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oldsalempost-blog · 2 years ago

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The Old Salem Post

Our Local Tamassee-Salem SC Area News each Monday except holidays Contact: [email protected] Distributed to local businesses, town hall, library. Volume 7 Issue 26 Week of July 10, 2023 https://www.tumblr.com/settings/blog/oldsalempost-blog Lynne Martin Publishing

EDITOR: If you care at all about your tax dollars, the next multimillion dollar school consolidation, and trying to prevent our Tamassee-Salem Elementary school from closing, now is the time, probably past time, to rally against the Oconee School Board of Trustees. TSE is on the chopping block along with Keowee Elementary to consolidate. Older schools are often not maintained as they should be in order to give a good reason to close the school. WGOG radio reports that the Board has seen very little opposition according to their website, where you need to access to give your opinion. I feel people are best represented when they rally peacefully in massive numbers, and use the media to present the side that is unheard. LRMartin

Town of SALEM: Need Softball and Soccer players all ages! Sign up at the SalemTown Hall. 944-2819

Jottings from Jeannie: Time to Enjoy Kitty Cats It would be just terrible to only have one pet and to have to decide between a cat or a dog. I love them both. Mama wouldn't let us have cats in the house, but then I married into a CAT family and fell madly in love with a succession of kitties. I wasn't there, but "they" say that cats were domesticated 5,000 year ago. Ancient customs and folktales record love between kitties and kids all over the world. News to Me! If you meet a kitty with the tip of his left ear cut off, that identifies a kitty who is feral (wild). Kind folks have trapped, neutered, and vaccinated this kitty, and then let it go so it could roam the countryside catching mice. I once tried to make friends with such a kitty, but he would not cooperate! He did stop by for a dish of milk every so often. Miz Jeannie loves you! Take time to cuddle your kitties and fix them a little dish of melted ice cream!

JOCASSEE VALLEY BREWING COMPANY,(JVBC) & COFFEE SHOP 13412 N Hwy 11 Open Wed–Sat-Sat 8am-9pm. Sun: 12pm-7pm. Events this week: Thurs: Old Time Jam 6:30pm. Fri– Food: RadDads at 5pm Music: LUKE DEUCE at 6:30pm. Sat–Food: IRON PIG Music: DOGDAY BLUEJAY at 6:30pm. Sun 12pm-7pm Food: Lobster Dogs. Music: Cornbread Heads 4pm. Coffee shop features Pisgah Coffee Roasters and Dough-Dough pastries. More information 864-873-0048 PAINT & PINT or SIP ART CLASS: Paint a local landscape. Sept 7. 6pm. $$45 Preregister. 864-873-0048

TAMASSEE DAR AFTERSCHOOL PROGRAM: Sign up beginning July 3 for the Tamassee DAR Afterschool program that begins August 3. Call 864-944-1390 for more details.

Health & Recycle Tip : Freeze fresh water in a recycled plastic water or soda bottle to grab and take along with you on a short trip to town. Or, place many frozen ones in your cooler for a long trip. It will keep you other foods cold along the way. Drink the fresh cold water as it melts. LRM Conservation Corner: Un-tethered growth has a cost: Traffic, over crowdedness of once serene areas, need for additional services in law enforcement and emergency services, and loss of community…To Be Coninued ...E Martin

Have you ever heard?: Sprinkling grits over a fire ant bed is supposed to get rid of those red hot heaping mounds of ants. Placing a shiny penny in a ziplock bag filled with water and nailing it above your door entrance or windows is supposed to detour flies from entering.

DID YOU KNOW? If you are retired from Duke Energy and you are volunteer for community projects, Duke Energy will match your volunteer hours by donating $10 for each hour, up to $2000 a year to a nonprofit of your choice.

QUOTE this week by Joyce Meyer: If you are busy trying to change people you are too busy to allow how God is changing you.

(Adult )MOVIE RECOMMENDATION: A Christian friend recommended we all need go to the movies to see Sound of Freedom.

DAR SCHOOL STUDENT FROM 1942-46 RECALLS EXPERIENCES - (Fifteenth Installment of Pauline Kelley Cannon's Memoir). . .On December 13th of our 10th grade year, Maggie's boyfriend, Leroy, came home on furlough, and he and Mama came to New Jersey Cottage and carried Maggie home. They did not come to see me. After they left, Mr. Cain told me Maggie and Leroy were getting married and she would not be returning to school. . .It really upset me that they didn't come to see me and tell me what they were doing and let me say goodbye to Maggie. I wrote Maggie and Leroy a letter to let them know how I felt about the situation, and Leroy wrote and told me that was the best reprimand he had ever gotten. I also wrote to Mama and let her know just how I felt. . .I was heartbroken and felt so alone. I had not seen any of the family except Maggie since early spring, as I had worked all summer to pay my tuition. But I talked to the Lord and soon got over it. . .MY 11TH GRADE (SENIOR) YEAR, Mr. Dupree was our class sponsor. That year seemed to fly by at breakneck speed. . .For our last prom we decorated the dining hall again, and it seemed even more beautiful than it was for the first one. Ernest was again my date, of course. . .Everyone had a wonderful time dancing and reminiscing about our school years. I don't remember all the menu for our meal, but I do remember we had brick ice cream for dessert. It was so delicious. . .My uncle, James Broome, and his band provided the music for the dancing. . .After it was over we had to clean up the dining hall and put it back in proper order. We were so tired after that, we were ready for bed.--TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

EAGLES NEST ART CENTER 501c3

Located 4 Eagle Lane, Salem SC 29676 DHEC kitchen available & rentals

INDOOR YARD SALE at ENAC Friday, July 14, 1pm-6pm and Saturday July 15, 8am-1pm. Please call or 864-280-1258 if you want to rent a table for $5/day. OCONEE MOUNTAIN OPRY: July 15, 2023 at 7pm-9pm we will hold our 4th Oconee Mountain Opry featuring Spaulding McIntosh, Amelia Hawke, and The Waterkickers. Tickets are $10 at the door, the day of the event. or online.

TALENT SHOWCASE: August 12th. This will be a fun evening to show off your talents on stage. Please sign up by July 30th. Please call 864-944-2490 or email [email protected].

*****The T-S Class of 1978 is having their 45th Class Reunion at ENAC, July 28, 6pm-8pm. Come visit us!******

CHURCH NEWS Salem Seventh-Day Adventist Church: Join us for Vacation Bible School Sunday July 16 from 1-4pm. Theme: The Creator Is My Friend/What Do You Feel? Featuring “The Critter Keeper.” Ages 4-14 years. Children under 4 years must be accompanied by an adult. Come dressed for water play and bring a towel. See you soon!

CHILDHOOD PRAYER: God is Great! God is Good! Let us thank Him for our food! By Your Hands we are fed. Give us Lord our Daily Bread! Amen I missed you! Glad to be back this week! Lynne R Martin

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rpschtuff · 2 years ago

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Hi Jeanette! There may be an workaround with the switchover from legacy to the new editor for Trim Reblogs that should still work (I haven't tested it as I've been using the new editor for months now) that you could test.

So what matters to Trim Reblogs is the root post of the thread, i.e. the initial post of that thread. So let's say a thread is 20 replies--you want to go back to the starter for that thread. Let's assume, for ease, that Partner A was the one who started it, Partner B replied to it. This would then be Partner A's first post that we are looking for.

