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coconox · 6 months ago

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my 2 cents on the state of whb

i've been contemplating about my thoughts on this game since i never really sat down and processed it, and a month of not playing the game and just keeping up with fandom content/official game news i think i can properly format my words (hopefully idk lol)

if you're looking for a specific section dw i'll properly format everything under the cut so you can just scroll till you find whatever you're looking for (also head's up it's insanely long i'm sorry but kinda not sorry i wanted to just put all my thoughts into one post rather than multiple)

SMALL INTRO

for some context on my experience, i have been playing this game everyday since launch/day 1, i was f2p up until i got juno's card, which i'll talk about later, but just know in advanced that juno was the only case where i've spent money. i uninstalled around the time the announcement was made in regards to no posting full stories of paid content, so almost month ago, and only reinstalled recently to grab certain items to add to the spreadsheet that i've been maintaining since november (aka a month after launch)

i've said it privately to a couple of close friends but i'll say it publicly here: imho, i think they released the game way too early even with the fact that they delayed launch 3 times.

i understand a handleful of bugs are from the fact that the public servers are significantly larger than test servers, but playing this game after the servers kinda stabilized feels like we are the test players, like we're constantly given rough drafts rather than the final copy.

the localization is rough to say the least, but i think i've been so used to it from other gachas that i've played that it didn't really ruin the experience for me,,, except when the text would switch to an entirely different language HJGFDHJGK

from visual bugs to gameplay bugs to voiceline bugs, there's been a lack of communication in terms of what has been fixed and what is still a wip. instead the players just have to "fuck around and find out" in terms of whether something has been fixed or not.

as i continue to state the issues with this game and its direction i'd like to put a disclaimer that i am by no means an expert in any of this stuff lol. i'm just a guy who nerds out over math, spreadsheets, and video games and everything i'll be saying is my personal opinion based on what i've seen/experienced.

THE ISSUE(S)

SOLOMON SEALS AND GACHA

i think the first mistake was them adding solomon seals in the first place. based on what packs in the past looked like, it looked like red keys were originally designed to be for debut characters, but instead they throw a curve ball and add ANOTHER gacha currency that was essentially p2w only up till some point early this year. this ultimately led to there being 2 standard banners, both of which essentially do the same thing except one doesn't have A/B/C-ranks. the fact that now even with realm of seraphim, in order for f2ps to have enough to guarantee with seals, they need to save for a year and a half. that is WAY too long for ONE character. this is of course worst case scenario of needing to hit pity, i'm aware you can get characters early but you should never always expect you'll get early in gacha games, i learned that the hard way during my idk how many years i've been playing gachas lol

i personally think that there's no winning across any of the gacha banners. there's no pity for either of the standards, and debut L/S-ranks have imo too high of a pity for what we're actually receiving per week. we essentially get more or less 1 pull per week in terms of red keys, yellow keys, and seals through dailies/weeklies alone, though of course that can vary cause of the rng key boxes, monthly login rewards, etc.

PANCAKES

there seems to be a general pattern that i've noticed of rather than confronting an issue directly they try to create something new in hoping that fixes the issue instead. an example of that would be the pancake shop.

the old pancake shop was fine as is, we could get a multi for relatively cheap price and get pie boxes everyday (albeit they're rng but pies are pies). what they could've done was add the L-ranks and skip tickets or whatever new thing they wanted to add into that old shop, adjusting the currency wherever necessary. yet instead they just remove the old system entirely and replace it for a new one that no one really asked for? while having the L-ranks in shop are nice, an entirely new system wasn't necessary to make that one relatively small addition. having A+-ranks and lower give gold and books was also not necessary, we have resource stages containing those 2 things and it's very accessible to everyone. what resources we are lacking in however are tears and pies, which are arguably more important than gold and books since those 2 currencies are the core to ascending/lvling characters and their skills.

PIES

i've emailed pb in the past in regards to if there will be other permanent methods for obtaining pies, and their response was holy coin portal and events. those two are NOT stable enough for pie income considering the prices of skills. if there's instances in unholy board where we need to level a character's skills, i'd expect there to be some sort of resource stage that would allow us to get pies so that we can easily obtain that skill level requirement.

"META" GAMEPLAY

i'll explain the quotes in a bit but i do want to put a disclaimer that whb was the first time i've experienced a full on tower defense style gameplay for gachas. i was already familiar with how it works kinda because of neural cloud even though the game as a whole is more like an auto-chess game of sorts, but some story gameplay had tower defense mechanisms and i learned a fair bit from playing that. personally i also haven't played arknights since i'm trying to cut down on the amount of gachas i play but i am aware of its playstyle through friends who like to attempt to drag me into playing it cause of certain characters that i might simp over (*cough flamebringer cough insider cough chongyue cough*)

disclaimer aside, trying to piece together what characters work and what don't genuinely hurts my brain. i put "meta" in quotes because realistically there's only 1: all L-rank light types, ideally at least 1 tank, maybe 1 healer (though a tank can act as both), rest be whatever dps you'd like really (preferably satan considering the fact he can be extremely reliable without his ultimate unlike a few characters). of course, everyone will have a different opinion on what they deem as meta, but that's the general idea i'd personally follow based on what kind of battles have been given to us, what characters are available, etc. the rest tbh are just "cope and seethe" for lack of a better term.

there's a huge type advantage with light and dark types, and i really wish they could buff the other elements more just show they have some spotlight too. i also wish there were more non-light L-ranks. as of making this post, out of the 23 L-rank characters there is currently only 1 non-light L-rank, and it's juno, an L-rank fire marksman.

the part that really "hurts" me the most (don't really know what other word to put here LOL) is the fact that this game is going in a very specific direction of just dps'ing through everything and hope you clear the stage before the enemies kill you.

this game has a huge and imbalanced ratio between dps characters and support characters regardless of element. the fact that we only have 5 healers (NOT including lucifer (victory) considering he's technically a marksman and the healing is from his artifact and not in his skills) and 8 tanks, whereas marksman and close-rangers have twice or thrice the amount is absurd. what pains me more is the fact that for tanks, if you don't have mammon, you're screwed. arguably the best non-mammon option players have that's accessible is bimet. valefor and eligos share the same kit with the fact that their downfall is the possibility that they could be instakilled the second they pop their ult. healers on the other hand are somewhat more lenient. if you don't have lucifer, marbas is your next best, then gamigin (marbas and gamigin can technically be placed interchangeably since their healing differs by 0.1%, it just depends on who you have), then morax, then maybe buer but he only heals 1 unit at a time rather than multiple but i digress. healers still have multiple and very reliable non-L-rank alternatives whilst tanks really only have 1. i really, really hope there's more support units in the future cause man this sucks.

