said, “Come on, Song-daozhang, don't you recognize me?”

Song Lan's skin prickled. His grip on the dark thing released in a moment of convulsive horror. “Xue Yang.”

“Who else do you think would be bothering with you two? Do you kill so many people?”

Another moment of horrified staring before Song Lan got control of himself and tried to call out, to wake Xiao Xingchen up, but that sleep-worsened delay was already too long–in a flurry of terrible energy Xue Yang was already on him, no longer a mass of awful shadow but a man, gray-faced and clearly dead but somehow not decaying even though it must have been nearly two weeks since Lanling Jin had disposed of his body. He knelt straddling Song Lan's legs, looming impossibly as he did–he hadn't, couldn't have been so tall in life, Song Lan himself had been the tallest man in every room since the week after his sixteenth birthday, Xue Yang hadn't even come up to his chin–and his cold hand was wrapped around Song Lan's throat. Despite this, Song Lan still tried to shout, moved to shake off Fuxue’s scabbard and attack, to do something.

The chilly grip tightened, but even as it did Xue Yang said, “Go on, daozhang. Call for him.”

“Xiao–”

Xue Yang's lips sealed over his and the name stuck in his throat. Then, shockingly, the choking hand tightened further, and he felt an awful sense of movement, as if the unsaid name was a physical thing that Xue Yang were pushing up his windpipe and towards his mouth–and it was, he could feel the name on his tongue for a bare moment before Xue Yang took in a deep, sucking breath and swallowed it.

The hand on his throat released and he gasped for air, and Xue Yang shuddered and then said, in his voice, “Xiao-Xing-chen.” A broad, awful grin–his teeth no longer looked as they should, too sharp and too numerous. “Oh, wow, I didn't know I could do that. But then again, daozhang, there's a lot of things I wouldn't be able to do if not for you two.”

Song Lan tried to respond and no words came out. Brow wrinkling, he tried again, but although he could feel everything in its right place in his chest and throat, when he opened his mouth no sound emerged.

“Oh, wow, is it totally gone? Did I shut daozhang up for good?” Xue Yang watched, fascinated, as he tried with mounting panic to speak, and when it became clear that nothing was going to happen leaned forward and patted him condescendingly on the cheek. “Well, then! Good luck with that, daozhang.” Once more he dissolved into the terrible patch of night that he’d been when Song Lan woke. “Not that I won't see you again soon, obviously.”

He leaked out of the room like smoke and left Song Lan sitting up in bed, mouth open, silent.

If this intrigues you, it'll be a bit before the fic starts going up, but you're welcome to check out the playlist, which I made ages and ages ago and then when I listened to it last week I was seized by visions.

[esxvspy]

YTTD THEORY ABOUT THE THIRD MAIN GAME IN THE LOGIC/SHIN ROUTE

(Spoilers obviously if you haven’t played all the way through the game)

So I saw some else have an idea similar to this, but here’s what I think the card roles are going to be then I’ll explain why

Shin - keymaster

Keiji- sage

Sara - sacrifice

Gin - commoner

Ok so shin is 100% going to be the keymaster, that’s easy. I figured he was going to be ever since we saw his key necklace in chapter 2-2. He also quite literally holds the key to their escape/survival. He can either lock Sara and co out, like in chapter 1 and kind of chapter 2, or he can open up like in chapter 2-2. And he needs to choose what he wants to seal the fate of the others.

Sara is also easily the sacrifice. She can either sacrifice the others and earn her life, like we see her almost do in chapter 3-1b w ranmaru. Especially now that joe is not there, this could be the case, the angel of death like keiji says. Or she could be their goddess of victory, and sacrifice herself in order to save the others.

Keiji is probably the wisest out of them. He can see things others can’t with his “detective vision”. He knows way more then he seems to let on, and he’s very good at staying quiet and keeping secrets when needed.

Gin is going to be the commoner then. He’s fairly normal and average at first and just like the commoner card he’s almost always at danger. But he always tries to help when he can and has proven to be useful.

Like I said someone else pointed out the symbolism w this, but I think it’s more then that. If I’m right and these are the cards that they get, then that probably means that Sara and keiji are biting the dust. (Maybe gin too but I hope not 😰.) Sara will be executed just like joe, and this probably means, just by looking at shin’s death in 2-2 and Kai’s “death” (I really don’t believe he’s dead) in chapter 1, then keiji is probably going to do something against what the floormasters want. Like shin’s collar coming off and Kai’s “suicide” (still don’t believe he’s dead). Idk what he’s going to do or how it’s going to be done, but yeah.

This would also line up almost perfectly with the memorandum from 2-2. Assuming gin dies as well, and sole survivor shin, then it fits perfectly.

Anyways that’s my Ted talk of the day

[ghost-town-story]

Hi I'm a few days late (by my own standards) with this but in my defense every single day of December so far I've either been working or in school so I feel I'm justified lol

Anyways to explain what's going on here, another November has passed, and with it another of my NaNo stories turns heckin 10 years old. Who the fuck gave it the right, huh? So, in the spirit of nostalgia and cringe I'mma reread it, and since I'm now an adult with adult money who can buy herself some gotdamned alcohol, I'm also making drinking rules to deal with the inevitable cringe lmao

(Obligatory disclaimer that NaNo the org is fuckin trash and I do not endorse them, but NaNo as an event will always have a special place in my heart and I'm basically kidnapping it from the org now)

The rules are simple: 1. Drink whenever I cringe 2. Drink whenever there's a blatant case of me padding the fuckin word count (in this case, dream sequences lol)

And with that, I once again have my kitty, I have my snaccs, I unfortunately do not have my emotional support wine but I do have peach wine which'll have to do, so let's go

Time to reread Nova draft 1 for the first time since........ whenever I reread it last and sparked the eternal rewrite hell I'm in now lmao

Okay so this intro is like....... not great but also hella?? Like the whole "showing Will missing James" is *chef's kiss* but the execution is..... needs work lmao

Ah yes, the days when Aydan was hella fuckin traumatized before the events of Nova ever happened lol

Liam's gf is named after my tenor buddy from high school aaaaaah <3

LMAOOOOOO fuckin perspective change mid paragraph hell yeah *cries* we're doing so great y'all

............................. well I'm gonna take a huge ass drink bc oh lord, things that shoulda tipped me off that my brain is some form of neurospicy a long ass time ago

But also hell yeah, cute Summer Aydan moment. for fuckin once they are so mildly catty to each other now lol (Summer is overprotective and smothering and Aydan gets sassy in response and Summer gets catty back lol)

I thought he wore colored contacts in this draft. I THOUGHT HE WORE COLORED CONTACTS IN THIS DRAFT. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

Yeah amnesiac Jay was the best fucking decision I ever made for this story bc oh lord Jay's motivations for why Will can't know his identity are tissue paper fuckin thin anyways if you need me I'll be singing Frozen bc that's the association my brain is making rn lol

CONCEAL DON'T FEEL DON'T LET THEM KNOOOOOOOOW

*ahem* anyhoot

I......... I'm fairly certain that's not vertigo, that's just shitty fuckin depth perception from having shit vision in one eye my dude

Ah yes, when Lai was an important character cause he was one of the only ones XD

Oh yeah and nobody tells Jay shit lmaoooo "oh btw she's Summer's cousin" "SERIOUSLY????" (this also happens later. something about their uncles dating. i think i've posted it before lol. we'll get there soon enough) lmaooooo and Lai calls Jay out for his lack of knowledge anyways cause he's supposed to know this shit XD

Lai isn't being an absolute gotdamned asshole and somehow this is worse

(also one of my classmates texted me for unrelated reasons anybody wanna take bets on how long before that conversation devolves because i'm already half a glass of wine in XD)

Jay being stalkery! Wahoo!!

oh antisocial bb Aydan <333 who's also a smartass <33333 and a bb <3333333

And meanwhile Jay is continuing to be creeper stalkery :P

oh bb yeah. yeah. I used to be snappy about my height lol. sorry bb that's where you're getting your snappiness from XD

fuckin Will lmao

And now is when the tissue paper motivations piss me off even more!!!!

"They never found his body" correction! y'all's mom never found his body. Baz did ;)

JAY. JAY NO. READ THE FUCKING ROOM MY BOY. ABSOFUCKINLUTELY NOT LMAO

"oh jeez i didn't mean to cause problems" says the boy who is knowingly causing problems by keeping his identity a secret

"I'm not going to make it personal" says the boy who complicates everything by making it personal i think we need to add a tally/drinking rule for every time Jay says a blatant lie XD

Oh god once again I have been smacked with the knowledge that originally Heron, Gray, and Owl were supposed to be teenagers, like barely older than Jay

And I have also been smacked with the knowledge that Seanna, Starlight-now-Sora, and Cal were always a part of the group in this version! forgot the fuck about that!

Wait. wait wait wait wait wait. Is Basil older than Heron Gray and Owl????????

WHY ARE THESE MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE JAY????? WHY ARE YOUR DAMN MOTIVATIONS LIKE GOTDAMN NEWSPAPER IN THE RAIN

bb aydan <3333333

Jay now is not the time to be flirting ffs

lmaoooooo this was based off my fucking high school geometry class. fuck that weird ass project.

Aydan my darling with an Ed Elric-sized temper <333333333

"If you're going to be taking junior classes [as a freshman] try not to act your age so much" damn Summer what the fuck "Geometry isn't even a junior class it's a sophomore one" yeah mood lmao

Jay "sit here and look pretty" Miles you have not changed in that regard <3

Imma be honest, this scene is very what the fuck. Like, even understanding the subtext that I was trying to bury, I Do Not Get this scene. It's so fuckin disjointed and just. Will's parents have nothing to do with the unnamed past trauma. Why are they basically being equated here???? I don't fucking know!!!!! this, my friends, is why I drink when rereading ~decade old writing now XD

"I'm not stupid," says the boy who, historically, has made a lot of stupid decisions XD

LMAO "philosophy's a bitch" FUCKIN PREACH WILL I HATED THAT CLASS SO MUCH AND I ONLY TOOK IT CUZ OF A BITCH I CUT CONTACT WITH ALMOST IMMEDIATELY AFTER HIGH SCHOOL (she has a name in my storytime series. I do Not Remember it rn. nor do I care. She was a gotdamned bitch lol)

"Fuck philosphy" again gotdamn PREACH Will

HI WILLOW WHO IS FRESHLY STOLEN FROM COFAS AT THIS POINT :DDDD

Ah yes "I didn't know Summer and Aydan were related until River told me they were his nieces." "Is everybody related and I just don't know about it?" "BTW River is your uncle's ex-boyfriend" XDDDDD (ex only bc said uncle (Hayden) fuckin DIED rip in pieces Hayden you're officially ded for realsies in Nova canon nowadays)

Ah back in the ol' days when cellphones weren't ubiquitous and forgetting yours wouldn't be a gotdamn death sentence lol

THE FUCK PHILOSOPHY AGENDA CONTINUES

Jay. My dude. My buddy. Considering you know (i think) about the Past Traumas. you really shoulda maybe TOLD HER THE FUCKING TRUTH EARLIER. like i know this is rushed bc of outside circumstances (probs i was tired of writing high school shenanigans) but ma dude. pls.

