#but the worst thing is i am genuinely engaged in the story of GoT and not JUST hate watching it

[pdanno]

i just keep thinking about watching more game of thrones and getting righteously pissed off about the way they’ve been treating the women side characters. season 7 making me angry. but it’s also like. it’s GoT what did I expect.

ALSO THE TIMELINES ARENT MAKING SENSE ANYMORE. Like wtf why are they speeding things up like this. 2 episodes a characters leaves, then during th episode he’s halfway across the world and then by the end he’s back where he started? One episode a character is 2000 miles away from another, and the next episode they’re right next to each other? where’s the journey? why the rush? did jon snow drive across Westeros in a 2017 honda civic?

Like there’s. I know how it ends mostly. i know it ends bad. I know the writers fucked up. but i thought it didn’t start getting annoying until season 8 😭 I also hate the way they’re using “surprise! it’s an army to save the day” over and over. this is not. No. there can only be so many lucky incidental lining up of the timing of things. I need. more substance. reasoning. forethought. Please

anyway… i’m a olenna tyrell apologist until the end. She went out as badass as possible. cheers olenna u were possibly my fave, you little old rich lady, whom i abhor ur morals but adore ur personality.

i am gonna finish it :( i just like complaining

[eowynstwin]

So, Ikea and Bunny. I need to talk about them too, though no one has explicitly asked about them.

The truth is, I am still so fucking angry at those two. There is not a kind thought in me for either of them. Either my worst suspicions are true, and they conducted the whole affair from behind the scenes, or they were willfully stupid enough to swallow Myka’s story for the sake of their own blog engagement. Because I sure never heard of either of them before this happened.

Those two were needlessly and joyfully cruel to me. They languished in attacking my character, my maturity, my intelligence, the way I phrased things, or that I did not say what they thought I ought to. They called me a sociopath. Ad verbatim they said my brain "doesn't fucking work right."*

I have been VERY open for a while now about being autistic. I certainly already had it in my blog description by the time they came after me.

They went on to accuse me of poor reading comprehension, bullying, and abuse. They accused me of setting my followers on Myka. When I referenced one separate occasion in which I had a public disagreement with another blogger earlier this year, they spun that reference out into a HISTORY of influencing my followers to go after others I didn't like. (There was no request for clarification on my part before they took that and ran with it.)

Bunny even went as far as to explain what Myka's original post meant, the way a third grade teacher might, to prove her point about my lack of reading comprehension.** Bunny, just call me a fucking retard and be done with it.

Then, as people began to point out that they were in fact doing the same thing they accused me of doing, they had the audacity to remind everyone not to harass me. So it's okay when you forget about that, girlies, but guillotine for me because I forgot?

When the truth finally came out, they backpedaled REAL quick. I even got some apologies in my inbox.

Genuinely. From the bottom of my heart. Absolutely fuck the both of you. I didn't have you blocked until I left. In fact, the both of you FOLLOWED ME. You never ONCE tried to talk to me first anyway. You two saw your chance to tear me to pieces and you fucking took it.

Disclaimer, because I know these two people by now: this is no call to action for anyone to go after them. I doubt you could anyway, since all of their blogs have been inactive since June. (the-original-honeybun is crashtestbunny's main.)

But these two did permanent damage to my reputation within this fandom. Even if they were to delete every single post they made about me, there would still be versions of them circulating. Their blogs are still fucking UP, ostensibly for accountability, but exactly how accountable are they if they haven't actually been there to take it?

*Specifically Ikea. Scroll her blog if you need proof. The post is still up. **Also still up on her blog, crashtestbunny.

[loweffortopinions]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Play Time: 70 hours and going because I like to hurt myself?

Platform: EA Pro Play 

Rating: 4/10

(Moved this Review from my other account because I can't mix art and text)

Environments 

I had a few oh, that’s pretty moments, but overall I found it hard to feel immersed. The cities are nice I guess and detailed, but they lack distinct, memorable qualities. 

A city like Minrathous has the potential to be an exciting showcase of magic woven into everyday life. Mages using spells to transport goods or to perform mundane tasks. I was also looking forward to see a clear divide between magic users and non-magic users, as previous games have implied that Minrathous is Ferelden in reverse. Instead, NPCs feel static, and there is nothing new or interesting done with the magic. For a place built up as legendary in previous games... Minrathous just doesn't deliver. Further, you only get to explore one district, so there is no contrast between richer and poorer areas. And Treviso? It's pretty... but I mostly remember pointy roofs and ziplines.

Character Design

Faces and hair are a big step up from previous games, and armors are varied and nice to look at. But it comes at the cost that it feels overdone, leaning into flashy, cartoony territory. I ran around in my starting armor for half the game because nothing really fit my character.

The companions suffer from this too to some extent. Darin’s open-chested armor seems impractical for a warrior, Neve, supposedly from Docktown, looks more like an aristocrat from Orlais than her background suggests. Bellara’s design is fine, but aside from her vallaslin, she doesn’t seem particularly Dalish. Emmerich and Harding look fine, especially in their camp outfits, which I prefer for most characters.

Combat and Gameplay 

I’ll be honest—I eventually turned the difficulty down to story mode just to get through the game. The combat didn’t do it for me: repetitive enemy hordes that seem randomly placed, limited abilities, and dodging and rolling mechanics that don’t feel very engaging.

Aside from a few setpieces and two boss fights, no encounter stood out. It’s not a particularly hard game, it just got tedious after a few hours.

Another complaint is that every class now feels overly magical. Since the lore around magic is such a key part of the series, this really rubbed me the wrong way. 

Story and World-Building 

Starting with the biggest issue: Veilguard’s main story is a weak.

In Inquisition, even if Corypheus wasn’t the most compelling villain, there was still a sense of growth as you built up your organization and connected with companions. In Veilguard, it feels like they stripped away what worked in previous games and just kept Corypheus. And the worst part? I miss Corypheus. At least he had a booming voice and some interesting lines. Veilguard has none of that.

The villains in this… honestly, where to start? Rather than feeling meaningful, they’re just names repeated so often it feels like the game worries I’ll forget them. Villains aside events unfold without much connection, leaving me questioning why things happen the way they do.

Why are we choosing these allies?

Why am I stuck doing busy work for them while the world is supposedly ending?

But who cares! It's not like your allies really matter. Rook is a one-man army after all. If we’d had them instead of the Hero of Ferelden, the Blight would’ve ended in Ostagar—and every named NPC would’ve survived, including whoever slay the Archdemon. 

Character and Companion Dynamics 

While presented as experts, they rarely get the chance to demonstrate their skills. Harding sometimes provides useful contacts, and Emmerich occasionally shows his abilities, but beyond that, companions often feel like tropes with minimal growth or depth.

For instance, one character is the “unwilling father,” but we never see him grapple with it genuinely—he just says it. Others are similarly shallow: the socially awkward “nerd,” the “noir detective” with a heavy burden, and the “tortured assassin” who doesn’t seem all that tortured. Insights rarely go deeper than quirks, like loving coffee or fish, which get mentioned repeatedly without further development. 

Previous games built strong, opinionated characters who added depth to the world, but here, companions are lacking. Banter is shallow, with little conflict or chemistry. I’ve never played a Dragon Age game where I wanted to skip side quests or companion quests, yet here, I actually did.

I honestly prefer Andromedas cast over this on. Never thought I'd say that but here we are.

Main Character and Roleplaying

Rook’s voice actor; I love em'... which only makes the limited dialogue options more frustrating. I tried to play Rook as a practical, no-nonsense character, but the writing kept steering me back to a softer, more agreeable tone.