NIGHTMARE PASS

spending $50-$70, on paper, is significantly better than spending ~$400 for a character, and that's really the only "good" thing about it 💀

$50-$70 may feel like nothing to some players, but to a majority, that is a portion of a cost towards food, groceries, rent, etc. basically, i'd assume a majority of people would prioritize surviving than watching pixels on a screen.

i understand at the end of the day pb is running a business, but for kings to be fully locked behind a paywall knowing for a fact that a majority of the player base are 1. casuals/f2ps and 2. are here for the kings is absurd. plus with the fact that typically nightmare pass characters aren't added to standard and aren't always 100% guaranteed to rerun in the future just puts the nail in the coffin for me.

i think it makes more sense for non-kings like juno to be in nightmare pass because it's just additional fun and silly content that arguably won't be tied to the main lore and whatnot, maybe referenced as a silly bit here or there but it'd be more of an easter egg than something important that you absolutely need to know.

personally i bought juno's pass because i love his design, kit, and voice. story was kinda meh for me personally but i really just cared more about the va and gameplay. gameplay-wise, he certainly does not disappoint as a gehenna support unit. but do i regret purchasing him? yes and no. oddly enough this was probably the first i've ever felt guilty in terms of buying something i wanted in a gacha game. yes i regret it in terms of i'm no longer really playing this game anymore, which is unfortunate considering i barely made it through half a year of this game's release. yet at the same time, no i don't regret it because he is a really fun unit. for example, when it's gabriel's rotation in realm of seraphim, juno's, leraye (nostalgia)'s, and leraye's ultimates absolutely DESTROY gabriel in a matter of like <10 or so seconds and it's so satisfying to see. i also just really like his va, scratches a very particular itch in my brain.

anyways before i get sidetracked over appreciating juno, the fundamental flaws of nightmare pass are essentially

you shouldn't need to buy both tiers to get the character. you should realistically need to buy the highest tier and by default it unlocks all previous tiers below it

ui is a bit confusing. i still don't get why f2ps have to unlock parts of nightmare pass that they can't even access/obtain. there should be a clear separation between what f2ps get, what advanced tier gets, and what premium tier gets.

it's too expensive. most bp's i know are ~$10 at the highest tier, though that's considering the fact that bp's i'm familiar with only give cosmetics rather than actual units

from what i've heard through the grapevine, beel (bath) is basically in the same formatting as all the other currently existing bath cards, which are all currently obtainable through gacha. beel has no reason to be in nightmare pass. it genuinely makes no sense as to why pb put him there aside from getting money and that in-turn alienates a majority of the fan base since we can't even view the prologue of card stories if they're a nightmare pass character.

when nightmare pass was first released during christmas, everything was in chaos. the fact that a nightmare pass character needed the other two limited gacha characters gameplay-wise is absurd (mind you, this was before we were given the chance to earn seals through weeklies). everything was too expensive, and rather than an enjoyable christmas event it felt like a "merry christmas, now give us money" kind of situation. i think nightmare pass should not be happening as frequent as it is now. the gap between gabriel and juno was perfectly fine (4 month gap btw), but for a nightmare pass to happen back to back on top of gacha events is too much for both f2ps and p2ws.

the point of buying packs, bp, anything that costs real money in a gacha game is so it makes your gameplay experience easier, paying shouldn't be the main component of your game. personally based on what i've experienced through playing gacha games you should theoretically be able to pull for almost every character on debut just by playing dailies/weeklies/events, yet here we get a bit over a multi per patch (this includes playing realm of seraphim).

DICTATING FANDOM INTERACTIONS

i wholeheartedly believe a fandom is what keeps a game alive. a hindrance to the fan base is a hindrance to the game, which can be seen with the aftermath of pb announcing that legal action will be taken if full stories of paid content are shared publicly. while i understand from a business standpoint that pb would want to enforce the "no sharing full story" thing for paid content since they want players to yk, buy the card, like i mentioned in the previous section, the majority of the player base just cannot afford it.

the people who posted full stories wanted to share to those who cannot afford it, some people may not want only tidbits of the story but rather the whole context, especially those who enjoy dissecting character lore but don't have the irl funds to fully experience it themselves. some people may even want to archive it, cause honestly no one knows how long this game will stay up and we want to archive story so that it's something we can easily look back on. to essentially make players borderline terrified on trying to figure out whether or not it's ok to publicly post stuff in relation to any sort of story content is absurd.

there is also that loophole of what is defined as a paid story. when events end and get put behind a paywall, does that now count as paid story or is that still ok? what about debut L-ranks that are behind seals and there's a 3 month downtime till they're added to standard? or is it just referring to nightmare pass characters? paid stories in the context of the state of the game right now is insanely broad, it's practically at least 50% of this game (i'm exaggerating (or maybe not i wouldn't be surprised if that was actually the case)).

i understand no datamining, while it technically speaking isn't illegal, it's disrespectful to the devs, but a lot of these call to action methods they're announcing are rather extreme imo.

with the most recent cards either being put to standard 3 months after their banner ends or flat out paywalled and not 100% guaranteed to have a rerun, story content as of late has been very sparse. what people want most is a main story update, which we were originally promised to be updated every 3 months and it is now month 6 and we still have nothing.

EVENTS AND EVENT STORIES

event stories being locked behind a paywall after the event ends is probably the first time i've ever seen a gacha game do this. most of the gachas i've played either don't archive event story at all and just rerun it every year, don't rerun or archive the event at all (i.e. if you miss it, cope and seethe), or they archive it for FREE. it feels insanely greedy how EVERY event story needs payment if you ever want to backread an old event.

what also concerns me is the fact like instances like gamigin's event or beleth's event carry so much lore for their respective region and that may never show up in main story, which then screws new players over in not knowing the full context behind every region. events like minhyeok's or bimet's are fine in the sense that it doesn't carry that much lore in comparison to the more recent events. the first few events were like silly banter and getting to know a bit more about the cast.

also changing the event shop from daily pies to a set limit per account was an awful choice it just emphasizes my point earlier of how unstable obtaining pies are in this game.

FULFILLING PROMISES

i think while it was a smart move to list what's gonna be implemented throughout the year, they shouldn't have stated deadlines on when they're doing so.

the following are the things that still aren't implemented yet as of making this post:

new daily chats (expected within february)

friends system (expected within march)

birthday system (more specifically celebrating your bday) (expected within april)

new main story chapter (new chapter expected every 3 months)

if pb were to just say "here's what to expect in 2024" and NOT give specific months, that's fine, but giving these specific months sets an expectation that they would complete it within that timeframe. main story for example is probably the one people have been anticipating the most. by now as of july, if we were to follow the expectation pb gave us, we would currently be on chapter 7, or at the very least chapter 7 would've been released some time this month. we have not even gotten chapter 6 yet. chapter 5 was released in january. it has been 6 months since the last main story update. failing to meet these timeframes will make people upset, because it was mentioned in the announcement that it's 1. a promise (i hope i'm not the only one that takes promises seriously) and 2. in bold yellow text, "what we can realistically expect to see in 2024." the only promises that were fulfilled on-time were the ones in january, the rest have been delayed by at least a month. if you're giving a timeline of what's happening, announce if there's any changes to that timeline, because not doing so will make players believe you were lying to them even though you probably aren't and are instead just falling behind schedule.

i think what hurts more to me is the fact that they aren't publicly communicating these delays. it shouldn't be our responsibility to find out why or when something isn't happening within the timeframe they promised (e.g. by emailing them), it should be up to the devs to communicate that publicly to us. i'm not saying they should overshare what's going on behind the scenes, it can simply just be a simple announcement of "hey, we're very sorry but we're having some technical difficulties with this certain feature and we need more time. here is some compensation in the meantime, thank you for your patience and again, we're very sorry." it's that simple.

