#fun fact! i have AT LEAST one tab of the cats wiki open at all times

[hysterical-cats]

my #1 hobby is literally looking through the galleries on the cats wikis and going "oohg the costumes"

[chaton-katreal]

10 through 20 for the writer ask meme

Woah I didn’t expect that many! *cracks knuckles* Let’s dodis.

(link back to the questions for reference)

10. how do you do your researches?

I mostly keep wikis open! Specifically for my writingrecently, which is homestuck ofc, I also have various significant events in thecomics bookmarked and or open in separate tabs so I can refer back to theconversations, flashes, and just generally keep a good grasp on order of eventsand details of circumstances I’m referencing back to. I also have similarconversations opened so I can reread certain characters to try and get a handleon their voices, although eventually that ends up shifting away from the canonvoice and into the voice of my particular AU version of that character becausethey evolve through the course of the fic itself.

11. do you listen to music when writing?

Yes! @0dsi made me a playlist based on Defragmentation, sowhen I am at home and trying to get in the groove I listen to that. Sometimes I’llfind general “study” or “concentration” type music if I’m having troublefocusing. At work when I write I don’t listen to music, not because I can’t,but because I need to be aware of my surroundings!

12. favorite place to write

Well I only have two places. At Home. And At Work. Okay,maybe three, which is On A Laptop Not At Home.

I’m not really sure if I have a favorite. I’m mostproductive, I think, At Work, purely because I have very little ability to bedistracted by youtube/the internet in general. But of course, it has it’sdownsides, in the fact that if I do have actualwork to do, I can’t write.

13. hardest character to write

So far? Getting started with Roxy. She was oddlyintimidating , and I stressed over writing her for probably about a month. It’sgetting easier now, but I’d say any newcharacter is likely going to end up in a similar boat. Extra difficulty pointsgo to angry, mean characters because I just…find it very hard to be mean XD andif I can’t come up with an internal justification for it, I find it difficult towrite.

14. easiest character to write

Dave/peta by a long shot. I just love the way they ramble,although Davepeta gives me trouble with Cat Puns, and Dave (or, well, canondave) has a crudeness to his humor that I have trouble with since I’m notactually a fan of crude humor. It isn’t an issue now because of Dave’s agethough, so when I write him I mostly just let my brain wander and ramble andhave fun with stupid extended metaphors.

15. hardest verse to write

I’m not sure I have enough experiences in different ‘versesto really comment on this one. I usually only have one or two on-going fics at atime, so I’m gonna change ‘verse to fandom. The hardest fandom I’ve written foris, ironically, Homestuck! It’s just so big and intimidating, and while it’svery malleable, it also has MANY things you gotta keep in mind if you wannakeep the setting and not go raring off into entirely AU-land. Which is fine ifthat’s what you wanna do, but I tend to enjoy canon-divergence over straight upAUs.

16. easiest verse to write

Going off my ‘verse is Fandom stipulation: Final Fantasy VIIwithout a doubt. I just have so much history with it and have done so muchtheory crafting over the years, whenever I cycle back into a fanfic for thatfandom, it always feels like it’s coming home.

17. favorite AU to write

I don’t think I’ve written an AU, actually. All my fics tendto be canon-divergent, or at least rooted enough in canon that I’d hesitate toclassify them as an alternate universe. What can I say, part of the reason I cometo fanfic is to play with the setting and plot as well as the characters.

18. favorite pairing to write

…DirkDavepeta.

Gimme the diamonds ok. Hearts can gtfo.

(jk they are fine I just don’t think I grasp romance wellenough to pull it off)

19. favorite fandom to write

Homestuck, probably. Since that’s the only thing I’m writingin and it and 2nd person has ruined me I’m not sure I’ll be able towrite anything else again LOL.

20. favorite character to write

Hmmm… I’m not sure. I enjoy all three of my main POVcharacters for different reasons. I suppose I tend to look forward to having Davepeta chapters the most, but that might just bebecause they are fairly rare in comparison.

[maythedreadwolftakeyou]

Fic Writer Meme! tagged by @aban-asaara, thank you!! a nice meme to self-indulgently wind down with after a stressful day...

What is your total word count on AO3?

160,546. I had forgotten all about the AO3 stats page until having to dig that out, oops. I have more short drabbles etc on tumblr as well (and a LOT of stuff I just... never finished/posted anywhere).

How often do you write?

varies hugely depending on what else is going on in my life. In good times, I aim for daily, at least 500 words. During years I participate in NaNoWriMo, 1500-2000 per day in November. Other times I just can’t make even 500 happen with work/etc. Still more other times, my depression kicks in and I’m pretty useless at everything, and unfortunately go months with no writing at all. 

Do you have a routine for writing?

