#given how much mod has planned ahead i'm sure a lot of these
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
thedragonagebigbang · 2 months ago
Text
Tumblr media
Bang Creator Interview: Tumblr: @AmmoniteFlesh  |  AO3: AmmoniteFlesh
The Collaboration period has begun! In these quiet months before works are due, we want to foster a sense of excitement, camaraderie, and celebration among our participants. To that end, all participants were given the option of a formal interview by our mod, Dema, or an informal “ask-game” survey. We hope you enjoy getting to know our phenomenal creators as much as we have!
Tumblr media
Top Eight People Having An Absolutely Soul-Destroying Time in This City: number four will KILL you!
Faust and Dema discuss The Bog, the power of deadlines, and Ghila “So, So Blighted” Mahariel
Dema: We're well into the writing and collaboration period now; how's it going? Are you excited? Are you in The Bog?
Faust: Oh my god, I am extremely in the Bog.
Dema: Any particular monsters in that Bog with you? 
Faust: Well, I'm only just coming out of a massive writing slump that sucked away a lot of my ability to work on anything. But while I'm not nearly as far ahead as I would like to be, I've always worked best at the last minute (unfortunately lol). I feel confident that I can finish. The fic itself I'm actually feeling really good about! I like what I'm doing, I have like 90% of it in bullet points, there are some moments I'm SUPER proud of. It's coming together - I just wish it was doing so a touch more quickly! 
Dema: Oh, are you me? (LOL I really really empathize) 
Faust: Honestly, I'm in awe of anyone who doesn't work this way lmao
Dema: Same. What helped you emerge from your writing slump?
Faust: I'm not sure! Going easy on myself helped - sometimes you really just need to let the batteries recharge. Plus my artist sent some absolutely BANGER sketches and was just generally very complimentary about my writing, which is always nice. Also, just... lowering the standards I set for myself. Writing is also kind of my day job, so it's sometimes difficult to remind myself that this is the Fun Writing that does not need to be perfect. 
Dema: Yeah, perfect really is the enemy of good. I'm so glad you gave yourself some grace and are back on the horse! What is your ideal writing environment? Do you have any rituals around it?
Faust: I love writing in a cafe, if I've got headphones to cancel out the noise. It just feels so indulgent? Here I am, getting my work done over a hot chocolate, people-watching – makes me feel very artsy lmao. I'm trying to get better at bringing more of that energy home, though, because I cannot afford to write at a cafe every day. 😅 Usually I do two pages of journalling first, to get all the noise out of my brain so I can focus. Then it's pomodoros all the way!
Dema: I also love cafe writing! And the pomodoro method, for sure. How long do you usually write in one go? Or is it varying a lot?
Faust: It varies a lot - sometimes I only manage one 25-minute burst and then I get distracted. Other times I go for several hours. The reason I decided to do the Big Bang in the first place was that having a deadline makes me waaaaay better at actually sitting down and getting words on the page - that external structure is so, so helpful.
Dema: I agree! Are you pretty used to writing longer-form fic like this, or is the Big Bang stretching your wordcount?
Faust: Yes and no? I have my extremely in-progress longfic, which is currently sitting at about 25k words, but that's literally it. I've worked on long-form stuff a ton, but actually completed very little of it - again, because I struggle a bit without external structure. I've cheated my way into feeling more comfortable with my DABB fic by writing something that's kind of a long-form piece and kind of a collection of shorter pieces. This nefarious plan to make me less intimidated by the prospect is working great so far! 
Dema: Is your longfic a DA fic?
Faust:  It is! It's an Origins retelling featuring my Mahariel, Ghila - who is extraordinarily Blighted and just generally does not have a good time. It's actually the first DA fic I ever wrote and the first fic for anything that I published, so it's very very close to my heart.
Dema: Can you tell me more about Ghila?