FINAL THOUGHTS

i mentioned back in my intro that i feel like this game was released too early purely because the fundamentals of making a bare minimum decent gacha game are just not there. if every patch update has people complaining on what's just recently been added/removed, you're not fully listening to what the audience wants. while i understand pb is a small business, a business is still a business regardless of size and criticism/feedback is necessary especially in a game dev setting.

i've followed this game's news ever since it was teased, which was december of 2022, i've lurked/participated in the fandom (on here at least) ever since september of 2023. i've felt a rollercoaster of thoughts and emotions of "omg this is so great" to "why is this even a feature," hoping that over time the game would get better, but the only thing that's improved was server stability (and even that's still a bit rocky 💀).

a huge part of my stay was just being a lurker in the fandom. i genuinely appreciate all the creatives who fulfill asked prompts of characters, make ocs, fanart, write theories, reactions + many more. i love seeing other people's works/opinions and having just a lively fandom made it all more fun.

but at this point this game is just not for me. i've really only stuck around to read mammon's lore but since main story hasn't been updated in 6 months i'll really only chime back in when there's finally an update. it still amazes me to this day that my patience lasted this long. i think i've covered everything i wanted to cover but my memory is swiss cheese so if i forgot something,,, woops 💀

as for the future of the spreadsheet for those who check back on it, it's still being managed by myself and windy, who has been a huge help since day 1 of creating the build lists and team comps and i honestly can't thank her enough for also enduring this pain of a game with me as we've worked on this spreadsheet together hgjdfgh (luv u bestie 🫶). though it's written in the narrative that both of us will eventually quit updating it entirely if this game persists on not having any signs of improvement. when that day comes i'll make sure to post an announcement about it.

as for myself i'm probably still gonna lurk in the fandom/keep an eye out on game news. i doubt i'll be making any fanart anymore unless if i really have the motivation/boredom for it, but currently i'm revamping the "aesthetics" of this account so nothing's really set in stone. maybe i'll make a few whb rambles here or there if some game news really irks me but for the most part i've already been in the process of moving on to other things.

if you've stuck around this long to read this mess of a post, thank you for sticking around and have a cookie, you deserve it 🫴🍪

#good grief this post was longer than i expected LOL #silly rambles #whb

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cheesenames · 23 days ago

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AO3 Wrapped: Writer's Edition

I was tagged by the lovely @batrachised and I will learn from her example by just skipping questions I find boring

Words written this year: 27,893

Works written this year: 8 (a nice even split of 4 for each of the fandoms I write in)

Work Most Proud of: It almost feels like cheating to use a collaborative work, but I'm really pleased with Bioethically Speaking, Mr. Sheev. I feel like I've already said this a zillion times, but figuring out how to tell a story and show characters' personalities within the limits of the format (email chains) was a challenge I enjoyed + I think it turned out well

Work with Most Hits: Conveniently also Bioethically Speaking

Fav title: "may they never forsake you" came from a poem that's been bouncing around my head for more than a year, so I'm glad I finally found a place to use it

Pairing You Wrote the Most For: I barely write romance at all, but this year I've got an in-progress fic where Anidala just keep getting married again and again and again, so they win by default

What Work was the Quickest To Write: I'm pretty sure Set her up for ever took less than 30 minutes

What Work Took You Longest To Write: Two of the three multi-chapter fics I started this year remain unfinished, so probably those. I was so sure I was going to finish one of them before Halloween...........

How Many WIPS do you have for next year: Besides the two fics from question 8, I've got 3 stories I've started drafting and no guarantee that I'll finish any of them. I would also really like to try writing a story not in English next year, though I've got no ideas connected to that goal yet

Longest Work of the Year: boring, next

Shortest Work of the Year: boring, next

Fav character to Write: Anyone I can make fun of a little bit. Lately the main targets of that have been Mr. Bennet (???) and Anakin Skywalker

Which work of yours have you re-read the most: Probably that dream within a dream because I have to remember what I've written so I can continue it lol

Total Kudos this Year: boring, next

Total Hits This Year: boring, next

Total Bookmarks This Year: comedically skewed by a single fic, next

Total Subscriptions This Year: I'm actually not skipping this one because I don't understand why 58 people subscribed to a bunch of one-shots. I'm not complaining, it's very flattering, I just feel a little bad that they're not going to get any more

What Do You Listen To While Writing: silence <3

Fav line or passage: Uhhhhhhhhhhh. I have various lines that amused me (to everyone's detriment, I do think I'm funny) but I feel like my favorite is from a fic that generally underwhelmed me? It was one of those situations where I couldn't get the idea out of my head without writing it, but I knew going in that I would probably not be able to write it in a way that satisfied me. But we try anyway, and maybe next year I'll revisit the concept to try it again. Anyway, here's Obi-Wan and Sabé being mean to each other post-RotS:

“I fought him off, I got her off the planet, I held her hand while she—” Obi-Wan took a deep breath, realizing how dangerously close he’d come to spilling another secret. “While she died. And all that time, you were safe on Naboo, not even knowing she was in danger.” “Fought him off? He’s alive, and you’re alive, and she’s dead, and you expect me to laud you for your supposed heroics?” “It was more than you did!” “And whose fault was it,” Sabé spat, “that she was ever in danger in the first place? Who brought that viper into her life, who trained it to act docile so she’d never expect the attack? We both know what he’s done, and you’re still lamenting him?” “I know what this is,” Obi-Wan said nastily. “It’s the jealousy again. She made one decision without you, and you never forgave her, and you can’t stand that I proved myself more loyal to her—to both of them.”

No-pressure tagging @animazi , @midnight-melancholiaaa , @twicesonnet , @wlwanakin plus anyone else who sees this and wants to do it (because I surely would have tagged you if I’d made the connection between your tumblr and ao3 usernames)

#tried to double-check that everyone tagged had posted something this year but sorry in advance if i messed up!#i swear i’m not trying to be passive-aggressive 😭#anyway the challenge with the ‘not in english’ goal is that the other language it would be easy to use #DEEPLY embarrasses me with how it translates star wars terms #so do i write while cringing or really challenge myself in a third language i’m not so confident in? much to consider #ask game #long post

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etoiline · 17 days ago

Note

I love these question the most from the writing ask 2024 in review.

Share your favorite piece of dialogue

Share your funniest line

What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story?

What writing programs did you use? Did you write by hand?

If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year?

Oooh, really had to think about these!

The easiest one first, what writing programs I use: I use Scrivener on PC (at home) and iOS (at work), just like I have for years. It's really nice to have all my fic ideas in one project and as long as I remember to sync one device before opening the project at another I don't lose data so I can take my works to work (shh) and out and about which is fun! Scrivener doesn't allow collaboration, though, so if I want to share a WIP I tend to use Nextcloud (also the app is a little more lightweight than Scrivener so if I just have a random idea I tend to fire that one up on the go). The weirdness is that Scrivener's output doesn't always work well with AO3's editor, so I'm that person who spends an hour trying to format each fic for posting.

THE most satisfying writing moment? This was probably when I got to see the work @corvidscreams created for the fic I wrote for the Spyscrapper anniversary event. I'd never collaborated with anyone to make pictures from my words and it was amazing to toss ideas around and see the words take shape in art (and realize there was more story to be told).

Funniest line? I honestly don't think I'm too funny in my fics, but this bit from my still-unfinished Spotallo (Space Kotallo) one never fails to make me smile. This is a mashup of Jedi Survivor and Horizon Forbidden West, because both feature a ginger protagonist with a sidekick voiced/performace-captured by Noshir Dalal, and it's fun to picture all four of them meeting. NB, the character of Kotallo loses an arm at the beginning of HFW, and he's just a little put out about being captured on an Imperial battleship here.

"If you mean the other barbarian, she refused to cooperate and was taken to another level for reeducation—" Kotallo gently pushes down on the hammer and the officer splutters. "The detention level! You were deemed less of a threat because you were, ah, unarmed—" Kotallo shakes his head, lets the hammer fall, and grabs at the officer's short hair and slams the man's head into the shiny floor. "He showed him unarmed," says one of the grunts at the console, and Kotallo looks up at them. Both of them raise their hands higher.

What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story? I'm gonna flake on this one and turn it into something that surprised me after I wrote the fic (which means it didn't change the story, lol): in my fic brothers, written for @calkestisweek, a bunch of people commented on how the fic dealt with characters confronting their own or another's trauma, and that wasn't my intention to write about at all. That one was just about following the characters and I'm really glad it moves people. It's probably my favorite fic of all the ones I wrote in the past year.

I'm sorry, I cannot pick a favorite line of dialogue. I've gone through nearly everything I wrote and I keep finding a new one.