I try to write in several short bursts. If doing 500/words/day, then two chunks of 250, and some editing/planning on top. If during NaNoWriMo, 4 chunks of about 500 words each. If I really push myself to get them done in sections, I spend less time fiddling around, but the break between them makes it still relaxing/fun.

I also have a computer/document setup that works very well for me. I write on a laptop that can scroll between several different ‘desktop’ screens. I have one for fun stuff, and set one aside for writing. The only browser window/tabs allowed to be open on that desktop are writing-related ones--research, youtube clips of scenes, wiki articles, etc. All other fun stuff goes on the other desktop where it can’t distract me while I get through a section. Then over the browser I have two word documents: one on the left titled “[StoryTitle.docx]”, and one next to it titled “[StoryTitleNotes.docx]”. On the left is the “final version” of what I’m working on--aka the working document, with the most current edits/chapters/etc. The right “Notes” one is for outlines, summaries, lines I had to delete but might want to use somewhere else, passages I haven’t gotten to yet but wanted to sketch out before I lost the inspiration for them, quotes that I want to echo the feel of, copied dialogue from the game so I don’t forget it, etc etc. Anything related to the story in the working document that I might want to reference. The notes doc can be fairly messy--my level of organization for it changes from project to project. But it makes it WAY easier for me mentally to delete and tweak things when I can put them somewhere else just in case it turns out the first way was better. 

What are your favorite kinks/tropes/pairing?

Ohh... my pairings are pretty obvious, I’m really into Lavellan/Solas, Hawke/Fenris, and Shepard/Garrus. 

But what I’m really into is Hawke/the concept of found family and also various coping mechanisms+mental health issues; Lavellan/the weight of duty above all else, Shepard/the giddy knowledge that you won’t survive what you have to turn yourself into in order to save everything you love, Ryder+Sam/breaking the boundaries of what it means to be a single conscious entity...  

my big literary kinks are pretty much any narrative that has to do with one or more of the following: self-sacrifice, the transcendence of humanity in pursuit of a goal, the knowledge of the futility of one’s actions, the duality of self plus other, the terrifying and terrible beauty of rage, stubborn and violent perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds, the frailty of people who nonetheless fool everyone into believing they’re not broken. I am also a very big fan of nontraditional formats, and the meta-narrative of a story over usual structure. 

tl;dr: I like my fiction weird. 

Like... I recognize that most of my fics. Do not include a majority of these. And the ones that do aren’t really very popular. The one that gets closest to these concepts is probably the people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this, you keep them alive which very few people read and got almost no attention. But I knew that when I posted it. I wrote it for me, after finishing the ME trilogy for the first time. The above tropes show up way more in my original writing, while I use fanfiction as a break from these more complicated/heavier themes, and to just have some fun with less technical writing. They’re there, just in smaller doses.

Fics with that sort of bend are WAY harder to search for than ones based on pairings though so like... if you have recs for anything that follows the above themes. please send them to me. i’m dying. please. 

Do you have a favorite fic of yours?

How can I not answer this with Fallout from the Fade? It’s my baby. It’s the longest thing I’ve consistently written, without getting bored and abandoning it halfway through. It will probably take me a while yet (depending on mental health/writing pace/etc) to finish but I know how it ends, and most of how to get there. It’s also the third fanfiction I had ever started writing. The beginning feels rough to me when I go back to it (which an inevitable fact of my decision to post as I write/not use beta readers, which I still think was the only way for me to do this story), but I still think a lot of my ideas were clever and my execution may not have been perfect but it was pretty good. I’ve learned a lot while writing this fic.

And also I love to make people suffer. Knowing that people have shed literal tears because of things i have written fills me with the delightful glee to push forward. 

But really. Comments mean the world to me. They spur me on through rough patches where I otherwise abandon works. I’m really not used to having an audience: most of what I’ve written in my life is original content that I don’t post/share. Having other people also invested makes me feel accountable, in a good way. 

Other honorable mentions: I think Grief is one of my best fics in terms of execution and balance. Less a man than a wild cat and A Slip of the Tongue were both exercises in pacing/timing as well as forays into the highly unfamiliar territory of comedy. The aforementioned the people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this, you keep them alive satisfies my eternal desire for weird presentation and ideology taking a front seat over narrative structure (I have like. 4 other partial fics similar to this that will probably never be posted because I know they’re what I want to explore, not what other people actually want to read).

Your fic with the most kudos?

Fallout from the Fade, with 626.

Anything you don’t like about your writing?

I wish I was more consistent about sitting down and working. I managed it for 6 straight months when I started the fanfic gig, but to be fair, during that time I also had no friends and spent 5 days every other week camped out in Death Valley with no internet and nothing to do but write and brainstorm. Having the barest scrapings of a social life now that I’ve moved doesn’t do much for wordcount, it turns out.

Now something you do like?