Jay out here writing the "how to make your gf's cousin hate you forever" manual lol

Oh Lai now is NOT the time lmao Hell yeah Willow bitchin out Lai for being a bitch lol

oh good fucking lord i did not have the antagonists planned out well in this AT ALL

KAI!! I thought that was Baz at first and I was gonna cry bc I was confused at how old Baz is in this draft lol

Oh lord the exposition I was so terrible at it lol

"What do you want? A dramatic reunion scene where we admit our feelings to each other and shit?" lmaoooooo jokes on you Jay y'all are hella gay for each other now XDDDD (he's talking to Baz here)

Baz is 19. Jay is 17. So are Heron Gray and Owl meant to be 18 or are they even younger than Jay????? That's..... noooooo

"I left Aydan with River." "Oh yeah, they are related" "Goddammit why does everybody know this but me"

Lol this dynamic has flipflopped. Baz is now the one who freaks out when things don't go the way he plans and Jay's the one like "Babe. pls. not your fault. pls chill."

god they're so gay but like i don't even think they're exes here! it's just a bunch of homorerotic subtext that I never do shit with!!!!

OH MY GOD. HE IS WEARING COLORED CONTACTS. BUT JUST TO HIDE THE NOVA RINGS. WHAT THE FUUUUUCK DUDE SO MUCH EFFORT WOULDA BEEN AVOIDED IF YOU JUST WORE BROWN CONTACTS NOT YOUR HETEROCHROMATIC ASS

Ah yes the inability to sleep on his own. He still kinda has that trait. But more in the crossover from hell bc he's spent ages sleeping next to Baz and/or Aydan

And we come upon our first dream-sequence-added-for-word-padding folks! 15/83 pages in!!

*ahem* I accidentally fell asleep XD Day 2 shenanigans commence here

I still have no idea how old Heron Gray and Owl are supposed to be here smh

*hissssss* this is not my Basil *throws tomatoes*

But also Catnip <333333

The bones are there. The bones are so there. If they weren't I wouldn't've resurrected this from the dead and into eternal WIP hell. but gotdamn is this so painfully disjointed and cliche and aaaaaaaah

Wait does this make me a WIP necromancer? lmao ............................. GODDAMMIT I DON'T NEED ANOTHER WIP IDEA AAAAAAAAH

*ahem* anyhoot

Jay ya dramatic mothafluffa lol

Also Jay you are no doctor and those symptoms are vague enough that it might not mean shit about her nova (it does, but I'm still gonna rag on him bc it's so nonspecific lol)

Anyways bb snuggle times!!! :D

Aydan: is very blatantly told not to bring anything with her, and very clearly does not bring anything with her Also Aydan: has a book she brought with her in this scene. bc why not

Oh I thought we never went into the backstory trauma explicitly! Guess I fuckin forgot!!!! Never mind it's like bare ass bones detail lmao

God I can't believe I posted this on Figment Once again, rip Figment and also it's probably for the best since I'm a gotdamn digital packrat

Ah yes, hello Molly. I only semi-recently-ish added you back into Nova Also lmao Jay you are being so gotdamn unsubtle right now :P

Okay this is more like the Basil I know and love :D Sassing Jay and kicking his ass when he's sick <3

Awwww gay bbs <3

JAAAAAAAAY <33333333333333 I know I've been sassing this version of him hard but THAT'S MY BB RIGHT THERE

lol oh Basil jealousy never looks good on you XD (It's not even jealousy it's just. sir you've been introduced to her. Jay's probably waxing poetic in his free time. you should know her gotdamn name)

lmao still so true Jay really doesn't like making people worry about him

DREAM SEQUENCE TWO BAYBE actually this one might not've been to pad the word count, I think it was a strategically placed flashback due to Jay being sick as fuck right now

Yup, strategically placed (aka the following chapter actually acknowledges the gotdamn dream sequence)

Damn, low blow there Jay lmao

heh. heheheh. there's absolutely nothing you can imply about me from this scene. absolutely nothing regarding my love of sick-fics lmao

BASIL KICKING DOWN THE DOOR WITH THE FLIRTING LMAOOO but also yeah baz stop acting like Jay sheesh this is too damn weird lol

lolllllll Heron and Owl being gayyyyyyyyy

also lmao @ me writing fucking fight scenes :P

Basil you absolute shithead lmao

Damn Will being gotdamn sassy as shit

Ah yes, the part of Will's characterization that I eventually cut bc I was not.......... it's a sensitive topic and I did not handle it the way that i shoulda. So ultimately it got cut and it may have been slightly before this but this was def in the transition stage of me going "actually, I think I should not give Will this characterization in part bc i've been fucking it up bad" but he still had some parts of it Had to get mildly called out by somebody in a writing workshop to really start having that realization, but eh, you live n you learn and you do better the next time you create a character like that, because 15-ish-year-olds are notoriously stupid even if they think they're doing good research

Anyways moving on from that tangent

Time to silently scream about Jay's tissue paper thin motivations again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lol i'm not sure if this was to pad the word count or not, but we're having a Heron-Gray-Owl intermission now!

Was Gray a Nova at this point? Or did I add that later? I def didn't have the specialties at this point so her clockwork shenanigans are just calling back to the book series I stole her from, but is she a Nova?????

LMAO Heron's upset about a book character dying whatta fuckin MOOD

lmao I'm laughing so hard that my cat just looked over at me and meowed so indignantly. sorry bb I must die over the fact I gave Heron my high-school overdramaticness about character deaths

dawwwww and now a Sora-Seanna-Cal intermission ft the best momma Cassandra!

Lol Summer you are waaaaaaaaay too late for the protective older sister/cousin talk you're trying to do here

Damn Summer really just always goes for the throat when arguing with Aydan gotdamn

lmao "I'm almost sixteen!" bb you're still just a bb <3

Will: *walks in, sees argument, immediately tries to nope outta this shit*

But hey, now we get snuggle time!!

Yeah I don't know why Jay was supposed to be a secret Nova. It's something that held on from the 0.5 draft, but even that I'm like....... why???? 0.5 draft was a fucking wild ass ride that is basically only 5 scenes long on paper and mostly lives on in my fuckin brain lol

Lmao snuggle time getting interrupted by Aydan somehow recognizing Jay's scars despite not ever actually knowing him before his nova

Lol despite it all, and despite me describing him as 2 steps from emo several times, Will's favorite color is in fact, still dark/navy blue, not black XD This is why his mask color in the Band AU is dark blue (+grey cuz of his eyes)

TISSUE! PAPER! MOTIVATIONS! FUCK YOU!!!

"I miss my parents" lol keep thinking that kid your mom gets so much worse in the rewrite <3

Okay back to the snuggles lol

And another dream sequence, this one definitely just for padding out that word count!!

pffft the "are we dating" convo got swapped over to Baz and Jay bc with Baz Jay is so fuckin clueless but by the time he n Ay are serious he actually knows fuckin words (bc words are very important when you're trying to do poly shit lol)

(side note my entire life is covered in glitter rn cuz i'm adding edible glitter to my wine :DDDDDDD)

Okay Jay that's goin straight to 1000% right there gotdamn my dude

Again, Summer, you are way too late to this party to be playing the overprotective card

And again she's going for the gotdamn throat jesus fuck Summer have a bit of chill huh?

Why the fuck is Will on Aydan's side in this??? I don't understand......

Baz seriously stop stealing Jay's personality I don't fluffin like it (tbh I think it was just a bit of the writer's version of same-face-syndrome where I only really knew how to write one sort of character. Maybe)

Ah yes the at-the-time reasonless "I want Jay to go nova first so dramatic powers explosion" scene (current reasoning for Jay going nova first despite Baz being older/a Nova for longer is that he uses too much magic closing the time rift at Almaraz) (sometimes it takes close to a decade to fix a plot hole lmao)

oh Baz <3333

Jay going nova in a safe environment cuz he knows he doesn't have much time left? *yawn* boring Jay sacrificing himself for Baz and Aydan cuz he knows he doesn't have much time left, then using his nova to hopefully hurt his mother/the government? motha fluffin *chef's kiss* right there (Especially with the added trauma to Baz of being the one to cause Jay's nova lol)

Group hug poly shenanigans! :DDDD

Oh I coulda made that hit so much harder if I had any sorta fuckin restraint and knew about/properly appreciated the trope of "one person says ily first and the other can't say it back but feels it so much" (I may have actually first encountered that in an OTGW/GF fic.......... lmao. The Mystery Best Friends is a great series. Go read it if anything about this ramble interests you. It's on AO3. I've seen 1 ep of GF and none of OTGW and I still love it with such a gotdamn passion)

Anyhoot lmao can you tell I've had a full ass glass of wine yet? :P My blood is turning to glitter as we speak <3

Oh my god I can't believe this is the first time Bay is getting some gotdamn real ass mention. he's gonna get his asshole characterization real fuckin soon tho!!

Oh I don't even describe his nova fuckin laaaaaaaaaaaaaaame (to be fair the only one i think I describe is in the Time Travel "AU" which is....... not the canon timeline in a way of speaking lmao) (TTAU my gotdamn beloved <333333)

This detail has stayed! The fact that Jay's goggles are so gotdamned attuned to him due to the initial nova lmao

WHY IS THAT TECHNICALLY A PART OF THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH JESUS FUCK okay context. I write in wall of text style. Still do. It's an awful habit i should break lmao. anyhoot. So I do full on paragraph breaks for scene changes

ya know like this, and lil shift enters like this for things that are like "continuation of the previous but but also i want a paragraph break in here for reasons" And for some fuckass reason I did the lil shift enter between a paragraph focused on Baz and Aydan and Jay's goggles and Jay waking up absofluffinlutely confused by everything and not even with his goggles yet which woulda been a very good mothafluffin transition jesus fuck my wine is too full otherwise i would drain my glass for this

Dream sequence no. I've lost count! 3?? maybe 4????? I can't math even when I'm sober lmao (which is absolutely hilarious bc I'm the best at math in my class. how. how did this happen. (engineering college is the answer tbh) my math major friend is absolutely shooketh that this is happening lol)

lollllll you can tell this was written in................... after my jaw surgery. wait was it after my jaw surgery? it's real fuckin accurate to that feeling of waking up after surgery but also was it really over a decade ago? jesus fuck i'm old (and don't remember how old/what grade i was in in 2014) Anyways mothafluffin accuracy all i wanted was some fuckin water when I was waking up after surgery and all they'd give me was gotdamn ice chips which did barely nothin (that surgery is also what gave me the knowledge that fruit punch gatorade is tasty af) (and baby food is very........ overly fruity)

Also a fuckin mood about trying to wake up and being hella unable to

Oh! by that point i'd definitely gotten my wisdom teeth out! which was probably at least part of the basis for this scene if I hadn't had the jaw surgery yet

Ah yes, back in ye olde days when Jay had fucked up eyesight (which magically got fixed after his nova bc let's be real, i kept forgetting to write that and Aydan's asthma)

Hey Bay! First time seeing you, 32 pages in! And you're immediately asserting yourself as an asshole!!!!!!

