#fun fact my lore is not worth discovering

[corrodedcoughin]

Pspsps can I beg for under 10k fluff fics or art. Smut can be included that does not bother me. Self promo is actively encouraged. Just anything that makes you feel happy and good and that life is okay. Ps hope you all are having a good day

[failed-inspection]

🔥EPIC CLUMP LORE MASTER POST YEEEAAH🔥

Hii Hiii I'm very much in the mood to ramble about my Rain World ocs, so what better way to start off with that than going over the little guy in my icon, behold, Clump!

Before I explain their deal I should preference by saying that:

1: they have no connections to the Notosverse (THE RW OCverse with Pioneer, Poet, Luminal, and generally the rest of my 100% serious Rain World ocs)

and 2: they started as a jolly co-op joke oc that was NOT meant to be taken seriously at all, but evidently I suck at making 100% joke ocs so whoops, they're now semi serious semi joke and all around all very goofy so please keep that in mind, and 3: uhh yeah

- Clump is most certainly a purposed organism (obviously), most likely being created some time after the original Spearmaster was sent out during their first mission, but before the pearl was delivered/shortly before the rot happened, however, who created them and *why* is anyone's guess. No one knows, not even Clump. They'd just shrug if asked. But the most common theory is that another iterator saw Spearmaster, thought they looked weird as hell, and attempted to recreate them for themselves

- At one point they probably encountered the original Spearmaster and went along with them to Suns on their way back from the first mission... Suns was rightfully a bit spooked because Where The Hell did they come from and how, Clump ended up going their own way after the start of the second mission however so it wasn't like they ended up living with SM and Suns 😔

- Clump got their name from 'looking like a clump of [The Original Spearmaster's] skin', according to Suns

- they discovered what rot is after encountering The Memory Conflux Garbage Wastes Room, after being chased by a salamander, the both of them ended up falling into the rot pool, while Clump was able to make it out, the salamander was not so lucky, having been dragged down and eaten by the proto rot

- the reasons they give to wanting to cure the rot, according to them, are as follows:

1: They feel that slowly rotting away and being eaten alive is a horrific fate no one deserves, even for a god machine (though they claim to have little attachment to the iterators as individuals despite that, whether or not that truly is the case is a major point of contention, lol. lmao. they're clueless about it but deep down subconsciously they really do care for the iterators due to the lingering sense of familiarity.)

2: the fact that rot is being introduced to the surrounding areas is a major problem, as it puts everything and everyone else in the vicinity in active danger due to how the rot can become mobile and thus able to actively seek out and eat creatures, alongside being hard to kill, plus, who knows what else, what if it turns out to be infectious towards the wildlife as well!?, it's not worth finding out, so better get rid of it all than regret it... Maybe that could save the area or something

3: They want to have a name for themself, recognized as the one to took action when no one else did anything and cured The Rot, maybe even get on the cover of Time Magazine Slugcat Of The Year for doing so

- while their desire to cure the rot does seem to be genuine, if not just a little shallow in some aspects, their ways of trying to do so... Really lack surgical professionalism, it essentially borders on slapstick cartoon logic, they have tried the following in treating the rot: throwing ibuprofen at it, shooting it with a rifle they found, spearing it several times

- if their name followed in game scug titles (The Monk, The Hunter, stuff like that), they'd have 'The Medic' as a title

- They're!!! Stubborn!! They're determined to find a cure and won't take the idea of giving up as a possibility!

- they started wearing their bandana after discovering the rot as a means of defense against it, fun fact, their bandana is made out of the same stuff as the fabric that coats explosive spears, meaning they can wrap it around a spear as like, a one time use way to craft an explosive spear when in a tight spot since rot cysts are weak to explosives

Extremely goofy for a scug? yes but also I am having so much fun and ended up getting attached so oops

[notebookishtype]

Hello, do you have any recs for star wars books and comics with the best lukeleia content? In my lukeleia era and I really wanna start reading some OT legends stuff but I don’t know where to start.

Stories that take place during, between, and shortly after the Original Trilogy? We are lucky to have decades worth of content set in this time period! It’s the only place we can find things published before the sibling reveal, and/or acknowledging that Luke and Leia were attracted to each other.

✨I’ve included links to every book and comic mentioned below. I don’t think it’s immoral to pirate from a corporation. If you (general) take issue with that, I have bought most items listed at least once, and I would lend it to you if I could.

✨Some of the comics are only available in large collections, you may need to scroll to find the correct issues.

Legends Books

The first that comes to mind is Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. It was published in 1978, Luke and Leia were still love interests, and it takes place after ANH. They crash land on a mining planet and discover there is an Imperial presence there.

Fun Facts:

This story was commissioned to be a low budget sequel if A New Hope flopped.

This novel also inspired some of the canon lore for kyber crystals.

I started an impromptu reread earlier this year, and I did not remember how shippy this book was. This is just four pages into the book:

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was also adapted into a comic in 1995… and it was still incredibly shippy? I recommend both if you have the time and executive function. If you’re low on focus or time, go with the comic.

I’ve been told the novelization of A New Hope also has the same vibes, and is by the same author. So if you enjoy Splinter thats another place to look.

As far as other novels, we’re mostly looking at crumbs. Off the top of my head I know both Shadows of the Empire and The Truce at Bakura acknowledge their feelings for each other.

Shadows of the Empire:

The Truce at Bakura:

I would only recommend these if you’re interested in the rest of either story.

Shadows is a take on what happened between ESB and ROTJ, published in ‘96. Want to see how the Rebels get the plans for the Second Death Star? Read this. Want to see Darth Vader forced to play politics? Read this. If Han and Leia’s relationship is a no go for you, you might consider skipping it. Content Warning: the antagonist attempts to “seduce” Leia via pheromones. Read: rape. He is a serial rapist.

Truce takes place immediately after ROTJ, and has some great character moments for our heroes, again a lot of focus on Leia and Han. I do, however, choose to view the fact that Luke’s love interest in this book is a young Imperial Senator who we are meant to compare to Leia, through a shippy lense. I cannot escape the idea that Luke is projecting. Otherwise this book is about dinosaur looking aliens using human’s life energy to power their ships.

If you’re interested in checking any of these books out I recommend looking here or here.

Legends Comics

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (1995)—as mentioned above.

Star Wars Tales (1999-2005) 15, Do or Do Not—Takes place immediately after ROTJ. Luke is processing after the Battle of Endor, and uncertain of his place. His feelings for Leia are acknowledged.

Star Wars (2013) 1-6, In the Shadow of Yavin—Takes pace after ANH. Leia is working with a handpicked X-wing squadron, to expose a spy. Her position in command causes friction between her and Luke. This is one of the few stories really leans into Leia having feelings for Luke.

Star Wars (2013) 15-18, Rebel Girl—Leia accepts a political proposal in exchange for a secure base location. Luke is a jealous brat about it, puts himself in danger, and plans to run away.

Marvel Star Wars (‘77–86)—I haven’t read these yet, but I’ve seen plenty of panels and pages posted on Tumblr that give lukeleia vibes, even some that take place after ROTJ. These have been gathered into several omnibuses. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Disney Comics

Star Wars (2015) 1-6, Skywalker Strikes—After ANH, the gang is infiltrating an Imperial arms factory, Vader shows up, Luke has a crisis. The Luke and Leia interactions are primarily in issues 3 & 4, but it’s a solid story arc.

Star Wars (2015) 33–Actual Publisher’s Summary: The Hero of the Rebellion & the Princess of the Revolution! Luke and Leia finally get some time alone… Unfortunately, it's stranded on a desert island.

The Storms of Crait (2017)—After ANH. Our heroes travel to Crait, in hopes of establishing a base there. Luke is delightfully flustered by a kiss on the cheek from Leia.

Star Wars Adventures (2017) 4 & 5, The Trouble at Tibrin—Leia and Luke are on a diplomatic mission that goes awry. Leia rescues Luke in this one. Acknowledges Luke’s feelings.

Star Wars Adventures Annual 2018, Mind Your Manners—Another diplomatic mission gone wrong. Not all that shippy, but discovered it while making this list, so it felt wrong to leave it off.

Star Wars Adventures (2020) 7 & 8, The Princess and the Bog, A Twin Tale—Leia and Luke are scouting base locations. Luke is terrible at following Leia’s orders, and wants to pet all the animals.

Star Wars Hyperspace Stories (2022) 2–Another search for a base location. There are several cute moments between them in this one.

Deleted Scenes & Behind The Scenes

I know the ask was about books and novels, but I’d also recommend—if you haven’t already—searching for deleted scenes, alternate takes, behind the scenes photos and promo photos, etc. There are goodies from each film, but the most substantial stuff is from/for ESB.