I think I can write about mental illness realistically without it coming across as either overdramatic or idealistic. I like my descriptions, when I allow myself to use them (y’all don’t want to see how flowery most of my works would be without my self control). I have visibly improved since I started writing in 2015. 

i feel like a lot of my original circle on tumblr isnt active/writing anymore but gonna tag some people w/ no obligation… @leviathanmirror  @seekingidlewild @littleblue-eyedbird @loquaciousquark @kayla-bird and anyone else who wants to answer!! feel free to tag me if you do it, im lonely... 

[vjdarkworld]

The Witcher 3 Review (NO SPOILERS)

Score: Recommended, for people that enjoy Storytelling

Best:

Storytelling

Adult content

Difficult Choices

Embodiment of Polish folklore

Quests

Good:

VisualsOnce you have a lot of good tools to use, gameplay is funExploration and Open World

Observations:

Lots of tools but all singular use, instead of few tools with dynamic usage.

Bad:

“Slavic jank”

Requires playing of Witcher 1&2 OR read the books

Performance

Best:

Storytelling

This not only includes how the stories unfold, but as well the characters and world they inhabit.

One word to describe it would be believability. Of course, it’s fantasy but the way standard fantasy things would be handled is done well due to the characters.

A plot is a series of character interactions, so ultimately a story is only as good as the characters it has. Truly what sells the world is how the characters interpret it, and they all have differing viewpoints. Some take the Dark Fantasy world seriously, others find it a chance for a Fun Adventure, and most attempt to drink their sorrows away. But my personal favorite interacts in the series is between Geralt and his friends.

This is where it becomes real for me, relationships. Throughout Geralt’s adventures he meets many people. He doesn’t get along with most, but there are some he actually befriends. And even though nearly all his friends are eccentric which contrast the stoic white wolf, he still has long and ongoing friendships with em. As the director of the game said, “friends are the backbone of your life” (he was talking about life not the witcher but oddly enough it connects to the witcher for me) and that is exemplified by Geralt.

All in all, the relationships between the characters make the storytelling real.

Adult content

While other games have sex in it, The Witcher series has been able to portray sex for what it is…. Sex. Bioware has the lovely dovey sex after you Romance them, but in the Witcher it’s different and more Realistic. Adults have sex for various reasons and it’s not always romantic. Most of the time it’s just for the act itself, having a single fling cus sex is Fun.

Since witchers shoot blanks they have the stereotype of being promiscuous. It’s up to the player (no pun intended) if they will let Geralt succumb to Hook Up Culture, or actually stay in a dedicated monogamous relationship.

Something like this just isn’t address in any other mainstream RPG.

Other serious topics are brought up as well related to sexual violence and racism. They are all handled well due to one simple theme present with each situation. That is the fact that you can’t be neutral, you have to pick a side.

 Difficult Choices

It’s funny cus the white wolf almost embodies the “grey area” of neutrality that generally serious RPG fans walk the line of. That the player will be understanding for all Characters and trying to figure out a solution. But most situations aren’t like this realistically. Theoretically sure you can be critical of Both Sides, but in practice you HAVE to pick a side. Or maybe you don’t pick a side and “stay neutral” which can be the worst option cus you could be letting bad stuff happen that you could of prevented. This is why when choices pop up for Geralt, it’s pretty serious. Especially cus the effects of them happen way later in the game before you realized what you did wrong.

These choices impact the fates of certain characters, among other things. Choose wisely, or you may not be happy with what you did.

 Embodiment of Polish folklore

I’m no expert in Polish culture, or of ye’ old slavic and pagan mythology, but the entire game reeks of something being different. It just doesn’t seem like your typical Tolkien fantasy. There’s a unique twist that is clearly the result of the entire game being developed in Poland, thus polish culture shining bright within it.

Some people joke that the Witcher series is Poland’s main export, but atleast for entertainment it seems quite true. It seems like a major group effort from creative minds of Poland, banding together to present their folklore to world. Major props and respect to the CD PROJEKT RED team!

 Quests

Quests are designed like episodic content. For side quests and hunter contracts, they all tell a good standalone story from start to finish of the quest. Sometimes quests interconnect too, reference each other, presenting how much the world is connected. It makes doing the quests quite addicting cus you want to see what’s going to happen next in the quest, and then when you finish it you want another good story so you start another one. It’s almost like bingewatching a tv show. Having good stories for the quests makes even the most mundane tasks more appealing too. Trying to tell a story… WHAT A CONCEPT!

 Good:

Visuals

They are pretty nice looking if you got the Specs for it. Sometimes regular real lofe animals like cats and dogs look weird but overall its good. Landscapes pretty, monsters spooky, humans all raggedy. The aesthetic sells the world quite nicely.

 Once you have a lot of good tools to use, combat is fun

When starting out the game, you have limited options for combat. But through the course of the game, gaining abilities, new gear, etc etc, gives Geralt more tools to play around with. This is when the game opens up and you can mess around a bit. The white wolf can get pretty OP too if you play your cards right. To which if you think the game is too easy, you can always play on higher difficulties.