If you’re aiming for a tougher or more forceful personality, you're out of luck. If you plan to play be prepared for Rook to come across as a diplomat. Further, you are forced to agree with everyone, and never get to question them or their motives.

So... maybe don't get this if you're into Baldurs Gate 3 and player agency?

Ending Words 

If you’re like me, and the highlights of previous games have been the banter, character depth, and exploring the world and lore, you’ll likely be disappointed. Honestly, I’d even recommend skipping it. Then again, I've seen people say the opposite. So what do I know?

No matter what you do, I’d suggest waiting for a sale. It’s not worth the full price. 

Extra shit

Combat and Gameplay 

There’s the matter of the quest marker, which gives you tunnel vision which distract you from the enviorments.

The loot feels out of place due to its flashy animation. I started skipping loot in certain areas because it felt inappropriate and slowed down the pacing.

You'll fast travel a lot. And I don't mean in a big open area. It's more of a design flaw: Fast Travel to the Lighthouse to talk to a companion. Fast travel to a location to start that companion's quest, walk to said spot to start the quest. Repeat 5 times.

Story and World-Building 

The ending to its credit, was nicely paced and visually strong. If the rest of the game had been more like that, it would’ve been a decent experience. 

The Shadow Dragons, the Crows, the Wardens—all these factions make sense to be here but do nothing meaningful for the story or the worldbuilding.

Even dramatic scenes lack memorable moments. For example, there is a prison escape that's visually pretty but otherwise lacks substance. The person you rescue has supposedly been there a year, but nothing about their appearance or behavior reflects this. There’s no memorable dialogue, nothing deeper—it’s all surface-level.

I personally think Bioware are cowards for only letting you side with an anti-slave organisation. Come on: This isn't the Teviner you've built towards for 3 games! *shakes fist*

[booktomoviebrawl]

We are not judging how bad the movie is, we are judging which adapted the book the worst. There are good movies that are bad adaptions.

Propaganda below the cut (spoilers may apply)

Persuasion:

They massacred my girl!! That is not Anne Elliot!! The whole point is that she's beaten down and thinks she's missed her chance at happiness and is bullied by her family, not making mean and snarky nods to the camera :( They completely missed the whole point of the dynamic and it's SICKENING! They also cut Mrs Smith who is arguably one of the most important characters as she highlights Anne's lack of focus on title and rank and her family's comparative obsession with it + it's only through her that Anne learns about Mr Elliot's true nasty nature. Also they cut the 'I am half agony, half hope' line from Wentworth's letter at the end so what's even the POINT of adapting it if you don't have that!! Oh my god!! My poor favourite Austen novel :( (I do want to make it very very clear that my issues with the movie come from the writing and adaptation and not in any way from the race blind casting. The casting is superb and I'm genuinely so disappointed that they got such a bad adaptation bc so many of the cast are literally perfect)

Where do I even start? They tried to 'modernize' both the protagonist and the love story and managed to take out everything that made it good in the first place. Anne Elliot in the novel is quiet and good and helpful, full of regret. In the movie, she constantly turns to the audience to mock everyone around her, feeling so much better than everyone, to the point where nobody understands why Captain Wentworth would still be in love with her, or have fallen in love with her in the first place. Eight years before the plot starts, she broker her engagement to him because she was persuaded by a family friend that it was a bad idea. No way would movie!Anne have let herself be persuaded. They just tried to do a Fleabag/Emma type of thing without understanding what made either the novel or those two things work and thereby ruined it completely

Whoever made this didn't understand the point of the novel at all. They completely screwed up the character of Anne Elliot (the protagonist), which in turn screws the rest of the movie, as the original story only works because Anne is the way she is. Also, it's a period piece but the characters are talking in modern slang the entire time. And not in a clever way but in a very cringey one. If Jane Austen knew, she'd probably turn in her grave, and rightfully so.

Maximum Ride:

The storyline makes absolutely no sense, and the movie is nothing like the book. You could've given the movie an entirely different name and and keep the plot I wouldn't bat an eye

the movie's just bad mate

Horrendous low budget netflix movie with effects so bad they make me feel physically ill and acting so wooden the cast is in danger of being attacked by lumberjacks. The story already wasn't the best and the film somehow made it worst. I came in with nostalgia for my dear kids with bird wings and left never to be the same again.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children:

While Miss Peregrine was one of my favorite books as a kid and incredibly unique in the way the story is written (The author basically took a box of weird antique photographs and created an underlying story behind a handful of them) the movie is incredibly boring. Like seriously I can't remember a single goddamn thing about the movie besides my extreme disappointment with it after leaving the theatres. It's probably because the original is a trilogy but they didn't want to make it a trilogy for the movie so they just scrapped the ending of the first book and rewrote a shitty climax where they threw snowballs at the nightmare child eating creatures or something. I remember THAT scene perfectly because it was so, so dumb. It was so stupid oh my God- ALSO, thank God I have a copy of the book from before the film came out because new copies don't have one of the photographs that the actual book uses as a base anymore and instead have the shitty movie poster! We truly do live in a society.

Changed way too much so it doesn't feel like the same thing. The main characters are these kids with different abilities (called peculiarities) and the movie switches around their powers and changes almost everyone's age. Emma and Olive switch powers so that Emma now floats (they also added that she can kind of control air to some extent) when she's supposed to have fire powers to match her fiery personality. Olive can make fire now and she's also aged up from an eight year old to a teenager and put her in this weird romance with Enoch. Enoch is also aged up from a grumpy thirteen year old to around the same age as Olive. Bronwyn, one of the older kids in the book and sort of a motherly figure to the younger kids, is now one of the youngest kids. Hugh and Fiona are aged down and basically have no interaction at all in the movie, even when their book counterparts had such a good relationship. The only one they didn't really change was Horace and Jacob. They also added these gorgon twins that do like two things. The antagonist in the movie is Mr. Barron who honestly isn't super memorable and isn't in the books whatsoever. The ending of the movie is weird too because they manage to turn back time somehow so Jacob's grandfather isn't dead and then he hops through loops so he can be with Emma and the other peculiars. I guess the problem of wights and hollowgasts is magically eliminated and we do not have to deal with the consequences. It took six books to fix everything. I appreciate that the movie engaged me enough to read the series but once I did, I could not believe they did my kids that dirty.

Yikes where to start. The 3 girl characters are all mixed up. There are 2 teens, one who's super strong and has a brother (I'll get back to him) and one who controls fire and is the love interest named Emma. The third girl is a child called Olive who floats. She's lighter than air.

In the movie, strong girl is the child, olive is now the fire girl and is for some reason super introverted, and Emma the love interest floats and gets given a super breath??? Power?? Like she rises a sunken ship by blowing in and keeps a man blown against a wall by blowing air at him. He makes a remark that she'll run out of breath eventually, which happens here because plot convenience, but not when she's blowing in the sunken ship.

The enemies in the book are terrifying Hollows. Creatures who have lost themselves and devour souls of those with powers... The movie decides they eat eyes now. And turn human again. And get busted up in a fair for the final act of the movie. Ugh.

The movie also decides randomly that time travelling through the loops is a thing; a loop being a pocket of time that replays the same day over and over. But apparently this means Main Character can travel back in time and stop his grandfather dying??? What?? His grandfathers death is the whole start of the movie and motivation for the character.

The movie undermines many of things that made the book amazing and even decides it's not a trilogy anymore!! Fuck the other 2 books, right?!

Tldr; it is terribly hollywood-ised and t tim Burton ruined a franchise by trying too hard to make it quirky and fun when the books already had a brilliant sombre and interesting tone to them.