Faust: I AM ALWAYS READY TO INFODUMP ABOUT MY GIRL/AMBIGUOUSLY GENDERED ENTITY! Ghila was the result of me looking at how Mahariel has to travel all the way from the Brecilian Forest to Ostagar while Tainted and going 'oh, you should by WAY more fucked up by this'. She almost dies of the Blight, gets saved by the Joining in the nick of time, continues dying of the Blight but more slowly, until Avernus is finally able to stabilise it. She then steadily gets more and more Darkspawn-like, unlocking some cool spooky powers along the way.
She's also just so, so full of love - and full of rage for how the Dalish have been mistreated. Her opinion of the world is very cynical, but she does her best to make it better anyway. A lot of her arc is about trying to find a way to exist and survive in a world that hates her - both because of her Dalish-ness and because of her newfound monstrosity. And she does get there in the end, but it's a long and bitter road. I have so many feelings about it.
Dema: I am adding immediately to cart, haha! She and your fic sound super interesting. 
Faust: Thank youuuuuu 🥰 I'm Love Her
Dema: Is Origins your favorite installment of the franchise, then?
Faust: It's my favourite to write fic for! Favourite full stop is probably DA2 - I just love the characters, the small setting, the tight scope of it. But Origins has a lot more missed opportunities and loose ends imo, just by dint of having more going on, so I find it much easier to dive into and play with! 
Dema: In our last minutes, you may have seen that I'm titling these interview posts with a click-bait title 😂
Faust: Oooooooh
I'm gonna go with Top Eight People Having An Absolutely Soul-Destroying Time in This City: number four will KILL you!
Dema: L O L amazing! 
Faust: why thank you 😄
Dema: And it has been delightful interviewing you, thank you for taking the time! I hope you have a fantastically productive writing week.
Faust: No worries!!! It was super fun, thank you for doing these.
12 notes · View notes
lordspectrus · 2 years ago
Text
The Property of Hate - Thoughts, ideas and things that bug me
While we're all waiting for whatever Deus ex machina appears to get Hero and RGB out of the current quandary, I feel I need to verbalise some thoughts. Here be spoilers, obviously.
Tumblr media
First things first: I really don't understand RGB's behaviour. Let me explain why. (Some of this is already a couple of days old, and therefore slightly outdated.)
When he introduces Hero to the World of Make Believe, he does not explain anything. You can argue that it's better for her to figure things out. But if he wants her to save the world, surely she should have some idea of the scenario that will eventually happen?
The trees. Clearly he recognises the tree in P.O.V. (since he tells the whole story later), but does actually not want Hero to do anything with or for it. Yes, he didn't know that Assok was keeping it alive. But surely he knows that restoring the sun should be a major part of saving the world?
The same issue crops up again when Hero remarks that now they have to liberate the other four trees. RGB does not seem to be aware that Hero falling onto a branch is what started the tree's regeneration and shedding of the ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛. But he also says that there's nothing they can do about the other ones (something that their experience with the next tree should have dispelled by now). So, again, he's not telling her what the purpose of her journey is, only what isn't.
If this is his standard way of dealing with heroes, I'm not surprised they all failed. The new update suggests he may have done this on purpose but I don't get what the point of that would've been. To stop the story from ending? The way things are going, it could just as well end despite his efforts, and setting heroes up to fail wouldn't have made a positive difference.
That said, both of the tree rescue operations so far would have failed without the help of former heroes (Assok in the first case, Melody in the second). Which begs interesting questions about their respective proximity.
When RGB arrived in this world, he failed, being the first hero in all but name, and by his own admission, he was pretty green. (Weirdly enough he already had the TV head, whereas the other heroes seemingly were only transformed after failing.) But currently, he seems to know a lot about this world, including stuff that happened long before his arrival. Where did he get that information from? Time?
If the folks from the emporium were heroes brought into this world by RGB, where did he get his shirt from? (Cell doesn't seem to be one, but Tailor...)
Why does Hate only intervene at two points so far? (First cutting Julienne and Melody out of the story, then snipping into Time's speech bubble, which seems pretty ineffective.) If she's really all-seeing and omnipotent, her lack of direct interaction is weird.