Previously, Trim Reblogs just didn't work on legacy posts at all until a recent update to it. A way that I found to go around this was by finding the first post of the thread and editing it using the MOBILE APP EDITOR. Not the browser, the Tumblr mobile app for Android/iOs (in my case, it was iOS). By editing it and changing something small--bolding or italicizing a word was my go-to, you could even just bold or italicize a period or something--it sort of "forced" it back to the NPF style post, and then it would be recognized by Trim Reblogs as the new post format (NPF).

It's something I would test & see if it works to possibly get around some of the issues that happen when you're trying to convert old legacy threads to the new editor & Trim Reblogs just continually glitches out (it happens sometimes).

Also, something to note: unlike with the old xKit, you do not have to have your draft written before you save the post in drafts. You can save it as a draft with nothing in it, cut it, and then work on your post with no issues. It won't randomly post your drafts like the old Editable Reblogs did. (Posting drafts is why I got rid of Editable Reblogs myself, because it was just a no-go for me given how often I switch between drafts).

Thank you so much for your guide! I'm glad to see people switching over to the new editor finally, as it's been... a struggle to deal with not being able to cut posts for months now when I got annoyed with Editable Reblogs.

Thanks for the info! That trick of editing the starter post to switch it to NPF is really helpful for people who don't want to go through all the trouble of moving a thread to a brand new post -- I'll edit my couple of posts to include that. I did edit last night to add that you don't need to have your reply written before using Trim Reblogs anymore. I know that was the case before, but now it seems you can trim at any point, like you said.

About the randomly posting drafts issue -- if that is the same problem I've experienced, you can get around that by switching the save to drafts button to anything else, then back. I wasn't aware of this being an issue with legacy/editable reblogs, though it wouldn't surprise me, and I'm not sure if you'll still have the problem on beta. But I've just made it a habit to switch the button before saving to drafts if I know something isn't ready to post yet.

#xserawrites #answers

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joviantwelve · 2 years ago

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TUMBLR QUESTION

Did they remove the setting to get rid of post slugs?? Like, the username.tumblr.com/post/122343/text-in-post/ style URL. I had an option previously to change it to just username.tumblr.com/post/122343 and preferred it that way, but now I’m realizing I can’t find a way to change it. Like. Anywhere.

I literally just logged into my old account to see if there were any setting toggle differences between them, and...there aren’t??? Like not even anything to disable in my old account. So I wasn’t like, grandfathered into anything there. I made a post there just this year to advertise this new blog, and its URL is naked. All of the posts there have 0 slugs, even in the present, and I distinctly remember that being a setting I turned on.

I have no idea what’s going on. Legacy or Neue editor doesn’t matter. Yes I understand their being called “slugs” is funny but it’s literally what they’re called.

Minor gripe overall; I just don’t really care for SEO and think the text makes it look messy when linking, especially since I’m a serial Post Editor and thus the first few words of any post I write are subject to change within minutes. Just figured I’d ask since it’s been a few years.

#text

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winterhawk-olympic-bang · 3 years ago

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How To Edit Your Writing

Guest Poster: Chronicwhimsy

Here is our final Writer Workshop post, written by Chronicwhimsy. Have a read and then head over to the Discord Server where we have a channel for you to take part in a discussion based on the post, with chances to share your own ideas too.

Editing: a drive-by guide

Hi, my name is Claire, and I’m an editor.

(Hi Claire)

I��ve been asked to give a quick guide on tips for editing your stories, as I’ve been a beta/editor for various fanfic writers over the years. I’m a professional editor, working for a publishing house in the UK, and I offer independent freelance editing too, via my website. I’ll be on the Discord server answering questions this evening, but I’m also happy to chat to people either through my website or even if you wanted to drop me a line on tumblr.

The key thing to remember about editing is that the end goal is to make your story the best it can be, and make sure your initial idea comes across as clearly and purely as you first imagined it. It’s about ensuring that the lines of communication between you and your reader are 100% open.

To do that, you need to have finished your story, because you can’t fix something that doesn’t exist.

Then you edit.

What now?

So, you’ve finished your Winterhawk Olympic Bang Fic, and you’re wondering what to do next?

The very first, and most important thing you should do? Celebrate. I mean congratulate the hell out of yourself, pat yourself on the back, and have some cake. Finishing stories is hard. Getting through a first draft is one of the trickiest parts of writing, so you should be proud of yourself, and proud of your story.

Because in a short while, editing is going to make you hate both.

I mean that in the nicest possible way of course, but you absolutely are going to be thoroughly sick of this whole thing by the time you’re done, and you’re going to question everything you’ve ever written. You’re going to get a close-up view of all your narrative bad habits which will make you think you’ve never had any skill at all, and you’re going to re-read your work so many times that it’ll feel trite, old, uninspired. This is normal and it is your brain lying to you. If you remember nothing else, remember that!

“The writing itself is no big deal. The editing, and even more than that, the self-doubt, is excruciatingly impossible.” Jonathan Safran Foer

Don’t lose faith! Editors and editing exist for a reason, no first draft is perfect. You’ve done something amazing in finishing, and now you’re going to make it incredible.

Before You Start - Take a Break

You know the phrase “can’t see the wood for the trees”? It could just as easily be “can’t see the story for the words.” It’s never recommended to go straight into editing as soon as you finish writing, and part of the reason for that is because you’re too deep in the story to be able to assess it objectively, or to catch things that are missed out because you know they’re there, but the reader wouldn’t.

“Once it's done, put it away until you can read it with new eyes. When you're ready, pick it up and read it, as if you've never read it before.” Neil Gaiman

Most writers and editors advocate putting a story away for a month or so before returning to edit, so you’re looking at it with fresh eyes. Obviously, with a Big Bang (or other fic event) this sort of time is usually at a premium! Try and make as much space as you can while still leaving yourself time to edit.

If you really don’t have any time, one trick that can help is changing your location. If you write in your room, can you relocate to your kitchen? Or a café (if you can safely)? Could you print it out? (Printing Top Tip: if you do print it, try and do it double-spaced - this makes it easier on the eyes, and gives you room to make notes. Also, serif fonts can often be easier to read than sans serif fonts, as it gives stronger distinctions between different letters.)

The Filter System

I like to think of the editing process as a series of different filters which, when used one after the other, produce a finely-sieved finished product. Each filter stage has slightly smaller holes than the one before it, as you look increasingly closely at your work.

Filter 1: Structural editing

Does the story make sense? Is the pace okay? Do all the scenes work where they are, or would they be better elsewhere? Do some scenes need to be there at all? Is the characterisation consistent? Does anyone change names halfway through? Did you forget what time of year it was set halfway through?

Filter 2: Line editing

Is this phrase as tight as it could be? Have you repeated yourself anywhere? Does this sentence add anything or does it throw the pace off? Have you gone overboard with adjectives and similes? Have you been too sparse with them?

Filter 3: Copy editing

Is your style consistent? Did you start writing in present tense and switch to past tense? Could this scene transition be snappier? Are there any bits that you want to tidy up? Have you left any half-finished sentences because you got distracted before you could end it?

Filter 4: Proofreading

Is everything spelled correctly? Have you caught all the strange grammar mistakes?