[nexility-sims]

Hi, there! Love your story!! Any advice for a first-time simmer looking to do this sort of thing?

i'm gonna say from the outset that you surely did not request an automobile manual's worth of expounding on such a simple question, but ... that's what i've given you :^) partly, i wanted to cover all the of the bases of what you may have meant, so there are three parts: "general advice for thriving," "specific advice for knowing when you're ready," and "specific advice for doing what i do." hopefully these are useful and not completely derivative of what other people have said recently. beyond that, i'll just say i am always, always happy to talk about storytelling, to answer questions, and to give feedback on anything and everything. thanks for the question—and the kind words, too !

ONE - general advice for thriving

JUST START TELLING YOUR STORY ALREADY. maybe it’s obvious, but the best advice is to dive in. it’s like going for the first swim of the season and knowing you’ve got to take the plunge but dreading the cold of it. once you finally submerge yourself, you’re having fun. it’s easy to get caught up in endless preparation. planning is important, whatever that looks like for you, but you’ve got to know when it becomes procrastinating. being ready to start is not the same thing as being 100% confident and 100% polished. i’m willing to bet none of your favorite storytellers, people whose stories have been ongoing for years with dedicated readers, started off confident and polished. it may not be universal, but i think there’s a common reaction when a new reader likes your very first story post: cringing because it’s your worst work but knowing it only gets better from there. storytelling is something you have to practice, and the basics of it become more intuitive and effortless as you go.

continued and continued and continued below ...

BE INTENTIONAL ABOUT WHAT BRINGS YOU JOY. to feel satisfied and stay motivated, prioritize your passions. you want to tell this specific story for a reason; you want to do simblr storytelling, specifically, for a reason. the former is likely because you’re inspired by your plot/characters. the latter could be because you enjoy taking screenshots, you enjoy writing dialogue, you love reading simblr stories, or any number of technical reasons why the medium speaks to you. there are probably things you don’t love as much—posing sims, filling plot holes, realizing your skills don’t fully line up with your ambitions. in my experience, being able to name why you’re doing this translates into being able to crafting a story around those priorities. that, in turn, means having the motivation to power through the parts you like less. 

i hate making poses, so i approach my work from the perspective of, “i’m not going to get hung up on having the exact right poses, and i don’t want to slow my story down by wasting time in blender.” other people love making poses or decide having the right one is what’s important to them. being purposeful saves you the trouble of agonizing over things that aren’t actually necessary or, worse, that eventually lead you to burn out and abandon the work altogether. we have to make compromises to tell good stories—maybe you hate writing outlines but know doing it will make things easier later—and it’s invaluable, imo, to know why you’re making those choices. there are jacks-of-all-trades with infinite free time and buckets of inspiration among us, but you’re likely not one of them. don’t worry, though, because neither am i. 

FALL IN LOVE WITH OTHER PEOPLE'S STORIES. this one is huge, albeit ostensibly a step removed from the immediate task of storytelling. something i’ve noticed is that people who genuinely engage with other people’s work get more love for their own. it makes sense when you think about it. ideally, if someone is taking the time to catch up on my story, to ask me questions about my characters, to demonstrate that they see what i’m doing, then i want to reciprocate that. to me, it’s actually off-putting when someone only ever publicizes or discusses their own story. that being said, it’s easy to get caught up in our work—using our finite free time to make sure our project gets done—and not allocate time for getting to know other people’s. it’s no crime or even a bad thing. yet, to me, that defeats the purpose of joining a community like this one. it also makes our stories weaker, to reference the wisdom that writers must also be readers. talking to someone about their characters, their writing process, how they stage a scene in the game (or observing those elements while reading their posts) makes me reflect on what i’m doing. paying true attention to other storytellers is a practice of reciprocity that builds community, and it gives you solid examples to learn from as you go. 

FOCUS ON GROWTH, NOT WEAKNESS. relatedly, the learning element is so important! a common pitfall, especially for someone just starting out, is getting hung up on what you think you’re doing wrong and comparing yourself to others. maybe their stories are more visually pleasing. maybe their plots have better pacing and impact. maybe their characters get more engagement from readers. step one is to not compare, but i suspect most of us will cop to failing that step. step two, then, could be turning those negative feelings into motivation. if your options are getting down on yourself and abandoning your story versus pushing through and improving ... well, it’s clear to me which is the better option. step three is figuring out how to push through and improve. my advice is the above tip: make some friends whose stories you admire and who are willing to give you encouragement and feedback. most simblr folks, i find, are generous like that.

IT'S A HOBBY AND A CRAFT AND A COMMUNITY. that leads me to my final point, which is basically a bundle of generative contradictions. simblr is a hobby, which means you can’t take it too seriously. storytelling is a craft, which means you have to take it seriously to get better. story simblr is a community, which means the best way to have fun and get better is by doing it with other people. if your goal is to have a hugely popular story that hundreds of nameless followers adoringly read, then, statistically, you’re going to fail. a more reasonable goal is becoming part of a collective who are working on stories they mutually enjoy. maybe you’re in a writing group or have a beta reader. maybe you’re collaborating with another simblr. maybe you have a handful of mutuals with whom you interact exclusively through likes, reblogs, and replies. having done all of the above, my experience is that i’m most excited about my story, most motivated to work on it, most likely to get the positive engagement i want when i’m actively trying to have fun, get better, and be part of the community. from someone who is not infrequently stymied by social anxiety and perfectionism: you can’t reap benefits you don’t sow. 

TWO - advice for knowing when you’re ready:

TURN YOUR IDEA INTO A CAST AND A NARRATIVE. i say narrative instead of “outline” for a few reasons: 1) not every story is event-driven, 2) the traditionally imagined outline structure doesn’t work for everyone, and 3) pre-defining everything doesn’t work for everyone either, plus 3a) frontloading too much detail is a lot of work and 3b) can dampen creativity. maybe you have a bulleted list, an illustrated storyboard, a well-organized playlist … regardless of what it is, you should know roughly what the sequence of major experiences or events is, how they’re connected, and what you want them to convey to the reader. i did a ton of winging it when i started my main story in 2021, and i did a lot more planning with this current project; as you go, you’ll figure out what kind of preparation makes the most sense for you, and that may change, too.

MAKE DECISIONS ABOUT THE LOGISTICS. it’s important to emphasize that you can and perhaps should change your mind / experiment later, but some things are nice to have settled before you start posting. among them, i would recommend several. one is figuring out if you do scripts or screenshots first. another is knowing if your story is more gameplay-based or will rely on poses. you should also have a sense of the locations you’ll need and whether those will be existing in-game lots, builds you download from others, or ones you build yourself. are you editing your screenshots visually, in canva, photoshop, gimp, photopea, etc? are you using reshade / gshade in game? are you writing dialogue, prose, or both—and are you then putting it on the screenshots or as text below them? what’s your posting schedule going to be, if you choose to have one instead of posting as you go? these are just some considerations, but i would say they’re significant. for every combination of ways to tell a story, there’s almost certainly a simblr doing it. there’s no right or wrong, only what’s right for you.

RUN YOUR PLANS BY SOMEONE ELSE. it’s not essential or always feasible, but feedback can make you feel better about the whole thing. having someone give you constructive criticism, whether on your outline or your planned posting schedule, is helpful. even more helpful is knowing someone is already familiar and enthusiastically waiting to see more of your project. an added benefit is that, if you’re nervous about how your story will be received, this can be a practice run at sharing it! 