-> ficwip year in review asks!

#jen writes #ask game #ficwip2024 #scrivener #nextcloud #fanfiction #jedi survivor #horizon forbidden west #thank you for the ask!

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chevvy-yates · 1 year ago

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WIP WEDNESDAY

Decided it is time for another update so here's a longer post to what I've been up to and stuff that circles around in my head lately.

tagging:

@medtech-mara, @imaginarycyberpunk2023, @itzsassha, @humberg, @kittenchrissy, @rosapexa, @cinnamon-mey, @heywoodvirgin, @dreamskug, @drunkchasind, and everyone who sees and wants to do as well.

No pressure as always!

—

1. CHARACTERS & LORE

Let's begin with sth. first I have on my mind for a while: As this fandom (sadly) seems to fall more and more apart, I would like to know if there are still people interested in reading actual lore content or not. As some of you know my dear friend @nervouswizardcycle and I are continously building up some sort of our own expansion after the main game events with rp/fic, character builds, backstory lore and support by vp and it eats a lot of time. The lack of interactions on tblr during the last few months and in several discord servers has led to me not posting a lot anymore either (beside my mental exhaustion phases that come and go). It seems more active again though, as majority already played Phantom Liberty by now or are right into it, so they slowly come back bc they presumably avoided spoilers. —————— So, here is me wondering how many following my blog are 'really' interested to see me sharing all lore of the boys (including story parts) or does the majority prefer just to see pretty pics and that's it? —————— (I've wanted to add a poll here but it doesn't let me save my post so I might do it in a seperate one a bit later) I know: it's my blog, I post what I like in the first place, and I'll likely continue that way but somehow I would like to know if it's worth the effort of formating and thinking about how the posts could look or if I can take that time to do something else with it instead if there's less interest. So, I would just keep it in my tiny discord server I share with my rp partner(s)/in private chats with those interested bc it's gotten to be a lot and we are still at the very start it feels.

2. SKILLS, CYBERWARE & HUMANITY LOSS

As I'm the type that can't have ocs with no background/lore, I sat down the other day and did a build for each with their skills, wrote down what chrome everyone got (incl. additional c-ware from the lore books plus I'm reading e.g. into what programs my runner twins are likely to make use of). It went this far that my friend used the amount of the game's 'cyberware capacity' as 'humanity loss'. It is used in the lore books/ttrpg anyways. So I've counted all my boys possible capacity* and use it as humanity loss (HL) now which led me to thinking about which one of my ocs goes to get treatment and how often they go to see a MedTech on regular base. I thought I could give them a certain minus amount to reduce the HL for each depending on how much or less c-ware they got — e.g. Thyjs as soldier has most (but all is good Militech chrome) and used to go and still goes regularly so his HL gets a huge reduce — whereas Ryder's gets always nulled no matter how often he gets threatment, because BEAST (rogue AI) eats it away each time (to understand that in full you probably have to know the story). Ry must have most HL loss as he often walks along the edge towards cyberpsychosis, so I'm forced to reduce Thyjs' with most c-ware installed a huge amount. And that's how I made it now. It's probably far away from canon ttrpg as my 'canon cp world' consists of 75% game, 20% lorebooks and 5% own added ideas I haven't seen on the lore yet. And I like it that way I gotta say. On a little side note: It also had me thinking about creating a new support character for the team that could be in fact a MedTech. But I won't do that anytime soon.

* some things might still change as I slowly started playing their playthroughs and skill them for real now. I love each build so far because it's a whole different experience! And playing someone with noe netrunning ability is hell as I was only usedto paly netrunner before.

3. FIC SNIPPET TIME

I decided to give you an insight of what I've roughly written yesterday about Ryder and Thyjs having a talk about how they feel for each other:

“Ik ben eerlijk. I liked that accidental kiss we shared a-and i-ik find je leuk, Ry. Probably more as— a friend is supposed to do.” De Wit instantly starts feeling nauseous and something tightens around his stomach but he needs to get it off of his heavy feeling soul. “I-I guess I have stronger feelings for you than I had expected and it’s confusing me.” He frowns, “It’s not usual for me. Never felt any kind of such an attraction towards other men. I-It’s just you— I think I might be into you, Ryder.” The last sentences came in a mere murmur than spoken and Ryder’s name was only a light whisper. Thyjs didn’t dare to look to his left. He feared he would lose his new gained friend now because he said his stupid thoughts aloud. Instead he continues staring at the distant horizon feeling the lump in his throat only getting heavier. The sun was already half arisen and the sky was painted in a bright orange and yellow fading out into never ending blue. After de Wit seems to have finally finished his long talk, Ryder realizes the pack has fallen out of his hands. He needed to repeat in his mind what Thyjs just told him. Did the man really pour out his heart to him at this very moment? He couldn’t believe it at first. The pale soldier he obviously secretly fell for just told him he was having feelings for him that reach further than friendship? It took him what seemed like an eternity to get out of his frozen state. Ry moves up into a straighter position, still supporting his body with his right forearm, turning more towards Thyjs, who is still watching the rising sun with a rather sad look on his face blinking every once in a while. Eventually Scharfenberg brings up his left hand to reach for the older man’s face and de Wit suddenly feels two fingers under his chin making him look at the younger man again. He sees a tiny smile on those dark lips he caught himself looking at so many times in utter secrecy. That tiny smile that’s usually the base for a brighter even more heartwarming smile baring dangerous fangs who make the man look frightening, but smiling like that? Thyjs often caught himself thinking Ry looked cute with these fangs as well. Ry sees Thyjs’ confusion as his eyes look questioning right back at him. So Ry better says something now. “I-Ich äh—” he clears his throat, “—I don’t know where to start. How to talk feelings in the first place.” Letting Thyjs talk himself off seemed to be right for Ryder and it was worth it, because he thinks it’s the most earnest confession someone has ever made to him, yet he doesn’t know how to answer to all this best. So he decides to place himself into a sitting position, to look the soldier boy straight into the eyes. His gaze gets distracted by Thy’s slightly opened lips for a split second. It is the same situation as earlier downstairs, only that Ry has his fingers still under de Wit’s chin and starts to lead his face towards the other man. Just a few inches are left between them and Thyjs can feel the younger man’s warm breath on his skin. He also has this incredible sight at those beautiful male black eyelashes again the very moment they cast down and then he feels those same lips from before on his own with such a soft pressure that again he closes his eyes in an instant and starts to revel in that same electricity running through him but also the revenant paralyze surrounding him again.

It is just a brief kiss, similar to the one in the apartment downstairs but shyer in its move. As soon as it happened it ended. Ryder opens his eyes afterwards immediately because he fears somehow the man in front of him would get up, step back and turn away but instead he still feels his chin pressed softly against his fingers. It casts another tiny smile onto Ryder’s face as his now racing heart skips a beat or two, seeing that Thyjs didn’t make a move nor a sound. His eyes open now as well and Ry swears he’s never seen heterochromia looking so soft but also surprised at the same time at him like Thyjs does right now. He waits for a reaction but Thyjs just keeps looking at him, lips parting shortly just to close again. “What? — Did that make you that speechless now?” Ry asks with nearly the same surprisement. Thyjs lets out a heavy breath and nods, eyes totally lost looking at him which lets Scharfenberg put on a warm smile. “Want to— try again?” Thyjs swallows his unspoken words that gathered in his throat he couldn’t speak aloud and nods again. Heavier, his lips turning into a smile as well and his eyes are suddenly filled with happiness and relief, like he’s telling Ryder that he cannot wait to have their lips meeting once more and to feel that intense buzz from before as it spreads through his entire body like when he’s powering up electricity. This feeling right now? It’s strong and sends an entirely new sensation through him. Is dat het gevoel van vlinders in je buik? He wonders but doesn’t get much more time to think about it because Ryder choses to lean in for a second time.