Some of these things might be picked up by your beta reader if you have one. Different beta readers have different styles, and also they will work based on their relationship with you and what you prefer. Some may stick to proofreading and consistency-checking, others may be more confident to dive right in and look at structure, pacing and characterisation. Some may work through the process with you as you write, others may only look at the story when it’s complete so they can get a full overview. There is no right or wrong answer, and having a conversation with your beta about your respective styles at the start can help you work better together!

Filter 1 - Structural Editing

For this stage, you want to read your whole story through from start to finish, and resist the urge to tweak anything to begin with! You will want a way of making notes as you go through because as you do, you’ll make yourself a cheat-sheet to help you with your line edit. Things to keep track of:

Character name spellings

Character ages

Character relationships (drawing a relationship web can be very helpful to visualise this!)

The time span of the story - the date it starts, the date it ends.

As a subset of this, I find it can be very helpful to set up a spreadsheet with a timeline of what happens in the story, and who is involved. Doing this both chronologically for the characters and in order of how it happens in the story can help you keep track of what characters know when, and also when the readers find out certain information. You might have one of these from when you were planning your story (as detailed in Sara Holmes’ workshop). If you’ve kept it up to date with changes to the plot and structure as you’ve written, this will be super helpful.

At this stage, you’re looking to see if everything works as a consistent story. You want to check to see if it feels like it’s the right pace, or if there are bits where it drags or rushes through the action. Why is this? Are there scenes which aren’t adding anything to the progress? Could they just be referred to in passing, or removed entirely without impacting the story? Are there other scenes which need to be added to provide more detail and growth? Is there anything that you as a writer know that is essential to the story, but you forgot to actually put in the text?

“Crafty writers...don't allow Exposition to form Lumps. They break up the information, grind it fine, and make it into bricks to build the story with.” Ursula K. Le Guin

You’re also looking to see if the characters feel true to themselves all the way through. Do the relationships spark? Do they sound like themselves? Can you hear them in your head?

Some people recommend doing several structural edits, with a different focus each time. One pass to look at the pacing, one pass to look at the characters, one to look at the story arc. You’ll work out what floats your boat, but you will be re-reading this story a lot of times before you’re done editing - which is why it’s very important to write what you love and want to read! You’ll go through many stages of hating this story before you let it go, and that will be even harder if it wasn’t something you enjoyed in the first place.

Filter 2 - Line Editing

So you remember I told you to make all those notes during your structural edit? Here’s where you’re going to use them. Now’s the time to go through your story line by line and check that the details in your cheat sheet are correct all the way through the story. I’ve written a novel that I initially set in November, but by the time I finished it, I’d decided it was taking place in early May. I had to go back and fix all the dates and weather descriptions to make sure the action hadn’t actually been yeeted forward six months spontaneously in the middle of a conversation.

Arguably, the line edit will be the most painful part of editing. At this stage, you will be taking a fine-tooth comb to everything you have written, examining it to within an inch of its life, and casting judgement. You’re going to find every stylistic tic you have (for me, everyone is constantly quirking their eyebrows and smirking like they’ve got cramp in their facial muscles), and you’re going to get rid of them (a person only has so many eyebrows, and they can only quirk so far). Now is the time to kill your darlings - don’t hang on to anything unless you feel it’s really doing a job to further the story and the characters.

“Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.” Stephen King

If you have ever worried about the unbearable sensation of being Known, the line edit is where you will experience that with every word, and you’ll be doing it to yourself. This is when the doubts will really start to creep in and you will maybe feel like everything you write is unoriginal, derivative trash and unfit for human eyes.

Here I’ll reiterate what I said above:

This is a normal feeling, everyone experiences it when editing. E V E R Y O N E.

It’s a lie. No-one else will ever read your story in this state, no-one else will ever read your story this closely. Of course it feels obvious and uninspired to you - you wrote it. It’s your idea, and you’ve read it several times, it holds no surprises for you. (I may be projecting my feelings from every time I’ve edited something here, but…)

You’ll also be catching any ELEPHANTS or whatever your mammal of choice for placeholder text is that you’ve stationed throughout the story as a flag for you to come back and add in a name, or a food, or a song title later. You know, the things you decided were a problem for Future!You. I have bad news, the future is now.

Top Tip: if you have changed someone’s name halfway through, DON’T for the love of Mike, just do a straight find and replace to correct it. Because that’s when you suddenly find out how many other words actually contain names (Mark became Bill? That’s great, until your characters are going to the superBillet to buy groceries). Some word processing programmes have a “whole word” option which is your friend, otherwise ensure to put spaces either side of the word when you search. If you don’t, you’ve just made another horrible job for yourself...

Filter 3 - Copy Editing

Once you’ve made it out the other side of the Line Edit (and given yourself a nice treat to congratulate yourself because that stage is HARD), we get onto copy editing. This is basically the set-dressing stage. You’ve built the house, you’ve decorated the room, and now you’re just making sure every bit of furniture is in the right place for optimal feng shui.

Here’s where you go through and go, do I really need a dash here, or could I just use a comma? Could I use fewer commas? Could I go in and move all of @kangofu_cb’s commas around because I’m the sort of person who will come into your house and change how you hang your toilet paper or where you keep your ketchup.

Now is the time to be as picky as possible, like you’re an interior designer for the most demanding client in the world and the ornament must be exactly equidistant from both ends of the mantlepiece and facing precisely south-west. Things that may have just survived your line edit will be measured again, and if they’re found wanting, then they get binned.

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” Mark Twain

Another thing you might like to do here is check that all your features and things are correct. Did you make a wild claim about the lifecycle of salamanders, or the average price of corn and then never go back to verify this? Take a second to just do that now. It may be that you decide it’s not a problem (I received one copy edit note saying that an idiom used in a book wasn’t recorded until 200 years later, and I made the editorial decision that no-one would care), but for bigger things you may want to make sure you’re accurate.

If you google it (as I just did, to make sure I was definitely giving you the right information), copy editing is often conflated with line editing, and that’s because in reality a lot of the elements of copy editing actually wouldn’t usually be done by the author, and are probably irrelevant to fanfic. The copy editor is responsible for ensuring the book has a consistent grammatical style in line with the preferences of the publisher (em-dash or en-dash, curly quote marks or straight ones, how you deal with acronyms, what needs to be italicised, etc. etc.), which isn’t necessarily required for fanfic. In reality, for fanfic I’d use this stage as a second, lighter line-edit to see where things can be tightened up in phrasing, as well as perhaps a preliminary proofread where you start to mark up any spelling errors.

Filter 4 - Proofreading

By this stage, you’ll be exhausted, and sick to death of the blasted thing. But the end is in sight! Now you’re onto the proofread. This is another close read, where you go through and check for spelling errors, typos, missing full stops, strange formatting stuff (which probably will be less of an issue as AO3 basically makes everything uniform anyway).

Before you even start this, change your font.

We’ve all been there, thought we’d caught every spelling error, every weird typo, only to spot six immediately after posting. That’s because after a certain point our brain becomes used to the font we’ve written in, and will automatically correct things that aren’t right. AO3 has its own unique formatting - colour, spacing, font - and the minute your fic appears on there in this new format you brain wakes up and is like “oh shit, yeah, that’s not how it should be.”

By changing the font before you proofread, you preempt this step.

Another thing to remember: it’s unlikely you will ever catch every mistake. Published books regularly go out with a smattering of typographical errors throughout the text - how many first editions of books are valuable because of misspellings that slipped through the net? You’re only human.