Good fucking LORD I basically swapped Jay and Basil's personalities didn't I????? Well, to be fair, maybe not really. I just... hol up lemme give you the line for context cuz I'm lazy lmao

“I never would have thought you would go nova before Basil,” Bay said, entering the room properly. “He always used his power a bit frivolously, while you… You never used your powers unless you had to, did you?”

so, in current Nova canon: 1. Baz in no way uses his power frivolously, although to Bay (who is very "no powers ever") it probably is 2. Jay is worse than Baz about using his powers. He doesn't like people healing him, but he won't fuckin hesitate to use his powers and shorten his own lifespan to protect/heal/save the people he loves 3. Bay is an asshole to Jay bc he thinks he's a liability and gonna drive Basil off the deep end into life-ending shenanigans (not entirely wrong, to be fair) 4. Basil is still probably more conservative in power usage than Jay, but that's more cuz he thinks more and can figure out ways of solving situations with minimal/no power usage, as opposed to Jay who basically goes nuclear if he has no other plan/guidance lmao

anyhoot tangent done lmao

Bay is being friendly to Jay and I am so weirded out this is worse than Baz acting like Jay

Yeah it's definitely better when Baz has the whole smackdown of his dad for running away, when his dad has been pushing him to fight his whole life vs Jay who's just a "friend" of Baz in this version I do appreciate Jay giving Bay the gotdamn snark for ditching Baz lol

Oh this is some bullshit lmao

Reunion time! <3333333

God my romance writing was Not Great back then lmao I think this was also before I ever dated somebody.................. yeah checks out (I may have had Cyrus flirting at me nonstop by this point tho) No wait I definitely did cuz Seanna is named after him! oh jeez

BRB just need to stare at the wall for a few moments contemplating what choices led to me deciding that Aydan needed this traumatic backstory (I would also say what choices led to me deciding a near sex-scene was necessary at this particular time, but let's be real I was a Cassandra Clare bitch so the reason behind the near sex-scene is the least confusing part of this)

Molly and Oliver intermission!!! Oliver is forever just a lil sweetheart <3333333

"A few weeks" YOU MEAN TO TELL ME JAY SNAGGED ANOTHER NOVA, WENT NOVA, GUILT TRIPPED BAY INTO COMING BACK, AND NEARLY BONKED AYDAN ON SCREEN WITHIN THE SPAN OF A FEW GOTDAMN WEEKS??????? BITCH TRY A FEW GOTDAMN MONTHS, MAYBE OVER HALF A GOTDAMN YEAR WHAT THE GOTDAMN FUCK?????? (not even mentioning the sick-fic arc and everything else that happened between that and Jay's explodey accident/subsequent nova)

"Jay only cares about Basil and Aydan" yeah basically lmao

Oh yeah. Definitely while Will still had the characterization I did badly. Cuz he's not in this dream sequence when he should be for plot reasons I really don't feel like explaining bc we'd be here for way too fuckin long

James the chocolate fiend has stayed! I've kept that much consistent!

(also if the typos get worse from here on out i apologize but damn my fingers are not wanting to hit the right keys and at some point i'll get too lazy to keep correcting my mistakes. the lack of capitalization should be a tipoff lmao)

This is totally not the point but the story mentions that James is the oldest son which. Is true in some universes. Not in current Nova and not in Band AU, which is where the tangent is coming from, but. that fuckin line just reminded me of the HPM AU of Band AU, where Will was the third oldest, and yet he became the oldest child and it fuckin sucks. The middle child who was never meant to be the oldest, even when his oldest brother died bc he still had his slightly older triplet brother, who then also died and absofuckinlutely ruined Will bc he was never meant to be the oldest.

Half Past Midnight is an AU that makes me cry onthe regular when I think about it!

Moving on!!

Jay you're a fucking shithead lmaooo

Oh dear. I just realized we're not even halfway through yet D: (to be fair this is 53000 words. and some of them may be notes for the rewrite/an attempt at it. but still. DDDDD:)

Ah Jay, being overly concerned with Aydan's health <3 (and overly concerned with his for the circumstances *stare*)

oh bb Oliver <3333333

Lol Molly's crush on Jay is kinda still a thing at least. or at the very least her ignoring the fuck outta Oliver following her around like a smitten puppy lol

"I'll make sure he takes care of you" I'm sorry do you actually get the opportunity to talk to Baz or are you fuckin bullshittin my dear Jay????

It is honestly so fascinating to see some of the character choices that I made. Like Boss is an active participant and not just the guy moving all the chess pieces around from his office. huh

Anyways back to the fuckin Frozen internal soundtrack lol which is funny cuz this wip definitely wasn't written to the Frozen soundtrack, unlike gotdamn CoFaS (that's a lie, when I was rewriting Nova in 2019 it was partially to the Frozen 2 soundtrack, but this is 2014 goddammit, the sequel is still 5 ish years off!!!!!!)

god this fight scene is bad *cringe*

OH THIS IS WHERE HERON DIED OMG Oh that is blatantly a quote from the series I stole them from oop

yup my love for whump definitely isn't shining through here *sarcasm*

oh poor Owl DDDD:

oh everybody is having a rough ass time rn

Ah I fuckin shared this scene with the writing club me and my selo started. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

oh that's a reference to a figment exclusive story that never got published oop lmao

OH HI HAYDEN ENJOY LIVING IN THIS DRAFT :DDDDDD

god everything was so black and white when i was a kid huh

"I don't think I'm qualified to tell you" says one of the most qualified mothafluffas on the planet lol

Yeah there is absolutely no logic for me bringing Hayden and Remus back, but ya know what? Let Kai be happy in this version at least. He gets that much still

Yeah my romance still sucks at this point in the story lol

LMAO everybody is chirping Kai for making out with Hayden first thing

feckin ;) KAI JESUS FUCK

Jay: I was trying to protect your innocence (re walking in on Kay and Hayden makin out) Aydan: what innocence?

Yup, my romance is trash lmao

Lol Jay is still a clingy ass shit <3

Goooooooooooooooooood Jay and Basil are so gay for each other in this draft they fuckin need to kiss about it already

Why is Will included? for the fuckin drama I guess lol

Oh yeah for the fuckin drama. Will's trying to dig into Jay's identity lmao

Which Jay is not helping by fucking suggesting he and Will pretend to be siblings lmaooooo

god the gotdamn age gap shenanigans smh (not as bad as CoFaS but I still made a fucking Point outta it here)

Ah yes the gotdamn mid-scene POV shifts smh

Oh I finally have an age for Gray, she's around Aydan's age here (so 15/16 ish)

BB LILY <33333333333

Ah yes, and back in the days where HP was still popular bc the author hadn't revealed herself as a piece of shit yet

BUT NEVER MIND THAT BB LILY IS BB <333333333333333

God Jay isn't supposed to be this much of a rules boi aaaaaaaaaaah

awwwww fuckin Lily and Aydan is the cutest gotdamn thing ever <3333333

[Will] followed Jay and Aydan regardless, not because he wanted to mind you, but because he had no other freaking choice.

lol fuckin classic Will XD

......... I FELL ASLEEP AGAIN GODDAMMIT I WILL FINISH THIS TONIGHT I SWEAR WE'RE LIKE 2/3 DONE I THINK

Ah Jay, why the fuck must this be your shitty person arc?

Don't mind me if you need me I'll be over here smacking this version of Jay with a newspaper for being so gotdamn shitty Like, ma dude! This is absolutely not how you're supposed to be acting! Stop being a dipshit!!

BB LILY <33333333

Lol perfectly reasonable reaction to getting attacked: "I'm gonna fuckin kill Jay the next time I see him" (To be fair, it is bc Jay's been a shithead that Aydan's even in this position in the first place. but still. Funny train of thought there babe lol)

Summer now is not the time for your gotdamn agenda lol

Okay at least now Jay's apologizing for being a shithead lol

Fuckin romance ugh lol

staaaaaaaaaaaaaaare I think the Seanna-Sora-Cal intermission ft Cassandra might've been added later. and by later i mean around when I was writing this scene. So not quite padding the word count last minute but definitely not preplanned lol Which would also make the Heron-Gray-Owl intermission also not preplanned, but added bc eh why not since I'm having a Seanna-Sora-Cal intermission

Heckin nerds

God why did I feel the need to bring up the fuckin age gap again????

"Your morals do not exist" lmao

also way too much shit has happened for it to only have been a year what the gotdamn fuck

Catnip!!! Catnip and Lily!!!!! Absolute chaos besties!!!!!!!!!!

I should add Lily back into Nova. Somehow. She's too adorable to cut completely lol

Oh hi Molly from (quite literally) left field!!!

Oh Oliver <33333333

Everything about this is outta fuckin nowhere lmao I think there was like 1.5 scenes of setup about 20 pages back and that was it lol

but anyways, poor bb Oliver <3

Lol that's the Jay I know and love (doesn't want Aydan healing him (even tho by this point he knows it ain't a death sentence))

oh bb Oliver <333333

DREAM SEQUENCE NO. I'VE MOST DEFINITELY LOST COUNT BY THIS POINT!!!!

Oh shit we're already at the reveal. I thought there was another scene of Will and Jay having a conversation but now that I think about it I think that was earlier when I was hella tipsy last night XD

Oh Will, this is such a conversation

"I was trying to protect you" Jay that was a shitty way of doing it and you fuckin know it!!!!! gotdamn tissue paper motivation bitch!!!!

damn practically back to back dream sequences :P

How the fuck are we practically at the end????? Like i know the last couple pages are dedicated to my first attempt at rewriting this but we're only at page 57/83????????? (to be fair the ending is long I'm just. shooketh lmao)

god now more than ever you can really tell I had no idea what the fuck I was doing re: climax of an urban fantasy story. This is like attempting to do the whole climatic end of LOTR battle but in urban fantasy and it just. does not fuckin work that way

Anyways lmao Will now is not the time to make Jay face his past

There had always been too much insomnia in this house.

I like this line.

Lexi!!! my darling <3

Oh this is so gotdamn awkward lmao

MID SCENE POV SHIFT ALARM

“Stay safe,” [his mother] whispered in his ear. “I will Mom,” Jay promised, lying through his teeth. “I promise.”

