#freshthingdestiny

[ciaran]

I love your Honkai Star Rail fics! How do you write Aventurine so well?

i thnk in general writing a character well is a matter of developing this kind of mental library about who they are, their habits, their style and speech and reactions. a sense of how that character moves through space and how they understand and place themselves in relation to the world. if you observe people closely and without trying to better or worsen them, you will note qualities in people that allow you to get a sense of how various character traits fit together. one thing is there; people are contradictory, but characters must have internal consistency.

aventurine is bored of life and thrill-seeking, experience seeking. he has little morality, though he might be kind or generous, hes rarely really Good. he takes a lot of risks, but underneath those risks, he plays it safe. he also is never willing to be vulnerable, and he's really smart about human behavior and other people in general; he can read a room at a glance, figure out what people are trying to say very quickly, calculate odds on the go - street smarts. this may reflect in book smarts, but not necessarily. neither, i think, is he insecure about who he is as a person or the decisions he's made. he's generally confident in them, though he might also be amused by it or find it pathetic or greedy or cold; he sluts it up and uses his body to charm people and is willing to sell himself for cold hard cash and it's not because he doesn't value himself, it's because he exactly has evaluated himself and decided how much he's worth in every situation. he doesn't barter using his own body because he thinks it's all he's worth, or because he hates himself, it's that he has this excessively instrumental view of himself, he doesn't need to hate himself to treat himself callously and with really poor regard for safety and boundaries. this ties back into my earlier point about him being thrill-seeking, he doesn't care about safety for a multitude of reasons, and he doesn't care about boundaries bc no one in his life has ever suggested to him that he should have those. but that doesn't mean he doesn't have limits, just that those limits are highly contextual and whether he conveys them depends on his read of his audience, how they'll respond. aventurine, when he gets pissed at ratio for saying all that shit to him about his parents, would never ever have said it to anyone else, it's just that he knows ratio and knows that if he pushes, ratio might walk it back. that's how aventurine talks; he can accurately predict what the other person will do or say with a narrow margin of error. you see this in every single interaction, down to when he tells jade he bets his life they'll promote him. he even weaponizes his vulnerability, because he knows he appears like a poor little meow meow and can use that to get what he wants. doesn't mean he's never vulnerable, just that he's really difficult about it. because he is, in general, a difficult person.

[canonical-transformation]

What is your take on Lisa when she was at Sumeru Academy?

TL;DR: Lisa was a “model Akademiya student” — non-stop research output, overworking, lack of study-life boundaries — until she burned out hard.

(Note: this is primarily headcanon.)

Well, first, lemme use this as an excuse to plug my Lisa Vision ficlet:

They call you the Lohefalter of this century, the Biruni of this millenium. Young and old, all your classmates strive to emulate you.

[...]

When you tag along on Ruin and Domain exploration trips as part of [your] thesis... dozens of imitators attempt the same: they hire their own Adventurers Guild escorts, and head deep into the Mare Jivari’s ruins to find data they can sell on to you in exchange for co-authorship. Of the thirty percent who survive, all but two of them drop out to pursue other careers[...]

[...]

When you start bulk-making protein shakes—the saved time increasing your productive hours by nearly eight percent—your recipe is known across the Academia within a week: a sickly yellow powder made of desiccated pumpkin, ginger, turmeric, onion extract, and almond flour, mixed 1:2 with water to serve. Most people give up in disgust after a few days: the chalky texture and homogeneous flavour prove too much for them. (They don’t realise you yourself have been taking medicine to suppress your gag reflex: tempus fugit, every minute saved gets you that much close to being a Dastur.)

Read more

You don't finish two theses in a record two years (instead of decades!) without falling into the "be passionate about your work" trap. I imagine late teens + early 20's Lisa as wanting to Do Great Things, falling in love with the Akademiya. She turned herself into a machine for churning out Knowledge and Research, and was supported every step of the way by the Akademiya.

I'm not sure whether it was the Akademiya's culture or the price of power/knowledge in Teyvat that finally pulled the wool from the eyes — probably a bit of both. But she burned out, hard, graduating and then "retiring" to a sleepy town where nothing ever happens, going out of her way to pursue a life of late mornings and minimal stress.

One could easily read her as having post-traumatic chronic fatigue. Remember this line?:

“I really wish people would just return their books on time!”