THREE - advice for doing what i do:

i describe my story as historical drama, as an anti / decolonial worldbulding experiment, as being about intergenerational family and the exercise of power. so, if you’d like to enter the royal simblr genre (or thereabouts) and do something that is—i think i can say—unique, then here’s my anecdotal advice.

HAVE A STRONG INSPIRATION BASE. if you’re not faithfully basing your country on a real world location, then you should at least have a solid idea of where your inspiration is coming from. i consider my story an indigenous story, and my inspiration is mainly histories and cultures in the western hemisphere—primarily but not exclusively in what’s currently mexico and central america, plus from what’s currently the united states and also some histories of the iberian peninsula. i’m not trying to recreate any particular nation or culture, but knowing the origins of influence both helps my creations feel more cohesive and gives me a reliable source when i need inspiration.

DO YOUR RESEARCH WHEN IT MATTERS. relatedly, you can’t be inspired by the real world—by real everyday people’s real cultures—without using them respectfully. more often than not, that means doing research. i suppose i think of it as, “if someone sees themself in my story, how is that going to make them feel?” i don’t let that thought discourage me or make me fearful; i use it as motivation to ensure i’m producing good representation. i know where my expertise and personal experience end, and i’m willing to put in the work to make sure i’m not being careless. that being said, research isn’t just about cultural sensitivity! doing your research—especially for historical settings or with institutions / processes you haven’t personally dealt with, like royalty or executive governance—makes the story stronger. you don’t have to bore your readers with reams of findings or shoehorning details into places they don’t belong. understanding the context in which your story takes place will help you intuitively and subtly render the world more realistic and immersive, write characters who are more believable and engaging, and craft plots that make more logical, interesting use of the setting in which they’re unfolding.

FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR PROTAGONIST. this is obvious, but it’s especially true when you’re writing a story the way i do. my storytelling is character-driven in the sense that, more than the events of the plot, i like to focus on moments that develop the characters and their relationships. it’s also character-driven in the sense that i choose a character or two and let them drive the narrative. i just don’t have the adeptness for ensemble casts; i can’t handle the moving parts, and i naturally close in on a particular character’s emotional world rather than zooming out. to make these inclinations work, it’s key to really know your lead characters(s) and feel comfortable working inside their mind / heart. i’ve harped on this before, but motivation is the single most important thing you can know about a character. it puts you on the path to answering so many other key questions, from what their desires are to how their backstory shaped them to how they struggle in the present to what their next move is. if you love your protagonist, then thinking about these questions is more fun than burdensome. 

EMBRACE THE MESS. there is a tendency to avoid messiness, one that is well-meaning but can undermine the story. if you aren’t comfortable with thematic gray areas, with unresolved loose ends, with lingering emotions, with conclusions that aren’t definitively happy, then i think you miss opportunities. these are all issues that have two sides: one is the dreaded plot hole or some equivalent writer’s mistake that leaves readers disgruntled; the other is challenging your readers and giving them intrigue to chew on, to dissect and debate, to feel as they read. my advice is that you can have contradictions and complexity and even ugliness in your story, but you have to purposefully put it there—or take control of it, if it arises on its own.

DO IT FOR YOURSELF, NOT FOR OTHER PEOPLE. at the end of the day, the story that you pour your heart into just won’t connect with or excite everyone. the characters, the plots, the world, the genres, the way you post, how you talk about the story ... it won’t always resonate the way you hope. being okay with that is what makes storytelling sustainable. sometimes i wonder why i put so much effort and thought into what i’m doing, especially when it seems like no one seems to notice. what i have to remind myself is that some people do appreciate it and, more importantly, the process brings me joy. to reference earlier advice, i’m putting effort into the parts that are my priorities, and i’ve made connections with a handful of people who give me the enthusiasm i need on days when simple enjoyment isn’t enough. “being okay with that” isn’t a permanent feeling; it’s a decision you, as a hobbyist storyteller in a casual community, have to make and remake.

it’s okay to do it for other people sometimes. i’m including this caveat because my current project is a collaboration that i started for an audience of one, and i do make a habit of trying to put a ton of effort into all of my few collaborative enterprises. one of the reasons i gravitated toward royal simblr is that it’s a very collaborative space, but i think the best ones really do build reciprocal love for someone else’s story. if you’re going to care what other people think of your work or make choices with their opinions in mind, then i suggest doing it for people who are involved—who know what your priorities are, who love your characters, and who understand what you’re trying to do well enough that their opinions actually do make the story better. like i said, we're here to have fun, to get better, to be part of something.

okay, that's it, whoever read this far down is an angel possibly with too much time on their hands. as i said at the top, happy to be a resource or a supportive voice in whatever ways are helpful ! ♥️

[thedreadvampy]

btw about Neil Gaiman I periodically agree with the 'Neil Gaiman is annoying' stuff bc I feel like both he and Amanda Palmer seem like people who I would go insane stuck in a room with bc we have very different ideas about art and suchlike. and I also do think that the career trajectory he's on lately is cynically redoing his greatest hits and pretending that was the dream all along when it clearly was not. which is at best meh.

having said which

as far as I can tell by far the most common complaint about Neil Gaiman is "Snow, Glass, Apples is problematic/gross/it's got incest and rape and frames the child as the aggressor"

which strikes me as a weird complaint to pull out of a 40 year body of work tbh when that short story is pretty clearly coming from a place of 'how far can I push this'. like you don't have to like the story. I don't really like the story. but it is. a horror story.

like and this is the thing with particularly 90s alt horror right? a lot of the interest is in transgression and sitting in the worst possible perspective and seeing what happens if you pull those strings. like I really like Clive Barker for example but there's a good chunk of his short stories that I'm like I'm not picking up what you're putting down Clive this seems Kinda Off. but that willingness to write some trite or Bad Message horror fiction that doesn't land is imo a side effect of being willing to try writing uncomfortable and unpleasant fiction at all. which is what horror is for, among other things, it's for creating discomfort as a form of catharsis or engagement.

like I am not a huge fan of the type of sex-horror that pops up in a lot of Gaiman's work and other contemporary horror writers - to me I don't find it upsetting or horny it just ends up feeling kind of edgy and tryhard - but I'm also a bit like. it does seem like a lot of people's beef with Neil Gaiman is that In The 90s He Was A Horror Writer

and this approach to Problematic Horror in Snow, Glass, Apples I find kind of microcosmic of how The Discourse often approaches art in this kind of 1:1 way. if you write a story which seems to line up with rape apologia it can only be because you agree with it. if you write a story about transphobia you're a transphobe. if you write a story that makes me genuinely uncomfortable you're attacking me.

but artwork, especially art like horror that's not necessarily trying to provoke enjoyment as its main response, is necessarily hit and miss. and if what you're shooting for is discomfort then whether it works, falls flat or goes too far incredibly depends on your audience. and making good art - as in art that makes its audience think, art that opens the audience up to discomfort and catharsis and sticks with them and changes them - requires the space to experiment and tbh the space to fuck up. like they aren't all going to be winners and they certainly aren't all going to work for you as a singular audience.

personally I don't see the appeal of Snow, Glass, Apples, less cause it's nasty and more cause it's hack. ooh an edgy monstrous version of a fairy tale where there's lots of rape and cannibalism? you're soooo original Neil. but like. that's fine. I don't really vibe with like 70% of Neil Gaiman stuff I've read but I still like Neil Gaiman because the stuff that works for me really works for me.

idk I think there's a lot of folk on this website who shouldn't interact with horror cause they clearly aren't interested in being horrified. that's not everyone who dislikes Snow, Glass, Apples, but it's a real undercurrent to a lot of the criticism and tbh this kinda vibe is shit for art. making standout art What Is Good also requires being ready to make art which stands out for the wrong reasons. sometimes they'll be the same art to different people.