STILL A GOTDAMN MOOD

Lmao great pep talk Boss XD

OH I REMEMBER WHAT SCENE IS COMING UP ITS BAD LMAO

but hey, this is the basis for "mind controlled government Novas" that I have in the current draft lol

Y'ALL NOW IS NOT THE FUCKIN TIME TO BE MAKING OUT LMAO the Cassandra Clare influence is really showing here smh

oh bbs <3

KAI AND HAYDEN :DDDDDD

Oh we're checking in with everybody lol got some Gray and Owl battle shenanigans happening <3

Oh Seanna and Cal are such bbs lol <333333

OH RIGHT I FORGOT SORA FUCKS SHIT UP IN A GOOD WAY LOL

And here we have the bad scene So for context, last year I lol'd and cringed at the fact that none of my uwu blorbos actually ever killed people. Only unconsciousness for my uwu precious beans! And that aspect of my writing apparently did not change much between 2013 and 2014. We've had mentions of characters knocking out their opponents earlier (such as the Gray and Owl battle shenanigans just a few moments ago), but none like, explicit deaths Until now. Cuz Jay has a gun :DDDDDDDD

Jk he's being super duper fuckin angsty about using it and it's like ma dude! This should not be where the line is drawn! It should not! You either draw it way back before using your magic to potentially fatally wound people (but it's okay bc they won't die in front of him!) or you be okay with using that gun the same way you use your magic and draw your line..... somewhere else idk lol

The lines between magic pew pews and guns is very thin and covered in jellyfish (no i will not apologize for my brain forever being altered by WTNV lol)

Aydan you're very calm in this situation considering Jay literally just got knocked out in front of you lmao

SORA BB <3333333333

Oh poor Cal and Seanna. More Cal bc he's bb and also may or may not have had a crush on Sora. Idk. It just seems the type of thing my romance-obssessed-mildly-trashy-YA-novel-reading ass woulda done lol

Oh Jay you absolute dumbass lmao he just woke up from unconsciousness and his dumb ass is going back out to fight bc he's a DUMBASS

Wow you're all shook up by shooting a random unnamed dude but when it comes to Molly it's all "gotta take care of her before she hurts us" goddamn Jay okay

POOR SEANNA AND CAL DDDDDDDDDDDD:

Oh this is so stupidly cheesy :P

OLIVER <3333333

Fuckin midscene POV shift again AAAAAH

At least Oliver get his happy ending lol

oh poor Owl and Gray :(((( You're right Heron deserved better

Now the important question bc I don't remember and we didn't immediately check in on them: Did I kill off Hayden, Kai, or Remus? Or did i let them have their happy ending for once dammit? We'll hopefully find out soon enough! And if not, I'll count it as a win for them lol

Eepy bbs <3

ehehehe sick fic Jay time again :DDDDDD

Lol i love the implication that Aydan is the reason Jay stopped sleeping with a knife under his pillow. If anything Aydan is the reason there are so many knives under the pillows now XD

You know, I thought there was some aside about Baz going nova long before this, but maybe I missed it in the tipsy drunk haze

Lol grumpy ol' Will <3

lollllll so this was from the original 3rd gen story that has now been scrapped to high hell (mostly due to the Will characterization things mentioned previously)

Oh I had forgotten about that! The fact that it was canon that Liam kinda forced James into coming out to their families!!! That got scrapped so long ago omg Liam: still a pushy dork. but not the kind that pushes his cousin into coming out in front of y'alls entire extended families when he still hasn't admitted it to you/the friend group yet

LMAO WILL SASSING JAY FOR HIS PREVIOUS CHOICES IN PARTNERS

Also fun fact, I think this was the first story I wrote with bi James. Before now he was just straight up gay lol. And now he has joined my crew of bi boys with heterochromatic eyes (him, Alec, and Jake, off the top of my head) (oh and Nymar. I forgot about the non OG characters for a minute XD)

Poor stressy Jay lol Something something zombie conversation lol

FUCKIN MID SCENE POV SHIFT AGAIN AAAAAAH

Oh god they're all so baby here what the fuck. Aydan is like. 17. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Lolllll oh Baz <3

Lol oh the petty high school drama XD

I regret the fact that my glass is so full bc I am very tempted to drain it considering how much cringe I know is coming up bc I'm bad at endings and it's so dragged the fuck out

Okay despite the cringe, I do still love the color of Sora's eyes here (insert do you love the color of the sky here) (omg that just gave me an idea for another character) (nooooooo) (before anybody says anything yes I've had that idea for hair before) (mothafluffin magical hair dye yo) (I don't remember what blog I posted that one on tho) (maybe my main)

TIME SKIPS GALORE HOLY FUCKIN SHIT

It's so fuckin weird seeing Basil so committed to his dad. Like no Bay is a piece of shit and you end up cutting ties with him bc of how shit he is (Basil and his parents are a fun tangent I may go on one day. bc oh lord. Jay gets smacked by both of them for very different reasons lol)

Anyways Lily! is back!! and as adorable as ever even though she's older now!

Side note why the fuck is my cat so zoomy?! lmao

BBS <33333333

*incomprehensible babbling* how the fuck did Lily not notice ever that Aydan was pregnant ffs??????

Anyways bb Alec is bb and I love him <33333333

"Uncle Basil" lmao no that man is your dad nowadays Alec XD

Oh I forgot Katie was a very quiet child. Checks out still considering she takes more after her dad aka the silent watchful type as opposed to her hurricane papa and wildfire mother

Nova trio is such a fun dynamic especially when they become parents <33333333

Lol Alec has his momma's last name nowadays. Makes it easier since no way in hell Jay is using his birth last name, he doesn't have much attachment to Miles, and Baz has about the same levels of attachment to his own

Lol Alec definitely still takes after his papa though XD gotdamn disaster of a child

Hello Ryder! You are Gray's kid nowadays but this was when you were Oliver and Molly's! And I specifically changed their hair/eye colors to make yours genetically possible!

Also fun fact I asked Cyrus whether I should have 2 or 3 kids in this scene and I don't remember what he said but I remember deciding 2.5 kids was the right way to go XD Pity I didn't go 3, then maybe the two youngest coulda had their names figured out a decade ago

(It's just 2 in Nova canon now. 4 in Band AU. And I think those are the only places the kids/4th gen show up nowadays) (other than random AUs lol)

78/83 and we're done with draft 1. Oh lord would i like to finish my glass but alas it is still too full lol

To be fair, I still don't think I can do endings for shit. I haven't ended a project lately enough to know for sure (the only one is Stars. And that one is the only one I know is good lol)

Bc they're funny, here's my notes for the rewrite (written around...... 2017-18 ish?)

You know what. YOU KNOW WHAT. I just reread this. And goddammit there are so many things that I could do to make this better. So idk if I’m gonna do this for nanowrimo this year or continue with the astral chronicles but in case I ever get around to redoing it here are the ideas I have (so I don’t forget lol)

Make Jay and Basil hella more gay. Like HELLA. Maybe even have them date and shit for a while idk

Also amnesiac Jay is a glorious idea XD

More time between James’s death and Jay finding Aydan

Jay taking way more time to gain Aydan’s trust like omg he actually has a normal teenager life and he falls in love with Aydan so when she goes nova he’s like “I’ll fucking protect you with my life dammit”

Oh my god if Jay could sense where Novas were then he would basically track them down and bring them back to Base

Summer and Will only come to Base after they investigate Aydan’s “death” too much

There’s not as much betrayal by Jay because “why didn’t you tell me??” “I had no fucking idea?!?!”

Jay’s sickness is way more prominent like oh man trauma lol

Maybe some poly relationship between Jay Basil and Aydan because Jay loves them both and they’re both like “welp the other person isn’t bad and we love you too so okie”

Oh man make the enemy something more than just a faceless mass lol

Patch notes as of 2024:

Jay and Basil are indeed, hella more gay XD

Amnesiac Jay is in fact, the best fuckin idea i've had for this project

I did add in that more time. It does the job lol

Jay's just oblivious so he falls in love with Aydan without realizing she's a Nova XD

He can sense Novas! It's just very itchy bc I can't let this boy have one good thing other than his relationships XD

Summer and Will and Percy! Sora's got a brother now!

No betrayal at all. Just sadness and resignation and "Why didn't you tell me?" "I only just remembered. Barely."

Jay's sickness has turned into him losing his grip on his place in the fabric of time :DDDDD

HELL YEAH POLY NOVA TRIOOOOOOO

Enemy is now the government. And also Jay's mother XD

Jay picked up smoking from somewhere lol

Novas now have specializations! Jay's is time manipulation, Baz's is sniper shit, Aydan is fire babe :D, Bay is water manip, so on so forth

Alex got added, they're a Nova healer :D

Gray is now for sure a Nova

Heron-Gray-Owl got aged the fuck up

Sora had a name change and also is no longer a part of the org from the beginning

Almaraz was named and subsequently turned from a nuclear power plant into time travel experimentation facility

Jay is more dramatic

Basil is more subdued

Aydan is more nosy

Birds of Prey got added (and Nat's heart got broken by Falcon :3)

Hayden and Remus got deaded for goods :(

That's all I got off the top of my head lol

I'm gonna reread the last 4 pages of rewrite then call it lol

Lollll immediatetly starting out with sick fic Jay, I can't really blame myself tho

Ah yes, back when Boss still knew who Jay was but nobody else did

Heh, asshole Lai is back :D

Lol I was wondering about that. Yeah I basically have two attempts at a start here bc it was very aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Lol Baz is immediately so fuckin gay for Jay <3

Ah yes, the bones of current day Nova are so much clearer here lol

And that's it! 3 days, 53k words, and 2 bottles of wine later, we've finally finished the end of the Nova reread. And good fuckin lord lmao. I'm a gotdamned WIP necromancer lol

Goodnight, don't die, don't get kidnapped, hopefully I'll actually get some more Wrapped prompts done soonish. If not, see y'all in February cuz ain't no way I'm missing my baby (FebruarOC lol)

TTFN!

[sohushygrayness]

Project Number: 4: Kitchen Company App

Project type: Epic.

Goal: to design an Application interface that can be used for a business that sells Kitchens.

Planning.

Materials: Microsoft Powerpoint

Time: 6 hours+

Budget: £5.99 (the cost of one month of Microsoft Office).

Learning: PowerPoint, UX Design, UI Design

Research:

Skills: Microsoft Powerpoint, Design Principles

Execution

I start with perhaps a fairly crude blank design. I envision a blank white background with a PowerPoint icon that I find by searching ‘Kitchen’.

For the sake of ideation, we’ll call this company The Kitchen Company. I don’t have experience of logo design and perhaps i’ll come back to this section. Once the Application opens we then land on the home page. There are many things to be considered at this point. I’ve stuck to a commonly accepted design in which we have the search bar at the top of the application. Then the main section underneath the search bar will be where this company advertises its main idea. Underneath this, I’ve then opted to go with free sections which are as follows: firstly we have a “view your plan“ section. Although this section would work well for somebody who already has a plan, it may not work as well if the customer doesn’t have a plan. So, perhaps for those that don’t have a plan, this could be, the section where the customer can click to start planning their kitchen. Then we have the rate your purchase section and perhaps on the right hand side of that we have a section that will be geared towards cookware. Underneath this we will have our product catalogue.

We then move into what I’m picturing as the planning plan stage of the application and customer journey. My vision for this section is twofold: firstly, for those who haven’t made a purchase we would show them the product range on the top half of the screen and then on the bottom half of the screen we can use a augmented reality to to help customers plan their kitchen. However, if they have already made their plan then this is where they can visualise it in augmented reality. I’m picturing the customer have an ability to make a 3-D holographic of the kitchen at the click of the bottom. We would keep the surge bar at the top of the app, in case the customer needs to type something to find it however I’m still undecided whether this would be needed at this point in the customer journey.

Then we move onto the Contact tab. This is, admittedly the page that I am least unsure of. I would assume that the 2 preferred methods of contacting this company would be the phone and emailing. However, I would personally prefer to have it as only the phone option and perhaps expand on this with an FAQ, maybe a ticketing system? In my mind I’m envisioning perhaps needing to see a picture of an item which may limit us to either email or chat.

Lastly, the final tab will be, I think the profile option. My first initial design here is to have a login or sign-up option. However, would this be appropriate? I am making an assumption here that anybody who has downloaded this app would either use it because of how good the AR technology is within the App or because they already have a Kitchen and want maintenance advice. I still think I should keep it but not restrict some features of the App without an account. 