Is That Everything?

I doubt it. There are many other stories that take place in this time frame that I haven’t investigated yet. Here are some that are on my list:

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor (Legends novel)

Heir to the Jedi (Canon novel)

Heart of the Jedi (unpublished Legends novel)

Star Wars (1977-1986) (Legends comics) (mentioned above)

Star Wars (2020) aka Star Wars V3 (Canon comics)

Razor’s Edge & Honor Among Thieves (Legends novel duology)

I’d bet on there being content down the timeline that reads as shippy, but that’s a whole future post.

[wits-writing]

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (Quick Review)

Director: Adam Wingard, Screenplay: Terry Rossio, Simon Barret, and Jeremy Slater

Resurrecting this inactive blog and copy pasting this from over on my Letterboxd because I need to spread the word about this movie as much as possible!

No Spoilers, fwiw:

Well...

This fucking owns!

Easily the best stuff from Godzilla vs Kong was Kong journey to discover more about himself and his connections to the Monsterverse's delightfully bonkers lore around The Hollow Earth. Positioning him as a member of an honorable line of warriors.

The New Empire effectively triples down on that by making Kong this movie's actual protagonist over any of the human characters (who are pretty fun to watch and play their support roles in this plot damn well.) The giant ape's story playing out as a quest for purpose within his new home in the Hollow Earth. One he discovers once he comes across other apes like him living under the tyrannical fist of the Skar King. Kong's challenge becomes figuring out how to get his rival Titan, Godzilla, on his side for the inevitable showdown with this new threat.

It's a highly fantastical tale, made better by the fact that this movie trusts the audience to follow along with it as plays out wordlessly. Only having the human characters directly commentate on it after the important actions have played out.

And all of this would be enough to leave me satisfied, but this movie actually has a fair amount of surprises up its sleeve that none of the marketing gave away.

So I'll just say, if you've been enjoying the Monsterverse up to this point, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is more than worth your time!

[cyberspookviv]

my experience with the hazbin/helluva hatedom and how I continued to hate myself from there on TW: vent/s*icide/problematic stuff

I guess I was lowkey kinda young when I found out about Hazbin/helluva (around 2023 and I am a minor around 12-18) I know i shouldn’t be watching that shit and considering how bad the fandom is now with kids I feel guilty but it wasn’t that “big” back then I didn’t like it at first but then I tried it some more there was too many cursing it kinda made me scared for once and a while but I sorta liked it? Maybe because it was my first experience with violent content? Idk ajsjdj

yet little did I know that it would be considered one of the most hated fanabases I seen in my entire life

I guess it was a primary fandom I was really into as embarrassing as it I just fell in love with the characters and lore a little “too fast” this was such a fun fandom to make aus and theories because of how fun the lore was it wasn’t good at all but atleast I had “fun” right? Sometimes now I thinking about it I was too obsessed with it and hell I was so distracted by all the fun stuff about it that I forgot about the criticism in the first place i wasn’t immune I tried to take it by watching videos online but it was….. harsh…. And shit hell sometimes I was kinda immune bc I still needed to continue most of hb lol but…I guess it got to a point where it felt…kinda bad maybe “too” flawed so I got scared I had experience with my interests being despised before and I didn’t want the same to happen again so I tried to defend it and that’s where the creator….comes in…..

.

I thought her imagination was…fascinating she had such passion and thought behind her shows…that she became… my role model…. So I tried to defend her…but tbh nobody really seemed to like her I tried sticking to people who defended her like ayy lmao

but then I realized about the stuff she did…

It make me look like a damn fool…

and what’s even worse people who defended her were called “dick riders” I then started seeing hate around her “with the written by vivziepop jokes” and the controversies on Twitter

I got anxious…. But at the end she was a bad person right…just separate art from the artist

but nobody liked the art either

Hazbin finally came out and there’s was either love or hate and tbh I got really back into Hazbin bc of the release of it being on “prime” but I knew something didn’t feel right I went on Twitter a lot “too much” actually and i discovered these rumors about her and if I defended these rumors about such terrible things I would just look like such a stupid pathetic dick sucking retard so I forced myself to hate her either way so I forced myself to go online and read “hh/hb critical” content but then I began to hate myself even more they painted her as such a terrible person but i agreed anyway because it was the “truth” but then again she was my idol…my role model….i got so anxious and I never even gave a damn about the shows writing making it even worse when it came to criticism it was noticeable in the show but I choosed the ignore it and when I saw ppl complaining online I felt like a complete pathetic asshole for liking it and what’s worse they would say shit like “she’s manipulative and narcissistic and her fans are nothing but dick riders that are thoughtless and can’t take criticism and deserve to die in a fucking fire” it made me want to absolutely k*ll myself and made me feel like i wasn’t worth living

THIS SHIT FUCKING EXPLAINS IT ALL

I wanted to talk to somebody or a therapist desperately about this but I loved her and her shows so either way my behavior was fucking creepy making me hate myself even more because my story was never “valid”

so I just ran away

I’m doing better now….i still miss the shows tho even though most people call it “toxic” for supporting a “horrible” person but still have that charm when i see it or see posts about it it makes me remember how “happy” i use to watch it and the fact that i had to ran away a join better fandoms that were accepted by people and wouldn’t make me feel ashamed and wanting to end my life i just finally…finally decided to share this post now despite how controversial it may get i might honestly get death threats or hate comments tbh lol

but I just want some people to know out there about my experience because I just desperately need a heartwarming comment right now to make sure that I’m not alone please…I just wanted to have fun I’m doing better now…. I just want everything and I mean EVERYTHING to be ok…

I just want to be accepted…..

.

[oasis-nadrama]

‘Wake Up.’, by Lupa - Let‘s retrace our treachorous paths

Review by Oasis Nadrama, 05/07/2023 (up to page 722)

Moderate spoilers for the beginning of the comic

[Drawing by Lupa]

Wake Up starts with a resounding failure. A SGRUB session fails. But how does it fail exactly? Through the memories of the survivors, we are about to discover the truth...

The fundamental gimmick of the story is its greatest strength: it plays like an extended version of archetypal P.O.V. episodes or movies, embracing each character's perspective, one after another. This allows us to better understand their struggles, their hopes, their flaws, and to develop significant empathy for their ordeal. The SBURB Lands also benefit from the point-of-view approach, the prolonged focus envelops us in a thick and legendary atmosphere, a potential the original Homestuck webcomic had but never developed adequately. The planets are wild and lush, teeming with life and myths, and the local consort population is more adorable, brave and in need of saviors than it ever was. Considerable groundwork is spent on the lore of the Lands, with appreciable results. The P.O.V. approach, in the end, also provides good pacing, with unpredictable pauses, interruptions, timeskips and development of the past events, as well as the usual amount of troll bickering.

Alternian culture wouldn’t be Alternian culture without the daily amount of mauling, passive-agressivity, direct agressivity and detestation. [Drawing by Lupa] About the trolls, well, what a dynamic cast! They sure are... interesting. Involving. Lovable. And hatable. Some extreme personalities are at work, some of them incredibly detestable (Blaiek...), and they all resonate with each other in all kinds of fun way. A success of an ensemble cast, made only better by the fact that Wake Up is the one work which does explore in-depth the social implications of the hemospectrum ideology. The bloodism-related dynamics EXPLODE here, with an incredible amount of struggles, hidden or semi-hidden blackmailing, fetishization of lowbloods by highbloods and the reverse... 50 shades of interpersonal abuse, ultraviolent group mechanics, shattering of entire groups, invisible barriers, all of the stereotypes and dead angles in the world, complete brainwashing for some, the works. This ultra-realistic, if extremely bleak, picture of prejudice is part of the soul of Wake Up, and we can only pray that it inspires other fanworks to follow in this promising path. The ethical, philosophical and political relevance of the approach is surpassed only by the intensity it provides to the interpersonal relationships and to the workings of the group.

Blaiek, the most disgusting being ever known to trollind. [Drawing by Lupa] The drawings are excellent. The author and artist of Wake Up, Lupa, works in the animation industry and one can quickly see she's a professional. The color palettes are on-point, the lineart impeccable, the poses energetic, the character designs well characterized, and there's a lot of expressivity to every face, to every body. The style fits well with the conflictual and often hostile nature of the relationships here, and is also well attuned to atmospheric moments as well as to action sequences. Altogether the visual facet is beyond criticism. So are there any flaws in this webcomic? Well, regrettably, the beginning is kinda weak. There's some classical setup and erratic introductions. The author is aware of the problems and revised the first act in order to sharpen it. It is, at least, serviceable, and contains some funny and interesting aspects. It is worth it to advance through the first pages and to reach the big story twist.