[catiuapavel]

I completed every main mission and sidequests in Cornia (excluding the forbidden level 40 area)

This game is so fun and refreshing to play. When I played Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen a few years back, I dreamt of a game in the same vein that could grant you more control over how battles play out and Unicorn Overlord is a far more layered iteration of the timid concept I imagined. Going through all these menus and setting all these conditions, testing them out, doing it all over again to optimize them... This is so thrilling. I love micromanagement.

The more gameplay devices are introduced (like watchtowers, catapults, balistaes, rams, units to rescue in the middle of nowhere), the more fun it gets. Thanks to these elements coming into play one at a time, the stages never feel dull or the same.

I'll say Cornia on expert mode was hardly that difficult. It provided fun challenges so I don't mind. I'm just surprised that the highest level of difficulty feels like a normal mode. That being said I'm not a good judge of strategy games difficulty because I'm pretty much like that:

The presentation of the game is sooo beautiful. The hud, style and environments all fit so perfectly together. So few games seem to understand the value of these things nowadays and it's refreshing playing such a well-crafted one. I just wish there were more parity in character design: men with sillier outfits and animations and (a handful more) women with... let's say more pragmatic ones.

The soundtrack has been alright so far but I'll say: BOY am I glad to get out of Cornia. I think the area could have used 1 or 2 more songs for diversity (even if they kept a similar style or leitmotiv). Drakenhold is delivering in terms of music already!

Unfortunately the only tar so far is that the story is just so very... mid. At best, It's simple and serviceable even though you feel like you've seen it a hundred times before. At worst it's... mind control to handwave morality and responsibility away. However, I don't want to judge it too hastily and I hope to be surprised eventually.

Mostly, I'm genuinely, desperately, hopeful that recruiting everyone merrily will have dire consequences at one point or another. As much as I enjoy collecting every little guy on the continent, defeating a boss set on murdering you and/or terrorizing the countryside and having Alain choose between executing them or recruiting(/releasing) them after hearing their tragically lukewarm backstory (and everything ends well and fine) is becoming jarring. I want to feel regret, I want to feel pain. I want my decisions to come back to haunt me. I want to be crushed under the weight of my actions.

(DON'T tell me whether that's the case or not)

But so far the characters are just bad until they're good and once they join your ranks, they are unconditionally loyal. It lacks conflict and makes everyone far less interesting as a result.

(side note: this one isn't recruitable (thankfully) but Gaston in "Province of Famine" was one of the worst parts so far. You've got a tyrant pillaging his subjects' reserves, depriving them of food while bragging he's enjoying several lavish meals in a row with the most episodic cartoon villain presentation, but when you defeat him suddenly he wasn't actually that bad and was just keeping a reserve in case of famine. Surely... There was a way to write this with a bit more nuance and with less contradictions. The worst part? I called that one as soon as the stage began so it wasn't even shockingly bad, just disappointingly so.)

Still, the characters themselves feel engaging enough. The writing is decent when it comes to interpersonal relationships. I've set one foot in Drakenhold and I was delighted to see Travis and Aubin come into the picture once again. It makes me hopeful the greater cast will develop outside of rapport conversations. And if the narrative truly doesn't deliver later on... I will have these lively and diverse characters to fall back on at least.

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

Hello, hi, i started following your blog recently and I just wanted to that it feels so nice to see someone talk about the harm of sex work and that it’s actually exploitive and harmful WITHOUT the “purity culture filter” and with actual care towards the women.

Context: I grew up in a Christian conservative environment so I was obviously bombarded with the good ol’ “Your body belongs to your husband” and “sex is something that you give, women get pleasure from giving themself to their husband” and so on. Even at a young age I always felt that that was wrong but I didn’t have the knowledge to argue against it.

Being taught that “sex is a duty/chore” really messed me up.

I was taught why sex work was harmful and exploitative and I understood that those women needed help. But, instead of empathy or kindness towards the exploited women, the old conservative ladies would shame them, saying that “these women are stupid, they should get married and belong to their husbands instead!

So I turned to feminism. But that quickly died when the, dare I say, trend of OnlyFans and “sexual empowerment” started. It was the same things I was taught as a kid but with a “liberal filter” on it!

Liberal feminists scream that “actually, sex is just an act that you can give to someone for money” “Sex isn’t sacred or personal, it’s just work!”

And that’s when I lost hope. I felt like women would always just be their to “give sex”. Like it really was out only biological purpose. And the worst part is I genuinely started to believe that.

It wasn’t until I discovered radical feminism through the “terfs tag” (I looked it up because I was curious) and literally all the problems and questions I had about women and womanhood were answered! I started to dig deeper and I’ve never been happier, I actually found a movement where we women get to be women and actually have our biology be acknowledged and also our autonomy and so much more!

This got a little wordy but I do want to share my gratitude towards you and other RadFems out there 💕 thank you for not letting the loud people get you down, you are doing an amazing job, all of you guys. 💕 💕 💕

omg girl i love that you shared this! 🩷 and im eternally grateful for everyone who goes out of her way to tell me my posts resonate with her. it gives me so much hope.

and your personal story is very interesting! since i didnt have a very religious upbringing i dont know this side - but it makes total sense! liberal feminists fall for the madonna-whore complex without even realising it. for them its either be monogamous and save yourself for one person or have sex with random strangers who dont give a fuck about you, no inbetween. and as you say, both conservatives and liberals treat sex as a service and chore a woman does for a man! thats not fucking sex positive! sex positive feminism teaches women to discover our sexuality independent from men, through masturbation and talking about our experiences etc, and demand equal satisfaction when with men, enthusiastic consent and saying no if youre unsure or uncomfortable or dont really want to!

radblr helped me so much. i identified as gender fluid for the longest time because i felt like i didnt fit in with the girls in school and the women at work, and radblr helped me see that there is no wrong way to be a woman, that im good the way i am. it was healing. and when i was in prostitution it helped me to have this community to vent to, and now that im out it helps me to work through my experiences, and to engage with likeminded women in this society where all sides of the political spectrum try to manipluate us into serving men!

much love to you have a great day 🩷

[16woodsequ]

(For the writers truth and dare ask game)

I was unsure how many I could pick so I chose two, 🍓 because I’m genuinely curious and 🍦for the fun of it!

Also excuse me for not interacting as much as I usually do, but now I’m back :)

(From this ask game)

Thanks for the ask! I always love them :D

🍓 how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

Oh that's something I haven't thought about in a while! Okay, so my first introduction to fandom was through DeviantArt. I grew up on transformers and went looking for cool fanart. I found some but couldn't comment without an account, so I made my first fandom account. I wasn't planning to post anything, but a stranger followed my empty blog and sent me an encouraging note saying they couldn't wait to see what I did. (I still think of them, we never became mutuals or anything, it was like they were a benevolent fairy godmother telling me to create, and then I never saw them again, but I owe them a lot!)

So I posted a few drawings and followed a bunch of people and groups on DA. I began reading fanfiction there. But I still never even thought to post my own work at the time.

But circa 2014 I am very invested in reading fic and I have a favourite Transformer character (Starscream) whom I have created an entire backstory for (sparked by a take I didn't agree with in a fic). I'm deep into mentally writing stories, with my own Mary Sues and everything. It's my daily pass-time, daydreaming these stories and meta.

It still doesn't occur to me to write any of these until one day I'm watching The Hobbit, and Ed Sheran's I See Fire plays and hits me like a lightning bolt. This song is perfect for my fav character!! Someone's got to have written about it, right???