Reflection: this has been a fun experience. A lot of the initial design has been trialling things and seeing what I think if I was a customer. I will say though that this is yet to be finalised and this is version 1.0 of this design. I will return to it.

Outcome:: N/A

Lessons: 

‘Checkout’ or the purchasing page shouldn’t be its own tab which was what I had in my first initial design.

[larrythefloridaman]

I was thinking similarly! I think Chartreuse has always been the 'easy' kid, the 'good' kid from Prism's perspective. She's 'well-behaved' like Cobalt, and she's 'independant' like Crimson, none of that inconvenient ~rebellious spirit~ (read as: Desperation To Be Seen And Heard,) but also none of that irritating Asking Her For Guidance and Questioning Things She Doesnt Want To Think About nonsense. (The "You're always having problems, grumpy!" exchange before she delivers cobalt's crisis in combination with her comparing him to Jack as referenced in another post informs a good bit of my perspective on prism and cobalt's relationship.)

Chartreuse does what shes told and doesnt need to be told how, she figures it out herself and performs her duties accordingly. at least until she suddenly won't. and that kind of pressure, to be perfectly convenient like that, takes a toll on you! That shes the 'angel' of the group speaks to the difference between her and her brothers' places in the story, too. Crimson's a Problem To Be Solved, Cobalt always comes bearing consequences to balance things, and Chartreuse is the Tragic one, the Kind one who just wants to live a life she cant have, whose flaws mostly serve to make her inevitable fate sadder. Nevermind the fact that when Treuse isnt being cagey, can be blunt as a sledgehammer and carries and protects her secrets less like a forlorn tragic maiden and more like a mobster who will take your kneecaps with said sledgehammer for asking too many questions, (although she, like her sibling, is a little more willing to discuss things plainly in the dreams where the consequences won't matter,) Crimson killed a guy on accident and still feels queasy about it when you catch him off-guard with the topic, Cobalt carries himself always with grim necessity but dislikes undue suffering and is willing to offer deals to alter ones fate, we are first introduced to chartreuse with threatening to beat someone to death for their transgressions. in no uncertain terms, chartreuse does not fuck around. And uh. Considering something going wrong Hurts Her, and that someone who isnt used to having her powers reacts to experiencing them like-

... yeah well i think i can understand why shed be a bit cranky and blunt about these things. (Given Dr. O never actually became a goddess, merely stole a charge off of a real one and played pretend for a little bit, i assume her vision of spectrum and the subsequent villainous breakdown were the main symptoms she experienced as opposed to. what peppermint's dealing with. Prism's all on/all off + amnesia/all on again approach of getting her adjusted her is, prism-typically, cruel and unusual. At least when crimson shares his powers hes careful about it [described as briefly turning off other senses, notably sight in the example we have, when possessing people so theyre not overwhelmed by the New Ones and maintains a fairly strict mental separation])

And the thing is- performing her role perfectly, correctly, is both an act of self-preservation (given things being broken Hurts her,) and demonstrably requires some. Morally Questionable Decisions. This is true of all the gods- godhood is an inherently dehumanizing ethical nightmare- but given that shes the one who does everything Right, and the way that 'doomed timelines,' the relativity of time and futuresight sort of complicate and abstract mortal moral concepts, especially her. If you take actions to prevent or change a doomed timeline, it is destroyed. Insert tenmyouji biker metaphor here. Every life lived beyond the point of divergence ceases to be, even if their origin point lives on in their own way. To do this constantly is to be responsible for loss on so great a scale, so incalculable and theoretical as to become abstract.

Its been noted- chartreuse and larry are alike in that the execution of the timeloop plan required disguised collaboration with the enemy for a while in order to create conditions for their ultimate victory. This was a MUCH shorter tenure for chartreuse, D+ wasn't a long haul grift, but she did help Order take over the tournament in order to stop her in the long run. and the way she went about this indicates to me that this is a pretty par for the course, 'business as usual' method of fixing things for her? a lot of how chartreuse behaves is defined by this sort of... temporally utilitarian information calculus, because thats how she does her job, and shes always working. even when it makes things worse!

Ive said it before and I'll say it again- folk didn't know how she was keeping him alive, but he also didnt even know she had two siblings until Cobalt involved himself, and chartreuse being a lockbox of secrets who refused to allow herself to be known was and is a very real point of contention in their relationship they're working on now that theyre in therapy. Chartreuse needs to have control of what information other people have about her- a symptom of Prism's surveillance, crimson has this problem too! Its a self-preservation tactic!- but even more so because her job depends on it. Even after she can't sense Prism's eye and manipulative influence on her anymore, she feels it drape over her, pulling her down, like a 'prismatic molasses,' after shes become mortal, defied prism, become vulnerable to it again.

Chartreuse's personality is, inevitably, heavily shaped by her unique perspective on all of time. Everything she can see, nonlinear and abstract and branching as it is, makes the means to any given end Extremely Specifically Clear, and makes all other possible actions ultimately irrelevant clutter. Of course she's ruthless like a weapon- why waste time when she and everyone else are just cogs to bring about inevitable conclusions, a divine train confined to its holy rails, because they've already happened, from her perspective. Of course she's secretive and prone to lying by omission- she knows intimately how the smallest bit of information can transform outcomes radically. Of course losing her timesight makes her act like a disoriented alien, defensive and angry- she's rarely, if ever, experienced life like a human being- or even like the rest of her own family does, she lives always in the past present and future causes and consequences of an action simultaneously. She's alienated in a very unique, overwhelming way.

You ever think about how she must have known she'd lose her nonlinear perspective eventually? That there was this... scary blindspot in a life she otherwise knew the beats of step by step, a flicker where it came back, and that she'd then choose to go back to being blinded?

You ever think about how she knew the world would come to an end? And played her role in it, placing her faith in the mission even when she couldn't see the roadmap anymore?

Now, you might ask, 'chirp, what do you mean come to an end? Aren't they just dreaming?' Well yes. But.

Isn't it interesting? That in every ncct, we start or at least end, with a cutscene in the waking world, and in ncct4... we start with Prism, engulfed in the snakes? The harbingers of the end, pondering why spectrum has seen fit to prolong their lives in the way they have? And then the snakes find them in the dream, and... well we heard them, they werent being the subtlest about it. The snakes will eat their universe. They, seemingly, did.

But not the dream. Thanks to spectrum, acting through juni, they were banished from this liminal, shifting safe haven of the dream. The rules are different now- at this point, its unlikely cpuk-as-streams will ever come back, and if they do, ryan's been clear it'd be rebooted in some fashion, given the notes things were left on. In a sense, then, is the old world not lost to the belly of the snake? It could always escape, theoretically- those the snakes consumed before spectrum's intervention were spat back up after all, the end need not stay the end- but the implications stand.

That would make the dream the closest thing to reality thats left for these characters, in this form, a metanarrative post-apocalypse shelter of sorts from the pursuit of The Lord of Snakes. and like many post-apocalyptic narratives, the world didn't actually end, it just... changed. A lot of things are lost, a lot is different now, for better or for worse, but life goes on.

We've been saying the whole time- whats the difference if theyre real or fiction? theyre still meaningful, theyre just governed by different rules than before. since ncct2, its been emphasized that whether any character is real or a construct is kind of pointless to investigate because even if they were, they themselves wouldnt even know, the dream constructs are still people regardless, and theres nothing particularly mechanically unique about them- they just exist as any other person within this reality would, theyre just formed out of in-universe perceptions the same way anyone else within cpuk's reality is formed out of some kind of Inspiration, like therapuppy from terra, or within Dr. Order's attempts to play act at being god, Quad from Val. Hell, majestic kerfuffle, Prism finally facing her fear of the end after attempting to start again from the top with a re-do of sorts, is also largely about rescuing a group of 'fake' people from their 'fake' dying world to seek safe harbor in the dream.

An angel is like a train on tracks. Incredible power, but confined to it's path, laid before it by god and their engineers. It has run this path without fail, charging along to its destination, taking every turn it needs to- even when that path turned away from the desired end, respite, the station, because it knows. all tracks lead there eventually. The conductor cannot keep the train running forever, no matter how much she wants to. Someday, she will have to retire. The train will have to retire. To push the train past its limits against its engineers designs only brought it all closer.

Yknow whats kinda funny? that Chartreuse gets angel-y imagery (like the roman numeral clock halo, and the whole 'time sand' death thing for doomed timelines being kind of reminiscent of 'smiting enemies into pillar of salt' style angel stuff) where her brothers are referenced as demon-y (crimson being directly called a demon more than once and cobalt being directly compared to The Devil at least once,) but out of the three of them shes kind of the scariest if you pay enough attention and give it a good long overthink

[crownshattered-arch]

|| SO gonna reconstruct Anne's backstory, so this post is going to explain the new details, as well as explain Adrian, Anne's twin brother (younger twin)~ These things are super open to change, so they might not actually stick in the finished product. A lot of this has to do with how Fontaine works once we know more about it~

Background info!!

To start with, I'm changing their last name. Thinking about something with the root word "Diabolus". Any ideas of what to do with that would be SO appreciated!!

Anne and Adrian are in no way related to Diluc anymore. Their family has no apparent roots to Mondstadt anymore. Yeah, Anne looks a lot like Diluc, but that's just coincidental~ The Diabolus (working name until I change it XDD) family has lived in Fontaine for generations and has been an aristocratic family that is quite close to the Hydro Archon. However, everyone in this family has, for generations, seen Focalors as a joke.

Even though they are high class nobility in Fontaine, this family runs the criminal underworld of information in all of Fontaine...as well as all of Teyvat. That organization is called The Underworld, and Anne is the current head (this hasn't changed). She has branches in every nation with an executive acting as the head, but with the changes to her character, she doesn't need a Fontaine "executive" since she already runs this branch herself. She runs the Fontaine branch as well as the whole Underworld (though I may have Adrian do most of the Fontaine branch stuff...maybe idk)

Info about the twins' family!!

Anne and Adrian are hella close. They've been inseparable from birth. Anne is the older twin and Adrian is younger, and Anne has always been much stronger than Adrian. She was a strong and tough girl who always loved running around and getting into things, but Adrian was rather sickly as a child and couldn't always keep up with his sister. Whenever he couldn't keep up, his mother would keep him company.

As children, Anne was a lot like their mother--brave, strong, and so emotional and free-spirited. By contrast, Adrian was just like their father when their father was a child--quiet, shy, ill-bodied. But the two had each other, and that's all that mattered.

Their mother loved them very much and gave them enough love for both of their parents. However, their father was not a very affectionate parent. He loved his children, but in his own "proper nobility" way. He didn't play with them. He was always working. He was very distant from his children. Anne didn't really like him because of this, even as a young child, but Adrian still wanted to get his attention in any way possible.

I'm not sure when this will take place nor do I know much of the details, but at some point (maybe when they were around 10..?) SOMETHING happens that puts the family in danger. I really don't know the specifics and I would like to bounce my ideas off of someone, but what I want to end up happening is at some point Adrian is with his mother and sees her get brutally murdered right in front of him (like a shot through the head or something, something to really scar him) and I want something to happen later where Anne defends Adrian from a potentially fatal attack, getting her hand deeply cut in the process but also giving Anne her vision. Anne then burns herself with the intensity of her vision (her passion is INCREDIBLY strong and unstable, after all) and Adrian gets his hydro vision shortly after to heal his sister.