It can and probably will be rewritten or changed but I definitely want to have it this way! Thjys starts talking and talking almost doing a monologue instead of a dialogue until he comes to the final point and Ryder wants to respond with words but doesn't know how to (he may find them a bit later) and just does what's best: kiss this soldier. I'll max out this kissing scene for a lot more pages just because I can.

I love the idea of Thyjs as war machine being totally romantic and getting super takative when alone with Ryder. And Ryder definitely is a soft romatic boy, alsways was bu Beast made his life harder to show this side more but Thyjs gets to see it also in private.

4. VP

Since I do more 'actual play the game' now even though I have installed most of all mods back, I rarely do pics atm. If I do, they are just rather nice pics where I try to use the ingame light rather than to spawn spot lights. here's a preview of what comes next:

I have so many ideas I want to put into reality. Especially pics that underline the rp/fic chapters mentioned above. But I'm not going to force myself. I'll see what I can realize for the rest of the year and what gets to be stamped as a New Year's resolution. I'll probably focus on a few blorbo pics this weekend because Ryder's birthday is around the corner (31st October) and Jay's boyfriend Enzolino has just a day prior. So if I can manage, I'll do that in the first place.

Thanks for reading! <3

#wip wednesday #wip #fic snippet #vp preview #thoughts #long post #not behind a cut sry friendos #cyberpunk 2077

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bitegore · 9 months ago

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🍄♻️🤔

🍄Describe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “_ + =__”

okay for the sake of my fucking sanity i am NOT going to presume I get any real wiggle room here. or i will do another 400 line proof. because it is fun but oh my god it takes so long.

((Felyx + Taran)(Rex + Haven + Taran) + fake dating)^spite = fireworks

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP(s)

not sure it qualifies as a "wip" because I haven't actually decided to pull it out of the graveyard of abandoned-works out-of-progress yet - call it a wip-aspirational or something lol - but the more I poke at Haven and Taran's actual story the more fun I have thinking about siccing Rex on the two of them. In like 2020 or 2021, so, a good while ago at this point and at a time I'd describe myself as "rusty" I started working on whatever the worst version of a meetcute is (ending in the equation above) lol. If I recall correctly my endgame then was that the three of them would fall into a stable orbit. I think that's kind of silly now. They're not that kind of people.

other scrapped idea, same story: Rex and Taran were meant to get along. That's not happening. It's a lot funnier if Rex and Haven (both deeply, deeply difficult people to get along with who hate accommodating for other people) can find a way to coexist pleasantly but Taran, resident NormalGuy who is extremely accustomed to unpleasant asshole bullshit, genuinely cannot get over Rex's various fuckeries beyond, like, the civility of "I recognize that you are living in my house now because the other person who lives here really likes you, and I don't want to have a screaming match in my own fucking kitchen." I tend to make Rex tolerable to speak to when I write him on his own because it's narratively difficult to use a protagonist who will just spit anything handed to him in someone else's face, but in this particular setup he is actively attempting to get Taran's genuine actual hatred on purpose because he's under the impression that's the goal and he's having fun with it also, so it lets me just make him a huge cunt asshole too which is more fun than having him show any scraps of humanity anyway :D

ok let me come up with something you have actual interest in lol

The Rex & Casey conversation fic I was working on ran into an unrecoverable roadblock (I decided the premise needed work) and has to be restarted in a different place with a slightly different version of Casey (tragic!), so one of the things I had to scrap to keep it rolling is Rex commenting on the color of the sky. It's really sad for me because I always think it's funny when you have a guy In a hell dimension like "damn... this place is weird.... the sky isn't bright red, it's eerie". But I can't justify The Story bringing Rex into The Real World as a Plot Element now that I know more about how it works, so I

......

Aha. Well. Actually. I can't justify Alan using The Story to bring Rex into The Real World, because I know how he works. Might have fixed my opinion on my own premise.

We'll see, I'll sleep on it. It needs to cook longer anyway. I also realized (aw2 spoilers) (for serious) (skip this paragraph now if you havent at least finished the first run of the game) if it happens in The Story In The Real World it's got to be situated between Saga's first time going through the loop with Alan and the Final Draft, but I still haven't found enough time to watch t full playthrough of Final Draft, so I'm sure when I hit Zane's part in there and then endgame I'll know a bit more about the direction I want to take.

🤔What’s a story you’d love to write but haven’t even started yet

Anything like that I have, either it's so busy being a concept I cannot write it yet, or I've started it just to make sure I won't forget it XD so it's hard to come up with. And most of the concepts are less "this is the kind of story I want to write", so much as "this is the kind of effect I want it to have". You know. I want to write something ~mind-bending~ or I want to ~do talking animals but cool~ or whatever.

A lot of words to say I'm drawing a huge blank on this question.

I think - and this is something I keep approaching with different stories but not leaning into, because, frankly, I'm the first line of concept-check for myself, and i get bored - I'd really like to try a story that works as one extended record-scratch. You start at the very end, in a scene that means basically nothing to anyone, and then in the events of reading the entire rest of the story you get more and more context until the very end of the book is the exact same scene as the first part, like, down to the description, and then it just loops infinitely. Something you could read spiral-binding style so it doesn't really have a "start" or an "end", just points between chapters with cardboard so you can close it anywhere, if it's a physical book. you know, some experimental shit.

Unfortunately I find time loops boring as hell to write. This would be ONE loop, so it'd maybe be better, but I'm still kind of burnt on being willing to touch another timeloop from how badly I did not enjoy the one I wrote for an exchange like two full calendar years ago. And also I do have other things to be doing.

That's also not a story! That's a plot structure! I might as well say I want to write The Hero's Journey for all it really tells you 😂 at my heart I'm a parodist, I'm going to need to see someone do it wrong and decide to do a better job than they did to really get a fire lit for an actual narrative here. I do love me some themes of insurmountable stupid bullshit you put yourself into on purpose because you decided you could surmount it and then discovered you couldn't, and some futile attempts at some stupid shit for retroactively-really-dumb reasons that weren't worth it, so it'll have that. as seasoning. because what is a permanent stable timeloop but one person committing suicide over and over? I'm only really able to approach the properly frozen-in-sequence ones as either Hand Of God (boring) or Sunk Cost Fallacy On Steroids (fun! interesting! miserable in a slightly unusual way!) so...

....well, it's going to have to keep simmering, because I like what I've got in the broth, but there's no meat in there yet, only spices. It would make a terrible meal right now. But it answers the question, I think.

#red replies #honestlyvan #sorry for how wordy this got i'm tired and rambling LOL #ask game

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gisellelx · 1 year ago

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For the fanfic writer asks, want to do 29, 33, and 44?

Thanks @jessicanjpa!

29. What's your most popular fic?

Ithaca Is Gorges, by far. It totally makes my day any time I see someone rec it, and the fact that it's still kicking around at the top of a lot of people's rec lists is such a terrific compliment. I use reddit mainly for my hobby of investing and personal finance, so I only lurk on the Twific reddit but there's usually not a month that goes by where someone doesn't suggest somewhere that someone else read it. It's one reason I refuse to be shy about the value of fanfic writing. I work alongside people whose whole job it is to publish novels and teach fiction writing, and sure, nobody's written about my fanfic in Kirkus reviews, but for sure far more people have read and recommended my novels than have any of theirs. 😆 I'd rather have the latter.