“Connie's other job was proof-editing which she did very badly. Transferring the author's corrections to a clean sheet of proofs was something Connie was unable to do without missing an average of three corrections a page, or transcribing newly inserted material all wrong... she put angry authors' letters about the mutilation of their books under the cushion of her chair to deal with later.” Muriel Spark, A Far Cry from Kensington

Often, spelling errors and things you would look for in a proofread are things that a beta reader will pick up as they go, as they’re the easiest things to spot, but it’s also worth looking over yourself for anything your beta might have missed.

Whether you decide to follow any or all of these steps, always do the proofread last.There is no point carefully spellchecking a chapter you are then going to delete, or proofreading the whole thing, but adding loads of new paragraphs later that either don’t get looked at or mean you end up having to proofread twice. That’s the only hard and fast rule when it comes to editing, and it will save you a lot of unnecessary work!

FREEDOM

And then, finally, unbelievably - you’re done. Your literary child is ready to leave the nest. Resist the urge to keep re-reading and tweaking. Instead, click “publish” and give yourself a nice little treat. You’ve earned it.

Miscellany and Disclaimers

These editing stages are ones that would be applied to a published novel. An author would probably do this several times - once on their own to get it ready for submission, then perhaps again with their agent, but the really heavy work would be done with their editor. The structural edit would be done under the advice of an agent or editor where the author looks at their comments, rejigs things accordingly, and lather, rinse, repeat until everyone’s happy. The editor would undertake the line edit, and the author would decide what they wanted to keep or change. The copy edit and proofread would be done in-house or sent to freelancers, with queries and changes wafted past the author for clarification or approval.

Self-published authors will often hire freelancers to help at various stages to get feedback and advice.

Very rarely would an author go from draft to final published piece by doing all their editing alone. Because it’s hard fucking work, and because your brain will get exhausted.

In light of that, you need to remember:

You’ve written a fanfic

The editorial standards of fanfic are significantly less stringent than published books

Editing by yourself is really hard work that many people are often paid to do for published books

No-one is paying you for your fanfic

Fanfic is supposed to be fun

Some published authors will edit and rewrite and edit and rewrite again and again. At a panel I attended, Joanne Harris said that if she didn’t rewrite her work at least five times she was being too easy on herself, while Joe Hill said he usually aimed for three rewrites - Joe edited as he went along, going over the previous day’s pages before continuing, where Joanne completed her manuscripts before editing. Elizabeth May has talked about her stages of drafting, starting with her Trash Draft, then her Clean Draft, and then rewriting and editing after that.

These are people who are writing professionally, getting paid for their work, and so the time they put in has monetary results. If you want to write original fiction, their advice is extremely valuable.

For fanfiction, it’s a large time investment for something you’re doing as a hobby for free. If I’m strictly honest, I’m fairly lax with my fanfiction editing. I do structural discussions and tweaks with my beta reader as I write, and then a spell check. I’m also aware that my fanfics aren’t narratively complex, nor do they seem as polished, rich and deep as some of the other works out there. That’s fine by me. You simply need to find the level you’re happy at, where you can still feel proud of your work but you’re enjoying the experience.

In the end - it’s all for fun!

Resources:

Online

Curtis Brown Creative: An Editor’s Guide to Editing Your Novel

Joanne Harris: Ten Tweets About Editing

Joanne Harris: Writing Resources

NerdsLikeMe: Beta Reading vs Proofreading vs Editing

Books

Stephen King - On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Ursula K. Le Guin - Steering the Craft: Exercises and Discussions on Story Writing for the Lone Navigator or the Mutinous Crew

#winterhawk #winterhawk olympic bang #whob #writer workshops #writer workshop: editing #guest post #chronicwhimsy

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annakie · 4 years ago

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So I decided to squeeze in a ME3 (only) playthrough to finally do MShep and an Engineer in ME3. I started this guy many years ago and never went very far with him, despite really loving the character design. BTW, I captioned all the screenshots above if you wanna clickthrough. So (re)meet Aldis. I tried to do his initial facial design off of Aldis Hodge, though I’m bad at creating/mimicking faces I think he still turned out as one of the most attractive mSheps I’ve ever seen, if I can say so mysellf without sounding too braggadocios. :) When I made him, there were a couple of goals I wanted to accomplish... Obviously, just finally do ME3 with a MShep. I did ME1 and ME2 with one even longer ago, but I romanced Liara in those and I really wanted to see a MShenko romance, to see the more gradual “Hey let’s get together” in ME3 instead of the “let’s reaffirm our relationship” like with my FemShep. I also wanted to do a more renegade playthrough, since it’s been many years since I did my Femshep Shakarian Renegade playthrough. He is still the “I’m nice to my crew, and I’ll try a diplomatic approach but my tolerance for bullshit is near zero.” And last, I’m just gonna wear a bunch of the dumb armors I almost never wear and just try and do things different in other ways than my main FemShep. Since the next time I do a full trilogy playthrough, it’ll be with my canon femshep in the Legacy and there may not be the possibility of mods then, I wanted a heavily modded run to see all the mods again, plus the improvements since my last ME3 playthrough about a year and a half ago. So this time I’m playing with:

Lights Effect as the FX mod

Girl Plays Game Hair Mods as DLC (Maleshep’s ”Macho” is the specific hair mod.)

Project Variety, which, btw means no Thanemod or Backoff. because they’re incompatible. Project Variety adds SO MUCH to the game, several of which are highlighed in the screenshots above.

Expanded Galaxy Mod (I have no idea how I can ever play without this mod again, gonna make the LE playthrough so hard and bland.)

Spectre Expansion Mod... also one I don’t ever want to live without in the future.

I have MEHEM installed because... yeah. I still don’t feel like not having a happy ending.

So of course Citadel Epilogue Mod to close out the game.

ME3 Recalibrated to fix all the lore and errors that need fixing.

And Better Journal to make quest descriptions better.

Casual Outfits for MShep. There’s also other new casual outfits installed for MShep and I don’t know where they came from, but I do love them. (See pics for more.)

Priority Earth Overhaul Mod to make the endgame even more epic. The creator also made Immersive Thessia which is sadly incompatible with Project Variety so for now I’m not using this... maybe a future playthrough will swap out PJ for Immersive Thessia, ThaneMod and BackOff again.

Omega Hub for extra Omega content post Omega-DLC, really looking forward to seeing the improvements in this one. It was just a fun 10-minute diversion last time I played through.

Ark Mod for extra missions that bridge the gap between ME3 and Andromeda.

Better Dreams for awesome and non-annoying dreaming... getting rid of The Kid as much as possible.

Alliance Warpack for more Companion outfits.

Citadel DLC Redone so most companions wear unique casual outfits during Citadel DLC

ME3 Opening Remaster to make those few seconds of the opening a little more epic.

Miranda Mod to have Miranda on the Normandy and give her cool stuff to do after Horizon. Also if you’re a Miranda Romancer gives her a better ME3 romance. Also better clothes.

Respawn - Mission Overhaul IDK why it’s hidden on the Nexus, but I had an old download I’m using. Makes combat more difficult by giving the bad guys more varied powers. A nice change of difficulty without making it crazy on normal.

Allers Redone to put Allers in a decent outfit. Still don’t know if I’m going to bother talking to her, though I did put her on the ship.

A Lot Of Videos 4k - I’m a 4k gamer finally.... I want what I can make look good... look good.