What's the point of the train in the desert? It's not sent by Hate (as witnessed by the blackout on her screen), and RGB has no idea what it's about. Honestly, it's the weirdest part of the story to me. It's captivating but feels like it doesn't really belong, and right after it, the whole story significantly loses steam (a-hem).
He traded his memories for time. But if I'm not mistaken, the iron only starts appearing after he was ironed by Tailor, so maybe we're all interpreting too much into those nightmares.
Returning to the question of his motivation. What is his goal? Going to the market was just an intermediate destination. He clearly seems to want to advance somewhere else. But again, he never tells Hero about it... who also never asks what her function as a hero is actually going to be.
Assok knew what to do with the isolator around the tree's roots, but that implies, again, that RGB must have explained the basics of the matter to them. He didn't seem like he wanted to tell Hero.
And without the liberation of the tree, he wouldn't have the ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ to trade in the market. What else could he have offered? Or was going to the market only something he decided to do after that happened?
Why are there suddenly three suns? Even RGB doesn't know. And we don't see if the phoenix-tree is going to join them. (However, since that bit is set in the future, we might learn about how the three suns came about soon. (Confirmed by Mod now, thankfully.))
Maybe freeing the first sun automatically led to the next one being liberated (since the first one sets into the sea and one part apparently sunk there), but so far no explanation.
Madras is the only other character openly aware that this world is ending. But she doesn't seem too fussed, despite RGB's later explanation that if the World of Make Believe ends, all other worlds end too.
As a commenter on SmackJeeves said, most of the concepts we've seen so far are negative (pun intended). Time is neutral (and on the protagonists' side) and the tempers seem somewhat positive. If Time and Hate are the two big factors, would love be the third, and be represented by the (shattered) sun?
EDIT: Another thing. In the current part of the story, it appears RGB is telling Hero that he died. Shouldn't this be more significant? After all, she asked on page 8 whether she's dead and he says "I hope not".
Now onto the positive. While I wouldn't put it beyond Mod to subvert our expectations again, I do expect a happy ending of sorts. Why? Well, consider that the current hero is front and center of the story, while all her predecessors only get time to shine in flashbacks and supporting roles. And of course Time is on her side!
Tumblr media
6 notes · View notes
dragonkingz159 · 2 years ago
Text
*Cracks knuckles*
I was given permission to ramble by ggladiolus, so brace yourselves for a rambling.
Alrighty so Squid House AU. Set obviously in Splatoon's Inkopolis where most of our beloved cast of characters are Inklings. Fashion and trends are all the rage; being fresh is king/queen and Turf Wars are where it's at. And Luz Noseada (not sure how I feel about that one, I'll be honest) is a recently escaped Octoling under the care of resident "unfresh" street merchant Eda Flowthrone (going to quit while I'm ahead here with these last names).
Luz: Definitely an octoling and is very impressed by the surface world. She is incredibly inventive and was probably getting in trouble because she kept building "useless" things like music players, disco balls, and other oddities instead of weapons. Almost escaped Octovalley by herself but got caught by Eda during the last part of her escape. Obsessed with the Squid Sisters and any piece of the Good Squid Azura merch she can get her claws on.
Eda: The most "unfresh" inkling adult around due to her weird "Authentic" human and Octoling artifacts she sells just off the corner of the Square...also because a couple of kids caught her dumpster diving behind the Square and that time she fist fought an old man and nearly lost. Despite her reputation somehow she is super popular with a certain crowd. She lives outside of Inkopolis in her own house with her "apprentice" Luz and King. Her curse comes in the form of an unnaturally large squid form and incredible bouts of hunger.