"Welcome to my Youtube channel! Today we'll learn how to use alchemy!" [Drawing by Lupa] Because, yeah, there is this twist. And this gimmick. This raw approach. Once again, the P.O.V. gimmick is Wake Up’s greatest strength. From the moment the trick truly appears, from the moment the characters start uttering their tales, the narration will grab you by the collar, carry you screaming and throw you in the well of neverending twists and tragedies. Time to wake up and read this great story!

[danalockhart411]

Celebrating Ace Week:  The Un-Life of William Moore, Out of the Closet?

It's funny how discovering yourself happens slowly over time, with realizations and tells popping up in random, unexpected places. I've been struggling to write a blog post about my journey being ace, and what things - both at the time and in hindsight - were pointing me towards who I am. Some of these things have proven harder to talk about than I initially thought. It’s even harder to feel like I’m explaining myself in a way that can be understood. Feelings and experiences are complex, especially when it comes to love.   The Un-Life of William Moore is the first full-length novel I completed and published. At its core, hidden within the details of the story, it’s all about me. Not in a literal sense, as I am not a character in the story and the story isn’t literally about me, but it is about me in a much broader sense. They say that beginning authors write about what they know, and this adage is very true with The Un-Life. I filled the story with details yoinked from myself, people I knew, places I’ve been, and encounters I’ve had. No person or place is an exact copy of any of these people or things, but a hodge podge mixing pot of my life, thoughts, and experiences.    Characters can sometimes surprise you, even years after they are printed. At the time of writing and publishing The Un-Life, I hadn’t yet considered my sexuality and was not out as ace yet (even to myself). In hindsight, I believe The Un-Life story may have been influenced by my asexuality before I even knew I was ace.   I wouldn’t necessarily call this post a ret-con or even a canonical confession at this point. However, I think there is a lot of strong evidence and reason to believe that one, if not two, of the main characters of The Un-Life are asexual, and I think that’s worth exploring and talking about!

The Titular Character:  William Moore

When I was thinking about vampires in a literal, real-world sense, and trying to shape my book’s lore accordingly, I concluded that, realistically, vampires wouldn’t have sexual desire. However, I was not thinking that fully through to “all vampires are asexual”. It was more of a biological look at how vampires would behave. After all, vampires “reproduce” by biting people and turning them into vampires. It didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time why vampires would have phantom desires to procreate like humans do. If anything, they would get more pleasure out of biting people than having sex with them.   However, I also decided against treading too much further down that rabbit hole, as I did not want Billy biting Kaylah to be a sexual experience for either party. While I did want a fun will-they-won’t-they dynamic at times, I did not want the story to be a romance. I also didn’t want to make non-consensual biting to be even more creepy as a result. So, for Billy, biting is just how he eats. Or is it just that way for him?   The only other vampire we see is Alexandre, so we don’t get a whole lot of data to work with since Alex didn’t directly threaten any sexual violence upon Kaylah, nor were his violent acts physically sexual in nature. He was very dominant, controlling, and possessive, and clearly had some twisted perceptions of love and romance, but any further clues into what deeper sexuality he might have is up for debate since he doesn’t directly engage in or speak about sexual acts. However, if we are to presume that Ruby had a biting kink, then maybe Alexandre did, too. Furthermore, Ruby and Alexandre both experienced romantic relationships, which leaves Billy the odd vampire out.    Billy expresses his affections with compliments, hugs, and a rare kiss. He prioritizes responsibility over his own gratification. He expresses early on that he is straight but has no sexual desire. Alexandre comments on the fact that Billy has mostly lived alone and by himself, without any long-lasting companions or friends. Regardless of whether all vampires are ace, at least Billy seems to be. From what is shown in the novel, some argument could perhaps even be made for him having aromantic tendencies all well since he does not seek out relationships. In fact, you may have noticed that I didn’t explicitly have Billy or Kaylah themselves say that they felt love for the other, it’s always a third party pushing that idea onto them; an idea that they don’t respond to affirmatively. So, it is possible that Billy does not love Kaylah in a romantic sense at all, and may be aromantic. However, it is also just possible he doesn’t seek out romance with humans because of his personal choices related to his feelings towards vampirism.    Is Billy ace? Very probably yes. Aroace, even? Maybe. An argument could be made either way.

The Narrator:  Kaylah Rhodes

I crafted Kaylah Rhodes to be a strong, independent woman type. Her circle is small. Before the events of chapter one, she was a homebody with one best friend. She was focused on school, work, and advancing her career. She is not thinking about romance, adventure, or self-discovery. She has a plan (to do the best she can so she can become the best teacher she can) and she’s sticking to it. The only distractions she allows in her life are the literary as she delves into fantastical stories as a break from reality. At least, until her worldview is shattered by an impossible stranger with a unique and tantalizing story.   In my quest to acknowledge, break, and twist stereotypes in this book, I also tackled the single-woman problem. In my experience, a woman rejecting the nuclear dream and pursuing her own happiness over settling down is always looked at strangely. That there must be something wrong with her to not want to be a mother, there must be a reason she’s not convinced anyone to stay with her yet. With a book where I was trying to un-romanticize monster stories, an independent, career-driven woman seemed to be the perfect protagonist. When the relationship gets too toxic and dangerous, or she’s approached by someone not respecting her wishes, she seems much more justified in saying “no” than if she had been a romantic. It makes the reality of the story so much more real. It makes the people more real.   Does being an independent person, waiting for the right person to come along to treat her with respect and build upon her happiness automatically make her ace? No. But the way she behaves when confronted with the prospect of romance might.   Something I learned years after discovering I was ace and struggling with finding dates, was that I was at times completely oblivious when someone was flirting with me. At best, I found the behavior of men to just be polite, at worst I thought it was creepy. This romance-blindness became a challenge to overcome. Things people did to me to try and excite me just didn’t work, and little things I thought were just showing affection were apparently much more exciting on the other end. I could go on, but I’ll keep it brief. I found out over time that my reactions and thoughts on the matter were out of the norm, broadening my understanding of what being ace actually meant. It’s not just a lack of libido. Asexuality is a much more complicated beast.   I believe Kaylah exhibits some of this behavior in the way she blows off Adam and people who try and convince her to pursue romance. She views Adam’s attempts to save her as interfering with her life instead of finding it chivalrous. She’s confused about why people are trying to push her towards a relationship. She chooses her own company and the company of her friends over going out to try and meet someone. Even in the way she gifts Billy something she knows he needs, she’s expressing her affection in thoughtful ways and not romantic ways.    This also opens up a discussion of the ace umbrella. Is Kaylah gray? Sex repulsed? Or maybe aego? I’d maybe have to dive back deeper into the story to make a guess as to whether Billy or Kaylah have an umbrella term that best fits them. Maybe I’ll leave that up to you, dear readers.

Finding a Fellow Ace Isn’t the (Complete) Answer

So, if Billy and Kaylah are possibly both ace, then what’s the problem? They can still have a relationship without sex, right? Well, finding someone sexually compatible with you is only a small part of any relationship.   At its most basic level, a relationship is about mutual happiness. Happiness can be made and shared in many forms. Sex can be one. So can conversation, interests, adventures, activities, family, growth, non-sexual affection, gifts, compliments, support, and the list goes on and on. The more things you have in common that make you both happy, the better off you’re probably going to be in a relationship.    Kaylah and Billy might both be ace, and they both enjoy conversation. But the rest of their lives are vastly different. Maybe they could be happy for some time, but time would also eventually break them. Kaylah's aging, Kaylah’s day job and Billy’s sleep, secrecy, danger. They are better off as friends. And that’s okay. Friendships can be extremely rewarding, and sometimes more rewarding than a romantic relationship. Especially for aces! We love friends! Friends don’t try to sleep with us (usually), and we like that about friends.

Well, that’s all that’s on my mind right now. I tried to write/post this last year for Ace Week but didn’t quite get my thoughts together enough to write it all down. I hope I managed it this time. Discovering I was ace and continuing to discover what exactly that means for me has been an important journey for me over the past few years. I’ve done a lot of looking back on my life and how this identity may have manifested itself earlier than I thought. Trying to figure out if there is a why, or if I’ve always been this way. Maybe I’ll talk more about that in the future.    But for now, I encourage you to maybe look through The Un-Life again and see if you can see what I see. Do you think any of the characters are ace? Why or why not? I’d love to hear your opinions! Since I’m not declaring any ace-canonicity in the story at this time, it’s really up to interpretation.   While you’re at it, maybe leave The Un-Life a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Give it a listen on Audible. Get a signed copy from my online store. Like vampire memes and general gothic stuff? Follow my Facebook page for spooky nonsense.   Happy spooky month, everyone, and happy ace week!