So their mom dies and Adrian sees it, and the two get their visions within the span of a few days at most~ But that was a long time ago. It has affected Anne, of course, but it really affected Adrian. He's now terrified of losing anyone else that he loves, so he does whatever he can now to keep his loved ones (especially Anne) safe, even if they don't need it. Even if they don't want it.

At some point fairly recently, their father retired and appointed Anne as the new head of the Underworld and the head of the family itself. She didn't want this, but she didn't want Adrian to be stuck in this role either, so she took it. That much hasn't changed.

In Anne and Adrian's original story, they have a very close connection to Lia (who I made for the same story, actually). I want to keep that connection. So, whenever Lia in her genshin verse fled Snezhnaya, she found the Underworld (either she was told to go there or she happened to find them) and Anne and Adrian kind of took her in for a bit and allowed her to lie low. They would NOT normally do this, so I need to figure out why they would do this for her (they are not a charity here). But in the time they kept Lia hidden, both twins fell in love with her, and Lia didn't return the feelings. They still keep tabs on her in Mondstadt. Anne just wants to make sure she's safe, and Adrian is a bit more...obsessive. (THIS DOESNT ALWAYS APPLY!! If I have a ship with Anne or Adrian that has lasted for a few years before the current story timeline, said twin did not fall in love with Lia. But if they weren't in a relationship when Lia was under their care, they fell for her.)

Info about Adrian himself!!

Hydro, thinking I may make him a bow user... Maybe a catalyst. The only reason I would make him a bow user is because his body is still kind of weak, but if Baizhu can be a catalyst user, so can Adrian XDD

Anne is scary because she's powerful, not just as the head of the Underworld but also because she is crazy strong with her pyro vision. However, Adrian is scary because he is unhinged. He's unpredictable, and if you cross him (or ESPECIALLY his sister) your life is in grave danger. Your only hope is to get on Anne's good side so she can restrain her brother.

Adrian is so loyal to Anne. These twins have a lot of death/grim reaper/devil motifs. So one way you can think about the twins is that Anne is Hades and Adrian is Cerebus. He is like her dog when it comes to work (but she doesn't treat him like a dog, she treats him like her younger brother who she loves so much. But he's very dog-like).

I don't exactly know what Adrian's job in the Underworld is... Maybe he will be Anne's right hand, but I think he will mostly be her most skilled informant. If she needs to personally send someone to get information, she will send her brother...unless she's worried he will make a mess of the situation.

BE CAREFUL WITH ADRIAN. He is totally yandere material. He can be nice at times, but he also highly obsessive when it comes to the people he cares about. The only reason he doesn't make "accidents" for anyone Anne is dating (thus taking his sister away from him in his eyes) is because Anne won't let him. Anyone else, however, he will cling to in an unhealthy manner. This will NOT be romanticized. This is just me exploring what Adrian's trauma has done to his mentality. But do not go into interacting with Adrian and assume he is some nice guy.

Adrian is my one token straight muse XDD I just don't see him being shipped with a guy...maybe this can change, but until then, these siblings only like girls XDD

More TBA..??

[adobe-outdesign]

I bother you for a review of the Sobble line, my beloveds?

I see a lot of hate for this line, but honestly, Sobble is pretty cute. An anxious little Pokemon that weaponizes its tears is a fun concept (#relatable), and visually, I like a lot of what's going on with it.

The little chameleon-style mitten hands and feet are nice, the fin on top of the head adds a perfect touch of color, and the little tear markings under the eye are a nice way to hint at the theme when its not actively crying, which in turn is paralleled by the blue circle at the tip of its tail. My only visual nitpick is that the eyes could've stood to have some yellow in them to make them pop.

I gotta admit, however, that it does suffer from a kind of generic body shape. All of the gen 8 starters have the same basic form, and so it feels like the nice visuals of Sobble are held back by an underwhelming and generic execution that make it less memorable than it potentially could have been. It's still perfectly good, just not as memorable as it could've been.

Drizzle gets some points for at least being unique in the line, but it was always my least favorite stage due to, once again, feeling generic—except this time, it doesn't have the strong balanced visuals Sobble has to compensate.

I think part of the problem with Drizzle is a lack of clear focus or direction, which stems from the whole line. Sobble's concept is that it's a timid and fearful chameleon that uses its color-changing abilities to hide, but it evolves into... a super spy (probably because spies are stealthy, which once again ties into the invisibility thing, except Inteleon is more of a basilisk lizard than a chameleon anyway). So Drizzle's left just kind of being emo, I guess to tie back into the sadness thing? I feel like if they just subtly hinted at the spy thing and focused on that from the beginning instead of randomly changing themes, the line would've been more cohesive, and Drizzle here would have more direction.

Visually, putting the bland body shape away, it retains some of Sobble's good elements, like the mitten hands and tear markings. However, the color palette changes randomly here to include green and purple, which go away again as soon as it evolves (the green areas could've easily been yellow, for example). The fin is generic looking and lacks the nice structure and colors of its evo/pre-evo as well. It's not the worst thing, but it's fairly bland.

This might be a hot take, but I actually really like parts of Inteleon's design. Even if the line could've focused on it more, the idea of a spy chameleon with basilisk attributes is pretty cool, and I like some of the biological aspects, like it having nictitating membranes and a sharp, knife-like tail.

I also like the head area. The fin looks cool, the face is properly lizard-ish, I like the expression and the yellow eyelids, and the built in "glider" is neat. It's nice to see it finally get a more distinct shape after two stages of generic round heads. Also, the wetsuit markings are clever for a water-type. Also also, it looks pretty good in motion:

However, I do agree with the general opinion that the body shape is a bit off. First, it's ridiculously thin, almost like an anole or long-tailed grass lizard; it feels like a strong breeze could break its arms. This is also emphasized by things like the long, human-like legs and human hands (lizard hands are more spread out, and don't have joints in the same places as human hands). If it just had more lizardish anatomy—think like Kecleon, Salazzle, Heliolisk—I could see myself liking it a lot more.

I also feel like it could've stood to be a little more chameleon-like, as that's the only reason its a spy to begin with. Nothing wrong with the basilisk elements, but why not give it some cool weird chameleon eyes that look like night-vision goggles, or let it keep the mitten hands? Emphasize that and the stealth and the concept would be a bit clearer.

Also, some small visual nitpicks: The stripe down the tail adds nothing and isn't needed. Also not a huge fan of the white diamond on the stomach as it seems out of place (even if it is supposed to be a suit). Mostly, though, it's just the anatomy that throws me.

The g-max is the best out of the starters on the grounds that it's at least not an item that becomes larger, even if the entire body still hasn't grown much. Also, the concept is pretty fun, with it using its long tail as a sniper tower.

However, I also feel like this doesn't make much sense. First, what does a sniper have to do with spies? Just because they both use guns and are stealthy, I guess? But secondly, this thing is 100 feet tall. Isn't the point of snipers to be unnoticeable? Who is gonna get sniped by this thing because they didn't notice the 100-foot tall lizard tower of death? It's fun on paper, but doesn't hold up when you think about it actually in-battle.

Also, it's weird that the tail starts out spiraling and then suddenly straightens out, especially when the fin curls around. Why not just make the entire thing spiral-shaped? I feel like that would be a lot more natural as opposed to the suddenly perfect straightness going on here.

Anyway, overall: Sobble is cute and has a nice design, but suffers a bit from a generic body shape. Drizzle lacks direction, and Inteleon is pretty cool looking but stand to be more chameleon-ish, both conceptually and visually. The g-max is fun but doesn't really make much sense when you stop to think about it.

In fact, the more I think about it the more I think this might be my fav gen 8 starter—though that isn't saying a lot.

[steveharrington]

Oh yeah I mean. Barb vs Chrissy is very distinct Barb is treated like a normal character introduced fairly naturally over the course of two (?) episodes, I don’t think we even learned her last name until season 2 with her parents (which makes sense. I don’t say my last name often in conversations). Meanwhile season 4 is like. Here’s Chrissy. Cunningham. She’s a brand new character! Here’s everything about her from her interests to her family to her dickish bf to her traumas. Here’s a fun middle school anecdote that doesn’t make sense with the timeline we’ve already established. Then she dies after existing for like, 30 minutes of screen time (most of which she wasn’t in). NONE of that felt natural. And the only characters who had any real reason to care were Jason and to a much lesser extent eddie (maybe max at a stretch. But neither of them really knew her. Her major role in the season was to cause problems for the gang by turning Jason into a secondary antagonist) who were ALSO introduced at the beginning of the season and dead by the end so she’ll basically have no lasting impact on the show. She could show up as a vecna vision and most of the characters would have very little idea who she is

They might try to wring some out bc she was kind of well-received (obviously the duffers rely on fan feedback in the worst way. Kali I will avenge you) but it won’t be earned AT ALL.

Chrissy managed to have a developed personality but ultimately I think she kind of failed the sexy lamp test. Like if Eddie had allegedly stolen and broken Jason’s prized possession the story wouldn’t have changed much she existed SOLELY to die (which is why I think too many people are like. Giving credit for how Chrissy was vs Barb. Barb was an actual minor character Chrissy was a list of traits tortured and killed for real reason, though gender plays a heavy role in how both were written and received. )

hmmm i don’t really agree :/ personally i don’t think chrissy was poorly written/introduced into the show at all, esp within the context of the season. all the things you listed that feel unnatural for us to know about her (her interests, her family, her boyfriend, her traumas) have an inherent place in the story because they matter when unraveling the mystery of vecna. we know about chrissy’s trauma from her mother and her ed because that’s what vecna takes advantage of. it’s showing us this to establish that he targets people who are already struggling with an internal conflict and plays on their fears/traumas. the exact same thing happens to fred! we meet him as fred benson, editor on the newspaper who likes nancy and has this traumatic past involving a car accident for which he feels a lot of guilt. it’s just the way new characters who will soon be vecna’d are introduced this season because it gives context to why they’re vecna’d. if anything, i think chrissy and fred were treated wayyyy better than patrick in terms of humanizing them and giving their trauma screentime. patrick is the Only vecna victim to not have his trauma delved into and explored beyond other characters talking about it.

as for stuff like learning about her relationship with jason and her little backstory with eddie….idk i think that was also fairly well executed and not unlike other character introductions we’ve seen? stranger things loveeees to have two characters recount a past shared experience from long long ago. mike and will at the park, joyce and hopper under the bleachers, jonathan and will as kids playing with legos, robin and steve in click’s class, etc etc so i don’t think chrissy and eddie reminiscing about middle school to find some common ground during an awkward meet-up is that out of place. i know there’s some conjecture about how old chrissy is supposed to be and if that would line up with her and eddie being in middle school at the same time and tbh i don’t know Much about it but she’s wearing an ‘86 necklace which i assumed was her graduating year, making her a senior and eddie two years older than her which isn’t that much of a stretch for them to have been in middle school at the same time

i don’t think chrissy could be replaced with an object to evoke the same reaction out of jason. really if i’m being honest i think jason is almost sympathetic for an st villain (i say almost because the whole spiral into puritanism and the tackling of erica just got. weird.) like……..he is under the very justified impression that eddie killed someone. a body was found in eddie’s house. the body of his girlfriend! i know jason is a shitty guy and very much douche who doesn’t respect women coded, but there’s really nothing in canon that explicitly suggests that he didn’t actually love chrissy. i’ve seen people be like “well he thought she would never do drugs, he didn’t really know her!!” yall eddie was also surprised by her doing drugs. it was clearly her first time buying drugs. no wonder jason wouldn’t think she would do that BUT i digress.

i think st does have trouble writing women sometimes, but i personally think those problems manifest mostly with nancy. i’m not trying to be a duffers apologist but i really didn’t find issue with chrissy’s introduction and characterization and death, mostly because she’s treated the exact same way as fred, a man, and treated better than patrick, a black man

[devsgames]

okay okay you got me @pigdeons

This initial thought was brought on from a memory when years ago a rando person online tried to put me on blast for arguing that objective markers are generally a good thing.