King: Seemingly a smallfry salmonid who has no idea he is a salmonid. Nor the fact that he is going to get much, Much, bigger. He is still a child and views Eda as his mother. She actually "Rescued" him from a Grizco ship, one she totally wasn't robbing. Still has delusions of grandeur with him leading armies of loyal fanatics against any and all opposition...which is only slightly worrying considering what he will eventually grow into. Eda tries to shield him from Grizco and Inkopolis in general. Becomes terrified of other salmonids after he follows Luz and her friends on a Salmon Run, and none of them have a good time.
Willow: A inkling who was bullied relentlessly for being bad at turf war mostly due to outdated gear. Her Dads are also not the best off so she can't stay "fresh" with Inkopolis's rapidly changing fashion trends. Luz tries to help her earn a lot of G's by cheating (Luz didn't realize at the time that modding sanctioned turf gear was illegal) and to get back at the bullies she saw mocking her. Bump saw Willow's potential and got her a roller, which she excelled with, and agrees to form a team with Luz after Luz's suspension gets lifted. Willow helps out in the community gardens and is actually trying to breed her own sea kelp. Possibly into cooking, maybe a vegetarian?
Gus: Human and Octoling eccentric and prodigy special effects artist also a wiz in his general studies. Course he is also 12 and doubts if he even wants to be in film anymore. Almost a staple customer at Eda’s stall, he got into film/editing by making Squidtube (inktube?) videos about Octoling conspiracy theories, his most popular being that Octolings had venomous beaks (Luz confirmed it and he freaked). Might be moving onto Grizco and Belos Ink. conspiracies after some influence of Eda. He doesn't have the best control over his transformations but he tries to main Duelies when he is allowed to Turf. *Edit He mains sloshers because it's like a human bucket
Amity: Is a rising star by her Mother's design. Heiress of Blight Industries (If anyone can make Blight a sea pun I'm all ears because Saltspite is my best one and it's two words not one) Odalia plans on having Amity become a pop star to promote the family's ink weapons on a grander scale. Amity absolutely hates it. The photo shoots, the commercials, the company jiggle, she hates it all but she especially hates the turf war team her mother forces her to play on and the constant pressure to keep her image up. It makes school miserable too since everyone knows who she is and she has to avoid bad rumors and disasters constantly. She'd much rather be inventing things like she does in her very limited free time in her father's workshop. So when Luz crashes into her life, has no idea who she is supposed to be, challenges her to a duel, cheats with an ingenious mod she's never seen before, stops a public disaster, and gifts her the newest Good Squid Azura, all the while not caring if she was "fresh" or not? Well, consider Amity "hooked"
This is getting long already, so if anyone wants to read more of this, ask me questions or something.
Also, check out ggladiolus's splatoon owl house art, it's great and adorable and has all the right amounts of serotonin.
26 notes · View notes
justarandomsideblog · 4 years ago
Text
Tumblr media
@melissa-s23 You can probably find season 1 on youtube, though I'm not 100% sure, I kinda just figured it out through Fundy's game. I'm not actually caught up on it either since each stream is several hours long and I'm at work 40-50 hours a week so I'm watching it slowly but surely, but if you're interest this is what I've gathered;
It's a survival modpack that includes the audience so that when they give bits or subs and such the streamer gets XP boosters, special items, gift boxes and such, and every 100 subs they go into an arena where the 100 subs fight a boss. If the subs beat the boss they get special loot in a crate that is pretty much a shulker box.
The XP thing- there's obviously the vanilla XP but there's also the mod level, which you get thru booster packs and sub giftboxes and such. When the streamer levels that bar up they can put points towards different mods such as vein miner, or skills like dash or jump. You basically have to choose what you want to be able to do and plan out your strategy that way.
The goal, as the title suggests, is to complete vaults, which you get to through finding vault rocks- supposedly more rare than diamonds yet Fundy has 13 by the time he's like 2 hours into his second VH stream.......-, putting them on an altar and fulfilling the necessary requirements (4 different items of random amounts and also random difficulty). You have a certain amount of time to beat the vaults and different goals inside the vaults, and if you don't leave in time you die. If you die you lose everything you brought in with you. If you beat it you can come out with some really epic loot, including some things that are specific to vaults.
