#i also would like to have diversity in my stories!

[balrogballs]

Omg I just saw you were part of the Narnia fandom and Ms Balls, thou art a woman of impeccable taste. Gun to your head, Lewis or Tolkien?

Hahaha no no, I wasn’t part of the fandom in a traditional sense aka I wasn’t on here, I just wrote a couple of fics for it in my mid teens because I really enjoy the books!

Also re your question, the choice would have been harder if Lewis stopped just before Horse and His Boy + The Last Battle lol. I absolutely adore all the other Narnia stories, and I read them at a way younger age than Tolkien so it would have been an easy choice…

… but till now I can remember the day 10 year old me finished reading the Calormen/Tash/Tashbaan storylines and the very slow unravelling of complete disgust in me — a non-religious child with Muslim and Jewish parents — at how these books, which had such depth even in their simplistic prose, did such a deliberately horrid, revolting, and frankly lazy portrayal of “the Muslim country” and “their demon god” that as much as I loved Narnia and still enjoy the other books, the memory of that first read means I’m frankly never going to put them in my faves list.

Like it’s not that I was an oversensitive child or even solely because of the mixed faith family thing, I was not even a very observant reader re diversity stuff, I was ten. Tolkien may have been a man of his time and there are tons of biases and stereotypes in LOTR but Calormen was just. Fucking mindblowing.

Like to me it went way, way past the general Genteel Orientalism of Tolkien and pals, and it was completely unnecessary — the rest of the narrative had a relatively simplistic style as its a kids book yet an empathetic set of morals, but the Calormen bits were so viciously visceral that little me was just like oh. Oh my god you specifically hate them, don’t you? Like you hate these people don’t you and then realising I was, technically, these people 🥲

Sorry about the extended answer lmao you can see I have a lot of thoughts but yeah, I’d pick Tolkien no matter how foundational Narnia was for me, not even because I hate it or whatever, it just makes me SAD!

[milfbrainrot]

to be completely honest i think the biggest thing that holds me back from making ocs is i focus so much on difficult dynamics that no matter how i envision a character, there's some type of offensive way it could be interpreted and it just... stops being fun. of course you need to have some considerations for avoiding blatant stereotypes but it rly does hold me back from developing anything out further bc it feels like everything i go to make is tainted and Problematic TM.

[shepherds-of-haven]

Still in the trenches with this Twine port (and will be for a while), but also trying to be more diligent about keeping people more informed about stuff: I never really used Twitter to begin with, but will officially no longer be on it as of today and have made an account over on Bluesky at lenanguyenauthor.bsky.social. There is nothing there at the moment, but if you're on Bluesky as well and looking for accounts to follow, I'll be using that account to share updates about my books, games, and all other such news in the future! :D

[seaglassdinosaur]

I know we collectively agree that Hiccup isn’t romantically inclined, and his getting married and having kids didn’t make sense in the epilogue, but consider: Hiccup getting married for political reasons.

It’s a marriage of alliance, which is recognized both by him and his partner, and they enter it without expectations of romantic involvement. Since they’re now married, they live in the same castle, spend time together, and Hiccup finds he really likes his spouse. They’re funny, get along with his friends, and has the same interests and values. They both probably speak multiple languages. She understands why Hiccup is so dedicated to making the Wilderwest better, and holds similar views. She’s a good politician (her job after all, was to be an ambassador). Hiccup likes spending time with them, and the feeling is mutual. They’re not in love, they have their own lives, but they’re dedicated to each other and eventually decide to raise children. They teach their kids how to train hawks and hunt with dragons, riding, history, the Languages, and all the necessary skills of their world. They’re not in love and they’re happy together.