So I scour fanfiction sites (I can't remember if I'd started reading on Ao3 yet, but I'd definitely been on FNN) but No One had written this Very Niche idea???

And that's when the concept of writing my own fic started. I just had too. The idea was too good. So my first fic was a song fic writing on the DA STASH program (not even Word lol. This thing didn't even have a word count, and my editing process was to read the wip backwards word for word, searching for misspellings or other typos).

And after that I suddenly realised that if I wanted people to see my fav character in the same light I did, I had to write it. And so it began.

I eventually started posting on FNN, and then in 2016 on Ao3. My first Marvel fic followed a similar process where I got an idea and it was just too good and people needed to know about it, so Lessons Learned was written on STASH. (I think around then I finally moved to Word XD). I still have an old account on DA, but I haven't been active on it in many years. It does hold a special place in my heart for being the place I started learning about fandom and writing in though.

So I guess I started writing fanfic because no one seemed to be writing my stories, and I had Opinions that needed to be shown.

🍦 name three good things about a character you hate

Oh geez, lemme think.

Quickest name comes to mind is Rumlow. But that's in a Love to hate situation. I know some people like to redeem Rumlow, but I love how he can shorthand so easily as just the worst guy you know.

He's just the worst (positive). No matter what AU you're reading you know any character named Rumlow is going to be the worst scum ever.

I mean, I've heard about what it's like to live with large, bad burns. So good for him for making it through the acute period and living with it I guess.

Kind of ties in to the first point, but there's not much he wouldn't believably do. You want an unhinged bad guy? Rumlow will help you out. Does he have morals or did he lose them with the burns? Your choice writer! He's up for anything.

Hope you enjoyed the ask! Oh and don't feel bad at all about engagement! I know how life can get sometimes and I'm not ever going to get mad for something like that.

[boundlss]

14. which roleplay community has been your favorite to write in?

i answered a question like this the other day! it was baccano! of course but i may as well take this opportunity to expand on my answer and what specifically about the communities i've written in i liked and didn't. i think with the inclusion of baccano! i would say that i have written properly within five communities. i think maybe i'll rank them. yeah, i decided it would be a good idea to do that.

baccano! - the smallest of the communities. with the exception of one person, i was usually interacting with every concurrent person actively writing baccano! since i started writing it myself. but that was what was fun about it! we were all friends and there was never any fuss about duplicates or shipping drama because it's a 2003 light novel series about alchemists and american-italian crime syndicates in the 1930's like how much are you willing to dramatize things there lmao. anyway, i liked how much we all genuinely liked writing with eachother there, and how into baccano! everyone was at the time!

bungou stray dogs - although i am specifically talking about the way the community was when i first joined it since that was really the only time i was ACTUALLY engaged with it. it was my second rpc on tumblr and i really, really have a lot of fond memories. it spawned my favorite muse ever that i still write to this day and most of my current rp friends are people i met when i joined there back in 2018. we don't talk about the reconnaissance i was part of it did not happen.

the witcher - i would actually consider this community to be extremely middle of the road. i don't have anything against most of the people i interacted with when i was fully entrenched into the community and wrote nowhere else, but i also think i was engaging with the story in a different way than most people who were writing it, and ultimately there was a weird combination of one half of the community over-moralizing things and the other half being just absolute complete wild cards, and literally nobody except for like three people who i still think of fondly ever actually read the books in full, but everyone definitely pretended they did.

my hero academia - actually this was my first rpc on tumblr and it was the mixiest of mixed bags. at the time i wrote a character for 6 straight months who literally no one else wrote at any point despite there being, like, 500 people in the community at the time. i got called out twice for two completely different bullshit reasons but everyone loved me because i was the only blog for my favorite guy. like if you were in that community around 2018 then there's a good chance we interacted because i followed literally everyone and participated in everything.

genshin impact - aside from the fact that there was a very pervasive problem of actual real life racism the people in this rpc were just extremely pretentious and elitist and constantly made me feel like they thought they were better than me. hands down the worst community i have ever written in, like i would prefer the puritanical attitude and callouts of the bnha fandom to the stuff i experienced secondhand in the genpact community. this is actually part of the reason i don't play anymore.

questions for muns. / accepting.

[ecargmura]

My Happy Marriage Episode 1 Review: Taisho Era Cinderella Story

Ah yes, the classic Cinderella story. We get a girl being mistreated by her family after her father gets remarried and then she meets the rich man who will save her from her hell. As cliche as the trope gets, I actually like the trope. I like seeing the lead character be super withdrawn and having that one special person come into their life and make them open up and change them for the better.

However, there are some interesting things that differs My Happy Marriage from the usual Cinderella story. First off, Miyo, our main character, has her father who got remarried. After the birth of her half-sister Kaya, both her biological father and her stepmother mistreat her and her younger sister looks down on her.

The entire first episode is just making Miyo be in the worst situation possible. Miyo’s daily life is just cleaning. Her childhood sweetheart gets engaged to her younger sister and she gets sent off to be married into another family. You just can’t help but feel bad for Miyo.

Miyo is just a miserable character for now. I feel bad for her. She’s been so emotionally abused that all her personality got sucked out and she’s only a shell for now. I just hope that Kiyoka can bring in some personality into her.

Oh boy, Miyo’s family sucks balls. I did mention that her BIOLOGICAL father neglected her after his remarriage. Her stepmother is also terrible. It sucks that the two only care about Kaya and not Miyo. The only “good” thing her father did for her was buying her a nice kimono for the marriage interview. If you look at the things she had packed, she only had two pairs of clothes. That means her father has never bought her clothes until now. On top of that, he makes Miyo go to her arranged partner’s house ON HER OWN! WITHOUT AN ESCORT! He’s certainly not winning any Father of the Year awards ever. Her stepmother is just awful. She doesn’t care about her stepdaughter at all and it shows. She belittles her whenever she can. Kaya is also a bitch. She just looks down on her and sneers at her whenever she can. Like, the way she looked at Miyo as she was getting engaged to Koji made me want to punch her so bad. She just seems like an entitled bitch. Don’t tell me she’s going to go after Kiyoka when she learns that he’s a better catch? 

Miyo’s childhood friend Koji seems like the only one who’s genuinely nice to her, but not even he can stand up to his family. It sucks that the only light in Miyo’s life has to be taken away. It seems that his family is quite powerful because he cannot choose who to marry and such. It sucks that society back then was like this. It just feels heartbreaking to know how many bonds have been broken due to arranged marriages and the powerlessness to prevent them.

I’m also curious to why they arranged her to meet Kiyoka. Did they request her? I don’t think this was ever explained. Her father was like “Here, go to this man’s house. Get married. Bye,” and refuses to elaborate. Who set this up?

My opinion on Kiyoka is nothing right now; he just appeared towards the end of the episode. How am I supposed to make an opinion about that? I just hope he’s a nice guy. Miyo needs some good people in her life.

The anime is super pretty, though! I love the background details like the cherry blossom tree, the water and the trains. Given that Western clothes existed and there are trains, I’m assuming this show takes place during the Taisho era? Because I get reminded of Demon Slayer since that show’s setting takes place in the Taisho era too.

The voice acting is great! Reina Ueda voices Miyo and she does a great job with the soft-spoken tone. Ayane Sakura voicing Kaya was good too. Sakura is a versatile voice actress. She can be the sweetest thing ever or she can dish out the haughty bitch voice with relative ease. Kana Ueda voices Miyo’s stepmom and I’m not used to her voicing an adult since I’m always more familiar with her cutesy roles. I think that the biggest mindblowing role is Kaito Ishikawa in his 5 minute screen time. I’m usually familiar with Ishikawa playing loud, brash and hot-blooded characters so for him to voice a stoic, stern man like Kiyoka is going to take some time for me to get used to.