(Cf. EN audio 1 2 from Wikia page; see also e.g. 1:29 here.)

[EN VA] Mara Junot's performance provides a lot of characterisation here, well before we see how terrified everyone is of her wrath. This is a woman with a lot of sublimated anger, a 99% calm demeanor with a temper that flares up out of nowhere. And the trigger for said temper? People causing her extra work— which, knowing what we know about her, is tantamount to people causing her undue stress.

I think Lisa is going out of her way to insulate herself from any triggers reminiscent of her Akademiya years, and work overload is a huge part of that.

[tainbocuailnge]

How is the summer event going?

nasu's feeling real bold making you do like 20 arrows of main quest before showing you a single farm node. anyway im having fun running arcas and aesc together and getting their class advantages mixed up. did you know arcas s2 overcharges someone's np to 500% meaning aesc gets a 5 turn cooldown cut lol

[heartslogos]

Hey! I really like reading your works and was wondering how exactly do you characterize Kaveh? He's a bit hard for me to pin down.

Thank you so much for reading my fics!!! I'm sorry I got to this so late. I don't check my inbox very often so I hope that you weren't waiting for too long.

I'm sorry I have a hard time talking about characterization. When I sit down and write I just have like...this feeling in my head of what is and isn't in line with a character. Like I know them or something. Especially with characters like Kaveh and Al-Haitham, who I've been writing before they had real canonical appearances and I've kind of just went "fuck it we ball" and did my own thing and I just so happened to be slapped upside the head by Apollo and the entire dodgeball cart.

The Kaveh I write is a man who cares very deeply about a lot of things. That is the core of my Kaveh. Kaveh is, as I've frequently had Al-Haitham describe him, someone deeply in love with the world.

Kaveh looks at the world and he sees variable options and pathways and is in love with the potential the world has to be great and he wants to take that greatness in his hands and manifest it. He loves people and the world and people in the world doing the things that people do -- inventing, dreaming, creating, arguing, debating, researching, discovering. Kaveh is not ultimately doing what he does for fame -- that's a byproduct -- but because he finds satisfaction in the challenge of moving things forward and problem solving under certain conditions.

It is key to note that Kaveh is not naive and he is not a fool. He is not blinded by this love. It can drive him to making foolish decisions, yes. But it is not all that he is. Kaveh is also a mathematician. I think that this is something that people sometimes forget or under-emphasize in comparison to his other character traits (romanticism, artistry, idealism, etc. etc.). He is an architect. This is a profession that requires a backbone of practicality, especially if he's considered a great one and an paragon of his Darshan. Form and function must co-exist side by side, neither one yielding to the other.

I'm sorry I don't think I'm helping very much. I'm very poor about talking about the more...mind-set type of my writing process. I guess the key for me is making sure Kaveh is balanced. Even when I am writing him furious or in the depths of grief there must be an undercurrent of the practical, the rational to tether him.

[midnightluck]

I like your Aventurine essays! Hope you are well.

Thank you! I'm doing well, and I hope you are too! Glad people are enjoying my wildly self-indulgent over-analysis of this mess of a man, haha. Let me know if you have anything in particular you'd like to see me analyze!

[eatingfireflies]

I like your Ratio and Churin thought posts

Waah thanks so much 🥹💕 I can't stop thinking about them and I'm glad I'm maybe not bothering everyone by having 90% of my posts just be kyouju and Churin 🥹

[blood-orange-juice]

A post I wanted to write for a while and then @freshthingdestiny reminded me of it.

I love how genshin characters often represent very niche problems (that don't get enough attention in other popular media because you don't have a roster of 100 characters and authors need to prioritize if they want their work to sell).

And I think Genshin has done something very important for people leaving academia. The hardest part of leaving is losing all the narrative you used to have about yourself and there aren't exactly a lot of role models.

And boi does Genshin have them.

A guy who became a forest ranger and his work now has way more impact than pure theory ever would.

A gal who went to be a librarian in a city with good wine and nice people and is just enjoying herself (I'm going to write another post about her).

A guy who switched to a 9-to-6 admin job and likes it.

A guy who went for a military career (it's not completely detached from Sumeru's academy but still). It's a bit problematic ofc (depends on the country) but I know 2 people in UK/Ireland who did the same and they seem very happy (also another one in Ireland who went from military career to studying child development, so I guess it works both ways).