[sukibenders]

Looking back at Girl Meets World, it will forever irritate me especially for how they handled/treated Angela. Oh this show really hated black women because how do you not only 1.) describe her, one of (correct me if I'm wrong) only few black and MAIN characters of the og show, as a "concept" 2.) have characters show obvious disgust at the small mention of her name 3.) depict her as a homewrecker for a new relationship that, really, shouldn't have ever happened 4.) have her old friends treat her like dirt and her old lover like she is the root of his problems, when there was nothing but positive love there 5.) reuse all the concepts from said previous love story just to elevate the new ship with a yte woman and 6.) compare her to Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest hurricanes that caused significant numbers of death, harm, misplacement, and trauma to people, largely of whom were black? Mind you, all these points I mentioned were toward the only main black character of the OG show before the spinoff, and the only, from what I can remember, black female character of the spinoff who didn't even stay long. Not even getting into the racist drama with some of the members on set, but you cannot look me in the eye and tell me that the way the show handled Angela, her story, and her relationship with the other characters + Shawn wasn't fucking disrespectful, you can't because I won't believe you.

[allygatoor]

i think it's time that we as a society realized that actually eternals wasn't bad it was just not standard marvel fare and that's okay

[imissthembutitwasntadisaster]

writing new characters for supernatural but british and this story wants so bad to say something about the concept of migration and immigration and the consequences of leaving your home and building a new one. And I don't know what it wants to say about that or why

[journalsouppe]

My spread for To The Moon! A friend recommended me this game and although there were a lot of things I really liked about this game, I really really don't like sad stories so this particular game just wasn't for me. The storytelling and art and music was all super well done!! I just hate reading or watching something that will leave me depressed afterwards.

So I do recommend this game if you like sad stories and my score is very subjective to my personal tastes, so don't let that deter you if you are interested in this game. I also gave Celeste a low score even though if I had watched a playthrough instead of playing it, it would've been way higher (I hated the mechanics but loved the art and storytelling). It's just not for me and that's totally okay!

Writing typed below! + extra blurb

rating: 7 played: su 2023 port: pc (steam) fave? N replayable? N recommend? Y

Comments:

"he likes cats" "why does the world have to be so complicated"

i'm worried this will turn into a horror game lol. the art reminds me of the witch

so many rabbits

"you neurotypicals" i... don't think this convo has anything to do with neurodivergency

the environments are so gorgeous

repetitive gameplay- slows down storytelling

i like river's expressive eyes

cute lighthouse scene

if i had known the gameplay was this simple i prob wouldve watched keith or a similar lets player

aww pretty horse

oo it's getting creepy

why is neil missing

^ LMFAO NVM

OH SHIT

fucked they made him forget his own brother

NOT JOEY THIRD WHEELING

damn i do not like the mom

the fair is really cute

the river name scene is pissing me off (as someone who has such a rare name ive never met another person with my name irl or online, river is not that uncommon of a name T_T_T_T_TT_T)

awww his brother's back

the memory tech stuff is very confusing

idk why eva was so sketch i think neil wouldve agreed to it

why was the pill addiction relevant?? did i miss something??

Game notes:

beautiful music and pixel art

point and click walking

collect orbs to unlock memories

puzzle grid for memories

whac-a-mole with pretty janky controls

apparently you can move with arrow keys T_T

"combat" scene with dodging and shooting

Summary:

Although I liked the story and thought the thing was very wellmade, this game just wasn't my particular cup of tea. Similar to Celeste, I prob would've liked it if I had watched it instead. It's a depressing tale esp after realizing all the work you do is just some simulation and joey still died and river still died heartbroken. It's absolutely a game I'd recommend for people who like sad/sappy stories but it's not something I'd personally replay. Idk if I'll watch or play through the extra content, again this story just made me kinda depressed and i don't enjoy this feeling. I'm also confused why they acted like river's diagnosis was taboo or smth, she had smth like autism right? Why did they say so... The art style is very cute and the animations were done incredibly well. The environments were especially superbly made. The controls were a little odd esp for the mini games. A little disappointed I didn't learn to use the arrow keys until the last ten minutes of the game. Eva and Neil were fun characters, i liked their dynamic. I understand the structure of the story and finding key pieces of their life, but the gameplay got pretty repetitive and tedious until the switch in act 2/3. Overall, a good game with beautiful designs and simple mechanics. If you like sad/tragic stories then I def recommend. This game reminds me a lot of UP (the movie) so I think MC would really like this game (an old teacher of mine).