Overall, Miyo deserves a happy life. I do wonder when the supernatural elements will be implemented into the story since the first episode is just showcasing how bad Miyo’s life is and that she gets sent off to marriage. This is an adaptation of a rather popular light novel series. Maybe I should give it a read when I get the chance.

[cina-full-moon-xanadium]

What’s your ranking of the doctors

it's very basic due to my very disjointed and lacking exposure to showa dr who which i must fix soon. so:-

9 and 10 are what i grew up with so between the insane nostalgia and the actually insane quality of the writing (not biased not biased) they are my favourites. it's really hard to go wrong with an ageless god who lost his people rediscovering the beauty of the universe through the eyes of ordinary people

11 much like his seasons i'm very mixed on; i like a lot of his series 5 stuff where there was a fairytale theming going on and they started to make him much more genuinely alien and detached from humanity compared to how 9 and 10 could literally just feel like dudes (not a bad thing either way, either option is an interesting portrayal for different reasons) and they started to confront his morality and influence in series 6 and 7, but a fair bit of it falls flat for me. series 7 eleventh doctor in particular i really dislike i found him annoying to watch

12 is slowly becoming my favourite. everything i just said about 11's best traits being when he's written as truly alien and engaging with the ideas of his influence on the universe and the morality involved? 12 is all that in fucking HYPERDRIVE and it has a lot of charm and a much higher feeling of genuine honesty to it when he is portrayed as an actual old man with a lot of anger and sarcasm to how he does things; which of course also harkens back to doctor who's beginnings and provides a very sharp contrast to the other 3 main doctors since the revival. Very strong case for being my favourite

13. sigh. oh 13. where did it all go wrong girl. it's difficult to say anything about her because i don't think they ever truly landed on a solid characterisation or vision for her; and much of it feels like nostalgia-pandering David Tennant tablescraps and the most severe militant inaction ever put to television, with a very lacking performance which i absolutely cannot blame Jodie for because I don't know what the hell I'd do with those scripts either. I REALLY wish I could say something like "even if I didn't like this era I at least have fond memories of 13 herself" but tragically I think she's the worst doctor there's ever been and it's absolutely criminal

Fugitive/Ruth, conversely, I actually really liked what was shown of her and like many at the time I felt she was a far more compelling Doctor than 13 and the one I'd rather be following! It's a bit harder to go back to her now you know it's setting up the timeless child nonsense but for a single episode, wow; I really do wish this is what we got

War I really liked; I think if you are genuinely going to show the time war and do a story about it this was the best path to go and is a great transition between classic and modern doctors. Really solid bash at it

7 I really love what I've seen of. Token classic doctor mention here but I have seen a fair bit of him and I really am in love with his whole mysterious gait and have been for over a decade

I generally like all the others but haven't seen enough to really say anything on (i have seen the TV movie but ages ago). I really like 3's vibes!

14 is a fascinating decision and I'm looking forward to seeing where they go with him

15 IS GOING FUCKING CRAZY RN I NEED HIS RUN TO BE SO REAL YOU HAVE NO IDEA

[rooolt]

Rank the 7 intrepid heroes seasons from worst to best: FH, FHSY, TUC, ACOC, TUC2, ASO, & NA

Kill your darlings

JOKES ON YOU VEE IVE DONE THIS MANY TIMES IN MY HEAD, ITS SO EASY

*disclaimer that I am not attacking anyone who likes the things I don’t, literally no one yell at me*

7. ACOC - I feel like I’ve been pretty transparent that acoc just like isn’t my genre. Not a fan of lower magic, not a fan of fantasy politics, and it really stressed me out to a point where I really can’t watch it. I also just like got really annoyed at ruby and amethar post jet death and I’m still bummed we didn’t get more time with lapin. Solid Murph character this season, not his best work tho

6. NVA - also been pretty transparent with my thoughts about this season, I don’t handle horror well and I feel like it just got too convoluted at points. Sometimes it felt like it was just trying to do too much so some plot lines got rushed weird, but a lot of the pcs were super fun. Big fan of the Murph character this season, big fan of guys who are the worst

5. TUC2 - I feel like you specifically will be mad at me for this but like, idk it just doesn’t reach the highs of some of the other seasons for me. I liked a lot of it dont get me wrong, but a lot of Sofia’s plot line specifically to me just felt like a lot of talking. I know it’s all talking but that’s the easiest way I can describe it. I do not think this is a bad season, I like it a lot, I just like the others better, plus the roll 20 combat just wasn’t as engaging to me I’m sorry to say. 10/10 Murph character this season, I love my awful guy, he’s so New Jersey coded.

4. TUC - this was a tough decision for me and fantasy high’s nostalgia factor just beat it out, but genuinely TUC is such a beautiful story and I really really like it. I prefer this one to tuc2 because it feels much more on track idk and it’s just great to me. Kugrash’s story like means so much to me and I ugly cried the first time I watched the finale.

3. FH - An amazing start to a great show. I love high school settings I’m sorry I love teenagers (not that the fh teenagers are very teenagery but we can pretend) and it’s just so memorable to me I know the name of every episode and every fight in order this is what kicked off my dnd special interest it has such a deep place in my heart I adore it so. Riz Gukgak is the best character to ever be created.

2. FHSY - I like it better than the first season because of the deeper explorations of the characters and also Ayda Aguefort my girlfriend appears. Not much to say about it that I haven’t already said about fantasy high but I think it just benefits from these characters and their relationships already being set up. Once again, riz gukgak is the best character to ever be created and this was really his season

ASO - SEASON OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!! It’s so fun it’s so great I don’t care about the plot because I could’ve watched these amazing characters do just smash and grabs for like 50 episodes. The feeling of being back in the dome was electric, this was the first season d20 combats REALLY hooked me and just it was so laugh out loud funny and the rolls were so exciting and also it’s my mommy’s favorite season so bonus points. I only wish perfect television like this wasn’t tainted because of all the stupid slug arguments because oh my god people needed to calm down. I would be straight for Big Barry Syx

[faroreswinds]

Anon asks about Xenoblade 2

xc2 100% has harem fantasy elements, but i can ignore them for the most part. it also has what id call a significantly more engaging world to xc1, and the story in the torna dlc is amazing. tons of conent, challenges, and things to collect. easily worth the cost of the game imo. i enjoyed it a lot, and its got 10x more replayability than xc1. the story has some pretty genuinely heat wrenching moments. buy if you can is my advice

Xenoblade chronicles 2 ended up one of my favourite jrpgs but it's a hard sell for lots of entirely legitimate reasons. I do think the game has more heart than first impressions suggest but it's definitely guilty of the things people mock\criticise it for. I would openly recommend 3 though, you don't really need to have played the previous games for it. Remake of 1 is an overall solid game.

I will be pretty honest with you guys. I have no intention of playing Xenoblade 2. 

Even if the story is good and the gameplay is good, the treatment of the women is enough to for me to say “Fuck no.” It’s not just the worst designs on the planet, but I’ve seen some dialogue scenes and it is so cringe. There is only one good female design. ONE. And they still make her joke about not looking like a woman since she’s not half-naked (I did some research. I still don’t understand the plot of the game). 

No fucking thank you. I hate that shit. I know that sounds aggressive but I do. Even if the women are generally well written, the designs tell me that they aren’t ACTUALLY anything more than objects to stare at. A good character needs design and writing, not one or the other. I can already tell you there is only one female character I will like. Yes, I am petty. A bad design will ruin a character for me for good. 