Read the original blog post posted on October 26 on my website, www.danalockhart.com.

[icharchivist]

I haven't played Dragon Age before btw but I think Veilguard looks really interesting. I hope I can get into it despite being a complete beginner

oh damn

I hope you can too.... from experiences while th DA games clearly follow heavily on one another, the fact each entry has it's own protagonist, they usually use it to really go "we can't assume you know what happened previously so here's a run down". I've seen people who never played the previous games get fully entranced by da2 or dai, and i have no doubt da4 will do the same on that regard, so if this is the way you want to go about it, i'm sure the game will be accomodating. and the game does look a hell of fun.

Personally i think it's a terrible idea but i'm also a person who has been living those past 8 years on the incredible high DAI's ending left me on with its major plot twist that literally changed everything, all while actually having been set up for all 3 games that going back to any of the prev game is a treat in term of treasure hunts of how "everything was there all along, we just didn't know any better" and genuinely i'd be saddened by people being introduced by the twist /first/ when the games have set this beauty up in 3 games.

The current promo cycle revealed also very early 20mins of the gameplay (not the very beginning and it skips around on a few scenes, but it's basically huge part of the prologue), and they will throw you into it right away (and there's no way it won't spoil the prev game, like, at all lmao), which is... so exciting as a long time fan, but is going to be a lot of biased exposition dump too.

("biased" bc the person who's going to fill you in on the situation has a history with the character it's about as well and the chara in question is so incredibly built through all of DAI and is such a nuanced, interresting character, that describing him in a few sentences is. very likely to get you the wrong idea about him. *mumbles* not like playing DAI has ever stopped people from being wrong about him, but,)

(Because yeah also 2 major characters/companions from da2 and DAI have been confirmed to coming back, as well as one of the most detailled secondary characters from DAI becoming a companion in DA4, so there's a lot of history there. The concept arts also teased a lot of returns from possible DAO, DA2 and DAI characters as well.

Not to mention they also confirmed the protagonist of DAI is coming back for a considerable portion of the game to "finish their story with [one of the major character of DAI (and possible romance option) that is going to be super important in DA4]" and has been mentioned to have a significant part to play/that sometimes you'll have to play them.)

But hey i'm talking from the place of someone who spent the last 8 years replaying the three games so often i have 700 hours on the first game, 600 on the second, and nearly 1500 hours on the third one (i've been replaying it those past few weeks, i'm 130 hours in and i am still "early" ish in the plot lmaoooo, and i already planned to replay the game when i'm done.), and have diven into everything the saga has to offer, from books to comics to movies to TV shows and webseries.

(speaking of TV shows, Dragon Age: Absolution on netflix was released a couple years ago and it was a great entry. It also has spoilers from DAI but if you decide to still going on with playing DA4 despite that, you can also watch DA:A to see if the universe compeels you to get deeper into. The show is short, 6/8 episodes? And the full cast (aside from Fairbanks being a big npc on dai and the cliffhanger refering to prev games as well) are new characters so the story can work as a stand alone thanks to that. and it's 2D animated, it's lovely)

point is i'm fully biased and the one thing that thrills me more than anything else about the game is really just rereading the pages of lore and seeing how they connect, so while to me the twist is 100% worth discovering in full, it's also just /my/ concern personally.

(and i can't even begin to touch on the specific high i've been on for the past month by the fact the trailer + gameplay showcase already went on to confirm theories i've been having for /years/ and there's a specific type of high that comes from "oh my god i picked that up!!! i did!!!! holy shit!!!" that would be lost on a new player who's introduced to it right away)

but it's MY way of experiencing DA and i think if you want to go into da4 first, esp since the other games are intimidating in some way (and god knows i've tried to drag ppl into DA and they all ditched early in DAO because DAO has some slow gameplay and some slow built before really hooking you in, so while i can't relate i know it's a deal breaker for some people when i say "no please start from the start"), i'm sure you'll still be on for a treat and everything.

If you end up getting into da4 without playing the other games, if you have questions my inbox is opened. I tend not to talk about DA much on main bc i can't stand the fandom esp on here and don't want them to find me at all (which is why every single of my completely unhinged rantings about DA have been confined to private conversation with friends and spamming my private twitter account i mostly have my IRLs on), but at least in term of lore clarification i should be able to help o7

anyway sorry lots of thoughts about it but i've been thinking about it a lot lately especially as i'm replaying DAI and i'm constantly crying just playing exploration phases because i'm just so enamoured with the way the game saga grew and rewards you for caring yaknow? and how as happy as i am people are interested in DA4 because i do want the game to do well and personally i feel in every fiber of my body that it's going to be a blast, but it saddens me to think the whole saga and the way the twists and turns affected one another will not be experienced fully by newcomers.

but again. ranting of a raving fan, and the game itself will surely ease you through it, so don't mind me too much about it.

I genuinely can't wait, my brain has been only DA for the past month.

happy it got your interest though <333

[bleedingmyway-blog]

am i a reluctant pokemon fan ?

so far, both of the posts i've made here touch the subjects of pokemon/nintendo. it would be sort of stupid to make the third post ever say "i actually hate pokemon". so instead, i'll borrow the words a youtuber used to describe his relationship with kingdom hearts and call myself a "reluctant pokefan". why reluctant, and not ex you ask ?

for the simple fact that i still massively enjoy past episodes. in my life, there has not been a year where i haven't played an older pokemon game on a mobile emulator or dusted off the old 3ds to play some 4th/5th gen pokemon. while i've grown bored of a number of games that i have played too much during a period of time (dark souls 1 comes to mind), pokemon is really the only franchise i go back to; serving both purposes of being somewhat of a comfort game and genuine entertainment.

my latest emerald run, i had to grind like a mad dog to get my hands on a feebas

the reason i mention "genuine entertainment" like an android awkwardly trying to describe human feelings is because i know a lot of pokemon fans outgrew the franchise after discovering more complicated rpg/mon sagas like shin megami tensei, romancing saga, digimon and thus no longer draw an actual feeling of satisfaction and entertainment from the games. but to me, despite playing more rpgs over the years, i've never really stopped having fun playing the games. i will fully admit nostalgia plays into it, but it is definitely not enough to make me sink 40-50 hours into a given pokemon game (that i've most likely already played) every 6 months. the older games, while not being necessarily complicated gameplay wise (i remind myself sometimes that for the longest time the game was aimed at children) all have their own brand of uniqueness, which in my opinion, stretches further than gimmicks each game has. atmosphere, characters, the general artistic direction for the pokemons and the folklore for each generation makes each game worth playing for me. regardless of whether you think the battle system has not evolved at all in more than 20 years, that there the dressing aspect of pokemon has not gained any depth whatsoever, that the lore sometimes fails to stick together, that the game retain too much of their linear modus operandi over each opus, the pokemon experience offered by the older games couldn't be find anywhere else. all these examples of critics i quoted happen to be a few of the gripes i have against the entire franchise, which have amplified over the years.

Hence, my being a reluctant fan.

while what you've read so far has been almost like a letter to a long lost lover, what you're going to read is an aveu of hatred and disgust towards the direction taken by the games after the 7th generation (i personally judge pokemon sun/moon to be the last good games). don't expect an objective argumentary about why it's bad, cold hard facts or post ironic memes : i simply am going to express my hate for the mediocrity game freak subjects itself to.

i am not going to go into details about how vomit inducing the textures look (hint : i think it looks like actual gameplay from one of those crappy chinese mmorpgs that you see advertised on shady torrenting websites). how, in 2020, pokemon makes its first mainline entry onto a TV system which such godawful graphics, lackluster characters that somehow look inferior to the avatars from a prior mobile game (pokemon go) is beyond me.

lacking 3d animations, battles still load up in an enclosed area where the trainer is nowhere to be seen, pokemons remain static, simple looped animations with not even a god damn idle animation, something that mid 90s point n click games had for chrissake. it is unbelievable game freak went on about the pokedex not including enough pokemons as to concentrate on the ones they're going to be using when truthfully, you couldn't put less work into what's already in the game if you wanted. "it could be worse" yeah, sure, if they didn't just lazily re-use the animations from the 3ds

and you may argue that this had always been the case, to which i'll answer that the only example of gf being this lazy was the shameless copy/paste of the post-league house of battles (whatever its name was) in ORAS; considering the original one in XY was already incredibly lackluster. i actually suspect gamefreak started getting real lazy around that time the way, providing players with the bare bones minimum of pokemon games : expect that's the thing, it's no more interesting than a plain bowl of white rice with nothing on it. pokemon, at its base form, is rpg so behind and archaic that it could be called backwards. features that have existed for 2 decades in mainstream jrpgs such as wild life encounters and beast riding are seen as good additions, while the series was conditionned to smaller machines with weak technical capabilities, the limitations were excusable, but i refuse to ever pay for the undercooked pieces of garbage that nintendo has somehow been able to churn out at a faster rythm than back when the games were made for smaller formats; and on top of that, pouring a thick greasy nasty sauce of dlcs on top.

