#i'm curious to see if the structure of the start has changed too because i could not enjoy it

[castleinthemist]

huh...stories from sol: the gun-dog ditched the strict gb green palette and is full colour now...? hm

[ihopesocomic]

I'm curious if you guys know about Clouded Moon, Shifting Roots? The book just came out and I read it, I thought it was pretty good

I read it. And I did not care for it. It read more like it was something for people who are already fans of these characters and not for people who were looking for something separate from Warrior Cats. Which would be fine but then I wouldn't have bothered.

It read like they felt like they had something better than Warrior Cats when in reality it was no different from Warrior Cats. Which is the problem with many Warrior Cats adjacent things. They end up making the exact same mistakes. 

There is an unneeded amount of telling and not showing. There was so many instances where a character would explain something that happened to them prior to the events of the book. The writers of Warrior Cats are beholden to a narrative structure of following a linear timeline that is not a standalone story. It requires context from other books. Since this is a story independent of Warrior Cats, I have to wonder why this writer didn't just. Start from the beginning. It would explain the actions and feelings of characters better without having to dump exposition on your readers. This is especially obvious later in the book where the main characters get attacked by coyotes and snakes and we see none of it happen lol it's all third-hand accounts of what happened.

It still has an unnecessarily large cast. Warriors has a problem with too many characters, so why did you CHOOSE to have the same problem? Characters sharing the same prefix is a huge mistake. There is only one instance where it made sense because eventually something changes. But I've been in WC RP groups before and there's a good reason the ones I was in disallow the same prefix lol it's fucking confusing. If you're not gonna trim the fat, it does the reader a disservice to not do your best to make sure no one gets confused. I don't care how attached to the names y'all are. V*viziepop did this shit and I'm gonna criticize the book for doing the same thing.

You can barely focus on the protagonists. They were basically interchangeable, which was not helped by the constant changing of perspectives, because they all essentially have the exact same thoughts on top of a cast you can barely keep track of. They barely had personalities to speak of, so all of them are surprisingly plain. And I'm supposed to believe at least half of the main cast were close friends at some point. Even characters that should at the very least be morally grey like Dawnfrost and Goldenpelt felt like the writer(s?) didn't want to make them "TOO" bad so that people would still like them. Cuz god forbid we have characters that have to grow to become better people. They're essentially a cult in the woods who are at constant odds with each other and you don't want to have Dawnfrost have some questionable thoughts about anything? 

Since the protagonists barely have a personality, character deaths happening around them have such little impact, even the ones I was surprised by. I imagine if this was remedied by telling the story from the start, I would probably care at least a little. I had stronger feelings about Duskwater dying and she had no dialogue and died pooping.

It is only because I have read Warrior Cats does it make it obvious where this story's roots came from. Because all of it is disappointingly interchangeable with Warrior Cats. You can't just change a few words and claim that something doesn't have ownership of something and then keep it virtually the same anyway. Aside from a few minor differences like queer characters having a Mike Wazowski cameo in the background, and magic being more widespread, nothing about it is different. To its detriment, without the context of Warrior Cats, there is no reason characters should be having half of the problems they currently have. A lot of the problems would be solved by simply making choices the cats in Warriors wouldn't. There's too many examples to give, but one that kind of drives me crazy is Windclan Field Colony leaders captains allegedly dislike Spottedshadow for her questionable loyalty, but they trust her enough to train their youth? Any other story would have leadership, no matter what the consequence, withhold that kind of power and make the protagonist find ways to subvert that.

And speaking of the queer characters, the cast is embarrassingly vanilla. You have the luxury of not being beholden to a publishing company's whims, you could have one big ol' polycule, or whatever the fuck, and you just. Don't bother? I know they've had these characters for a long time but like. None of the main cast is gay? Trans? Nothing? I guess Spottedshadow and Dawnfrost are bisexual since they had a relationship at some point, which again we the readers are not even present for, but it is entirely inconsequential to literally everything. I don't even recall whether a character brings it up in conversation. Neither of them barely spare a thought for each other, but their male romantic partners get plenty, even Goldenpelt. I guess to be fair, even the f/m romances are about as deep as the ones in WC. But did we not all decide this was tokenism? Or does it get a pass because it's "independent"? I've always said if you're not going to give your queer characters quality, you're better off not having them at all. I know they had these characters for a long time, but to advertise it as being queer is grossly misleading. People got more from the queer subtext from Frostdawn (god) and Whistlebreeze than queer context in this book. Again, if this was started from the beginning, where we got to see their relationship and it's just not working out, I wouldn't even be having this conversation right now.