I’m NOT using ALOT this time -- I didn’t want to not be able to easily fix things should some mod installation be wonky. I figure the Legendary Edition is gonna be my big “Take ALL THE PRETTY SCREENSHOTS!!” time... this one is just for fun, and enjoying the mods and my pretty, pretty mShep.

Hey the new post editor SUCKS because I’ve run out of space for new paragraphs but I can add new bullet points. Anyway, I’ll probably make a few more screenshot posts as I progress through the game.

#mass effect #mass effect 3 #bioware #video games #mshep #mass effect mods #david anderson #james vega #kasumi goto #kaidan alenko #liara t'soni #annakie's mass effect stuff

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felassan · 4 years ago

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Gamers For Groceries 2 event

A Twitch stream event from a few days ago. It can currently be re-watched here (it was fun & interesting, so I do recommend to check it out direct). This post contains some notes on things of particular interest & relevant timestamps, in case this is useful to anyone (for example bc of accessibility reasons).

First up is the All About Animating panel, a series of mini-interviews with game devs (animators) asking what they do, how they got there, and advice for anyone interested in getting into the industry. Some or all of the devs that were interviewed are currently working on DA4. They talked a bit about their day-to-day work and a lot about the craft of game dev animation in general. This segment runs from timestamp ~38 mins 40 secs to 1:07:50. Some notes:

[sounded like DA4] Right now the creature team are working on different creatures in a way which involves going through a lot of mocap data

At BioWare they have a pretty big technical animation team, to support their animators, so each tech animator has a different specialty. Tech anim involves animation support, character art support, and rigging the characters so that the animators can pose them

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] One of the featured animators’ area of specialty at the moment is faces and hair (building the control structure for face animations). First they had to decide how the face rig and its control structure would work. This involves a lot of performance capture of live actors for things like cinematics and gameplay animation, therefore the rigs for bodies and faces have to be able to accurately capture the full range of expressions and emotions that the actor is portraying. Right now the stage that this dev is working on most is setting up the heads that they’re getting through the pipeline from character art e.g. making adjustments based on feedback from the cinematics team. “Polish - just trying to get realism”

Hair tech has come quite a long way in the last few years [in the industry]

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] Hair is very complex to get right. “In the past most games have used card-based hair, which is basically like sheets of polygons with a texture on it that looks like hair, through layers of transparency. But real hair is strand-based, digital strands, so we’re starting to look into that kind of tech - try to get more realistic, more beautiful hair, but there’s always a performance cost to hair. Layers of transparent things are always an expense, they need to balance like, it looks good and moves well, but it doesn’t make your computer or console chug. [...] I guess we’re in the prototype stage but we’ve almost got a set pipeline. It’s always fun to experiment”

In Mass Effect 2 or 3, Miranda’s hair was as expensive as a whole character (!)

[on balancing hair costs/performance, general] It depends on things like character importance and how many characters are on-screen at the time. When you’re in gameplay fighting a bunch of monsters you’re not going to be giving full beautiful hair to all the characters and the monsters, as it will cost too much. (Having a helmet on is a convenient way to get rid of hair.) But if it’s a cinematic scene, with 2 characters talking to each other in a dramatic context, there’s a better budget for nice hair allocated

Some of the hair in Anthem was quite expensive in cinematics. They kept getting bugs from QA saying (for example) that a character’s hair was tripling the performance cost in the scene, so it would go back to character art so they could take away some of the hair cards. “Tough balance, quality versus cost”

“I wish all the characters could have beautiful strand hair”

For p-cap, a lot of the time they don’t want to be too prescriptive in terms of the direction that they’re giving the actors, as the actors know what they’re doing and have a lot of experience, so they give them vague instructions that they then riff off of

[sounded like DA4] They recently did a mocap shoot

[sounded like DA4] There’s a bit more productivity happening now in the pandemic situation; now that the animators are not all going to the capture lab in Vancouver in person for shoots, if it’s not their turn to direct a shot they can instead be working on something else on their computers (multi-tasking). ((Lead DA4 Producer Scylla Costa recently gave a talk at a games festival on the challenges of DA production during the pandemic. In part of this talk he talked about various benefits and drawbacks to the remote-working situation. He also talked about and showed some behind-the-scenes stuff for p-cap and mocap. Notes, images and link here))

[sounded like DA4] Special mocap suits were sent out that they can use with a laptop to go anywhere and shoot motion capture. It’s not as high fidelity as what comes out of the capture lab, but it’s really good for prototyping stuff. Before the pandemic they did some of this (going to a park and shooting some running around)

[sounded like DA4] In one of the shoots they had some actors who were really well-trained in dancing. They were trying to get them to do some combat stuff. This was a bit challenging in the pandemic situation as there’s only so much they can demonstrate/portray as an example to the actors from a distance on camera. “It’s hard to describe what a ‘dodge to attack’ is through the camera to somebody who has no idea what combat looks like in video games”

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] The pandemic has really affected performance capture for the face side of things badly, as in order to record, the actor gets dots painted on their face in specific locations by a makeup artist. They can’t do that right now because of social distancing/restrictions, so they haven’t been recording faces at the moment

The more detailed a face, the more joints it has, the more the cost to performance is

---

There was also the Writers’ Block panel, featuring DA writers Mary Kirby, Sheryl Chee and Patrick Weekes, and DA editor Karin Weekes. The timestamps for this segment are ~2:37:50 - 3:26:20. Some notes:

PW has never been weirder than when they were writing Cole on DAI

PW thinks that they accidentally wrote part of “Timber” by Kesha into Solas at one point and they were like “Well, okay, I have to stop listening to Kesha”

For Sheryl, after a while Blackwall’s VA always nailed doing his lines. She loved the quality of his voice and so after a while would always hear his voice while she was writing. This really worked out

^ Mary had this with Merrill. As soon as they cast Eve Myles she listened to several hours of her in Torchwood, and then just wrote to the way that she spoke as much as possible

^ PW had this with GDL as Solas and FPJ as Bull. As soon as they heard FPJ’s delivery, they were like “Oh, okay, I have to write some lines differently, because Bull is smarter than I realized”. With GDL they were like “Okay, he’s going to put poetry into anything I say, in the best way possible”. In early drafts of Solas lines there were parts where they [PW] wondered “Is this too melodramatic? Is this too tragically-angstful?” and then they would hear GDL and be like “Oh! [It’s fine] Game on!”