Crafting recipes are changed, new items and new mobs and such- I know Fundy explains some things while he's going through at least the first two episodes (I've only made it 2 hours into the second one cuz... again, I'm always at work) and sometimes he asks Iskall some questions.
But also I've seen people say that Fundy (and Tubbo, too) have basically been given the go-ahead by Iskall and the mods to push the limits and see if/how they can break/exploit things so they know what needs to be fixed or patched... so Fundy has been nerfed multiple times already. That's what I've seen floating around, anyway, haven't gotten to any of it in my watching.
Oh! Also, apparently they begin in a vanilla type spawn but the world is a vanilla seed mashed together with a modded seed which causes some problems that the mods have to fix/help with, but the modded biomes are further out (I don't remember how far they said, I think they said like 50k blocks? Not 100% sure on that though) so I haven't seen what those are like.
I'm sure there's a lot lot lot more that I'm missing or don't know about, but I'm pretty sure there are highlight videos from VH S1 or someone who explains what it is? I'd suggest looking it up if the streamers aren't explaining what's going on in a way that you understand (different people learn in different ways and that's perfectly fine!), VH is relatively popular so I'd wager a guess that someone somewhere has a video breakdown of it!
And I'm hoping someone eventually makes cut-down videos of it....
After Fundy yoinked the Elytra in vault hunters I can't believe I haven't seen anyone else doing winged!Fundy stuff smh
44 notes · View notes
laneybug926 · 5 years ago
Text
I wrote this blog a while ago on my wordpress site. However, considering our period of quarantine, I figured this would be fun to share here. Please do not take offense if you happen to disagree with my thoughts for they are only my opinion and what do I know🤷🏼‍♀️.
The Sims Evolution
Tumblr media
Disclaimer: Originally I was planning on sharing my thoughts on worthiness and some pretty emotional things. However, I chose to write about something kind of silly this week and share my thoughts on the evolution of my most favorite game. I hope you enjoy! Also I do not own the Sims franchise or any of these pictures/characters/names of games. All copyright goes to The Sims©.
It happened one day while out shopping with my family. Before the days of product keys, instant downloads, and torrents, many stores had rows and rows of computer games. Stuffed into boxes with colorful graphics of game play, they usually contained a disk(or several) and a lengthy user manual on how to install/play the game. As little me browsed the different titles, my eyes fell upon a very unique looking game. A game where you more or less played God creating families, houses, and controlled how they went about their lives. As a young aspiring storyteller, I knew this would be the perfect game for me and thus my obsession with The Sims began.
The Sims 1: The beginning of a new era.
Tumblr media
The Sims 1 has a very special place in my heart. Not only was it the catalyst to some of the best and sometimes worst decisions of my life, it was unique and had a lot of charm to it. I remember the days when it was like roulette trying to get it to work on my old desktop 'games' computer. Due to all of the space it took to work, very often it'd load and then freeze. Occasionally when it did decide to work, you felt like we cheated the Gods of gaming and played very carefully.
Tumblr media
Looking back, perhaps the graphics aren't great, but for the time it was amazing. Where else could you customize people and build houses? Where else could you 'try for baby' just by kissing? Where else did you miss the carpool to work and ended up getting fired? Where else could Mort Goth be a secret agent and be living with his assassin of a wife Bella? And this all happened before expansion packs came out and added more dimension to it. I used to love taking my couples to town using 'Hot Date' and being able to creepily micromanage their date by going into the restaurant with them. I used to love turning my ex into a frog via 'Makin Magic'. And who could forget when Drew Carey would crash super epic parties via 'House Party'. Sims 1 was very new to it's kind and while basic, it laid the foundation for the next 20 years to come.