And worst of all, it was boring.

I really need people to read books that are not Warrior Cats to have an idea of what good books are. Because if the line is "not warriors" then this book can't even cross that. - Cat

-

Basically all of what Cat said. I also didn't care much for the worldbuilding changes from it being a Warrior Cats RP story either. Like Cat said: if you're going to make it not Warrior Cats, you may as well just start from scratch so you can do things differently more efficiently.

Not only are the changes superficial at best but... they either make no sense or are very cumbersome. Like the Captains have these titles like 'Elmtail the something or other Branch' and I'm just like why? I mean, I get it because it's meant to imply something about their personality and leadership strategy but this is an example of how this story tells but does not show.

It also bothers me how we have mismatch of rank titles like Captain, Second, Envoy etc., which may sound like a nitpick but... it makes it really hard to remember what rank does what and what order of seniority they're in. It wasn't until quite far in the book that I realised that an Envoy appears to be something of a third-in-command of the colonies after the Second and the Captain. Even though - traditionally - an envoy is a low-ranking title in most situations. I know a rebuttal to this would be that the Envoy is simply 'in training' but nah, they're on the Council with the Second and the Captain and Goldenpelt even lords over Spottedshadow by using his seniority as Envoy at one point.

I would've just liked an explanation for these new choices in rank titles because they don't seem to correlate well at all. Like with our WC rewrite - The Nefarious - we went with a medieval ranking system because the two Colonies we have date back to medieval times so it makes sense for them to carry those titles throughout their history. Same goes for Warrior Cats itself, which isn't entirely necessary because it's pretty easy to follow what the titles mean but it's still nice we get to see how the Clans established themselves in Dawn of the Clans and Moth Flight's Vision.

And what makes things even more complicated on top of remembering all of the main cast and their respective deals is that - in place of the Leader, the Deputy and the medicine cat arriving at decisions for their Clan - each Colony has a Council that you have to keep up with that is made up of the Captain, the Second, the Envoy and an Elder. WindClan Field Colony even goes that extra mile and adds the Herbalist (medicine cat) to their Council. Good luck remembering which cats are on which Council for each Colony because I sure as hell don't.

We also have a stand-in for StarClan and the Nine Lives ceremony or w/e but I don't remember much about this. It was just more lore and more characters I had to keep track of.

To sum it up all: everything you're familiar with in Warrior Cats has just been taken and renamed but made even more needlessly complicated so that it seems 'different'. It's certainly different... it's just harder for me to keep track of everything. But congratulations, I guess? shrug - RJ

[hailturinturambar]

Thoughts on J.D and Patrick's interview (PART II)

The year can't end without one more analysis! By the way, I want to do more analysis of the show, but I haven't decided yet, so suggestions are always welcome! This interview is from August, but that's okay. After all, there are so many interviews that I'm almost lost!

Come on, one of the best things about the show, at least to me, is always the prologue. The prologue to the first season has a very well-structured foundation of the Elder Days and the beginning of Arda.

Morgoth's introduction as the First Enemy was brief but still impactful. However, nothing could have prepared me for the breathtaking prologue to season two.

We were all curious about the beginning of Sauron's journey. But the prologue was better than I could have hoped for.

I'm glad they changed it for season 2, I don't think it would have worked very well in season 1. Would they have introduced Sauron mid-season or would the scenes have been cut?

The second season is darker, so I think the dark prologue was ideal. We know a lot about Sauron's past in the books, but not in the adaptations. In the movies, for example, he's just Sauron, the Dark Lord, there's nothing more about him than that.

Well, I couldn't agree more. In episode eight of season one, just like Galadriel, we know that Sauron is the Enemy and that's it. But what do we know about Sauron before his encounter with Galadriel and his path of evil?

I really like that in TROP Sauron is not romanticized, but we are introduced to his past, to the events that shaped him and led him to do everything he did. Only when we know someone's past are we able to understand their actions.

I started rewatching TROP on December 23rd and I'm already at the end of the second season, and they're right. When we watch the first season again, after the prologue of the second season, everything seems different. No scene seems simple or out of place, no word seems meaningless.