 Observations:

Lots of tools but all singular use, instead of few tools with dynamic usage.

Due to how alchemy and signs work, signs, oils, potions and decoctions generally have only a Specific situation use. Some are more versatile, but most times you will be looking up the Bestiary to figure out what tools to use.

On one hand this kinda makes the combat seem flat, cus of the limited options you can do, BUT thematically it makes sense why. It makes sense why it’s like this for a hunter of monsters, there’s a lot of monsters and they all have different weaknesses so it makes sense as to why the design is like this.

On top of that, it’s kind of deceptive cus you CAN experiment but only when you have a LOT of the tools and you know what all their purposes are. It’s a barrier, but you can get over it.

But still, in the end the gameplay still isn’t as dynamic as other combat systems which is a shame in my opinion.

 Exploration and Open World

Points of interest are labeled on the map. You get good loot and fight monsters at these points most of the time. It doesn’t truly make the game world feel Alive necessarily, it just seems more like extra stuff to do. I appreciate the effort of given the player stuff to do if they completed quests and are bored, and you get neat goodies from going these places but it’s really just There.

 Bad:

“Slavic jank”

There’s a bit of a joke about games made in slavic related areas. They are often associated with janky games, but games with so much dedication behind them that even though they are janky it’s so unique that it’s fun. Something like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. for example. This phenomena is due to how the gamers in these territories are completely out of the typical western Triple A bubble. And generally dedicate their time to old CRPGs, which causes them to grow a fondness for more Detailed and Dense design instead of Simple and Elegant. This isn’t a bad thing, and this type of thing can be seen in The Witcher series, where it’s both Triple A BUT has that old school CRPG style to it.

All that is good in my opinion…. But I have to be honest and say that the gameplay can be too janky at times. Movement in general feels weird with its velocity and acceleration. Roach controls awkwardly and doesn’t feel like a horse, more like you’re on something sliding around. When you run into other animals or enemies on Roach you just push them away and not run them over.

Also, for some reason the controls completely change when in combat mode and you can’t control at all when combat mode happens. This causes awkwardness where you are not moving the same way as before, as in… an enemy triggers you to go into combat mode but they are too far away for you to hurt so you are stuck moving around weird. It’s just an odd system, which I prefer to have a full range of movement and attacks, not being arbitrarily pushed into combat mode.

Also, the inventory is a bit confusing to navigate especially if you are trying to find a specific item hidden in the Other tab.

The whole character upgrade screen too is not clear cus there’s clearly abilities that are better than others WHEN you actually know their potential, but unless you’re looking up guides and the wiki you won’t really know which are the good ones to actually invest in.

All these little things that kind of ruin the “game feel” make people not want to play it past a couple hours cus they think the game is “janky” anddd the game is actually kinda janky. I have to admit it, can’t lie. There’s other open world games that have better movement overall, and I wish that this game did.

 Requires playing of Witcher 1&2 OR read the books

Now you may wonder, what’s so bad about that? Well, I was being critical about this games jankiness, but really it’s not in the slightest as janky as Witcher 1. Witcher 2 isn’t as much janky, but Witcher 3 improved on a lot of Witcher 2’s problems so Witcher 3 is in fact the least janky.

Now it would be a hard sell to say “you need to go through 50+ hours of the previous installments to play this?” BUT if the other installments were as polished as this than it wouldn’t be as much of a problem… But it’s like I can’t tell someone “Oh you have to play through these janky games to play this game, don’t worry it’s worth it bro” cus that’s disrespecting their intelligence AND worst of all their time. Not everyone has time to look play through decent games to get to an Amazing game just so they can understand the story… which is sad.

Cus don’t get me wrong, I adore Witcher 1 more than most, but I can’t lie and say it’s worth “slogging” through the awkward gameplay to see the amazing story unfold down the road.

Why? Even if it’s a unique OK… there are better games to play that are more than just OK.

And to the book point, you shouldn’t need to read a book series before playing a videogame, the entertainment should be as singular as possible. The witcher videogames too have a different storyline than the books anyways, so it’s a moot point of them being in the same continuity and being “required”… even though they technically can help if you didn’t play the other games. Still not fair though, so nah, just nah.

 Performance

You need to make sure you have a midrange build atleast so you can run the game. But man do the frames drop in cities. Back on my old-midrange build I could play at around 50-60fps outside of Novigrad… but IN Novigrad I had 10-20fps due to NPCs and who knows what else. Also just some areas would lag on that build regardless if something was at low or medium. Very finnicky. I think by now with all the patches and optimization it’s probably better buuut I can’t say the game is well optimized. It’s serviceable with a good build… but ya get kinda screwed if you don’t and that’s a shame.