Also a little note on my comments for autism, I also have autism so it just felt a little weird playing this game. I'm sure the attitudes around autism were much different in the time they were depicting (probably around the mid to late 20th century) but it still rubbed me the wrong way that it seemed everyone treated river poorly, especially her husband. And I also just hate miscommunication tropes so bad so part of that really played into some of the diagnosis and storytelling. Again, not a game for me personally and these were just my critiques but I'm not actually or seriously offended by this game, I just hate sad shit!!!!!!

[airs-headspace]

I've been feeling the urge to make a female OC who was forced into a position where she had to get a double mastectomy and part of her biggest struggle is seeing herself as beautiful and feminine without a very societally defining feature of feminine beauty.

[thornshadowwolf]

I don't remember why but I dreamed about looking up the common religions in different regions of Thailand last night

[leofrith]

acv hate on my dash and i can't even be mad about it because they make some good points 😶

[merriclo]

went to see the barbie movie a few days ago and hm. weird

[iturbide]

I'm curious, what would your ideal FE be?

And do you have any particular FE concepts in mind?

So, fun fact: I actually talked about this a while back.

...and by 'a while back,' I mean 'five years ago,' because time is soup.

So because that's a heck of a lot longer than I remember and a lot changes in that amount of time, let's come at this fresh and see what changes and what doesn't.

So I still really want to keep the lead character concept: dual sword/mage older sister and priest younger brother (with natural promotion to dual healer/mage) is a nice shift on the usual Fire Emblem formula, where we rarely see female Lords in the lead who are set to inherit the throne or male healers (and I can't recall the last time one was a prince, barring Brady with Chrom as his father and I guess Forrest though he's not in the immediate line of succession since he's Siegbert's cousin meaning Xander and Siegbert would need to be removed from the equation before he'd be in line for the throne but since Leo's a prince I think that technically akes him one too and now I'm just going down a rabbit hole of technicalities).

Intro/tutorial would be fairly run-of-the-mill, border skirmish type thing against a small incursion from a neighboring nation and going out to take care of it. But something I think would be fascinating is an expansion on the usual mid-battle recruitment and the option to spare foes that we saw at times in Three Houses: I want every main chapter enemy to have a name and unique portrait. I want there to be a frankly ridiculous number of characters who could theoretically be recruited depending on who approaches them, and I want every enemy to have an option to spare them even if they're not recruited.

Think of it: you go into battle and you see that every enemy is an individual. Every enemy is someone you can engage with. And you can approach any one of them with any of your units and talk to them. As you play, you start to get to know the different personalities of your units: someone may have a kind and gentle approach that's more likely to convince someone who's not exactly keen on fighting -- but that same approach might get steamrolled over by another person that's more set in their ways. Conversely, one of your units might be blunt and straightforward, and could butt heads in a constructive way with someone like that, but whose approach would scare off a more timid foe. Maybe approaching another unit with a character just recruited in the same battle can be helpful -- one of them bringing a friend or close ally over, because they don't want to hurt each other -- or maybe it can backfire spectacularly, with the enemy unit accusing your new ally of stabbing his comrades in the back, which shuts down all attempts at conversation.

It could be an interesting risk/reward system that encourages getting familiar with your various units beyond just their mechanical strengths and weaknesses: knowing their personalities and being able to employ them to take enemies off the field and bloodlessly thin the ranks could be a lot of fun -- plus, it's something that's not required. You don't have to try and bring them to your side -- you can breeze past those little dialogue snippets and just take them out if you want. And at the end of combat, if they weren't recruited, you have an option to spare them or kill them. If you spare them, you might see them again in another battle, and maybe they'll remember you: maybe you'll have another chance to recruit them, and more success the second time around because your actions challenged their preconceived notions about you. If you kill them, though, you might run into someone else later on -- a sibling, a relative, a friend -- who can't be reached at all because their quest is one of vengeance against the one that murdered someone they loved.