We look at scenes in Númenor, for example, and we're like, "Yeah, that makes sense! That's why Halbrand/Sauron behaved like that." It's really interesting. Because I never thought the show would go that way in 2022.

We started and ended the first season with the question, "Who is Sauron?" In the second season, we finally know. Because we get to follow Sauron after Morgoth's defeat and how he tried to rise again. We see how he was betrayed by Adar and spent centuries recovering. And most importantly, we find out how Halbrand ended up on the cursed raft.

Tolkien left some great passages open, didn't he? These long passages of time without information are great for piquing our curiosity. And I don't know if Tolkien thought about them, after all, he had a very long story with many characters, maybe he left that blank period aside.

And I loved how this was worked into the series. Because in the books after Morgoth's defeat and Sauron's refusal to return to Valinor, we don't have much information. I always wondered how he ended up in Eregion or when this idea came to his mind.

I try my best to pay attention to the details in the show, there is always hidden information. And it is extremely satisfying to watch the passage of time in Sauron's transformation. We know from the books that Sauron can return, but we don't know how that process works.

So it's fascinating to watch time pass, the climate change, but Sauron's form also change. From a tangle of worms emerging from a pool of blood, to Sauron's mortal form as Halbrand.

I humbly believe that Sauron does feel pain. When Morgoth fought Fingolfin, Morgoth felt pain and his pain reverberated throughout Middle-earth. Morgoth felt pain because he had been in one form for too long, just as Sauron did. Sauron spent too much time assuming many forms, so why wouldn't he feel pain if a Valar was able to feel it?

In my opinion, the key point in any show or book is the "what if?" What if Sauron felt pain? What if Sauron is capable of having feelings? The what if is the big cherry on the cake that keeps our curiosity and makes us spend hours theorizing about a character.

I think Sauron is capable of feeling everything, whether it be emotions or pain. However, I believe that this feeling is not as we imagine it. It is, as has been said, an ambiguous feeling. We will never be able to understand the extent of Sauron's honesty about what he is demonstrating or pretending to feel.

Now that's a point that keeps me awake! In case you don't remember, I commented on my opinion about the sea monster in my analysis of Sauron and Galadriel.

The sea monster and Sauron is a never-ending question. Because as Payne said, Sauron may have seized the opportunity, or it escaped his reach. Could the Valar be trying to destroy Sauron? Maybe, it would make a lot of sense.

I'll go a little further. The Valar may have sent the monster to destroy Sauron before he could do any more damage. But Sauron is a dark master and knows all beasts, so he may have influenced the monster so that he wouldn't be killed in the shipwreck. So why would the monster attack the raft?

A second attempt by the Valar? Maybe. But I like to play with the idea that Sauron summoned the monster when he recognized Galadriel. That way the humans were eliminated and he had his path clear for deception. I guess we'll never know!

The problem of writing stories as tales of legends is that we miss a lot of things. I say this from experience. Because in my book that I wrote this year, the prologue is a story about more than 200 years about the old times in the history before the first chapter. And a lot of things happened in these 200 years of history. So, if I were to rewrite each passage, a lot of new information would emerge.

This is the big difference between the show and the movies. In the trilogy (or the Hobbit trilogy) the Third Age material is all written, it just needs to be adapted. But in the First and Second Ages, a lot of things are reported, but not detailed.

Giving the Ring to Círdan could involve infinite possibilities, but we don't know them. Personally, I loved the ring story created for the show. All the depth given to the scene and the giving of the rings was a spectacle.

Yes, all adaptations have their flaws and successes. But overall, I am extremely pleased with the adaptation of TROP and the changes or additions made by those involved. An adaptation is never exactly the same as the book, we know that. But what I love about TROP is that we are presented with scenes that make us think, "Oh yeah, that's something Tolkien would have written!"

[send-me-a-puffalope]

genuinely curious, but for the second fnaf movie, what would be like. your ideal movie. like beginning middle end kinda deal. what would be the main conflict. that kinda thing :D

God, what a loaded question. I genuinely don't know. I know the FNAF 2 movie would probably have to hit the main 3 points: Mike, Abby, and Vanessa going to another Freddy's location with haunted murderous animatronics, flashbacks to the MCI/general Afton backstory, setup for Springtrap to come back for the FNAF 3 movie. And I'm like confounded how that would work in a way that is satisfying character arc-wise, since I already went on a ramble a few asks back about how conclusive Mike and Abby's story arcs have felt to me, and how there's no more interesting internal conflict for them to be addressing in the second movie and they have no connection to Afton other than Garrett's death.