Their argument was essentially that "good" games shouldn't have objective markers at all, because it's not "immersive", and essentially that if a game has objective markers it means that the Level Designer failed to make a "good" Level Design because it doesn't lead the player effectively. I think this sentiment is fairly common too; that if a game has "good" level design then it should successfully lead you around a space by default with no assistance, or else the Level Designer has failed.

So first off, I think "good" design is a myth. Generally, I don't believe design is "good" or "bad", and referring to it as such is something that I just fundamentally do not agree with. Rather, I believe that design just has varying levels of success for different types of audiences - it's subjective to who is playing and what methods are used, and this is determined by many factors (culture, psychology, thought process, learning style, etc). Rather, I think the goal of any designer should be to try and cover the widest range of cases possible.

One person might navigate a series of objectives successfully with zero issues without the use of something at all times telling them where to go, while someone else might flounder completely without something holding their hand the whole way. Both of these are valid players who should be catered to, and one doesn't need to implicitly be held to a higher standard on the basis of personal preference or game vision.

I also think that generally in level design, if you're building any kind of objective-based gameplay that isn't a straight hallway with one exit and no distractions where the gameplay is hard scripted to execute in an exact way...well then you're going to lose players.

Someone will always get turned around. Someone will always press the wrong button. Someone will always be too slow. Someone will always forget what they're supposed to do. Someone will always struggle to find the path to get to point B.

Do I wish that players just knew where to go and what to do all the time so we could just build worlds that are implicitly understood? Totally! Unfortunately that's just not how Level Design works, especially not when building a whole game.

At this point in my career I have watched hours of players playing the levels I have made, and I have never seen a group of players - in playtests or in the wild - all have the exact same perfect experience navigating a space of any kind. I've seen people beat levels with no help, blind, first try with no problems at all, as well as players who have to toddle their way meticulously from point to point. Unless your level design is so dirt simple that a mullosk could do it, it simply doesn't happen and you'll always have people who will struggle through it. It's the same in real life - if you sit and watch people on any street corner for any amount of time you're going to see someone at some point or another get lost. It's just how people are.

Hence, there's always people out there that step-by-step influence will be vital for, and objective markers are something that lifts a skill floor up for those people to engage with your game. For some, that moment of confusion could be when they quit, and a guidance tool like markers could be the thing that prevents that.

I also think anyone who says levels should be perfectly navigable with no non-diegetic assistance 1) have almost never built a level before and 2) has never built a level in a context that necessitated actually shipping a game.

Games that don't use objective markers are often explicitly designed around that premise, and a ton of resources go into ensuring these systems don't need to be added. You'll see immersive sims thrown around a lot as an example of this, and that's because it's fundamentally part of that genre to be "immersive". You'll also notice that they're generally smaller, more focused bites of gameplay compared to the scale of other games, and these small spaces are iterated on way more frequently by way more people. They'll often have you exploring a single building or series of rooms in isolation rather than, say, a whole world. It's because there's SO MUCH work in making a world that directs you well without something explicitly guiding you, and even then these games will fail at it. The sheer amount of resources a Level Designer would need to execute that successfully for a wide number of players is staggering - I personally could never imagine building something without any non-diegetic UI and expecting it to "just work".

But hey, I'm just a Sr. Level Designer, what do I know. :)

As a case study: when I worked at Ubi I was on a project where one of our directors scrapped all the objective markers in the whole game, mid-production. Because the game wasn't fundamentally built for it from the ground up, and it was an open-world game with many objectives intricate enough to be distracting and demanding of the player's attention. It took a year for them to realize the scale and attention such a move would require simply wasn't available with the resources we had, and eventually we re-added all of them. Fun!

I also believe people use 'immersion' as a strawman to disingenuously attack design they simply don't like on the basis of it, and I see that happen a lot with stuff like non-diegetic UI markers.

I mean, to some players "immersion" is not having a HUD while playing, and to other players "immersion" is 'I want to have to press a button to breathe and blink and sleep for 8 hours in game to recover stamina'. Ask someone what makes a game "immersive" and you'll never get the same answer, and this is largely because "immersive" just depends on a player's values and what they like in a game. Therefore, I think it's just a fundamentally weak argument to imply that games shouldn't have markers at all, just because some people aren't "immersed" by them. I mean hell, half the games people tout for not having objective markers still have tons of non-diegetic UI. This is all just stuff I think stems from the wider cultural torrent that is ~video games~ though.

Anyway I'm rambling.

The fundamental idea here is that I think if you can put objective markers to assist you in guiding the player through your game, I think you should because no Level Design will ever be good enough. It's often cheap, easy to do, and frankly helps far more players than it hurts. I think it should be treated like an accessibility tool and control of it should be given to players to choose how much of it they want, where, etc. so that players who need the help get it, rather than have people campaigning to cut them out entirely from games and hoping the level design "just works".

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk :)

My hot take is that objective markers in video game UI is very good and that virtually every video game should have them, and that the pros vastly outweigh the cons.

[gravegroves]

It's not that Billy isn't grateful that the bastard sprung him out of the secret government lab he'd woken up in and subsequently spent weeks or maybe months being poked and prodded.

But out of all the closeted queers in Indiana that could have taken Billy under their wing, Murray goddamn Bauman is probably the last one that should legally be allowed to care for another human being. On the flip side, he may have single-handedly convinced Billy that heaven must be real, if only because Murray has most certainly dragged Billy to some version of hell. A better hell than he'd come from, but hell all the same.

Billy's starting to really hate classical music.

The fact that he's still bedbound doesn't help the situation any. If he could walk he'd smash that damn sound system with his bare hands or just fucking leave. But walking isn't an option while his body tries to heal, so if Murray doesn't soon turn off the 9th repeat of that Bach-Rachmaninov-Mozart bullshit he's blasting throughout the bunker-like structure Billy has been forced to call home for the past two weeks, he's going to strangle himself to death with the IV tube still lodged in his arm. Hopefully he'll shit himself after the fact and Murray will be forced to clean that up too.

"Turn that crap off or take me back to Hawkins you balding piece of shit! At least my dad only beat me!" Billy roars at the water stained concrete ceiling and grits his teeth against the pain when the move pulls on what feels like all the stitches in his body.

Murray glides into his field of vision like an unwashed spectre and throws himself onto the couch opposite the one Billy's lying on, still dressed in that same ratty bathrobe that probably hasn't been on the laundry pile in years, smiling that maniacal smile that Billy is less and less convinced is put-on by the day.

"Self degrading humor to mask the pain. You'll fit in here just fine." Murray sing-songs before getting back up and scuttling his way out of the room like the cockroach he is and into what Billy thinks might be the kitchen. Doesn't exactly know the layout of the hovel they're in, being bed-bound and all that.

The music cuts out and all the muscles in Billy's body slowly unwind as he breathes a sigh of relief.

Murray comes back with a flask of something foreign and pours a generous glass before handing it off to him, either unaware that Billy probably shouldn't be mixing alcohol with the cocktail of drugs he's still on or, more likely, doesn't give a shit. Billy downs it before the man can even open his mouth, too quick to really appreciate how it goes down smoother than water.

"You fucking philistine. That's good Stolichnaya." Murray grins before downing his own helping straight from the bottle.

"You a commie?" Billy asks, such a carbon copy of Neil he can almost feel the man's hand up his ass directing his words like a fucking puppet and he bites his tongue hard enough to hurt. Not that Billy's a big fan of the commies or the government or Neil or anyone really, but he's fairly sure they're the worse guys if this whole situation were a contest.

"Nice ideology, poor execution. No, but I'm gonna teach you how to speak like one Billy-boy!" Murray says, snatching away Billy's empty glass and filling it for him once again. "No one learns Russian well when they're sober though, so drink your heart out. It's gonna be a long year."

Billy stares.

"The fuck am I learning Russian for?"

Murray grins.

"Gotta go save a bigger Bastard than you or I."

"And why the fuck would I do that?"

Murray throws his hands out wide, "For the greater good, Billy. And maybe Steve Harrington will touch your dick about it, who knows."

Drugs really have a way of loosening Billy's tongue as it turns out, and it had taken a good day and a half for the worst of the effects to wear off after Murray had gotten him out. The Bastard hadn't let the opportunity to pry slip by him though, that's for fucking sure.

Billy scowls.

Besides, Steve Harrington doesn't even know that Billy's still alive. No one does. And even if he did… well.

The greater good will have to be enough, he supposes.

[anghraine]

I've talked before about why I'm annoyed by the defensive leap to "things have to be changed for different mediums!" as the go-to response to any criticism of any adaptational changes ever.

The short(ish) version is that a) it's virtually always presented as something critics of the change have never heard before, despite being incessantly repeated about everything, but more importantly, b) the underlying rationale that a specific change is intrinsically good because some change there was required by the medium (or because change in general is required by the medium) strikes me as unreasonable in the extreme.

With regard to the second issue, the statement that adaptations require changes, in part because of differences in medium, can be 100% true without supplying any reasoning whatsoever for why a specific change was a good one. Yet it's far and away the most common response I see—this sort of kneejerk insistence that all changes should be accepted uncritically because in general, changes have to be made at some points. And that's just a weak line of reasoning, IMO, which makes its inescapability all the more irritating.

That said, I was thinking about this particular argument in the context of something I mostly agreed with, and realized that there is another reason I find it both unsatisfactory and annoying.

The argument is sometimes accompanied by other arguments about how adaptations are fundamentally artistic works in their own rights, anyway, with nothing worthwhile gained by examining their relationships to their sources. However, I don't think these arguments go together particularly well.

The first one, the one I find so deeply annoying (I don't like or agree with the second, but it's not as irritating to me personally), essentially denies the artistry of adaptation. The thing is, if you assume that particular adaptational changes follow automatically and inevitably from the medium, and don't represent actual choices between alternatives, there's no artistry at work. Doing something when you have to do it and have no other real option isn't a meaningful choice, in my opinion—not just morally, but artistically.

Art requires the exercise of judgment. You have to actually make choices to do things in a particular way, when you could have chosen differently. It's your choices as an artist that speak to your artistic vision, and this is true whether we're talking about adaptation or not.

In adaptation in particular, though, keeping something the same as the source material is a choice. Changing something is a choice. These are artistic decisions that could have been made differently, that were made for reasons. Those reasons may or may not be persuasive for other people, and the execution of those choices may or may not be effective in the judgment of others. These are not just direct consequences of medium carried out by automatons.