33. Do you ever read your own fics once they've been posted?

Perpetually. In fact, I just managed to lose/break two Kindles in one month and am on my third since the beginning of October. I noticed when I added my Calibre library to the one before this one that my table of contents weren't working properly for several of my ebook versions so I actually took the time to regenerate them last week. Of course, then I sat down and read the entirety of Present Perfect—it's the gnarliest one to format so at first I was just ostensibly checking to make sure it was done correctly, but then I got sucked in because it's a pretty good story if I do say so myself.

It's helpful both because it spurs my own writing, but also keeps me aware of my own canon. Whenever possible, I try to write such that every story I write takes place in the same universe as every other one, and being reminded that oh right, this is the year I decided that Alice and Jasper showed up, and where, helps me make sure a reference I make to it six years later isn't different. Wouldn't mind if Stephenie Meyer paid as close attention.

44. How often do you write?

Trying to bring this back to a more regular practice. I add a few words to things almost every single day. But really getting into the groove of it isn't nearly as often as it once was. I keep trying to get back into a daily fiction writing practice and it's hard. Part of that is, I fear, the easy allure of other kinds of online distraction which did not exist as completely when I used to write fiction, both ofic and fanfic, more prolifically. But other of it is just that I do a lot of writing these days. People think professors are mostly teachers and nope, we're mostly writers. So when work is writing, having fun also be writing is sometimes a lot. On the other hand, I write a lot when I'm writing a lot. 😅 When the ole's sideblog is very active, it's a really good sign that I'm also throwing thousands of words down on the WIPs. So, trying to write more and read more and reddit less.

Ask me things

#Kirkus aside someone did once write about the existence of The Unlikely Meeting in a major rag #and I am just gonna humble brag here in the tags that not only did that happen I DON'T REMEMBER WHICH ONE IT WAS #because these days I talk to reporters a lot #I think it was WSJ? I can't find it on WaPo

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cheerfulmelancholies · 1 year ago

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Now that I'm recovering from my surgery, I started going through my wips again and found this old snippet from The Set Up. It's from the very early stages when I was making it a sort of enemies-to-lovers where Felix and Maya both knew each other back in middle school. This scene in particular is shortly after they "reunite" in college and Felix finds his curiosity at her high school disappearance getting the better of him. Sadly, I've already decided I'm not keeping the story in this format, but I figured I'd post this anyway because it was fun enough to work on.

For some context: Maya is very, very guarded due to past trauma and it's always driven Felix up the wall because he can't seem to break through her armor. No one would know unless she told them, but Felix is about the only person she lets get close to her in any way. Not that one can tell.

Felix is a typical punkass rich kid, only he's got a bit of justification in his actions due to his own past. One thing he's not justified in, however, is how he loves feeling superior to others. The reason why Maya gets under his skin the way she does is because he can't achieve that I'm-better-than-you attitude due to her cold and distant exterior. He was always trying to get a rise out of her when they were kids, but to no avail. Now that he's older, his need to break through her armor stems from genuine curiosity and maybe some very slight concern.

But you didn't hear that from him.

Felix wasn't one to dig into people's personal problems. Unless it served something useful to him in the long run, he often avoided getting to know much of anything about anyone. The secret behind Maya's mysterious disappearance in high school was too big a scandal to ignore, however. He had to find out, if only to quell the itch of needing to know. It had been so sudden, the way she dropped off the face of the earth two weeks before school was scheduled to start. While he hadn't been one of them, he knew that several people had made attempts to reach out to her--some out of genuine concern but many out of nosiness--to no avail. And so, Maya had been all but forgotten about once the realities of high school set in. Until their recent reaquaintance, Felix had forgotten about her himself.

There was something about present-day Maya that didn't quite line up with her past self, however, and Felix had a good feeling it was related to her mysterious disappearance...

"So, why did you disappear before high school?" Felix found himself keeping pace with her as she took measured strides through the campus.

Maya glanced at him from the corner of her eye but otherwise said nothing as she kept walking.

He huffed. "Keeping secrets as usual, I see," he said to the silence. "That's fine. I don't mind guessing."

"That would imply I'd tell you when you got it right."

It wasn't until they passed the parking lot that he began wondering where she was going.

"Do you... Are you fucking walking home? Don't you board here?"

"No," was all she said as she kept her stride.

"Don't you drive?"

"No."

Felix's grip on her shoulder settled her in place.

"I'm not letting you walk home like a loser." He gave her a light tug. "C'mon, I'll drive you." He told himself it was only so he could attempt to learn more about her and not because of any sort of concern.

Maya shrugged.

The ride was quiet, the only noise being the faint music from the speakers. Maya hadn't been in the mood for music but Felix liked the background noise.

'His car, his radio,' he'd said.

"So," he began, giving her a prodding glance.

"If you think I'm gonna talk to you about anything personal, you're wrong."

"I didn't have to give you a ride y'know," he said to her icy tone.

"I didn't ask," she fired back. "But you still did. And of your own accord, no less."

Felix grumbled and settled further into the seat as he brought the car to a stop before the light. This was already feeling like a mistake.

#my writing #my wip #the set up #creative writing #writers on tumblr #my ocs

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twiilys · 3 months ago

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Tagged by @luckylolabug ❤️

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

As of now 19, though 1 of that is a translation (Remember the Spring, by the extraordinary @themarydragon) and 1 is a collaborative work with 9 other lovely writers :)

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 129,476 (same comment as above)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I go through phases in what I read and write, so it depends on what the mood is currently. I'm working on a Anne with an E/Anne of Green Gables one now, but my WIP folder (or rather, my collection of drafts/ideas/5 words scribbled on a notebook) has Lockwood & Co., Fire Emblem Three Houses, Julie and the Phantoms, Zelda Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom, and Harry Potter.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The (Not So) Subtle Art of Secret-Keeping - AWAE

what lies ahead - AWAE

of late nights and early mornings - AWAE

thou and i are too wise to woo peaceably - AWAE

Time to Learn - FE3H (whoop whoop!!)

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes! I love receiving comments. Short, long, emojis, questions, anything!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I won't say I don't like writing angst, bc I do like a sprinkle of angst to deepen the fluff flavour (especially in longer fics). But I don't think I'll ever write a full-on angsty ending. I read and write for escapism, it would betray the purpose for me.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

It's between "what lies ahead" (AWAE, kinda S3 fix-it with Anne and Gilbert getting together) and "shadow play" (Lockwood & Co Locklyle newly-weds), I guess.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

No, I'm glad I haven't so far! I did get into a spirited debate in the comments of one, but it was less ad hominem than it was about interpretation of the source material. That's alright with me :)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Not yet. I'm more of the 'fade to black' type, mostly bc I'm still embarrassed I guess. It's not out of question though.

10. Do you write crossovers?

My current WIP is a "blorbos from my show in the setting of another piece of media", which is the closest I'll come to crossover I think.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so! Hope it stays that way!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope. I've toyed with the idea of translating my own fic in French (my native language) but at this point I'm better at creative writing in English lol and I can never go back to French formatting for dialogues

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! "The (Not So) Subtle Art of Secret-Keeping" was a collaborative work, each of us writing 1 chapter. I got a lot of input that way and it made my part all the better! It was a really good experience.

14. What is your all-time favorite ship?

Don't ask me that, I can't choose 😭

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I mean, I have an UFO* folder, so... they're nice to think about 🥹

*Unfinished Objects & Projects (it comes from fabric crafts originally but I use it for fics that fall under that question exactly haha)

16. What are your writing strengths?

Someone said it was atmosphere once, but I like to think I'm good with sentence pacing/rhythm. I want to write stuff that sounds good out loud too.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Consistency? I get off the writing wagon very easily and I have to remind myself I like writing lol otherwise my WIPs get abandoned. It's not even writer's block, I just sometimes forget that opening a document and write makes me happy.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I do it with French sometimes, when I can justify it (e.g. Jerry in AWAE is a French speaker, so I do slip in bits of French). I like writers who incorporate aspects of their characters like that, but unfortunately Google translations are... what they are. On that note, please ask me for French help if need be, I'd be thrilled!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Fire Emblem Three Houses! I wrote before but I wasn't really part of a fandom.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Am I allowed to say my current WIP? It's extremely self-indulgent and also the longest thing I've ever written. Can't wait to share it!

