#i'll share more stuff later! like day by day -ish and mostly little bits i like

[wreckedhoney]

screencaps from the second playthrough! a few things i missed or forgot to share from the first one, with some more minor additions under the cut. my personal fav here is THE SCREAM poster with our new host's name just taped over the old one's lmao i love that little detail, sorry kurt and thankyou clive we love you.

obligatory oogling at peggy and her lovely lovely silhouette, the model looks so good. i also appreciate, again, reggie's office decor?? it looks like the drawing of a rocket ship you can find maybe twice around the station might be from his son lol. or. maybe it's his.

and the cassette! another great find from clive. maybe he closed in on who could've been offing all the people he found out about. what a sweet touch from the game, too.

some extra liquid that i thought had some interesting little blurbs. the cleaner is so…so fuckin… fuckin gallows creek man… who owns bimbam bc fellas we got another request for the next whistling men

[ajcgames]

Smashing

I got a good bit of development time in since the last update. There's a bunch to unpack, so let's start off with a video that shows what's new.

A lot to cover here!

Pulverizer

A replacement for the first 'work machine', and the first proper machine you'll likely place in your factory. As you can guess, the pulverizer breaks down raw minerals into processed components. In the video, you can see it turning the small rocks into containers of granulated product.

Machine indicator lights

The machines you place down now have indicator lights. You can see this on the front of the excavator and the top of the pulverizer. These are unified and share the same meaning across all machines. RED = an input is not connected. YELLOW = the machine is unable to work, usually due to a blocked output slot. GREEN = the machine is busy working, all is well!

Camera movement updates

I added a somewhat superfluous zoomed-in mode to the camera, mostly for the sake of giving you the opportunity to get in close to the action. There's a more zoomed-out version as well that gives you a more top-down look at your factory, though I haven't shown this in the video.

Input port details

When you're placing an Excavator you'll now see UI panels over the ports in the level. These tell you the product that will be imported through that port.

Naming of stuff

When I was working on the import panel I realised I needed to give my first input product a name. I went with Akorite since it's not a real mineral name and I can avoid having to ground this game with real stuff! I want to keep to real-ish sounding names, though, so you won't see any Unobtanium in here ;)

The next steps

I'm getting very close to something that feels more like a vertical slice of the game now, so I need to start thinking about the next big objectives. I'm really happy with how it's coming together so far, but I want to make sure I'm sticking to my lane and focusing on concrete goals.

Now that I have mechanisms in place for generating items, moving them around, and performing work on them (to produce an additional ouput), I have all of the 'bare bones' mechanics to build up a proper factory game. There are some developments that are more obvious than others:

Addition of belt splitters and mergers

A UI that shows when clicking on a machine which displays relevant information about its state and current processes

A machine that generates science points by researching items you feed into it (a little bit like the Satisfactory Awesome Sink)

A way to save and load your game

Beyond these, which I feel are essential requirements for it to be a functional 'game', I might consider these are additional development objectives:

A mission objectives system. This may initially just be 'accrue X science points' until a deeper contract-based system is developed.

A player tutorial system. This will likely take place in a pre-made small factory level where I can more tightly control the environment. Like setting up 'bumpers' in a bowling alley to keep the player on-track.

Research screen.

The concept of a research screen is just that for now - a screen. I want to get it in there as a placeholder soon just so that I have it hooked up and ready to work on at a later date.

The R&D tree is going to be an essential component for me to implement as it would feel totally lacking without the regular portioning of rewards to the player. It creates impetus and drive.

I'll be spending some time thinking it all over to try and come up with something as compelling as I can :)

Anyway, that's all again for now. Thank you again if you took the time to read this, I'm grateful for your time. Have a wonderful day! ❤️

[nuclearforest]

Hello phrend. 😎 2deep4me writer asks:

What's the fic you're most proud of?

13. Do you take pride in your writing, or does it embarrass you? Why?

14. Do you compare yourself to other writers? In a positive or negative way?

15. How do you think your writing has improved over time?

Thank u for the ask!! Makes me very happy and lets me ramble abt stuff!

1, Honestly hard to say. Like, I'm proud of One Dog Night because it was the first thing I ever posted and like, really snowballed me into doing more and putting myself out there more. But on the other hand, Month to Love a Werewolf is the first multi-chapter piece I finished! And now Sirens' Guard Dog is on the way. I think those are my big three-- but as far as picking one goes?