I'm sure Mike's story in the FNAF 2 movie will still be following him coming to terms with Garrett's death and perhaps getting closure by meeting Garrett's ghost in the puppet, but man, they already addressed the fact that he can't change the past in the first movie. I want Vanessa to be the main character so bad but I feel like the movie wouldn't be complete without Mike and Abby being there in some way. Okay I'm about to go on an incoherent ramble that has very little structure and I'm just gonna need you to bear with me alright.

I'm thinking a new Freddy's location opens---a shock to everyone, especially Mike and Abby, considering the fate of the previous Freddy's---and new "Toy" animatronics are taken out of inventory to perform there. There's rumors that the animatronics from the collapsed Freddy's location were dug up and were now being repurposed from parts. Mike is perfectly happy having nothing to do with Freddy's again but Abby is talking with her "imaginary" friends again, unbekownst to him because she's scared of ruining the smooth sailing they've been in. They're asking her to come help them, that they're hurting them by taking parts from the suits (don't ask me how none of the technicians found the dead bodies, idk man its fnaf) and Abby sneaks out to get to the pizzeria.

Mike discovers that Abby is missing but sees her latest drawings, which feature the ghosts again and goes to find Vanessa, who he hopes has more experience with. uh. dead ghost children. I'm just really obsessed with this screenshot from Unintended alright, I just really want a shot of Mike knocking on Vanessa's apartment door and for the audience's first look at FNAF 2 movie Vanessa to be her at basically rock bottom, her hair greasy with heavy eyebags.

I think act 2 starts here. Where we then cut back to what Vanessa's days have consisted of in the past few weeks. Essentially, she quit her job and has lowk been rotting in her threadbare apartment fighting with the guilt of betraying her father. Doing anything would bring about memories. washing her clothes would remind her of how her dad had taught her how to remove bloodstains, cooking was too overwhelming because she hated the feeling of the kitchen knife in her hand, and I want to kinda use how Scott intended Burntrap to be in SB -> Vanessa's paranoia and terror manifesting as her father/Springtrap/maybe even Shadow Bonnie in the corners of scenes, always watching her. When Mike shows up to her apartment saying that Abby was missing, she takes the chance to get out of those four white undecorated walls and try to "redeem" herself by finding Abby. Prove to Mike (and moreso herself) that she was a good person.

I want Mike and Vanessa to show up the location, it's late but it's still open. There wasn't many people left. Mike's hesitant to get too close to the animatronics but Vanessa is oddly facinated by them. They looked like her father's designs but there were design details that felt foreign to her. Toy Chica is the first one who begins to act oddly. She mentions Mike having a sister despite Mike not ever mentioning having a sister. She's the one who brings them to the back to find Abby. When they eventually do, Abby is chatting happily with the toys. Mike ends up taking her home but Abby bargains to let him bring her after school. He hesitantly agrees, mostly because he's disconcerted about these animatronics also being possessed.

Lowk don't have too much more fleshed out rn but I'm thinking maybe on the fourth day/night, that it's revealed that the toy animatronics were not actually programmed by William but rather Henry Emily, who shows up for the first time right as one of the Gang is about to be murdered by one of the animatronics. I'm thinking Henry is Mike's dad, who "ran off" according to the movie novel.

He'd set up this pizzeria as a way of always being close to his dead son (Garrett) while also luring William back and but it didn't go to plan because he doesn't know William is dead. Even after finding out William is dead, he wants to keep the business going to give the dead children a "happiest day every day." Mike's childhood memory is unreliable. A big reveal is that while Mike has been guilting himself for so long over not being able to remember Garrett's kidnappers face, Henry has known all along. He knew who killed his son and he never told Mike because he never had enough evidence to get Afton convicted.