legendaries that no longer have any connection to existing folklore/mythical symbolism, flagship legendary pokemons being just recolors of each other. jesus christ, scarlet and violet were centered around the gimmick of motorcycle dragons being ridable and somehow nintendo manages to flip the middle finger by making said pokemons CRAWL on top of being extremely buggy

let us ignore, once again, the awful graphics (final fantasy XII on ps2 somehow looked better in its pixelated glory)

the problem is not the choice of gimmicks or pokemons whatsoever, that's up do debate, we've had for each ds game a gimmick to act as a placeholder of the lower screen, but there's no soul left, and as to define this vague concept; not spontaneity from the devs, no extra-work to make the player smile as he thinks "they didn't have to do this but i like it", like getting something on the house from a burger joint you already love. no, you can truly feel that even though nintendo has always been multi billion dollar company, they now decide to make money on unfinished games, capitalizing on a new demographic of older players who won't mind spending 50, 60 bucks on the lastest pokemon game no matter how shamefully mediocre it is.

i think i'll stop here as i would have to go deeper into detail, but frankly, i feel like i could go on forever, with more structure, and yet, it feels childish because this is ultimately the result of disappointment at the downhill slope a loved franchise that occupied a big role when i was younger is taking.

thanks for reading once again, and do tell if you've any objections or remark concerning something i said

[lil-ms-dipst]

I know I don't reblog a bunch or talk a bunch about Minecraft, but honest to god it's like the thing that raised me. But it's like Pokemon for me, or DnD, where I kinda just.. avoid really watching videos/series/stuff about it. I don't know why.

Back in the yee ol' days I watched folks like DanTDM, Ssundee, and PopularMMOs, but uh you know how that last one turned out :x. I think Ssundee is still on good standing?? and then DanTDM got his diamond minecart rode so now he's a dad. The shit that changes over the years is really interesting.

And besides that, when I first discovered Minecraft when I was 8, it became my like.. everything. I own shirts, I just bought the fucking crocs, I have bedsheets, figurines, plushies, socks, hats, a watch that I will never use, posters, a cup, a lamp, etc. Even my parents know if I spot anything Minecraft-related it's over for their (or mine sometimes) wallet.

I just never really talked about it because um.. I dunno. For how much I love Minecraft there just.. isn't much for me to talk about. At least anything I could talk about in an interesting way I suppose??? Like I could go on about the Warden, or other things or just random fun facts and tidbits. Like did you know you have to drown a Husk twice for it to become a drowned?? Endermen also see everything inverted. Creepers see everything in shades of green. Despite the Warden being blind when you spectate one they "see" just fine (probably just devs too lazy/not thinking its worth to add a thing for it??). I know so much random fucking bullshit because I either find it out myself or just come across it online somehow.

Anybody remember the Minecraft Handbooks? I had those. It was either 1.7 or before then, I don't remember acacia trees in there but I do vividly remember there were no guardians, which were 1.8. I'm such a Minecraft nerd that I can identify the time period/update period a poster came out depending on the stuff in it. It's so fucking stupid. I also know random tiny lore tidbits because guess who also played any spinoff game that released. That's right, me :)

Vindicators (or I suppose just.. illagers in general?) originate from some villagers that finally decided to stand up for themselves. Why did they suddenly grow to hate what they used to be? No clue.

I've also thought about making a whole fucking like.. lore theory. No, I haven't watched any of Matpat's theories on MC, and I prob won't. Nothing wrong with him just kinda grew out of caring about him.

Minecraft is just.. so fucking cool I think. And a little random fun fact about myself :) Um. If it wasn't for Minecraft Legends I probably wouldn't have picked up Pikmin. I saw Vinny Vinesauce play Pikmin and I was like "wow that looks like Legends where you got little guys and have them do things.."

[beingatoaster]

Okay! I'm going to focus on Steam games because I've become mostly a PC gamer in the last few years (the only non-outdated console I have is the Switch and most of the games I have for it are ones I'm sure you've heard of XD). But I am also going to mention the Epic Games store/launcher/app/whatever they're calling those things these days! Because every week, changing on Thursdays, they offer a different game (or sometimes two!), for free, that would normally cost money. I have discovered some VERY fun games through this that I never would have if I'd had to go browsing through the store and pay cash money (and in fact, some of those will be listed here). Even if you don't like the game, you can always just uninstall it after you've tried it out and you'll have never spent a cent, so I definitely recommend it. :>

(Please bear with me for this post, my dashboard is covered in crabs that love me and I cannot bear to vanish them in order to type more clearly. u_u)

First, some stuff with a bit more of what you're looking for:

Tales of Zestiria: The entire Tales of series is great on whatever machine you play them on, and no that's not JUST my nostalgia speaking, but Tales of Zestiria is the one I actually have on Steam so if you're a PC gamer it may be a good place to start! (Steam also has Berseria and Arise, both of which I own but haven't played yet, and Symphonia, which I've heard you SHOULD NOT buy on Steam--it's a port and very badly done :( which is a shame as it's one of the best games in the series.) They're all very classic JRPGs with sweeping, not always sensical storylines and engaging characters; Zestiria was the last game eating my life before I got into Genshin. If you have a Switch I also recommend Tales of Vesperia, which is another of the best-in-the-series ones (honestly, a bit better than Zestiria) and well worth the money.

Mass Effect: Legendary Edition (three games bundled into one): HOLY SHIT IT'S ON SALE (at least where I am) and if you think you have any interest at all I definitely recommend grabbing it at 75% off, holy shit. This is one of those "do I even have to explain Mass Effect?" game series because in my head everyone knows about Mass Effect, but in case you don't XD it's a sci-fi mostly-shooter with a sweeping storyline and incredibly compelling characters, and it's one of my most beloved games of all time even though I hate shooters. (It's not purely a shooter? Steam lists it as an RPG, actually. But any game where I have to shoot things in real-time is a shooter to me. I'm so bad at them. My party members carry me every time and I love them to bits.) It's very, VERY good. You will cry over a cover of a Gilbert & Sullivan song. (You will cry a LOT in the third game, they build up a whole bunch of things over the first two in order to deliberately cash them in for PAIN in the third game. I am tearing up just thinking of certain lines right now.)

Dragon Age II: Also on a very good sale right now (in my region)! The Dragon Age series is made by the same studio as Mass Effect and is almost as good, but isn't as tightly linked together as the first three Mass Effects, which is why I'm recommending II separately--I think it's better than the other two, and it's easier to play it, then decide if you're interested in the world and lore enough to play the others. (Also, the first one, Origins, has such incredibly clunky combat that every run after my first I've played entirely by spamming a cheatcode that kills all enemies in the area for every fight. II's combat still has issues, but it's miles and miles better.) Also, I know that you're a tragedy lover, and this game is a perfectly-played-out tragedy in, literally, three acts. It's one of my favorite video games EVER in part because it's willing to let the story run to its conclusion without Hawke winning in the end off pure Protagonist Disease. You know that post/meme that goes something like, "The love was there. It wasn't enough, it didn't save anyone, but it matters that the love was there"? It's a perfect encapsulation of Hawke and their found family and the way that things play out.

Additionally, while I won't link them individually, in the same category of "you do know about...? but I'll mention it anyway" is the Elder Scrolls games. Skyrim is the one everyone KNOWS and is the best technically (combat, graphics, other elements like the house-building and adopting children and such), but frankly I 100% think it's predecessor Oblivion is better in terms of both storyline and quest design. And Morrowind has the best story in the series by a long shot, and IMO the best environment, but I understand that it is essentially unplayable technically to most modern gamers and won't try to sell you on it without the hook of my nostalgia. XD Seriously, though, best story in the series, so keep an eye out if they ever drop a remake. (They won't. They'll drop another version of Skyrim instead. Yes, I am bitter.) If you like traditional-style MMOs, Elder Scrolls Online is also quite good, IMO!