It's really hard to say. I can't pick my favorite child lol.

13, Depends on if it is anon online or IRL.

Online? hell yeah i'm proud of being fully unhinged for my blorbo. almost at 350k in 2 years and like. ~300k of that is hans. my really sad sack awful blorbo who i love with all my little heart. stinky, stupid wolfman with a flair for the dramatic.

But IRL? I am a professional with a career you wouldn't catch me dead bringing up writing or fanfic in public. like, my folks asked me once over a holiday why I was on my laptop and what i was writing and i immediately had to bullshit that it was some stupid literary analysis to keep my skills sharp when, uh, it was really werewolf smut. very, very close to being busted but they aren't curious enough to press and i'm a fool not a coward.

THE ONLY EXCEPTION is when i am around those friends that are my enablers and don't care lmao. They think it's funny and it's on brand. Alternatively it's just one facet of the strange little gremlin they've let into their lives. I mean well--promise.

14, yeah. like, healthy or not i'm always out here comparing myself in both good ways and bad. some for learning new styles and tricks and broadening my horizons, but some for like. competitive purposes. and there's nothing to be competitive about but i've been in competitive schooling all my life and for a kid who grew up with little self confidence feeding on the praise of being "gifted" it really sticks with you. so there are many a conscious reminder that it's all for fun. that i shouldn't stress and that it's for me, even if some of that is a lie (i mean, come on--sometimes i'll write shit to brighten somebody's day but generally it's whatever catches my fancy).

but like, old habits die hard and i'm hungry for kudos and comments lmao. usually it doesn't get bad but if it does, i just bury my head in a different crafty pile of sand.

15, I HAVE A TIMELINE. we'll summarize it as exponential improvement and development tho lol.

nobody here will see the shit i wrote in middle school. we're talking paper journal self insert fic that i wrote chapters and chapters of (granted these were like, 100-ish words a chapter). talk about humble beginnings.

move to highschool and i have some fanfic and also a bit of OC work that I share in my school's creative writing club (bruh I STILL wasn't sharing fanfic).

in college I didn't write much. too busy under an engineering course load but i have a few things here and there. mostly fun little snippets of fluff to keep myself occupied.

but that said, now that i'm working and trying to live my best life, i've definitely gotten better in coherent plotlines, length, and fleshing out the details. i still have all the old stuff (even the paper journals, somewhere) and a decade+ later it's meteoric improvement lol. when i wrote One Dog Night that was the longest single story I'd written by a mile. and now i'm on a long chapter work i've updated weekly since i started it following an outline. i'm boggling my own mind.

but that said: i've always been creative and colorful, have not always been able to actually finish a story. funny enough, i've also never had a formal, regular beta and something tells me that won't change soon. (altho sometimes I do ask for a second set of eyes-- so thanks to y'all that have done it for me!)

can't wait to see how i keep growing!

[actualbird]

hi zak i just wanna i looove your fics ur marius hcs are so canon to me and if u don’t mind me asking how do u usually outline ur fics?

hi anon!! thank u so much :DDD

and sure thing! i remember i answered this question once or twice in the past but i cant find it again in my archive ahjfkjhsfkjahs so i'll just go thru it all again (and for good reason cuz i think i my answer last time made it look like things were organized. it's not. it's Not Organized)

anyhoo, short overview answer is: craft big idea -> rough outline (summaries/short bullet points) -> detailed outline (connecting all the dots)

long detailed answer follows under the cut (wow, me using a readmore HAHAJKHSVKFJ well, my writing process is boring i dont wanna stretch dashes with this, i'll save being a nuisance for my silly little headcanons)

all screenshots will be coming from my outline for my most recent fic "standard operating procedure (x4 speedrun)" cuz it's freshest in my memory and also planning took a LOT of time here

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step 1: craft big idea

the first thing i actually do on outline doc is make the summary that i forsee it'll have on ao3. this is cuz my summary format on ao3 is [excerpt of scene] + [a few lines explaining the fic overall], and thinking of what to put here first helps me get a good grasp on what i want the fic to be in the Big Picture sense: what the mood/tone will be, whos POV it's in, what the inciting event that kicks it all off is, etc etc

the big idea, along with all the other steps in my process, are subject to change as the process goes on. for example, for the shovel talk fic, heres the first ao3 summary i made for it (version from april 3, thank u google docs version history HAHA)

this was back when i envisioned the fic as a long-ish oneshot that was mostly comedy. but as i continued thru the other steps of outlining (and realized that the comedy is more of the hook and seasoning and the real core is gonna be the feels later on that i didnt wanna spoil upfront in the summary), the ao3 summary changed to whats on the fic now

still, no matter how the ao3 summary changes, it's a great starting point for my brain to get into the rest of the fic cuz ive already got a bunch of the core stuffs for the story