But he's not a fully good person either, he treats the children haunting the animatronics like they're dogs to help him reach his goal. He controls them similarly to how William did, which rubs Vanessa the wrong way. We get flashbacks here about William and Henry's relationship, we witness the kidnapping of Garrett from William's POV, we witness Vanessa seeing a glimpse of Garrett when she was younger before his death. Abby get close to Henry, though Mike is still weary because this is no longer the same man he remembered and feels betrayed. Vanessa slowly withdraws from the group, only slightly motivated by the fact that she resented that Mike and Abby had a second chance to reconnect with their father, and she gets closer to the ghost children (lowk feel like theres too many ghost children in the FNAF 2 location to make this impactful but whatever). We get a flashback to Vanessa witnessing the MCI here and a heart to heart with the MCI victims about how she'd always stuck by them even as she grew up and they stayed forever young. She apologizes but they don't blame her for surviving and what she did under the thumb of William. After all, they were controlled by William to do awful things too. Also there's a Garrett and Mike + Abby scene in here somehwere. Vanessa begins tampering with the animatronics, severing Henry's control from their wiring.

Vanessa and the children plan to set the place ablaze. Henry is furious when he finds out that his own son was working with Vanessa to burn down the Freddy's -> allow all the spirits to move on in the fire by burning all the suits. He grabs Vanessa by the collar and yells at her, revealing that he worked more closely with William than any of them knew and that he had even helped William with his haunted animatronic experiments before his son had become a casualty to William's obsession. The reason he never reported his son's murder was not because of a lack of evidence, but rather fear that his accompliceship would be discovered. The children respond that this isn't freedom to them. This isn't happiness. They were tired and they wanted to move on. I'm thinking none of them die in this fire but none of them trust each other any more because they were all chronically bad at communication and keeping important information from each other.

Henry, Vanessa, Mike + Abby all go their separate ways and the children get to move on. Freddy's 2 burns down. Post credits scene is Vanessa back in her apartment. She opens her closet door and stares at the dead body of her father in his Springbonnie suit, immobile and staring at her with glowing white pupils. Not really sure where this would go in setting up a FNAF 3 movie but I was kinda just thinking morally gray Vanessa who no longer has a support system -> a chance to build up to a Vanny arc or smth. I haven't read through any of what I just wrote so this could make 0 sense whatsoever. Would it be a good FNAF 2 movie? Maybe not. Would I enjoy it? Maybe yes. Some things sound cool on paper but would be ridiculous/too crowded for a movie.

[afterthelambs]

Same anon as before! Can you please elaborate on why 306 is where you think MHA started failing? I'm so curious because I've never seen anyone say that before.

No problem! To keep is as short as possible, there are two main reasons why 306 (when Deku leaves UA, start of vigilante arc) marks the decline of MHA's quality for me: loss of structure and loss of intimacy

Loss of structure

My Hero Academia's early quality can be found in the name: academia. The school setting provided Horikoshi with a structure for the story that helped keep it in focus. Every major arc since the beginning has been centered on a school activity, whether it's a sports festival or an exam or a summer camp. It ensures that everyone will have something to do, a tangible goal for the arc. But 306 ends that. The first war was still a school activity, it was an extension of their hero internships. But after that, the school setting ceases to exist. UA is still relevant, but only as a refugee shelter.

There is no longer a strong framework for Hori to work with, so characters start feeling like theyre meandering. The goals became vague 'defeat the villains' and 'save the country' when they used to be personal, like saving a friend or improving on a skill to pass a test.

Basically loss of structure damaged the plot.

2. Loss of intimacy

If I asked you what is the most iconic or impactful fight in MHA to you, what would be the first thing in your mind? Most people would say things like the Deku v Shoto sports festival, or All Might vs AFO, or Deku vs Kacchan (both of them), or even Iida-Shoto-Deku vs Stain. What do these all have in common? These fights are limited to a handful of people. They're intimate.

Horikoshi has always been more comfortable writing small battles. During the first ever big fight between class A and the nomus, what does he do? He separates all of them in groups of 2 or 3. During the summer camp, is it class A vs the entire LOV? No, he has them fight villains in pairs. It's Bakugou and Shoto vs Moonfish, or Kendo and Tetsutetsu vs Gas Mask kid (i forgot his name), or Uraraka and Tsuyu vs Toga. These smaller fights allow the characters to be intimate with each other and fully interact/ develop unique interpersonal dynamics.

chapter 306 shifted the focus into large battles with too many people and factors involved, and because of that characters don't feel like they're actually connecting on a personal level.