Recettear: Kind of drifting away from your specifications, but closer to than the ones below. It's about running an item shop in a fantasy world, technically. You have to GET the items first, though, and that involves combat and some exploration. There's also a really fun cast of characters! There's time pressure, but every time you "lose," which you're supposed to do a lot, you keep a lot of your gains as you start your new game, which eventually lets you build up to a point where you can succeed in the game's ostensible goal. But the actual goal IMO is unlocking the story. >>

Next, some games that don't quite fit your parameters but that I personally love:

Dwarf Fortress: City-builders are my #1 genre but if you like combat and adventure/exploration, it sounds like they won't be so much your thing. That said, I've been playing Dwarf Fortress since its earliest development days and, while it's got a super high learning curve, I love it far too much not to mention it. It does also have an adventure mode you can play in! I am not sure if that's available in the Steam release but as of the last time I downloaded it from the creator's website, that version did. The caveat is that I've never actually played adventure mode (I'm too busy watching my dwarves slaughter each other) so I can't speak on how it plays. XD;;

Other highlights in the city-building genre that I've enjoyed recently are Banished, Aven Colony, Frostpunk, Going Medieval, and Timberborn, though most of these are still early-access so they're not polished games, and Frostpunk is polished but is also INCREDIBLY demanding on PC hardware.

Stardew Valley: A farming game in the classic Harvest Moon style, but with combat options in the mines and after nightfall on the monster farm. You raise crops and animals, gather items to build up your farm and make money, and befriend villagers. I'm not sure how to hype it up, but I've put over 1000 hours into it at this point!

Eidolon: My other #1 genre that isn't necessarily what you're looking for is walking simulators, and Eidolon is close to my heart: you're walking around post-apocalyptic Washington State, collecting the lost journal entries/letters/etc. of the people who lived just before, through, and after said apocalypse. There's a LOT of death in this one, but somehow, it's become a go-to game for me when I'm sad. Very low-poly graphics on purpose, excellent soundtrack, minor survival elements, but mostly wandering about.

Journey: Technically also a walking simulator according to my Steam folders, but honestly I would more call it a gliding simulator. XD Definitely has exploration and adventure! You're a little person making your way through a big, sometimes thrilling, sometimes scary world, solving puzzles using your movement abilities in order to pass from one stage to another. It's a breathtakingly beautiful game, very short (you can do a playthrough in about two hours) but definitely worth replaying now and again, and I can't think of much else to say about it that doesn't spoil things that I, despite usually being spoiler-happy, heartfeltly believe should not be spoiled.

Other walking simulators I love include TIMEframe, Eastshade, and Firewatch; there's also Dear Esther, but MASSIVE trigger warning for suicide on that one.

Cinderella Phenomenon: Yes, this an otome game. It's free, though! And it's my favorite that I've ever played (and I have played... a lot >>). A fantasy storyline set in a world where some people are cursed to live out fairytales--the title character's is "Cinderella," which is a hard blow for a former princess. She's honestly kind of a bitch, but she Gets Better, and I love most of the love interests (I could do without the step-brother. Frankly I'd have rather dated the step-sister). Some of the routes are genuinely heartwrenching, especially if you play them in recommended order.

FTL: Faster Than Light: I genuinely don't know what genre this is? You have a spaceship, and you are fleeing your enemies, trying to reach and warn your side without falling prey to the perils of space, while traveling through randomized areas where you may get upgrades and fuel but may also get blasted to pieces. You get blasted to pieces a lot. Because of the randomization, each run is different, and it's one you lose more than win, but it's quick to play through each time and it can be a lot of fun!

My #3 genre is the general area of "strategy, real-time or turn-based," which can cover a fair bit of ground (and also, surprise surprise, overlaps with city-building). I won't link any games from that because it's all series, but the Civilization series, the Crusader Kings series, and the Galactic Civilizations series are all some of my favorites.

Finally: if you have the Nintendo systems for them, OBVIOUSLY the Fire Emblem games, but you also follow canonical-transformation so I'll assume you already knew that. XD

does anyone have any video game recommendations? 👀

[oldschoolvpq]

Your book collection is so cool! Where are you getting them from? And what are they about generally? I think I'd like to get into that but I'd love to know which ones are worth a read

Thank you! I live in Tokyo so I'm mostly getting them from flea market site Mercari, though I'll sometimes get a good price on Amazon and very rarely Yahoo! Auctions. I try not to spend more than $3-5 per book, but sometimes you have to make exceptions.

The majority of books are players guides, basically. They tell you how to raise each character, but some of them (especially the first Game Boy guide by Keibunsha) also catalog merch that's either already available or coming out soon.

This is how I learned to keep an eye out for Mika-Chu! The search for Professor Banzo continues...

The books all the way to the left (opposite side from the plush) are comics and picture books. They're the most fun to look at and contain the most canon lore. The Roman Album たまごっち研究レポート たまごっちボン (Tamagotchi Research Report) 1 and 2 are my hands-down recommendation, though you'll likely be spending upwards of $30-50 to obtain the second volume. These explain the complete world of Tamagotchi in a variety of really humorous illustrations. Plus they're a nice big size!

My absolute favorite book is the gold hardcover, Tamagotchi Birth Record (たまごっち誕生記) written by Akihiro Yokoi, former president of WiZ and father of the Tamagotchi. Published in Spring 1997, it documents the development process and encapsulates the brand at the peak of the boom. An informative memoir that also contains a quick primer on the history of the Japanese character toy industry.

Second recommendation for nerdy info-heavy books is たまごっちのことが全部わかる本 (Learn Everything About Tamagotchi with this Book) published under the Shueisha Mook label. It's filled with facts and features an interview with several members of the original dev team. And, of course, merch info.

They say "Everything" then admit up-front on the obi that it only goes up to the Angelgotchi!

One of my favorite finds is a Bandai catalog from the beginning of 1998 (right before the bust). It documents all of the hot toys at the time and is filled with articles and other information...it's an amazing snapshot of the times.

God, to have been a kid in Japan in 1998...

In addition to pure Tamagotchi books, I also have some variety books on how to identify other types of virtual pets and LCD toys/games.

The second volume was not easy to come by, but I was overjoyed to discover it has an amazing photo of the test marketing version of the Osutchi and Mesutchi packaging!

Of course, enjoyment of these books is somewhat dependent on your ability to read Japanese, but that's the way the cookie crumbles!

(Now I have to put them all away again! Arrrrgh!)

[fantasyforbeginners]

hello! this is probably a question you've already answered before, but do you have any tips on how to introduce a fantasy world with new races, magic systems, and countries etc, without just infodumping in the first chapter?

in a story i'm working on, there are two races of characters who are very different from humans and don't appear in like. folklore or anything (ie they're completely made up), but since i don't want to infodump i end up sort of talking about them like the reader should already know who/what they are, and that's really confusing i think. i'm just not sure where i should put my information, there never really seems like a right time but i know it needs to be somewhere

any help is really appreciated, sorry if you've already received a question like this !

So this is something where character voice and distinctiveness is going to be your way out. A lot of this depends on your POV character(s) and how much they would notice about any given person and/or creature. If your POV character for some of these introduction scenes does not belong to either race, they can be an effective conduit for info dumping in a way that doesn't feel egregarious.

I'm assuming you're working on secondary (i.e. set in an entirely different fantasy world and everyone is from that same world) > portal or hidden world fantasy, so this advice is catered slightly accordingly.

However, the concept of an audience conduit is true for all of these. In portal or hidden world fantasy, this is the Ordinary / Secretly Special Kid who Discovers a Thing or Falls through some Portal and needs to get everything explained to them as a result of having literally no or very little context.

In secondary fantasy, this is often a character who's more naive or a little less worldly (think the Hobbits in LOTR) who although they inhabit this world, haven't seen too much of it first hand. ATLA also handles this very cleverly, as Aang educates Katara and Sokka about all the places they haven't been, and they can educate him about how the world has generally changed in the 100 years since he's been gone / about the war.

What I mean in terms of character voice is something like this:

In another life, the meadow would have awoken under her touch, with unfurled petals, blooming blades of grass, and warmth. But Ally just prodded the lifeless husk of grass with the frosted rim of her boot. She’d hoped the walk and crisp wintry air would clear her head after a restless night, but to no avail. She’d been off—well, more off-kilter all week. Why was it that the more important it was to sleep well, the harder it was to do?

(Fun fact, this is the first paragraph of my WIP).

Immediately we know there's a subverted expectation, a sense of loss of power (and what those powers may be), that my protagonist is worried about something, and that we're in a world that generally experiences a snowy form of winter. A lot of this is conveyed through subtext, but there's also plenty of tell. The next 10 pages are about establishing her Ordinary (extraordinary) life, her outsider perspective, and establishing the immediate and some of the possible future stakes these hold for her.

Again, what do we have to know in order to understand an immediate, personal issue, even for something vast and sprawling, in order to get us invested? Could be a relationship, could be a character, could be something to prove - but always best to start small and specific > broad and wordy.