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step 2: rough outline

this step is me getting into the overview of each part/chapter of the fic, the big idea but for specific chunk of story. these come either in the form of short bullet points or short short summaries of the events, and thats rlly all that is in here: events. all the details is for step 3

heres the rough outline portion for chapter 5 of standard operating procedure (x4 speedrun)

absolute barebones, but each chapter has got something along these lines going on for them (i just shared this one cuz it's the least messy to look at AJHVKJZHFVAKJHS) which keeps me on track irt what needs to be Happening.

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step 3: detailed outline. the longest and most stupidly meticulous part of my process

this step is what it says on the tin. with the smaller bigger picture of the chapter (huh, actually, im realizing that my process basically hinges on taking in the big picture and then slowly zooming in bit by bit) i then start putting down the exact things i wanna write: everything from dialog to descriptions to etc etc. and all of it is absolute wordbarf and the fact it is wordbard is Important

heres an excerpt from the detailed outline portion of chapter 2 of the fic

i put in A BUNCH. and this is important to me cuz it's at this stage i can start filling in the blanks, irt the events i put down in step 2

like in this chapter, i had 2 events to link: vyn making dumb sex innuendos -> vyn making his grand and genuine love declaration about marius. how to get from point A to point B is something i cant leave for the actual writing portion because my tendency is to blank for days, trying to find the perfect way to word it or execute it.

but in this outlining portion ive got the freedom to try out a bunch of methods in a wordbarf format that gets my thoughts in order. it doesnt have to be good or make sense just yet, as long as it connects the two events, i can refine it during actual writing

and more often than not, changes Do happen in the actual writing portion, since once that bit is going on ive got a clearer idea on how the scene is flowing and all that jazz. still, those changes are hinged upon the fact that ive got a skeleton prior, or else i'd have a really hard time trying to figure out whats not working because i hadnt put a Thing thats Not doing the job yet. i guess my penchant for doing this step that i know many people see as insane is that it's easier for me to work on something imperfect that already exists than to make something do what it needs to do on the first try

heres another portion i still consider as part of step 3: me trying to figure out how marius and giann have their argument in chapter 5

and then i basically transplanted these into the chronological outline portion so i could see how it works in the actual scene

so my full outline for this fic is a grand total of 6.7k words cuz i do the detailed outline for every single scene HAHA

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aaaaand thats how i outline, anon! i hope this sates ur curiosity :DDD

[arcane-ish]

Last Line Tag

I got tagged by @edomeilair !!!! Rules are you have to share a portion of the last thing you've written (from what I can tell??)

So, is this the bit where I admit that I sometimes try to write fanfic? But I never post anything because 1.) I'm eh, I'm not that good (blabla, not a native speaker etc) 2.) I'm terrible at finishing anything. Like it's mostly just random little dialogue pieces.

Maybe consider this more a frightening look what my mind looks like.

If not obvious, Vander and Silco has been on my mind quite a bit lately, so most stuff at this moment is related to them.

My half-hearted attempt at fanficcing was born out of my desire to slash this Vander:

And this Silco:

And since I figured nobody else was going to do it, I tried to jot down some stuff myself. So the idea what that Silco is a soft little bored Piltie who goes to Zaun with his friends and gets himself abducted.

He spends several hours tied up and gagged on Shimmerlord Vander's couch, watching him work while they wait for the ransom from Silco's parents to arrive.

Vander sends him on his way and the combined ordeal is somehow enough to make Silco fall hopelessly in lust with Vander. A few days later he decides to venture back into Zaun to seek out Vander to confront the man who abducted him. Vander in incredibly amused by this and smexytimes happen.

This would have happened at a later time where Vander breaks into the villa of Silco's parents to spend some time with Silco again:

For the record, I also tried to write timebomb and it went equally nowhere.