The best example i can think of is comparing Deku vs Shoto fight with the Shoto vs Dabi fight. These fights are identical in concept. Deku is trying to reach out to Shoto, who is consumed by anger at Endeavor and is destroying himself because of it. Shoto is trying to reach out to Dabi, who is consumed by anger at Endeavor and is destroying himself because of it. This is the most clear-cut parallelism you can get. And yet the execution of the fights are so different. Deku and Shoto are only focused on each other, they're having a personal conversation, we see them change over the course of the fight because of the other's actions. A genuine bond was formed.

But Shoto and Dabi were not just focused on each other. Iida was there (bc hori has to give him something to do), Dabi keeps trying to leave to kill people, Shoto isn't allowed to converse with him because the rest of the battle keeps interrupting, and the rest of the Todofam get involved. Despite being set up as a fight between brothers where Shoto could apply the lessons he learned from Deku a long time ago to save his older brother, it ends up losing focus. I don't feel like Shoto or Dabi feel differently about each other by the end of the fight at all. Dabi is given a moment where he realizes his family cares about him, but what about Shoto? We don't get to see how it changes him. The intimacy was lost, so their relationship falls flat and their development is underexplored.

If loss of structure damages the plot, then loss of intimacy damages the characters and relationships.

Thats longer than I thought it would be, so sorry about that. But yeah I feel like these shifts in the way the story was written answer why MHA has so many issues down the line. There is also the issue of the awful decisions made (killing the villains, abandoning All Might and Bakugou and the hopeful tone, etc.) which can't be fixed by pacing or smaller fights. But I do think those decisions reflect how the focus was more on 'ending the war' rather than giving characters satisfying relationships and conclusions. Ever since 306 came out, I could tell Horikoshi's priorities and writing style had shifted so I kinda figured the ending was not gonna go well. But yeah I never predicted just how bad it was gonna be😭 I wish he just stuck with the Heroes Rising ending, it would've been perfect (intimate battles limited to class 1A only and well-structured within a school work activity! thats perfection right there).

im really sorry the MHA fandom is having a bad time with the ending though. Let's just all cope through fanworks together, who even needs canon. MHA fans are some of the brightest and most brilliant ive ever seen. The fanart is god-tier and the fanfics are so fun and even life-changingly good. Like Horikoshi could never match edema-ruh's TWYUTD, that fanfic is actual literature. Thanks for the character designs sir, but we'll take it from here.

[kiragecko]

@lordlyhour asked me for suggestions about how to get into linguistics. I'm too wordy to stuff all my thoughts into a reply, so here's a post!

Figure out what you're curious about and look into it casually. Don't take it too seriously. Linguistics is a huge field, and it can take a while to figure out which parts really resonate, so explore!

-

You want to understand more about how language changes and develops? I suggest looking up various words on Wiktionary, and clicking on various links in the "Etymology" section. Stop in the middle of thoughts to see if random words could be connected. Read through a page of words on Old-Engli . sh and see which ones you recognize. Look up a list of English prefixes and learn about where they come from and their subtleties of meaning.

Or look up Creoles and Pidgins! They are really cool, and also, because of the way they develop to bridge communication gaps, can work is interesting primers to a lot of concepts.

If you're interested in sounds, I suggest going to a site that shows an interactable IPA alphabet, and just listening to the various sounds and trying to interpret all the gobbledy-gook describing them. I mostly just use Wikipedia these days, but IPAChart is also pretty good, and there are a lot of other sites online with similar things.

Try to transcribe your own words in IPA. (You WILL be wrong, especially if you don't speak General American or a prestige British English dialect. Accept that and have fun doing it anyways!)

Watch some videos by Dr. Geoff Lindsey or Tom Scott's Language Files.

Find a bunch of pictures of your mouth and throat when forming various vowels. Read up on all the structures in your mouth/throat and how they affect sounds.

If you have fun getting thrown in the deep end, Index Diachronica has a lot of good info about historic sound changes, and PHOIBLE has a LOT of info about what sounds languages are actually likely to use, and how complex they can get. Neither is even slightly designed for newcomers, but it can be fun to play with stuff that only sort-of makes sense!

Conlangers (people who design artificial languages) also have a lot of good beginner resources! The Language Construction Kit covers all the basics in an interesting and accessible way.

Getting a book about historical linguistics from the public library can also be a great start. It will go over all the various things about language that can change, and give you a pretty good primer to the broader field while doing it. Also, you get to read about sound changes, and how sounds diverge as languages split from each other, and I LOVE that sort of thing! It's really really neat!