Tagging you who wants to babble about their work :) (yes, you specifically. do the thing!)

#tag games #twilys writes #fanfiction #i'm catching up on tag games so there will be a few coming

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frogsandfries · 1 year ago

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My asthma

Has been triggered for days.

It's partially my allergies, since the two are linked. At first, I thought it was vaping THC for the first time in a long time--I used to keep my pen in a cup of actual pens and assorted art tools, but when I moved, it didn't get unpacked for, well, obviously a couple months.

I've been working on this disgusting candy bar my ex bought when they first legalized marijuana in NM. I think they only bought it because it had a higher dosage, but it's gross. First, it's dank. Obviously. Then, some freak put flecks of dried cherry in it, so it's just freaking weird.

I've been using THC to feel neurotypical, which is to say, hungry, thirsty and tired. Being alone has really fucked with my ability to sleep "normally" for work. I kind of miss being fully exhausted, tired enough to sleep by eleven, which is an appropriate time to sleep for the time that I'm waking up for work. Although, I'm thinking my ex was exhausting to me because they always had me on alert. When it's just me, I don't need to be alert for spontaneous combustion because I'm not really the yell-y or rage-y type.

I'm more of the groaning and flailing type.

I have no idea what is triggering my asthma/allergies. The AQI is shit, for me. If it's anything less than near perfect, like it is right now, it's bad for me.

I didn't vape last night and I still woke up with my asthma--ooh, this morning hurt.

Anyway, I have to cut my Canva document back down to a multiple of sixteen, since I can't just add four pages on to the end. Which kinda sucks, since I already formatted those pages, but ehhhhhh, it can't be helped until/unless I find a better document maker?

Surely, there has to be a program that compiles the extensive ability to format, like canva, with all the frills and bells and whistles, with the simplicity of something like Word, where you just dump the text in and set the parameters et voilá! ..........riiiigggghhhhtttt?

I want cake. I should probably go get some actual people food. I don't necessarily have cake and I really don't have money to buy a boxed mix or a made slice from...... somebody, a grocery store or a restaurant.

Nobody asked, but speaking of my French, I've been proofing a lot of the French the writer tried to put into the story, like they don't seem to have grasped masculine vs feminine, so I'm correcting for that, which I'm happy to do.

Also in this second half, they're making very ESL mistakes, which, no judgement on the language part, I just don't understand what happened to the quality of their use of language. It's fine. That's why I'm giving it a light proof before I print it. I'm just over-eager to get some of this story printed. It'll be cool to get a little payoff for all this hard work.

I really--I got distracted by the other neighbors' dogs losing their minds over something.

My WIP pile: BM/BS, the Auction, v1 and v2, Manacled, v1, v2, v3, and a couple (accidental duplicates) of Apple Pies. (So I only have, actually, nine books to punch and sew and/or glue and cover. It's going to be eleven or twelve with this typesetting project.)

I haven't printed: Bring Him to His Knees, or Blood Magic.

I'm not sure about printing: Presque Toujours Pur, and Remain Nameless.

Those are the typesets that I've found and been interested in.

They're gonna find my stupid hand-bound library, and be like, she was obsessed.

I've been trying to hunt down some Draco/Ginny, but goddamn, talk about a rare-pair. I'm always looking for fractured fairy tales, because 🤤 that's really my literary niche.

WHERE IS MY PUNCH CRADLE!?!

Fuck yeah: I can easily flip my objects onto the opposite side of the page with same positioning.

Fuck no: I have to do it almost three hundred times.

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dominijoyce · 2 years ago

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13, 19, 28, 35

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

ROOM DESCRIPTION! How do people write them seriously... My girlfriend will go on entire paragraphs describing every detail of a room a character enters, every color and how light falls on furniture, how the crack sounds and what the atmosphere is. My close real life friend will literally Tolkien-esque you a character walking by the river...

And I'm here like. "Um. The room's walls are pink. There is a clock on the wall. Room itself looks old and not taken care of."

Actually, I have similar issue with appearance description but in general those became less of a struggle for me after internalizing fully that no one really fully pays attention to that or they quickly forget details anyway and usually if ya provide just core stuff of how character looks, readers will just fill in the gaps.

On the other hand- I have heard countless times that people heavily struggle with First Person Perspective. Seriously can't relate - I love writing in first person, I love getting into the character's mind and their thought process and thinking of how it differs. I have multiple stories where perspective often shifts SPECIFICALLY because it lets me show how characters differ in how they experience and how they think.

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

Good question. I think I started writing back when I started RolePlaying in general. That was like over a decade ago. I started RolePlaying and therefore writing because I already had way too many ideas for characters and stories and everything and so putting them in a form of RolePlay was a way to fuel all of it.

As for bumps... Well, other than me seriously thinking of quitting for good - well. Well I could talk of what happened 1-2 years ago in my writing journey but that's too personal for a public Tumblr blog, I guess ask me about that on Discord, lol. In general my current biggest bump and struggle is trying to go back into any schedule of writing as well as try to break my personal issue with posting my writing online.

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why?

It's not like anyone here knows any of them lol. However mostly some of my villains of my more fucked up stories where everything is heavily complicated and reader is meant to be confused. In general my stories more oriented around psychological deconstructing of everything around [think Everything Everywhere All At Once level of fucked up psychological deconstruction lol] are those I love writing the most and villains of these... Well most of the time they are perpetrators of that fucked up stuff happening so it's amazing to write them. Again, ask me on Discord if ya want like... actual names or plot points. Not sure if anyone on Tumblr is interested in me infodumping my stories that I will never share publicly anyway, lol.

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

Any kind of cohesiveness lol. My stories will include: random font changes, random font size changes, multiple narrations going at once, dialogues that aren't written in any dialogue format, chapters numbered not chronologically, narrator suddenly stopping talking of the narrative...

If you are reading my story you will get confused and have to double take certain stuff. That's kind of the point. Unless it is like any of my mild stories like ones I publish so like fanfiction or ship fics idk. One of the stories I currently write has two narrators who keep on disagreeing with each other and claiming the other one lies as well as keeping on interrupting each other. It's fun.

For my JoJo Fanpart I'm still wondering how far I wanna go into it. Cause I do wanna publish it on AO3 or like, anywhere. But it involves this stuff, like in my current WIP I literally have drawn a line to split the page in half where half is stuff that is actually happening and actual story and half is breaking points and everytime Jo'Jo or Yona leave their vessels (makes sense if you know the plot). So like. That probs won't end up in final cut unfortunately.