Art requires vision and vulnerability. Among other things, you constantly have to make choices that depend on your vision for your project, and open you up to criticism in terms of that vision, its connection to the reasoning that culminated in particular choices, and the execution of those choices.

Note: I've said "you" in an implied singular kind of way, but this is true whether we're talking about a single artist, or a large collaborative production like cinematic adaptations. Artistic decisions intrinsically open you up to criticism if they are decisions in any meaningful way, while if your hand is forced to the point that you aren't exercising artistic judgment and choice, then we're not talking about art.

And I get that total fidelity purists can be annoying and equally uncritical of the source material. But you can't fairly argue that adaptations are art and then deny that artistic judgment and decisions are being made.

[thedilucharem]

A Collection of Headcanons - Sparring Edition! (Part 1 of 2)

Overview of the Win-Lose Ratio

Zhongli - 1:0 (read: one to zero)

Childe - 5:3 (wins more than he loses by a large margin)

Diluc - 8:7 (wins more than he loses by not as much of a margin)

Beidou - 1:1 (wins and loses a proportionally equal amount)

Arataki Itto - 2:3 (loses more than he wins by a large margin)

More under the cut!

Zhongli

There was one incident where the other four did try to fight him all at once, but after they couldn't get up by themselves, Zhongli simply told them that it wasn't fair to begin with.

Not because it was four-to-one, but because it would have to be about fifty-to-one for them to have a chance.

Naturally, that ratio is 1-0.

So Zhongli doesn't spar for the simple reason of the fact that even if he went easy on them, he'd beat them all anyway.

"As much as I would enjoy throwing myself at you all and taking delight in your bodies scattering like chaff in the wind, I am freshly retired. I would much rather enjoy the pleasant calm and peace of mind that comes with drinking a cup of osmanthus tea instead."

Childe

Childe treats the spars like a competition as well as opportunities to push himself, and as such he unsurprisingly has the broadest win-lose ratio among everyone else.

A definitive part about his fighting style is that he loves being up close and personal with whoever he's fighting for the thrill of it. Melee most certainly suits him best in that regard.

He enjoys testing himself by using all the weapons he's mastered over the years against his sparring partners.

Sometimes he'll be using just a polearm and on other days, he'll be dual-wielding blades while also throwing projectiles at his opponents.

He treats his wins and losses as improvement and critique so that he can ultimately become better, often implementing them mid-spar to test them out.

Beidou

Beidou is usually the one asking for spars. She can't afford to lose her edge given her profession and it helps that she finds it fun and refreshing.

While Beidou may not be as specialized as her companions and her (assumed) injured eye is some semblance of a disadvantage, she makes up for it with hardened experience and practical application.

She is the first reason why using Visions is banned because apparently, her full-counter does damage beyond the person on the receiving end doing five seconds of airtime.

I think her fighting style is based on hard and heavy hits that are meant to end the fight quickly, as the disadvantage of being blind on one side would become noticeable after a minute or two.

She uses the spars with them as a way to try and figure out how to properly compensate for her eye, as just swinging a big sword around in a limited radius can only do so much.

Diluc

Diluc treats these spars as transactional first, but it very quickly becomes one of his favorite things to do with the others as he considers himself fairly good at it.

His fighting style is versatile as he has demonstrated, agility, strength, and adaptability in the past, but the claymore that he wields would serve as cumbersome against some opponents.

As he has seen a lot more in his life than most others and does vigilantism on the side, he would have a healthy amount of training as well as experience, influencing how he fights them specifically.

Dare I say, he gets a little too into it sometimes, which is why he is the second reason why the use of Visions in the spars as he and everyone in the vicinity had a tendency to burst into flame.

Every loss and concession in his mind's eye is a lesson to be learned and then properly executed on whatever vagabond is on his to-hit list on his nights of patrol.

Arataki Itto

When I say that this dude has the potential to match up with them and even excel them in some instances, I am deadly serious; it'll just take him a little while to get there.

His fighting style is very much 'I hit it until it stops moving' with a combination of 'I'll power my way through it until I collapse' and it works about 60% of the time.

When it comes to more experienced, specialized, and disciplined opponents, though, that 60% becomes a 5%.

His strength is a boon when it comes to critical weaknesses and flaws in his approach, but like I stated before, raw and brute force can only do so much.

His goal is relatively simple: beat all of them soundly and without room for any compromise or debate. If he can do that, he'll be the best, and goddamn it, he is the best (in his mind at least).

Part 2

[featherymainffins]

Haha yeah, it's been a bit of time!!! I think I'm doing fairly ok, had some trouble with university and also went no-contact with my mother and i have a tattoo now (got it for my birthday lol). How about you, are you doing well : D?

I wouldn't call it impressive but it's pretty fun when it's not infuriating dkshkjdhk. What will be impressive will be the moment I finally manage to play the waltz I composed some time back correctly. I keep fucking it up even though the melody is really easy. Oh that reminds me, I have no idea if I ever posted my new ukulele, whom I call Henry, to Tumblr? I got him for Christmas because I really wanted a wooden ukulele but of course I had to customise it, and I know that I have showed him to people on Discord but unsure about Tumblr because it's possible I deleted before that. And no, it isn't a secret jdkfhkdjf. I've just been modding Baldur's Gate 3 since like early December and at first I was like "I'll just make one single head so that my characters is accurate and then I'll stop." and um yeah I have not yet stopped. I'm mostly making heads both my own and just making pre-existing but unusable heads usable for players (which can be either a nightmare or easy breezy depending on why exactly it isn't usable. Like nightmare nurse heads? A breeze, easy as hell, at least resculpted their ears for all races as to avoid the task being too low effort lol. Oh yeah the textures sucked hell but like the 3d models themselves were fine. On the other hand...Gerringothe Thorm? Awful, no good, a horrifying experience, would do it again but yeah I wouldn't recommend. That is because she is a monster and naturally does not use the same skeleton as humanoid characters nor is her UV map anything close to normal and her textures sucked and Chainner was not available when I was making her meaning I don't even remember how the hell I upscaled those textures but I did and it was a nightmare. So yeah.), but sometimes I also make armour if I have a particular vision. I post some progress stuff and general BG3 modding stuff on my sideblog @featherymuffins-moi (long story but when i started making mods i jokingly wrote moi, meaning me in French, in the author field that mods have and then I forgot to remove it when I decided to publish the mod so ever since then I'm "featherymuffins - moi" on Nexus) if you wanted to take a look but I haven't posted much there, you can see more of my stuff on Nexus, but I also have some stuff that's private for now that I haven't really posted, usually because it isn't really super release-ready yet or because I keep forgetting about it but I can show you some photos of, for example, Wrestling, which is a head/character I made like a week ago and proceeded to make armour for them immediately. I haven't posted Wrestling as a head anywhere yet because...idk...

Yeah, I was just mentioning the Toymaker analysis specifically because that is something I really want to do and I feel kinda bad about how I seem to be incapable of doing it in a decent time frame? Like I feel like the list of my tasks/projects/hobbies keeps getting bigger and never gets any smaller dsfsfsf.

Right, right, right, so I'm actually not sure if I was posting about it before I deleted or if I finished the book only afterwards, but around New Year's I read this book by Stephen King called Dreamcatcher, and uh, it's very difficult to recommend because the ending sucks shit. But if you ignore like 5 sentences that completely ruin everything and pretend they do not exist then it's a good book. So that's what I do. Funnily enough I do not like it for the plot, the plot is in itself fairly unremarkable, but I like the themes present and the execution of them. Like what is actually going on is your typical sci-fi horror stuff and is cool I guess but what I like way more than that is the psyche of the characters and who plays what role in the narrative etc etc. The book is long, has about 700 pages, I do have a PDF if you're interested (I have a physical copy but I'm in the process of analysing my fucked up idiot meow meow and it's a real damn hassle to analyse characters when you have to flip through pages and can't just skip to your highlights you know? So that's why I also have a PDF now.). There are also audiobook versions. I do not know if they're good. I hope they are because I would actually like to listen to one later. I can provide a link to at least one.

And this is getting like real long so I should cut it off but just a bit of info about the character whom I'm like insane about, the only problem is that he's hard to talk about because the themes, they do slap way goddamn harder when you do not expect them. But the total basic gist is: the freak in question is called Mr. Gray and he's an alien from what was an alien hivemind before the rest got absolutely annihilated in a battle, and he's just,,,,he's so everything. You know how that one meme is kinda like "Stop giving me your toughest battles I am not your strongest soldier I am your weakest soldier." or whatever the counter-meme to "God's strongest soldier" was like? Yeah well he's definitely the aliens' weakest soldier. I'm willing to bet the whole hivemind cluster that go to Earth was the race's weakest soldier. They have to be from alien Florida or something. It's also really funny how he like almost always says complete bullshit? Like sometimes it's really funny because he'll be like "Hmmm yes well you see unlike the primitive human race that cannot be considered sentient, we truly think and aren't weighed down by these 'emotions' of yours." and in the next breath he'll be like "We came to Earth because your mom. Lmao." When he doesn't want to answer a question truthfully he'll either just ask you a question or he'll say something that is so clearly either a lie or a straight up shitpost. Alien fungi is funnier than some Tumblr users for real sdkjhsfkss.

But that's just the absolute basic gist that doesn't say anything but if you would like to hear more about the alien I can definitely talk at length about like everything about him including the themes, I just didn't want to talk about him too much in this reblog because it's,,,,so long jksdhskjdhk.

Hey! How have you been? Sorry for disappearing, I deleted my Tumblr for a bit and then I uh forgot to remake it because I was 3D modelling in Blender for 3 months and learning how to code. Long story. I still haven't done the analysis of the Toymaker that I promised back in December. So there is that. But the good news is that I am not currently spending my days 3d modelling all day every day, which does actually make the possibility of me ever doing an analysis much more possible.

Also I might have a book recommendation for you. I have been recommending it to literally everyone around me lol. It has weird little men. Who are fucked up and pathetic but in a bit of a cute way? Depends on what genres of books you like tho. There is also an audiobook version if you prefer that. Oh and a film adaptation but that one...well...it is technically a good adaptation but it also kinda completely glosses over any of the deeper themes. Like yeah the plot is very faithful. No themes present though. Not sure about the quality of the audiobook but I personally want to listen to it later because I want to see what direction they took my favourite freak's voice in.

Anyway, I hope you are doing great!

Ira oh my goodness you're ALIVE!!! 🙈💖💖💖 hello my dear friend, how are you doing? it's been so long!! 🥰 ooh wow, sounds like you've been super busy!! please don't worry at all - real life can always pull us away from our Internet sillies, but i'm so glad you've been doing something so interesting with your time!! 3d modelling in Blender and coding is so impressive - are you working on something specific, or is it a secret? 😉 oh pal, don't worry about the Toymaker analysis at all! if i had a penny for every time i've said i'll do a fandom-related thing and then didn't, i'd be very rich indeed 😂 if the mood strikes you i would be delighted to see it, but don't let fandom fun become another job, you know? :3c ohoho i am very curious about this book recommendation - what is it? 👀 you know i love weird little men!!!! and it's always fun to see what gets other people fixating hahaha i'm so glad you're back buddy!! welcome home, settle in, and i hope to talk to you more soon 🙏💖