For localization, German words are often quite long so they often have to make sure that everything fits on the GUI

They think scenes like the romance scenes sound prettier in the Italian versions

Behind the curtain in creating the in-world languages: PW: “There are some awesome websites that have every elven word, like ‘Here are the translations and verb tenses and conjugations’ [etc], [...] and usually Mary and I get very sad slightly looking at those pages going like ‘Does that mean that we have to stick to that?’ [...] The rule is, if I’ve looked at the Wiki and the words, and I go ‘Here’s the correct grammatical way to do it’, and if that turns out to be too long or too many disconnected syllables and it just looks bad or sounds bad, then we shorten it to something simpler, because the key is we want to give the flavor of a foreign language, but we don’t have the world-building budget and capacity to make something that is going to be dictionary-real [in a way that] someone could go through and translate all the background things written on the old temple walls”. Part of the reason for this is the consideration for VAs, who already have to act while bearing lots of things in mind, like the cues in the script for each line

Mary: “For building a language, the first things that I started with for qunlat, elven and dwarven, was what words do we need to use the most? Greetings, farewells, words for friend and enemy, basic things that will come up easily in conversation. After that it’s ‘How difficult is this for other writers to use?’ Can they just pick it off the Wiki? Do they need just one word? Do they need to write whole sentences, and how does that work? Qunlat has almost no grammar to it because asking anyone to learn how to use Qunari grammar and conjugate verbs in a pretend language is impossible, and then once you’ve done that a human being has to be able to read it, while not knowing what any of it means”

PW: “One thing that I was really impressed with with Mary in particular doing, Mary was one of the big lore people across the entire DA series; I can look at a word and go like, ‘That has two A’s in a row, that’s definitely a Qunari word. That word is kind of long and maybe has some apostrophes and has a couple of flowy vowel sounds, that’s probably elven’, I think that’s what’s important. You want players to be able to look at a word, players want to feel smart, [like] ‘Oh I don’t know what that means but I totally know that’s a word from the Qunari people!’”. Mary: “Every language has its own set of phonemes, the sounds that they make, and the sort of word structure and spelling so that it gives a flavor to that language. Hopefully that is always chosen to be pronounceable, because again, very important that the words can be said by human beings :D”

Sheryl: “One of the fun things to do is to make up swear words in the fake languages [...] Recently Brianne wanted a word, I don’t know if she managed to find one”

The origin of bosh’tet in ME: it’s just saying “bastard” and slurring it

PW: “I feel like there are times when past writers kind of leave traps for future writers, where past writers will go ‘Okay, I’m going to write this detailed phrase in a codex entry but don’t worry, it doesn’t matter if it can never be said aloud, because it’ll never have to be voiced!’ and then, next game, guess what guys! Look what you have to make someone [a VA] say! And you’re like [facepalm], c’mon!”

Karin: “Now, four games in, we have pages and pages of all these examples, and I wanna say this, well that’s how we said something before, well that’s ridiculous, I don’t wanna say that, but now we’ve said it and it’s out there, so it’s like, how do we, y’know, how do we evolve, and sometimes we just go ‘Screw it! Languages are living languages! We’ll just say it like this now!’”

PW's favorite is the sarcastic Mythal’enaste, “Because it’s the sarcastic Mythal's blessing that basically means you’re getting screwed over somehow. I love it because Mythal nasty! Whoever wrote that clearly never thought that someone would have to say this out loud”

Sheryl wrote Bull’s joke icicles line. She also wrote Isabela’s big boats line - Jennifer took it out but then DG was like “No it has to come back”

They have a pun test, they get a few of them and have to allot them wisely so as not to oversaturate on the puns. “Is this good/bad enough to be one of the times that we pull the trigger? We did have one of those recently, I obviously can’t talk about it, but it was pronounced Okay to go ahead”

The ‘baby-est’ writer is Brianne, who’s been there 8 years

It makes PW sad that the players never get to see the writers’ temp-text [placeholder text when portions are a WIP]. “People have the best temp-text". Mary: “The number of conversations that I’ve temped in like ‘WELL. I hope nothing BAD happens HERE’”

Q. If you could bring in anybody from outside of gamedev, who would you like to work with and do a writer’s session with? PW: “I will say romance novelist Nora Roberts, she is really smart and also she knows how to write inside a genre, and do wonders within it. Her structure is so good. If you pick up one of her books, you know here’s when this is gonna happen, here’s when they’re gonna meet, here’s when this first moment will happen. We’re all experienced and I feel pretty good about that but I really like all of the things she does that way, and also I am a sucker for romance so I would love to bring a romance novelist in and just have them look at our scenes and go ‘Okay here, no, they should pull the tie so that the article of clothing comes open, we need a sense of how warm the skin is here’ - something like that. I’d wanna see what they could do with that”

“Luke writes the best worst lines”

“I’m always impressed with Mary getting away with lines. There are lines that I look at like, wow, you buried that one. [...] The only players who get that line, I feel like they earned it if they went that far into it. [...] And then Varric or Merrill says a ridiculous line in a one-time throwaway”

Karin: “The group dynamic, you’ll see conversations or snippets of a lunch chat or a thing we’ve been joking about and you’ll see it get pulled in, and how all of you [the writers] are able to take a normal kind of thing - as normal as we get as a group anyway - and then turn it into a moment, and use it to further the plot or use it to further a character. It’s just the cleverest thing and it happens in so many different ways. [...] The little snippet of life, then how you crafted it into this very cool thing”

Quartermaster Threnn was written by PW in half a day. “When I was writing Threnn, ‘Okay, this is a good-hearted [person], I was doing a little bit of Steel Magnolias, southern, no-nonsense, but like, blue collar Steel Magnolias’. This is someone accustomed to the ways of the world so she’s going to call a spade a spade. If you come up to her and you’re an elf she doesn’t recognize you and says ‘Buckets are over there’ because she thinks you’re there to clean, [but] ‘Anyone calls you a knife-ear you come to me I’ll take care of it’. It’s problematic but she’s trying - the good-hearted person rooted for the wrong group on every occasion. She was a proud Loghain supporter, she gets really exited if he comes to Skyhold. That was a fun character for me to write because I had a viewpoint in my mind. I remember someone was like ‘Threnn is really important to me’. And you have to honor that, cause you’re like ‘Cool, it means so much to me that this connected with some part of you’”

---

Also of interest was the Mass Affection panel, in which BioWare devs looked back in over a decade of history to remaster a classic. It featured devs who worked on MELE. The timestamps for this segment are ~3:36:09 - 4:24:37. Some notes:

When the pandemic hit the MELE team were in a relatively awkward spot. They were really entering into what they consider full production and were on-boarding a bunch of teams, as well as training and on-boarding third-party external partner specialized teams worldwide. When the pandemic hit, BioWare and EA were super on top of it. They were tracking it weeks beforehand, getting everyone their computers ready, and getting everything encrypted. When the middle of March 2020 hit they were home rightaway. EA were nothing but supportive throughout the entire thing. They got money every quarter for stuff. It functionally ‘hit’ at 4-6 different times for them as the pandemic occurred in different places throughout the world at different times depending on each country’s response plan (and their external partners were in different countries). “So it was one of those things where it was just like, every day we’d come in like can we still work with this company anymore? Do we need to find someone else? Do we need to pull people in off the other projects at BioWare to fill gaps here and there?”

There was a bug on Virmire at the part when you’re coming into the STG camp. If the Mako had its new boosters on and you came hurtling in really fast, it cut to the cutscene, but the Mako hit a jump and when Ash was like “What do we do now?” the Mako ended up literally flying around in the background sideways and then crashing into the camp

Another bug: when they were re-tuning the guns, the physics force on some of the guns with Hammerhead rounds was so high that when you were fighting some of the Thorian Creepers, you could ragdoll them so hard that you could basically embed them in the roof. They’d be moving so fast that they’d penetrate all the walls with their legs dangling out. It was so easy to do and you could do it to everybody. You could launch a geth halfway across an Uncharted World

Another bug: with Shepard’s casual appearance in ME3, if you didn’t have it set up perfectly correctly it would default to Grunt for some reason. You’d be walking around as Grunt, going on dates as Grunt, and your face would be all scrunched up because it was all mapped to human bones still, so it was just, like, Nightmare Fuel of Grunt

Another bug: in ME2 on Illium when trying to recruit Samara, the Asari enemies just would not stop screaming - regardless of whether they were hit or not, it was endless screaming. Later one of the devs got an audio file of the scream, endless and looped, and now one of the devs has it on their phone and uses it for their morning alarm tone

“Shepard would come up to characters and they’d just be screaming”

---

There was also the Programming Variables panel, talking about what hurdles game programmers face. Some [or all?] of the devs that were part of this panel are currently working on DA4. They talked a bit about their day-to-day work and about the craft of game dev programming in general. The timestamps for this segment are ~ 4:24:46 - 5:06:02.