As my first piece of formal advice, if I had to take a guess, is that likely you're trying to establish too many stakes too in-depth at once. It may be worth stepping back and thinking "What is the most important information that has to be there, and everything else is set dressing?" For myself, this meant establishing my protagonist's broken chosen one cycle and her personal stakes. The other sets of powers, the broader world (including whole countries), the long and complicated history of the lore... all didn't matter. Or at least, doesn't matter yet.

Ask yourself: What are the personal stakes for your POV character in the first 10 pages, and figure out what worldbuilding has to be included from there? Are they a merchant, a scientist, a knight? An outsider? And then you go from there, for every ten pages onwards. Figuring out what to add later for a bit more cohesiveness or foreshadowing can be a second draft thing, and it is okay for your reader to marinate in implications or not entirely answered questions for a little, too.

Additionally, if you're worried about tossing too many names and titles, you can generalize. We don't have to know the names of every country; if say, there's an issue with one in the north or south, you can say "The northern provinces are starting to complain," and that gives us details without giving us cumbersome details (at least this early on).

If your POV character, or one of them, belongs to one of the new species, there will still be variations (or not, which is very notable) between themselves and others within their race that they can notice. For example, is the POV's characters pointed ears smaller than others'? Are the horns or assortment of limbs different or uniform across the species in contrast to other features, like hair or skin or eyes, that might differ further?

For example, I have three different types of elves in my world, but they all look slightly different from each other and have different attitudes regarding their ears / whether ears can be pierced, should be covered by hair, etc. Little things like that that a character from any of the three types would draw attention to.

Of course, that can only really be done once details concerning that distinctiveness. And again, it's okay to give more general descriptions at first and go into more detail later. Quality > quantity. Some parts of exposition really are just info-dumping (aka a paragraph on how a certain race or even building or city looks) and there's no really getting around that, but the most important thing is spacing it out. Your reader can't take it all in at once and you don't have to write it all at once.

I have offered advice on how to create a sense of distinctiveness in worldbuilding in a pretty simple way (as you seem to be working in threes already, which may work out).

I hope this helps, happy writing, and feel free to pop into my DMs or inbox with more specifics if you'd like to chat more! <3

[juiceboxman]

Advice for New DMs

I’ve been lucky enough to have DM’d a weekly game for over a year now and I’ve had conversation with people irl and online about how they think about DMing but aren’t necessarily too confident in their own ability or don’t even know where to start. So here’s some things I would suggest to get started, things to keep in mind and advice about general stuff. Here we go;

1) Familiarise Yourself with the Rules. You can read the DMs Manual or the Player’s Manual for rules. You can find rules explained everywhere online from Roll 20 to DND Beyond. But if you don’t like reading, and I get that cause the thought of reading a 200+ page instruction manual on how to play a game does sound daunting, I would suggest watching or listening to Actual Play Shows. If you watch like a few episodes of Critical Role or Dimension 20, you kind of get the basics of DnD. That’s really all you need to start DMing, just the basics like “what which Dice do”.

2) Know your Players. DnD is a collaborative game and all good collaboration necessitates some base understanding of who you’re collaborating with. You don’t necessarily need to know the people you’re playing with very well, but just enough to get where you can decide whether these people are chill to play with. So say if you’re gonna be playing a horror/scary campaign and you know one of the people in mind for playing isn’t too into horror- maybe don’t have them play cause it will make them uncomfortable. That example is perfectly fine but it delves into extremes when you’re dealing with people who are just difficult. You can look up online and find tons of stories relating to bad dnd experiences with just rude, shitty people. I would like to clarify that by saying that these experiences aren’t a DnD problem- it’s a social group problem. If you hang out wih a shitty person they will inevitably do shitty things, and honestly its better that a shitty outburst occurs at a controlled environment such as a DnD Game than say a house party where all sorts of shit could happen. So know your players. If they’re cool people, they’ll make cool players. If they’re kind of shit heads, they’re going to cause a lot of issues and not the fun kind. Know the difference between “shenanigans” and “open disrespect” because you as the DM put a lot of work into the game, if the players don’t respect that- maybe don’t play with them. No dnd is better than bad dnd 

3) Know Your Game. This rule helps a lot if you are familiar with lots of DnD shows, which gives you a frame of reference for the type of campaign you wanna run. If you wanna go big dramatic epics with a lot of strict survivalist rules, Critical Role is a good place to reference. If you wanna go for balls to the wall humour with a lot of heart and emotional moments, NADDPOD is a good place to reference. You want a proper scary campaign, watch Sophomore Year from Dimension 20- it is primarily a comedy show but when they do drama they do DRAMA. Knowing your players allows you to know the game better. It took me quite a while in my own campaign t realise “Oh I’m not running a CR game, I’m running a NADDPOD game” and ater I realised that I was able to play it better. Know the game, know the genre, know what you and your players like and enjoy and try to maximise that fun.

4) Preparation. DMs do a lot of preparation whenever they intend to run a game. I would argue that the amount of preparation you want to do should be equal to the amount of time you’re willing to spend. Sad fact of life is that DnD, and other activities with friends, are all dependant on IRL scheduling. A campaign can fizzle and die out at a moments notice, not all stories get finished and if you wanna start any creative process that’s a reality you have to accept. I’m a creative person, I do quite a lot of writing and stuff on the side so when I do prep for DnD I don’t want to spend too much of my creative juice on a project that only six people at a table will know about compared to one that would feature a larger audience. Also if you have a busy schedule you might not have time to worldbuild, so short cuts help. So in those respects I don’t see anything wrong with being lazy. There are plenty of websites online where you can randomly generate maps, towns, characters- you name it. You don’t need to spend hours on end developing streets of a city that no one will walk down or lore behind businesses no one will ask about. You just need to be familiar enough with the history or your world, its vibe and tone in which you can effectively improv the rest. I’ve been DMing a game now for well over a year, I spend less than an hour a week doing prep. I write a few bullet points for stuff to bring up in the session, I make a brief map for encounters, I’ll look up monster stats, maybe draw up some homebrew and heroforge pictures of the NPCs- that’s it

5) Improv. I think 90% of DMing is pure improv. Depending how well you know your players and their characters, you can predict certain behaviours. So if you have an NPC say or do something that you know will gaina certain reaction from a player, that’s something you are certain about. Everything else however can be improv based. Players will surprise you. They’ll do weird dumb shit and they will do really cool game breaking shit. You have an NPC who was supposed to be a big villain? Well the PCs all teamed up and with an effective strategy, that NPC is now dead. It’s the lay of the land. The goal with prep is to have enough prepared that you can effectively pull stuff out of your ass with no issue. Improv isn’t necessarly difficult, all you really need is to listen. When a player responds to something and you feel its worth rolling for, have them roll for it. If tey roll well, tell them they did the thing. If not, tell them they didn’t. If the thing they asked for is impossible, tell them it’s impossible. You can come up with all sorts on the fly

6) DND isn’t like TV/BOOKS/MOVIES. DND is a weird medium of entertainment. Its a collaberative game where you all make a narrative, but a lot of strange stuff happens in between. Like if youre watching a movie or a show or reading a book you might think to yourself “why is this character spending twenty minutes talking to this waiter that genuinely isn’t that interesting?” or something like “why did the main villain die five pages in?” DND doesn’t follow a beat structure or format. Plot armor doesn’t fit here, it’s all decisions and luck- that’s it. Don’t be dissapointed in your work in regards to storytelling. Don’t worry about plot holes or inconsistencies, just focus on player engagement. If the players are having fun, then you’re playing the game right. You as the DM have to make sure that everyone is playing fairly and having fun. Treat your players equally, don’t be a dick, don’t be a pushover. You have to know what your players want, but also know what they don’t want. If your players like a weird NPC, have that NPC show up more cause they enjoy it. If your players discover an ability ot a magic object that left untouched will alter game play (e.g. one of my PCs recently gained an ability in which they gained the breath weapon of an ancient red dragon) that if used effectively could elminate all threat from any boss fight ever- don’t be afraid to NERF that. You need to be considerate about your enjoyment and the players enjoyment, its all in the balance.

That’s the main six points I have so far. If I have anymre I’ll be sure to add them. If anyone has any advice, feel free to add below. Hope this helps! Also; Brennan Lee Mulligan has a good podcast giving DM advice called Adverturing Academy. Has a lot of cool guests. The episode featuring Carlos Luna from Roll 20 is actually good career advice and gets me motivated just thinking about it. Definitely worth checking out!