Sims 2- My sister's favorite
Tumblr media
I feel horrible saying this, but of the four games, I remember playing this one the least. I do remember playing it occasionally, but far less than my little sister. By the time we bought it, my little sister was old enough to start playing and take up precious computer time. Even though I didn't play it much, I do remember that it was far superior compared to it's predecessor. The overall graphics and customization of sims and lots was awe-aspiring. The sims actually had personalities, turn ons/turn offs, and could actually age. This set the scene for some legendary Dynasties. In addition, we received expansion pack after expansion pack and occasionally stuff packs to flesh out our game playing. I do remember having University, Seasons, and Pets, but that's about it. It was a lot of fun to play with cars, jobs, hobbies, pets, survival items and changing weather. Some faithful Simmers even insist that this was the best version of Sims of all time. Would you agree? Let me know.
Sims 3- Bigger could be better
Tumblr media
As a writer and 'simmer', the one thing I didn't like about Sims 2 was the lack of hair customization. I'd often like to make likenesses of my story characters and sadly I was stuck with the five(or six) 'normal' hair colors. I guess the Gods of Games listened to my prayers, because Sims 3 fixed all of that. You want to make a character with pink and purple hair? Go ahead. You want a character who only wears leopard print EVERYTHING? It's done. One would think that having a big brother like Sims 2 would be kind of intimidating. Nope. Sims 3, in my opinion, was the best in it's ability to customize literally everything using a color wheel, patterns, and even stamps on dogs(if you're into that). You could micromanage and customize everything. This was not only the case with the sims creation, but the whole world opened up and you could creepily follow your sims everywhere. This game robbed me of my hard earned teenage/early adulthood money due to all of it's great expansions and exciting game play. Want to make a faerie witch who turns the world into zombies? Want to take it easy and ride a house boat around the sim world? Want to climb the celebrity ladder and play for millions? Want to exchange a kiss under the mistletoe with your next door neighbor crush? You can do all of that in the Sims 3 and far more. Most of, if not all, some of my great story ideas and characters came from this game right here. I have some of the best memories playing this game such as my Greyer dynasty that literally took over the neighborhood and/or telling stories via the capture the moment feature. Yes it had it's glitches and at times it would take 20 minutes to load a saved game, but it was worth it. I wasted so much time living vicariously through the lives of little digital people that I woke up and I'm suddenly 30 years old. Just kidding, as easy as it was to get hooked, I'd like to think I had a healthy work/life/play balance. You'd think they'd keep making expansions or even stop after the success of Sims 3. Nope, within a blink of an eye the sims team announced that they were creating Sims 4. What more could they possibly bring?
Sims 4-
Tumblr media
I’m sure you've heard the saying 'quit while you're ahead'. Unfortunately the sim team didn't and we were given the Sims 4. With promises of multi-tasking and emotions, fans of the game, such as myself, had high expectations and sadly we were very disappointed. I do remember when the demo came out that I installed it, played around, and uninstalled it with a disappointed groan. In retrospect, I might have been a bit too harsh and have since given it a chance. Maybe it's due to me being older and not having as much time to waste, but it's nice to play in low doses. Unlike Sims 3, it's frustratingly difficult to create dynasties, you cannot create at least a family by family picture story, no open worlds to explore, and there is no more color wheel/customization. The good things...well there are less 'rabbit hole' locations, with mods I can make it more exciting, I do like the sims interactions with each other, and I guess multitasking. Seriously, the best thing about Sims 4 is all of the mods and custom content that has corrupted my game in the greatest way. I do like to play this game for silliness purposes and usually don't expect to have meaningful game play. On a side note Sims Discover University expansion just came out and it's been proclaimed by sims experts that it's by far the best Sims 4 expansion. Perhaps they will continue moving in that direction and learn from their successes.
In conclusion, the Sims franchise acted as a intricate part of my childhood and has lasted far into my adulthood to inspire new characters and stories. Seriously folks, at least 60% of my story ideas have started out with just a simple PC game. Moral of the story; not all video and computer games are harmful and useless. Everything in moderation, drink lots of water, remember self care, and you'll be just fine kids.
0 notes