[source]

[insights/notes from Gamers For Groceries 1]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #in case this is of interest to anyone #mass effect #anthem #covid mention #cole #spirit boy #solas #lul

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quolant · 3 years ago

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samjosh + 5 (things you didn’t say at all)

One Friday morning in 1992, a year with one of the heaviest snowfalls on record for DC, Sam wakes up shivering all over with a thousand moth balls stuffed inside his skull. First, he thinks What?, then my head, Jesus, and then fuck. He makes it off the bed a little and catches a glimpse of snow falling in the haze of the window in his room, and that's when he starts sneezing.

There's puttering in the apartment, he can hear it; the walls don't hide any of the creaks and the noises this place has. Sam had called it character, because he was trying to be optimistic. Josh had raised an eyebrow and called the place about as old as the Lincoln Memorial. It'd been his apartment first, he explained when Sam gave him a long-suffering look, so whatever he wanted to call it was going to stick.

Sam's sneezing into a pile of Kleenex pilfered from the tissue box that's stumbled onto the floor, his head feeling about ready to explode, and then he hears a crash and Josh's voice, clear as a bell—which only makes things worse: "Shit!"

***

After Sam graduated from Duke, everyone had expected him to take that associate job at Dewey Ballantine. He'd been a summer associate there the summer before and apparently had made a good enough impression that they'd made an offer contingent upon graduation. His professors were telling he was lucky, his friends were telling him he was lucky, his parents were telling him he was lucky, everyone was tossing in their thoughts—but all Sam felt was a little lost. He didn't want to admit it, because admitting anything that was within five miles of uncertainty had always been sort of impossible for him. Sam had grown up with ideas and goals and how to get those things, and it was a little terrifying that he'd done so much, and still wasn't sure of anything at all.

Then there was a fact that a week before the job offer, he'd gotten a letter postmarked from DC saying that he'd gotten the federal judicial clerkship he'd applied for, mostly out of curiosity. Sam's advisor had tacked it on like an afterthought: post-grad opportunities include starting out as an associate at a firm with something you want to specialize in, VAPs, maybe clerking if you want to. Sam knew a few people who were clerking: mostly people who wanted to break into politics like Josh did, or the odd one out who had the high-flying goal of being on the Supreme Court or something.

He'd filled the application—magna cum laude from Princeton, two internships in the Senate, editor on the Duke Law Review—mailed it out. Then midterms showed up, and after that, finals crashed into his life, and Sam promptly forgot about it all.

Sam looked at the envelope, a week into June, and thought—I need time. That's all. Time to figure everything out. It was only two years, and after that he'd make up his mind and do what he had to do.

So he called up Josh, after he’d told his parents and hung up before he had to deal with the whys and you know you’re passing up something great and asked if he knew anyone who needed a roommate in DC. It turned out Josh did—his roommate was moving to New York to work in the governor’s office, and that was that.

***

Sam manages to stumble out of his room, right about when Josh is pressing a bag of peas to his head.

“There might’ve been an accident,” he says, and his eyes are closed. He’s sitting on the couch that’s been here for about six billion years, a relic from Yale that Josh's never bothered to get rid of. His hair is sticking up even more than usual, and the windows in this room are all the way open. Light spills out, and it hurts Sam’s eyes, makes his head pound a little more. Josh looks tired, but he looks more settled, somehow. Sam can see one freckled collarbone peeking out from under his shirt, and resists the urge to do something idiotic like kiss him. This isn’t new, or anything—it wasn’t new when Sam was twenty and Josh was sliding him snarky, half-beautiful grins across cubicles and intern dorm rooms, and it isn’t new now, when Sam has literally witnessed Josh burn water.

It isn’t new, which is the worst part. Worse is the fact that it won’t go. Worse is that he can’t say this to Josh: you’re brilliant. You make me believe in the things they write in speeches and old documents. You make me believe. You make me want to try. You make me—

“Might is an understatement,” Sam manages, and sits down next to him. “Might is just about the wrong word when it looks like you got into a fight with a door and lost.” He sniffs, and blows his nose with the Kleenex.

“It was the wall, actually,” Josh snipes, but it’s not mean. He’s been stressed all week, and Sam can tell from the way he stays up past midnight when he gets home from the Hill, the kitchenette lights still on and the faint steps of his pacing reverberating through the walls. “I’m pretty sure I held up my own end pretty well. I just need to do that with that asshat Jenkins over in press, and I’ll be fine.”

Right, work. Sam has to go to work. Josh has to go to work. They have work, and that means staring, and filing, and tiny print on blinding white—the whole idea of going to work makes Sam want to trudge back under the covers and possibly not wake up for a week. Maybe two weeks.

Josh blinks, opens his eyes, and it’s then that Sam realizes he hasn’t said anything. It’s too late, because Josh’s eyes go wide, and he says, “You never take my advice on these things, do you?”

“It’s not that bad—” Sam tries, but Josh is already talking over him, a stream of muttering: “I lived in New Jersey, he says. I understand that winter means things get cold, he says. I should wear more than two layers, he says—”

“I did!” Sam protests, and now he’s just irritated. And he’s sick, which also doesn’t help, and Josh is sniping, because Josh is from New England where it snows and has the propensity to act like he knows everything. “And it’s your turn to play the hypocrisy card, since the time you got food poisoning because you didn’t want to take a trip to the—”

“Okay, that, that was the Chinese food’s fault—”

“The fact that you ate it wasn't? Are you reassigning blame to the week-old Chinese, Josh? Also, it’s not my fault everything is so unbearably cold.”

“It’s only unbearable,” Josh mutters, setting the bag of peas down and getting up from the couch. “—if you’re from somewhere with no seasons. Which, you know, you? I think you qualify.”

“It’s below zero outside, Josh!” Sam yells after him. “And it rains in California sometimes! That counts!”

His throat feels clogged up and his head is probably, really going to explode here, right on his lap. It’s awful, he thinks, and pulls his legs up, closes his eyes, and leans his head back. It’s only a minute later when something warm and heavy drops on his lap, abrupt, and he blinks and rubs at his eyes. There’s a quilt sitting in his lap, and Josh is standing next to him with some Ibuprofen and a water glass, bouncing on the balls of his socked feet.

“I’m swooning at the hospitality,” Sam says, and then hitches the quilt up, but something warm crawls up in his chest. It’s a nice quilt—pale green and knitted, and then Josh says, with half a smile, but not quite, “Move over. It’s not just for you.”

Sam rolls his eyes, and obliges, and then accepts the water and Ibuprofen. About five minutes later, after Josh has found a rerun of M*A*S*H, arm slung on the back of Sam’s shoulders, something dawns upon him.

“Josh, are you into playing hooky nowadays?” Sam asks. “Because, you know–”

“If you want me trudging through fourteen inches of snow, I’d be happy to,” Josh replies, half out of the corner of his mouth. “DC’s got nothing on Westport winters, you know. I’ve been ready since I was six—I’ve got snowshoes in the closet, I’ve got—”

“Josh,” Sam presses. “You’re not moonlighting for the—I don’t know—Hill’s extreme sports team, or something, okay?”