Warms my heart, really.

[sapphire-weapon]

alright bros

bets so far as to how many deaths i'll have playing the RE4make berserker mod:

@tessthesaltwife: 4

@lliminall: 35

@freshthingdestiny: 21

@boopsnoot999: 25

@noven-warsh: 88

closest without going over gets a free fic commission

i'm just starting chapter 5 and i've only died once so far, but that doesn't mean jack shit. my personal guess is 56.

anyone else who wants to get in on this bet, get in tonight, because once i beat the village, bets are closed.

i'll record my progress tonight and share any clips that are worth sharing.

[wintryscorner]

(match-up requested by @freshthingdestiny )

I match you with... Rook Hunt!

They say that distance makes the heart grow fonder, and this rings even more true to someone filled with as much curiosity as Rook. Without a doubt his greatest quality is that he sees the beauty in everything and is far more open-minded than some of his peers: there are few things he is unable to develop interest for. He would encourage you to sing more and offer to give (enthusiastic, but nevertheless helpful and honest) feedback on your writing, if you wish to hear it.

He would be more than understanding about your dislike for crowds, and if he notices that you’ve become exhausted from socializing, he’ll waste no time coming up with an excuse so the both of you can escape to somewhere quieter.

There may be times where his constant praise can become overwhelming, to the point where you start to question his honesty; when you notice how his eyes glitter with sincerity every time he looks at you, you realize it’s all genuine. 

[ciaran]

what are your favorite parts of evangelion?

the child abuse

[canonical-transformation]

Lisa is the protagonist in a Lovecraftian horror story.

1) Yes, she absolutely was. She got away before it was too late, but sometimes in the dark of night she can hear the clarion call of the Heavenly Principles in her blood, see the eyes of the Abyss in her dreams. The gift of knowledge cannot be returned, and forever that song will be playing, enticing her to sing back.

2) okay but consider: the protagonist of an eldritch horror story must grapple with things which threaten to rip apart their entire paradigm for understanding reality, leaving them with nothing. Horrors beyond their ability to conceive, horrors beyond their ability to think about conceiving, horrors beyond their ability to consider thinking about conceiving—

...and for Lisa the horror is existential, is emotional, but is not incomprehensible. It's merely the allure of forbidden knowledge.

What happened to Lisa doesn't threaten to overturn her understanding of reality.

No, the real Lovecraftian protagonist is Eula. Whenever someone shows any kindness to her whatsoever, she has a minimum of three ontological crises. In this essay,

[tainbocuailnge]

What is your opinion on the summer event story (NA player sorry). I want to know if I should skip it (and my computer is glitching and will not let me type question marks rn).

i never looked up translations for the one with dabinchi that NA is getting soon so you'll just have to rawdog it and see for yourself. the one JP is currently running is still too early in the translations for me to give a verdict (rayshift is taking a break and doing MTL only for this one so i'm waiting on altya on youtube this time)

[hydrachea]

what do u think Aventurine would be like as a boss,

Honestly? I think he's a pretty good boss. As someone who grew up oppressed and was then sold into slavery, I feel like he would at least try to treat his own subordinates well now that he's the one calling the shots.

After all, I don't think he takes out his frustrations on other people - the one he punishes most is himself.

[ciaran]

I'd like to ask you on your thoughts on Neon Genesis Evangelion

hmm, can you be more specific? i have an #nge tag if you want to explore that. my thoughts about nge are too expansive for me to start without a more concrete beginning point

[hydrachea]

Top honkai star rail ships?

"I'm insane about them" tier:

Kafblade, Stellaron Hunters polycule (kafbladewolf, but open to adding Firefly too).

"Regularly haunt my thoughts" tier:

Xingyue, High Cloud Quintet polycule, Trailblazer Trio (Stelle/March/Dan Heng), aventio/aventiopaz, Harmonycest (Robin/Sunday), jingfu, xingren, fengheng. Stelle/everyone is also casually up there.

Everything else sits at "I just think they're neat" or below, with a couple "nuh huh" cases, but you asked for the top ones! Special shoutout to voidwelt which is a case of "I enjoy this but I don't think I have nearly enough info about Void".

[hydrachea]

Could I ask ur thoughts on Aventurine and Dr. Ratio? Idc if it's shipped or not. It's just that thier dynamic makes me want to study them under a microscope

This, essentially.