[elfdyke]

wow thanks! that was a really in depth post about it you make good points! when I played I definitely got the sense that monika had encouraged sayori to kill herself and I didn’t get the sense of any remorse when natsuki or yuri died or got fucked up but I guess u do make some good points there about how she was just trying to make them less desirable rather than kill them. I’m new to the game and the fandom so im not super familiar with everything yet but is there anything in the canon or lore that points away from monika having pushed sayori to commit suicide or is it mostly just fan theories and personal readings? either way thank u so much for answering!

yes i can absolutely find you some info on that!

there's quite a bit of information hidden within the games files, so I'm kind of assuming if you're new to the game, that you might not have seen these things? so ill dive into them too!

I'm gona do this under the cut so i can like, dissect things from the game !

(also i found stuff thats specifically pointing away from her meaning actual harm/death for Both yuri and sayori, jsyk)

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.txt (discovered in game files during act 2)

“All I want is for you to hate them. Why is that so hard.”

not, all i want for them is to die. she doesnt want to kill them. she wants to separate us from them so we are with Her, not them. things spiral out of control, but it was never her intention for things to get this bad. ntm its repeated over and over in this game how badly monika wants to die. she's hanging on by a thread, keeping on only because she wants to be with us, to be in contact with reality. this leads to really unfortunate circumstances but i really strongly believe everything in the text alludes to the fact she did Not want things to get this bad

ACT 3 INTRO:

(im copy pasting a transcript of the monologue here, but this is taken from the very beginning of act 3, which you can see in this video starting at 25:56)

imo this is all the proof needed to show that she really had no intention of ‘killing’ sayori and yuri. things spiraled out of control far beyond what she was capable of handling. 

her goals with making sayori more depressed and yuri more obsessive were, in here words “to just try to make them as unlikable as possible”. she didnt want her friends to brutally die!! she loved them q_q i feel like a lot of people really dont look at this specific part of what she says and take it to heart. its very telling for her character and important for understanding what she does and why she does it

ACT 3 MONOLOGUES:

sayori's hanging (cw: graphic descriptions of suicide)

dialogue of importance:

"I was thinking about Sayori earlier... I still wish I could have handled that whole thing a little more tactfully."

+

"Come to think of it, it was probably less 'changing her mind' and more just her survival instincts kicking in." "So you can't really fault her for that." "It's easier to think that she probably wouldn't have changed her mind anyway, right?" "It's not healthy to think about the things you could have done differently." "So just remember that even though you could have saved her, it's technically not your fault she killed herself." "I may have exacerbated it a little bit, but Sayori was already mentally ill." "Still, though..." "I wonder how things would be if you and I just started dating from the get-go?" "I guess we'd all still be in the clubroom, writing poems and having fun together." "But what's the point when none of it is even real?" "I mean, it's the same ending either way, right?"

ok so whats important here, is monika is essentially using us, the player, as a mirror in act 3? the things she says i believe, very strongly show her sense of uncertainty in her actions, and her fears of what if she could have done something else??

"even though you could have saved her, its technically not your fault she killed herself" reads SO much to me like shes trying to comfort herself with this, she doesnt want it to be her fault. nothings real, sayori's a character in a game. but she wishes so badly they could have just been normal girls living together.

happy end poem

OK SO LIKE. this is actual proof of Why she does everything she does. she's scared if she reaches out and tells us she's trapped in a game, we'll stop playing, we'll kill her. she tinkers with the game, trying to make herself look the best, trying to make us choose her, and nothing works. and this leads to her becoming frustrated and scared, and screwing with the game more and more desperately trying to do anything to save herself.

if you recall, in act 2, she gives you a poem which bluescreen the computer. this was actually an attempt she makes to escape the game q_q she never wanted to kill yuri, she never wanted things to escalate like that. she wanted to get out but she had no idea how to program her way out of the game, resulting in everything crumbling around her, and her friends dying.

my own route

hang on this one genuinely makes me so upset.

it very much relates back to how in the conversation about sayori's suicide, she's still clearly thinking about how things could be Different. shes thinking about how they could be normal. "I may not have needed to take such drastic measures to be with you. Maybe the rest of the club would still be around..." , and then immediately trying to convince herself it doesnt matter, and that she doesnt care.

its so so obvious shes hurting and she misses her friends. the additional "i really dont (miss them)" at the end really shows that shes desperately trying to convince herself that it was worth it, that she did everything she should have, and her friends dont matter. but they clearly do matter to her. she loved them (she couldnt even delete them if u recall)

also another important part about this monologue, a lot of people say she killed the other girls out of jealousy, but this shows thats not true??

"I think I would end up forcing you onto my route anyway." "It has less to do with me not having a route, and more to do with me knowing that nothing is real."

this wasnt because shes 'in love' with us. she wanted to be close to something real, something tangible. she's clinging onto us, the player character, like someone lost at sea with a piece of driftwood, doing everything she can to stay afloat

wine

ok this isnt on the surface level as important as the other ones, but literally look at how she talks about this memory.. she misses them so much and talking about this memory she clearly cherishes brings her so much joy. she doesnt belittle any of them, she doesnt talk down on them, she’s just reliving this memory because it makes her happy 

I HOPE THIS HELPS?? im sure theres a few more things im forgetting, but i did my best to scrabble up everything i could to show how monika’s not an evil mastermind, shes a scared girl who didnt realize what she was doing and when things got too bad, she did her best to fix it, only for it to get worse n worse

edit: oh heres the proof that monika always loved the girls and never actually deleted them

:’)

edit 2: haha.. um ouch

“It’s not right for me to miss things that weren’t even real in the first place.” shes forcing herself to try and ignore her feelings for the other girls

[popcryptid]

Pop Goes the Cryptid: The new cryptozoology aesthetic

Once upon a time, in the world of popular cryptids, the reigning monsters were Bigfoot/Sasquatch, Yeti, Nessie, Champ, and the Jersey Devil. They were icons; they had their own themed merch, they were tourist attractions; the average person knew about them.

The Internet changed everything. One could now readily discover information and folk tales about hundreds of “mystery creatures” around the world – including dozens of different types of “hairy hominids” alone – and have any belief reinforced by others who also believed the same.

By that time, in the early 90s, the effort to professionalize cryptozoology had essentially failed. The International Society of Cryptozoology, founded by scientists, was falling apart. The promises of securing zoological evidence and, particularly, genuine specimens of cryptids to show the world, had not come to fruition.

As scientific ideals began to erode from the field, the paranormal aspects intruded more blatantly. Amateurs, who had always been the workhorses of the field, dictated its direction. They made the websites, spoke at the conferences, talked to the media, engaged the public, and appeared on TV and YouTube. The spirit of Bernard Heuvelmans and his idea of a scientific, zoology-based, professional cryptozoology faded like a ghost, or a lost cause.

In the era of reality TV and social media, the 21st century version of cryptids evolved rapidly, fueled by a society-wide search for spirituality, enchantment, and a connection to something bigger than oneself.

“Cryptozoology” as an idealized field of study ebbed as “cryptids” as individual entities became more popular. The meaning had changed. They no longer were viewed so much as pelts-and-paws organisms to locate, trap, and fit into the tree of life, but as supernatural entities beyond our understanding, sometimes even demonic. They were readily fictionalized, exaggerated, and artistically distributed worldwide.

The community, also, was no longer obviously older, white, and male, but was trending towards younger, imaginative, unconventional, and gender-nonspecific participants. They liked their cryptids spooky but sometimes also cute. Some expressed a need to have a personal relationship with a “cryptid”. Some wanted to embody the cryptid. This is a very different scene than the late 20th century. Cryptids had always been a means of self-expression but now was expressed by those not so serious, white, male, or heteronormative. The old school cryptozoology followers didn’t pay much mind to this trend because it proliferated on social media platforms populated by a different demographic. Yet, the numbers aren’t lying – this scene is where the real action is.

Cryptids have became ubiquitous characters in all forms of media. They are even more celebrated in the 2020s, loved and fetishized than ever before. The scope of cryptids exploded to included any odd creature or thing with sentient properties, based in reality or completely mythological, physical or fey. If your area had no local cryptid lore, you could invent some and people would love and embrace it. Cryptids were more REAL than ever not because they existed in nature, but because they were firmly established in our culture, They are popular and mainstreamed.

Pop Goes the Cryptid is my way of exploring this shift in the popular representation and perspective of mystery animals that went from from an “-ology” to an aesthetic, and from a nature-based endeavor to a fantastic world view. It’s a messy trip, for sure. There are no straight lines to follow or distinct boxes to sort facts into. Several of those with a vested interest in the serious, non paranormal reputation of cryptozoology have already clearly disagreed with my opinions but, as a child of the 70’s who pursued a career in science and the public, I feel qualified to present my views in the forum. It’s a fascinating social subject worth exploring. And, it’s a lot of fun.