“Who’d even make that?” Josh replies, just as quickly, his eyebrows raised. “Sam, in what world does Congress have a normal sports team? I’m not counting Stackhouse’s pool, because, you know, no one’s actually supposed to know about that, and it’s not technically—”

“Howard Stackhouse?” Sam breaks in, half-incredulous, and then starts sneezing again. This time, it devolves into cold, wet, hacking, and it feels like whatever’s in his stomach is going to crawl out of his mouth along with all the coughing. He’s got—he has to call in sick, but if the weather’s that bad—

“Hey,” Josh says, and his voice has gone quiet, this time. His hand’s on the back of Sam’s neck, and it’s warm and grounding and none of this makes sense. Josh doesn’t do this. Josh is half-done ties and half-buttoned shirts and coffee stains; he burns water and eats week-old take-out and never makes grocery lists and barely can keep track of anything that isn’t his near-zealous dedication to his work. Josh doesn’t hold the back of his neck and say things like it’s okay and i’ll make coffee, except, except—he does?

Sam had sort of fallen for Josh’s biting wit, and his dimples and his magnetism, but it’s not until a cold, wintery morning in February in 1992, bent over with one of the worst colds he’s ever had, Josh mumbling to him—Josh here, Josh snarking at him and giving him Ibuprofen and a fucking quilt and his apartment—that he thinks I think I love you.

He doesn’t say it then, or when two years pass by and he moves to New York and gets engaged, or when he follows Josh into a rainstorm, feeling unflinching happy, or when Josh gets shot and Sam has to convince himself out of the tears stinging his eyes when he's waiting to see him after surgery, or all the times when Josh grins at Sam, still so luminous and brilliant and sharp, or when Sam finally leaves, four years later. He barely even thinks it then, on Josh's couch, with Josh's hand on his neck, his voice in Sam's ear, but it’s there.

send me a ship and one of these and i'll write a mini fic!

#thanks for the prompt!#ask #palukoo #samjosh

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samkat10423 · 4 years ago

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Moving in Sims

For the past few days, I’ve been moving in Sims and setting up relationships. Among them was that Riddle Sim, from Twinbrook. Because I wanted to move in her niece – along with the niece’s yappy dog – I needed to make a sibling for Anna-Liza. Since I’d already saved that Racket Sim to my bin, I decided to just make him into her brother – after changing his name. Then I gave him a daughter. This was a win-win for me, since this world comes with a generic graveyard. And I hate no-name graves. Not only did he help establish a relationship, but I got to kill him and add his tombstone to my cemetery! Go me!

Anyway, Anna-Liza is one of the town’s Censorious Triad and the editor of the town newspaper. One of the other two, card-carrying members is Madame Blanche Robichaux (shown here with her son, Marshal and his “no-good, floozy-of-a-wife,” Trixie. And Trixie’s “nasty, little flea-bitten cat.”). Trixie and Marshal were created by Webbymom of the 3 Musketeers, as part of the Sims Daily’s population thread. (She even made political pictures of him, when I whined, so he’s the mayor in this town. His “sainted” mum is CEO of the local business, while his” tart of a wife,” is a renown painter. As you can tell, by her comments, Madame Blanche is NOT a fan of her daughter-in-law or her cat, who are both actually, nice little Sims). The old lady is a Sim I found about 11 years ago, over on TSR. I liked her, because she was so ugly. I also created 2 more Sims for this family – the patriarch and a younger son. But they’re dead and fighting over in my graveyard. Prior to their deaths, the son got himself engaged to an “unacceptable” young lady, and was immediately booted out of the family. But they did bury him in the family plot – have to keep up appearances, don’t you know! - so he and his dad get to continue their feud for all eternity. (BTW, the 2 Sims suspected in their deaths are buried nearby, and all 4 of them HATE each other. So the cemetery is pretty lively at night!)

Then I moved in these Sims – Frederic D’Aimelefric and Fannie Bellefleur. These 2 were created by nengi65 for that hot pink apartment I showed you a while back. I have always liked them, because they’re not your typical “pretty” Sims. Anyway, she had them in the acting career track, but since I replaced the studio with my festival lot, I put them into Showtime careers. He’s a magician now, while she’s an acrobat. And to help them with their careers, I made him clumsy and forgetful, and her clumsy and a couch potato. I would have opted for chronic stage fright, but EA “forgot” to offer that as a trait. Stupid EA. Nengi described him as having rather grandiose visions of his own, non-existent talent, while Fannie was the stereotypical, dumb blonde. I liked that, so I kept it.

Then, replacing Amy Bull as the town fashionista, I made Felicity Plum. Cameranutz II had made a generic Sim by this name for this world, but I wanted someone with a tad more character. So here she is. She has absolutely no artistic ability at all, which will definitely help her career – or not. But since I’m not stupid enough to let her give me a make-over, it’s not my problem.

These Sims all originally came from Bridgeport – they were that Cook family. They are now known as the Thibodeaux family. The creators of this world did make a family for this world with that name, but again, they were typical do-gooder, pudding Sims. Unlike me, those ladies were not into conflict amongst their Sims. So I didn’t bother saving them. Anyway, believe it or not, other than giving these Sims some CC skins (Buckley-Ephemera Fresh skins) and those default replacement hairs that @maryjanesims3 has been so graciously sharing, and nicer make-up, these are EA Sims. (Well, I did give them some decent clothes). The first time I saw the two ladies, with just the new hair, I was shocked at how pretty they really are. So, there is hope for game Sims. The old fart is now known as Judge Roy. He’s still I the political track, and on the take. And his wife – now named Lacey – is still hoping for his early death.

This is a tiny house between the bistro lot and that Chocolate Restaurant. It was made by susieb, but I don’t think she made a family for it. Not that I would have downloaded them. Anyway, I did change out the exterior siding and the porch railing for CC that I have. And inside, I got rid of all the basegame crap and gave them some nicer stuff.

It now belongs to the 3rd member of the Censorious Triad – Muriel P. Finster. She was created by my friend, Alex – aka: Hellfrozeover – back when she was still playing TS3. While I was doing the other 2, I knew they needed a pal, and this Sim came to mind. I left her pretty much the way Alex created her, although I did change some of her traits. Since I made her the principle of my school, I decided to help her with her career, by giving her the “I despise you little rugrats!” trait.

Then, because the house has lots of room despite being on an itsy-bitsy lot, I decided she should have an adult son who’s moved back home. With his cat. To whom Muriel is allergic. Anyway, he’s a genetic resequencer working on a top-secret project. His mother has been frantically snooping through his notes, trying to figure out what he’s working on, but he’s up to her ways and has been leaving a bunch of nonsense laying around for her to find.

Next family I do, will be those Bagley’s from Riverview. I already made Ma Bagley’s husband and oldest son – who now reside in the graveyard. They’re the Sims suspected of killing the 2 Robichaux Sims. Anyway, the living ones will live out in my swamp and be moonshiners. Their houses are done, and I even gave them a still – aka: nectar-making thingie. But that will be another post.

#sims 3 Banyan Bend @maryjanesims 3 - thank you for the hairs! @buckleysims - thank you for the skins! @ice-creamforbreakfast!

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