I can barely take some of FE’s female designs, no way in hell will I tolerate XC2. 

Also like SPOILER but while doing some research I found out Rex apparently marries all three of the main girls and has babies with them. I cannot even begin to describe how appalling the “family photo” was. Legit uncomfortable. It looked like “Look at my sister-wives I impregnated!” and all the gigachad comments were fucking gross.

I would be less bothered if I could get a female character that got a male harem and got to stand over her husbands in a similar weird way as Rex did, but like 99% of the time these never happen. 

It’s not that I am against polyamorous relationships. But the general idea of the female characters from this game already leave a bad taste in my mouth, plus a real-world history of women being basically baby-makers makes me wary of one-male multiple-women relationships in media. Especially if it’s 3 women. I think I would have been less bothered if it had been 2. But 3?! Come on, that’s literally just a harem hentai. Look at their outfits! 

I really care little about the context of the situation. I don’t even want to know. That’s how much it bothered me and I am pretty hard to bother. 

I’m not generally passionate about much, but the objectification of women in this way without it being equal with the men does bring out that loathing in me. It might be surprising to read this rather aggressive answer, since I generally don’t have aggressive answers for asks. But man, XC2 just looks so gross. I won’t be able to play a game where I have to watch Pyra or whatever her name is on my screen 24/7. 

I might look into 1 and 3 though. They don’t sound so bad. I’m sure they have their fair share of treating women like shit too but design-wise at least they look like actual people. 

[booktomoviebrawl]

We are not judging how bad the movie is, we are judging which adapted the book the worst. There are good movies that are bad adaptions.

Propaganda below the cut (spoilers may apply)

Persuasion:

They massacred my girl!! That is not Anne Elliot!! The whole point is that she's beaten down and thinks she's missed her chance at happiness and is bullied by her family, not making mean and snarky nods to the camera :( They completely missed the whole point of the dynamic and it's SICKENING! They also cut Mrs Smith who is arguably one of the most important characters as she highlights Anne's lack of focus on title and rank and her family's comparative obsession with it + it's only through her that Anne learns about Mr Elliot's true nasty nature. Also they cut the 'I am half agony, half hope' line from Wentworth's letter at the end so what's even the POINT of adapting it if you don't have that!! Oh my god!! My poor favourite Austen novel :( (I do want to make it very very clear that my issues with the movie come from the writing and adaptation and not in any way from the race blind casting. The casting is superb and I'm genuinely so disappointed that they got such a bad adaptation bc so many of the cast are literally perfect)

Where do I even start? They tried to 'modernize' both the protagonist and the love story and managed to take out everything that made it good in the first place. Anne Elliot in the novel is quiet and good and helpful, full of regret. In the movie, she constantly turns to the audience to mock everyone around her, feeling so much better than everyone, to the point where nobody understands why Captain Wentworth would still be in love with her, or have fallen in love with her in the first place. Eight years before the plot starts, she broker her engagement to him because she was persuaded by a family friend that it was a bad idea. No way would movie!Anne have let herself be persuaded. They just tried to do a Fleabag/Emma type of thing without understanding what made either the novel or those two things work and thereby ruined it completely

Whoever made this didn't understand the point of the novel at all. They completely screwed up the character of Anne Elliot (the protagonist), which in turn screws the rest of the movie, as the original story only works because Anne is the way she is. Also, it's a period piece but the characters are talking in modern slang the entire time. And not in a clever way but in a very cringey one. If Jane Austen knew, she'd probably turn in her grave, and rightfully so.

Maximum Ride:

The storyline makes absolutely no sense, and the movie is nothing like the book. You could've given the movie an entirely different name and and keep the plot I wouldn't bat an eye

the movie's just bad mate

Horrendous low budget netflix movie with effects so bad they make me feel physically ill and acting so wooden the cast is in danger of being attacked by lumberjacks. The story already wasn't the best and the film somehow made it worst. I came in with nostalgia for my dear kids with bird wings and left never to be the same again.

[trustrosswrites]

So long story short the last quarter of the year has been total dogshit, including some truly unfortunate Christmas situations. I wanted to revel in the melancholy and finally played pathalogic 2. I have so many thoughts, spoilers below as I’m just going to be getting them out there.

Ok so first off, I think it is just, SO impressive how immersive the storytelling of this game is. It is such an example of what makes fromsoft games so engaging, the story that comes out of a struggle. For me, i remember distinctly the *vibes* of being too thirsty cuz I had to use all my bottles on tinctures. How thirsty I was running through infected districts, often looking for food or scraps all while my health got lower from the fights I would make get into. The worst one was when I had caught the plague saving murky, constantly on low health, having died once trying to sleep even with morphine, desperately low on food. Running through districts on basically one health looking for health items so I could take antibiotics and not die. Like the game is SO genuinely tense in moments like these, but it creates such satisfaction, knowing that I fucking did it (an incredibly rare things, considering how many players really made it to the final day).

Related, I think it’s impressive how well the game lies to you, telling you that your quests, or the lives of the bound matter. Just like how pathologic uses the trappings of its genre and subverts those expectations, it’s almost as if pathologic 2 subverts the expectations of pathologic. Nothing bad actually happens if you don’t save people, or even complete the missions. There’s never a hard game over, which is extremely impressive. But I didn’t know that, and so I stressed myself out trying to save everyone, especially the list, sacrificing my own health and well being for something that doesn’t matter in the end, mechanically at least. It’s the world’s most story optional rpg, or maybe it’s more apt to say it’s the most story rich survival game. And I think this is such an interesting twist on the same themes they had with the secrets of pathologic. In that game, they twist the knife by doing the whole “it’s a kids game” thing only IF you save everyone. In patho 2, the knife twists by treating everyone the same, killed everyone? Struggled with the plague to help everyone? It’s all the same events, life goes on regardless.

In a similar vein, I knew patho one had guns, I traded for a decent amounts of revolver bullets, expecting to get one even after I refused the early deal. But no. I eventually got a rifle from a soldier I shanked, I had to kill many while I starved. Which I felt awful for, I was no better than the bandits that chased me. The ones they shot on sight. But i am a doctor, so they don’ft mind me sneaking behind them.

Finally, I think the changes to the aesthetic of the ending are fascinating, and really take this game to the next level. I haven’t played patho one (yet). But from what I understand, the polyhedron is directly what causes the plague, it’s destruction removes the forward progress of the town, but also doesn’t hurt the earth. But pathologic 2 makes the moral dillema genuinely questionable on both sides by making the removal of the polyhedron equate to just another way humans take advantage of the earth, you can’t just pull out the arrow without having it bleed to death. The destruction of the polyhedron is what allows the town to move forward, for the kids to age, and create a new, better place. The questions was far more nuanced, and I didn’t feel great about either option. While the steppe people are immune to the plague, what is it worth to live like beasts, completely stagnent? But not dull, they have philosophical beliefs, wants and desires, just not those aligned with traditional western ways of being, and cultural development. OR, do you have faith in humanity to create its own future, to keep ahead of whatever struggles the earth, or fate, throw at us? Struggle creates change and progress, but it also hurts people, as we’ve seen? It’s a genuienly fantastic quandary I don’t have an answer to, I chose a warmer future over stagnation. but whose to say that in time, people’s ideals get too large, and they begin to feel overconfident in their ability to beat death, causing another plague? Either way I thoroughly enjoyed my time with it, want to write about it more. And now I’m playing pathologic one (which is, in fact, much slower and more jank).