As for my current meta, well currently it looks like this:

And this is a bit from a meta on Zaunite independence and Nationalism (with like the basic idea being whether Silco's goal isn't kind of asshole-ish in itself rather than just his methods being horrible) which is at the top of my "drafts" here on tumblr (but has been there for a while):

Ahem, I don't know if I know any writers on tumblr enough to feel super comfortable tagging them? Always makes me feel a bit stalkery? But I guess I'll try, tagging @calyxspur @staticrain @bluedaddysgirl and @caspercryptid if you by any chance have something you are writing on that you'd be willing to share :) ETA: darn it, should have tagged @alishatheninth you write too, don't you?

[crunchykiwibby]

Core Four

Hi! After days of my antics i had decided to show my drawings for my redrawn Descendants next to outfit clarification/ idea for my fanfiction (+ analysis because I love fashion analysis! I watched one episode of the topic and I'm hooked now-) also sorry about the poor camera quality I'll digitalize it soon 😭

So here's them all together:

So what they have in common is the use of patterns and somewhat baggy(ish?) clothing whether it's from the top, ( Carlos, Evie) or by the pants ( Jay, Mal). The next use is pictures or patterns which is pretty predominant in Mal's side of town ( The inner city/ a good most of the Isle except anywhere near the coast. Which is known to be Uma's side of town.) 9 times out of 10 you would see a lot of painted clothes with patterns or designs, pieces of leather or cloth in clothing that can form a pattern or pictures. It is very popular on the Isle to wear gloves, bandages, and something you can at least move in because sometimes certain areas get congested and you might have to jump from a building time to time, run away from a troll, or fight. Also it's good to wear clothes that hide stuff you stole or hide weapons compared to Uma's side of town where you kinda just casually have a dagger or sword out. The inner city fashion is a mix of military, grunge, and goth depending on where you are. And it also reflects in the fanfiction in their Auradon fashion which I'll describe later. Their outfits together all clash but it's unified in one shape or pattern which also presents their friendship.

MAL

So Mal doesn't have fear as she usually doesn't worry about being randomly shanked out of nowhere. Seen here I kept her purple/ green aesthetic but I used a very minium of pink which was her top which was magenta. Her outfit is quite girly tomboyish. Her top is a repurposed binder that she cloth dyed and painted green flames on. I did this changes because she's more of the rambunctious one in the group next to Jay so her clothes are fitted in the purposes of movement next to the fact of her always stealing and running away which I felt that the leather jacket limited her upper body in her og design, I do love the leather don't get me wrong! But it's more practical in fall/winter (assuming that it's pretty tight) than spring and summer which is when my fanfiction takes place. However the use of leather is shown in her pants as the her pockets is dyed leather. Her hair is more blunt like cut and a deeper purple more toward her hair in D3 (Which was the color I like the most) but it's not a long asymmetrical bob it's just a blunt cut bob and she keeps it that way for a while. She aims for that casual militant fashion a lot, as some of her outfits won't look like what is the one above since she's not jumping place to place in Auradon would lean towards edgy and militant for a while until Coronation and later in the series where it leans more like EGIRL/Prep as her hair gets longer and is just plain black and cut again so she would wear a baggy clothes with combat boots in darker shades of purple and green while some of her shoes consist of designs of her own graffiti in the earlier parts and eases slowly into more to skinny jeans and a shirt that's stuck in with some canvas shoes. You notice how her outfits would present a very dominant leader energy because her outfits would stand out a lot when she stands with the group. Reflecting her always in control and assertive role as leader in the group. Whether in maybe the graphics on her shirt or the pattern until later where her and the core four all equally stand out in their own ways but not clash with one another and she's not trying to outshine any of them. So her style choices in the beginning reflects how she sees herself more of a pawn to her mother and more of someone was placed in charge due to her mother's orders which makes her prone to have a harder time shifting from that mindset in the beginning.