And then: what if that built into Supports. What if recruiting units off the battlefield had long-running effects based on how that unit was used? If someone was initially hesitant to join you, and then you bench them permanently, maybe they desert your force after a while because they felt isolated and lacked any kind of community since no work had been done building a new support network for them. Maybe someone else was a little too eager to join based on their impression of your army, and if you build out their Supports it becomes clear that their character has goals that are entirely at odds with the main characters' -- but because those Supports also gave them an understanding of the disconnect, they end up betraying you at some point to get what they want. Recruitment becomes a mechanic that needs to be considered, rather than just a 'collect them all' thing, because indiscriminate recruiting can backfire on you down the road.

With that many characters, of course, it would be completely insane to have all of them as combat units -- so what if some recruits unlock camp options. Maybe they're hesitant to fight against their own people directly, but they want to help and learn more about your force, so they offer non-combat skills: cooking, hunting, fishing, foraging, various sorts of combat/weaponry training, medical aid, merchant services. Similar to Three Houses monastery activities, you can pick a couple of combat units and send them to do different tasks that help keep your forces in fighting shape, building support bonds and learning things about the non-combat units in the process.

One thing I definitely want to see though is a reversal on the stereotypical Divine Dragon and Evil Dragon dichotomy. I want the main characters to talk about their Divine with absolute reverence, I want them to refer to their Divine as their protector and guardian, I want them to make their Divine out to be so kind and compassionate -- and then at some point deep in the game, I want it revealed that their Divine is the one that's seen as that world's Ultimate Evil. I want their Divine to look incredibly daunting, too, big and dark and toothy and terrifying -- but the main characters have nothing but respect for it, and it's eventually proven (maybe through calling it for aid against the threat of the neighboring nation's Divine) that their faith is not misplaced nor mistaken, and their Divine is everything they claim it is.

I still really like the split narrative concept, too, with the two siblings having different stories and different objectives: the kidnapped brother would likely have missions emphasizing escape or endurance (which takes advantage of his status as a healer), while the questing sister would have more objectives to rout an enemy or defeat a particular foe. Odds are that the narrative would begin with a single straightforward story, then split at the kidnapping, and only join together again at the very end before the closing chapters (so you could bring your favorites from both sides of the story to the final confrontation, but wouldn't get all the out of battle/camp stuff).

And above all: I wouldn't want it to be a story that ends with unification under a single banner. A lot of Fire Emblem games have this as their 'ideal' final state, and that's just never worked for me. I would want every nation to remain independent -- maybe with more connections, an openness to diplomatic discussion and free trade, possibly some leadership changes -- rather than having one country dissolved into another.

[x-adoringvoid-x]

Part 23

How ambitious!

[corbinite]

Not me taking inspiration from fucking unbreakable kimmy schmidt when planning ttrpg villains

[timeisacephalopod]

I saw a post the other day that kinda pushed back on the way all coming of age movies are about sexuality and all high school stories basically center around who wants to fuck who and how that's like. Not really all coming of age and high school stories should offer since you know. Youth isn't about who you have a crush on and probably coming of age stories in particular should be far more diverse in subject matter than they are.

Honestly as someone who, when I was 'coming of age' age, hated coming of age stories and still do for the exact reason listed above (see the weird scene in It where we all sexualize a 13 year old girl because boys have crushes and surely there's no other way to portray this than feeling a child up with a camera to demonstrate boys have ~feelings~ Bev gets no equivalent scene because she's the object of affection rather than the subject feeling desire) I also wish there was diversity in those stories. And coming of age stories about adults- we don't stop going through huge life moments that change everything forever, but back to kids. When I was a kid I could have desperately used a coming of age story where the character has a sick and dying parent who does die by the end of the story and what happens after that. Granted I did just fine without it, but even without being asexual it's always irked me that coming of age stories don't seem to appreciate that kids have way larger problems and way better stories to tell then first crushes and first kisses for shit sake give kids who went through what I did as a kid some kind of story about what happens when your parent gets cancer and how complicated that is and stop assuming the biggest thing that happens around puberty is discovering sexuality that, if you were queer, you probably already noticed what you felt wasn't in a coming of age story anyway.