#extraterrestrialoracle #ask game #writer ask game

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cyle · 2 years ago

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ok well ive been f5ing the wip askbox for some time now waiting for it to open. since it still isnt i have to send this somewhere. its super important to me that tumblr NEVER turn gifs into another format. it completely ruins them. i'm begging staff to leave gifs alone. if changing them into mp4 happens i fear gifs becoming an endangered species on the internet, more or less, because who's going to make them? who can host them? a huge chunk of tumblr culture, just gone. like lost media.

hey, sorry i didn't answer this sooner but i wanted to make sure we got this Engineering blog post out first.

your specific response here resonates with me a lot, because i share a lot of the same concerns, and i literally work at tumblr. so please be aware that there are a lot of internal advocates who are voicing the same concerns you are: we don't want GIFs to "go away" or become obsolete or anything like that. we want what the GIF represents to live literally forever in culture.

but GIFs, the literal file format, is inherently expensive.

it's important to understand that we've been serving GIFs as animated WebP files for years now, for reasons i outlined here. that post has some of my personal takes on the fundamental explanations for the "why" of what we're doing. and even before we started serving GIFs as WebP, we've always converted uploaded images to smaller formats to make sure we're reducing bandwidth costs.

it's been the case for at least 7 years that the GIFs you see on tumblr are not the GIFs the original author uploaded. the same is true for every image and every video. we have to convert uploaded files to smaller sizes in order to keep tumblr running smoothly. this is what every single modern platform does to media files.

and we know that GIFs are essential to tumblr. the reason why we worked on serving them as WebP and we're now experimenting with serving them as MP4 is literally so we can keep doing it. that statement may seem counterintuitive, but the plain truth is that GIFs are inefficient and they cost a lot of money for us to serve as-is. that's why we convert them to smaller file sizes, whether that's a smaller GIF or a WebP or an MP4 file. i can't stress this enough: GIFs are expensive in many ways.

the constant throughout these efforts is to make sure that GIFs look imperceptibly different than the originals, 99.9999% of the time. and i do mean that many 9s of accuracy. out of the ONE MILLION GIFs that we serve as MP4, only 1 of them is acceptable to be discernably different. i don't think people understand how incredible of a goal that is, and yet that's the goal we hit with the WebP change years ago. and even with that goal, if we find a WebP or MP4 that's discernably different, we spend a lot of time (and therefore money) trying to better tune our conversion pipeline to cover that case.

the feedback that this person gave to me about our conversion process literally went straight to our engineers, who are working to see if they can incorporate it into our conversion pipeline. we're living the dream there! we make a change, we get feedback from knowledgeable people who have a different perspective from us, and we improve the experience for everyone. we want every change we make to tumblr to go like that.

so again: it's not about making GIFs an endangered species of the internet. it's about evolving how Tumblr serves GIFs en masse so that GIFs don't become an endangered species. that's a subtle thing but it's really important to understand. it may seem counterintuitive, but this is what serving images at tumblr's size requires us to do.

anyway, thank you for the ask and your passion about it. it's really amazing to see how many people are passionate about this on tumblr. really, i just wish more people were better informed about the details before jumping to conclusions.

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banyanas · 3 years ago

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Brave for the fandom ask!

ahaha YESSSSS I love getting to actually talk about this thing

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

This one is a solid tie between Dragon Brave and Chief Brave. Admittedly a bit of that rests on their dynamic (friend chip...), but they're great characters alone. While I could say... a Lot, i'll try and keep it short and say I think they tie into the larger-scope plot the best, and also [Marge Simpson voice] I Just Think They're Neat. Been living rent-free in my poor gdocs wip folder

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped.

BUNNY... Cute and deadly. A good friend to her party. She's one of those characters I'd love to work with once I get my brain rolling.

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

Water Demon! While I wouldn't say she's underappreciated for the most part, when it comes to character and story stuff she is a little, yeah.

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

Less of a character and more of a dynamic, but I've thought quite a few times about the way-early aftermath of the history Desire Demon showed Dragon Brave. Like, obviously a lot of the dragons survived, and it's implied (at least geographically) that they still live around the same mountain range before they became dragons, so I do wonder what building that community was like? Because there were still humans left there that survived the vengeance- iirc the humans that unshackled the dragons from the whole... livestock magic thing weren't targeted at all by the new dragons.

IDK i just think the whole growing pains (and also why tf it ended up being just dragons a long time later) of the first dragons re-making a community with their two-legged cousins is interesting thought-fodder.

(this was such a long answer oops_

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

I'm gonna be honest I don't think the english-speaking community is even big enough to have a 'problematic fav'. I'd say maybe Chief Brave? Dude definitely isn't a cut-out 'good guy', that's for sure.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

Fair Brave but mostly like... in emotional and mental formats. I just want to pick his brain. Stick him in a metaphorical terrarium and observe. He's got a number of contradictory viewpoints and character traits that work surprisingly well together once you dig around enough.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell):

Landlord King. Lord of Crapitalism. He's so punchable.

#brave tas #brave animated series #rip sorry i genuinely forgot which tag i use for personal organization :crogge:#bañana post

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system-of-a-feather · 2 years ago

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Do you have any projects your working on right now? If so wouldnt say no to a ramble about them (love watching artists/other writers talk about their passion projects)

Do I have any projects I am working on right now?

Overall I technically have one REALLY huge project going which is the said story I eventually will need to turn into a comic / webtoon when my skills are consistent and high enough. That one I've technically been working on with my writing partner for a decade about and honestly the passion and dedication the both of us have to said story has really saved both of our lives on more than one occasion if I'm honest cause it was the primary coping / processing mechanism for two teens surviving abusive households that ended up in two people with DID (well technically he hasn't been diagnosed and he likes to ignore it until it becomes an issue TM but I knew he had DID before I knew I had DID)

But like, writing wise, we've been writing it in RP format for about a decade. We had some off years while we were sorting out our friendship and figuring out how to have boundaries in the earlier portion, but we've really got a grasp on the overall story and are currently writing the prequel before we REWRITE the original story we started with when we were 12. Somewhere around the time of rewriting that story I'll probably start properly paneling and story boarding out the comic as we go, but until then I'm on the art grind.

Neither of us are in a particular rush to put the story out there though, cause the world is already really massive and we are still learning / figuring things out about it and the characters in it, and strongly do value letting it grow authentically on its own, so we are taking our time going through the prequel as the prequel will help us gain a better understanding of the world to really do the main and original story correctly.

On the art side of things, yeah I always have a project going. I actually usually am working on 1-3 art things at a time to keep myself satiated and not burnt out doing one aspect of one thing too long. I wouldn't call any of them "passion projects" since they're honestly like... if you think about a management sim like STardew Valley, its like... tasks activities and stuff and less "projects" cause I just kind of take my art really casually if its not for an art trade, commission or a gift.

I guess the closest thing to a larger scale project is that I'm trying to go about all my characters now that I'm getting a semi-consistent way I like to draw them and make it so that everyone has at least one decent art thing to use as their icon for their toyhouse gallery and like, that doesn't sound hard but the story have 40+ characters and I currently have designed 40+ characters so its a long list of things XD

I'm also trying to design as many characters up front to help conceptualize them as we write them, but also to have those as "beta designs" for whenever I get around to the proper comic.

As for like individual WIPs, I finished one really ambitious one which was actually drawing something that was a lot more illustration and scenery based than anything else and I really liked how that turned out considering it took like three hours (below the keep reading #1)

And currently my two WIPs that aren't complete is that 1) I am trying to draw a like, wall line up of busts of a basically massive family of like 15 people where I've only designed like 4 of them already and only named 6 of said characters. Doing this mainly to like, build a better image of the family and to give alpha designs to characters that theoretically exist in the world so I can have them in my back pocket if its a good idea to pull from them. The earlier art I did of the older man is the patriarch and the first bust sketch I got done for this and 2) I'm slowly trying to work on and come up with a tattoo mural for one of the characters taht i only now found out appearently has tattoos when shes older. The thing is, consider it story wise, its extremely important taht these tattoos actually tell a story and have a meaning in regards to the character, so I've been rather stumped on what I could add to it and since these are supposed to be highly meaningful things, I figured the best way to go about "finishing it" and designing it would be to leave that art infinately open until I come up with sparks of ideas of perfect images to add onto her body that represent her, much like soeone who wanted to get a sleeve / tattoo mural themselves likely would. (most recent WIP below the keep reading #2)

CW; mild suggestivity / nsfw

#alter: riku #art #art posting #art ask #art asks #ask #asks

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