EVIE

Her outfit is very male gaze oriented, intentionally as presented on how she was raised so how she dresses is out of place for normal people on the Isle that live more in the inner city as she dresses more for fashionable and what the Isle consider Auradon like. However don't get it twisted because her outfit is quite practical than one thinks. Her outfit is a dress with attached shorts that is hard to see due to her dress because she dresses in a way for the male gaze. Her sleeves are utilized in a way that she can keep weapons. Any weapon. Same applies to her dress skirt the cut is makes her capable of sneaking in a knife or something same rules don't apply to her purse as it just keeps makeup and a mirror in hand for quick access. Her dress is pretty tight at the waist as her mother always say "tinier the waist the better" and the closest thing of love she got from her mom is that she complimented her waist so her outfits then on compliment her waistline. Her colors are still blue and red as her mother thinks that what works because Snow White but later on she will have mementos of her mother's colors of red, black, purple, greens, and gold albeit jewelry or clothing pieces. Her shoes aren't made for any parkour. Most of her shoes are heels. Mother says a girl in heels fluctuate the legs. Her hair is in the braid as it makes her face pop out more, it represents also the strict beauty guidelines she follows due to her mother's influence so her hair will always be up and tight until later on she starts wearing it loser to present how confident she is in her skin. Her hair leans towards a black blue color it's has a blue shine if you see it in the sun which has a slight color reference to her D1 hair mixed with D3. As a result her Auradon fashion can be formed with ease as it's a easier transition since she dresses like that before going to Auradon so her outfits would be very reflective of what's popular in Auradon without the prep, so she would wear dresses but they would be in darker colors and have a few spikes. Of if she was wearing a skirt it would be a synthetic leather. Her fashion is edgy prep until later in the series where it's still edgy but has a color tune up a bit. Her outfits will very much reflecting of fitting in Auradon as much as possible and try to appeal to the male gaze in Auradon as she would try to look more modest and muted compared to everyone in the group until later on she's comfortable of being herself as she dresses more for herself and wears what's fashionable and what makes her comfortable than what her mother thinks. Her outfit choices reflects more of her needing to be approved by others which makes her have a wavering confidence in what she wears forming into her wearing clothes she would never be caught dead wearing but has to so she gets her mother's and other's approval until she realizes that she lives for her not anyone else.

JAY

This dude knows he's a little shit. So he dresses like one. His is simple and it reflects that he needs to have places to store a box cutter and a cheap necklace. He's all about practicality. He hates and I mean HATES anything that prevents him from moving in absolute precision. There is no leather on him besides his pants which are similar to Mal's with the leather accents. Now his hair is long and just up until later he wears is down often and is just styled. So his Auradon outfits will reflect Mal in some form, it's different because it leans towards athlesiure, jock, and skater in many different ways until later he leans towards athlesiure and jock with a sprinkle of skeeter fashion with brighter colors and more simplicity so not a lot of patterns or graphics. His earlier outfits will always be outshined by Mal. No matter how similar it can be it will always be outshined by Mal. His outfit choices shows how he just goes along with Mal because that's who he knew the longest next to the fact that he doesn't crave the same need for power and leadership as Mal does he just in it for the loot and his mindset isn't about teamwork it's just what works for enough for him to get his share until he notices that he gets and works enough to get his share but...he isn't noticed that also made sure everyone get theirs, just somewhat ran over just because everyone assumes he doesn't care when he does or take it for themselves so they get brighter and become separate and drastically different from Mal making him shine.

CARLOS

His outfits are practical yet fashionable like Evie's but simple. He wears anything that makes him blend in blend in. He blends in so hard that Evie stands out more than him. His clothes are very two sided like his mom's hair but he only literally have one outfit since being on the Isle and what was in his bag of stuff when he went to Auradon was like a few inventions and games and some pictures and his oversized jacket and finally getting new clothes given by Evie and some new friends he makes as seen worn here because he doesn't really go out. His hair remains the same and just gradually gets longer and he can place it in a ponytail. Which if posted on his friend's stories just looks like a maltese ponytail. His Auradon outfits are simple and blends in more better in Auradon than Evie's. He mostly wear button up shirts with some pants or sweater. He just is scared and a lot of his clothes represent security in the beginning so some of clothes would be bagger than others until later he becomes more secure and wears clothes that reflects his newfound happiness and security which is more fashionable and what's popular with Auradonian boys while being himself. As with such with the two-sided clothing from before it also presents what his personality is like really in real life, and his oversized jacket is washed its a pure white jacket. He's witty and comical and iconic while also being anxious and terrified. So his outfit choices reflects him coming out of his shell show what more of him meets the eye making him be the iconic king he is.

I hope that this analysis makes sense 😭 please let me know if it doesn't! Also i would like to hear some suggestions because ironically fashion is also not my strong suit and I'm worried that I made them too ooc but know disney i probably wasn't far off smh-