Also, look up the inflection systems of at least one language, because English's case system for nouns is pathetic, and our conjugation of verbs still leaves a lot to be desired. This leaves English speakers at a disadvantage when learning linguistics, because that stuff is kinda fundamental and instead we're heavily relying on word order.

I'm not nearly as interested in syntax, semantics, and pragmatics, but look into them enough to see if anything catches your eye.

-

If there's something that seems cool, look into it more. Read up on Latin, or Proto-Indo-European, or explore the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary. Look up the Indigenous languages in your area and try to learn how to actually pronounce the street names and other locations that everyone butchers. Listen to the people around you and notice the variations in dialect. Look at ALL the various meanings of 'for' or some other tiny particle, and try to understand the nuances. Whatever it is, dig in. If something is confusing, look into that. If something is distracting, note it for later, or let yourself get sidetracked.

There are fundamentals in linguistics. It helps to learn them at some point. But please have fun first! Then you'll get a better idea of which type of fundamentals you want to invest in. Because if you're interested in word change, you want to focus on very different things then if sounds systems intrigue you, or you want to understand what's happening in your brain.

[roydeezed]

Hmmm. Ok so this isn't an idea I'm totally confident in and if ya think I'm wrong lemme know, but I think the OPLA showrunners/staff writers for the most part are anime-only's.

So a lil background, I'm a huge One Piece fan but mainly a reader. I've pretty much only gone through the anime twice. Once through east blue way back and the second time through till the timeskip in a One Pace like format. So, I wasn't too familiar with the format of the anime though I do remember feeling a vague sense of confusion when I'd watched it because things were different.

So now, I was watching this recap type thing on youtube of One Piece cause I wanted a lil refresher and the guy points out the difference between the anime and the manga and I noticed something interesting...

A lot of the structure of the live action show follows that of the anime. Such as pushing back both Zoro's and Luffy's backstory and maybe even more of a focus on the map that Nami was stealing from Buggy(a lil fuzzy on how important that was in the anime). Though those backstories aren't pushed back to the exact point as in the anime, the way they are pushed back in the live action seems to draw inspiration from how the anime did it as trigger events are needed to invoke the backstories rather than the backstories being inherent parts of the characters. Basically, it seems like the treatment of those elements in the anime either emboldened the writers/showrunners of OPLA or more likely, served as the basis for why the show is structured as it is.

When I watched OPLA I was fascinated by how it was structured, and believed there were certain interesting developments that the showrunners were going for. Now I think that belief was false and I was probably giving too much credit. Mainly because if it is true that most of the staff were operating from the anime, then a lot of stuff starts to make sense. Also, I do get that somebody like Matt Owens was a reader as he brought up Mr. 7 but otherwise I think many of the decisions and writing choices stem from experiencing One Piece through the anime.

For example the cramped pacing of OPLA is genuinely confusing when looking at Oda's masterful pacing in East Blue but completely understandable as a reaction from Hollywood writers seeing something with the pacing of the anime in east blue. And even more so, Oda is so consistent in matters like death that the death of Merry and just in general the treatment if death in OPLA is a really strange choice in relation to the manga but more understandable in a world that doesn't indulge Cover Stories like the manga does. Where the anime doesn't take the time to explore what seem to be extremely disposable side characters but Oda keeps coming back to them through these little adventures using them to show a growing and changing world.

Those are the main reasons I think the showrunners are mostly anime-only's. Though I could be totally wrong as I haven't dove too much into the bts. But what this does make me realize is that if they are anime-only's they are working off of a flawed foundation and that can result in flawed adaptation. It can result in fundamental misunderstandings and spiteful readings of the source material. I would love to know if anybody else has thoughts on this cause like I'm genuinely curious if there's thoughts or evidence to this either way. I understand I'm coming at this from a flawed understanding as well as I'm mainly a reader, but I wanna know if this makes sense.

[sweetshelluvaau]

World/Lore Building - Redoing the Rings of Hell [Pt 2.1- The Pride Ring]

Already mentioned that the reimagined Rings of Hell series is gonna be in eight parts, the first part can be found and read here which talks about the basics like color change, thoughts on the rings themselves, briefly talking about what I'd change (if none at all) or add on to of general feel and aesthetic, and with travel between rings. In this part, we're gonna talk about The Pride Ring.

This post will be touching on...a lot. So much that I'm dividing Pride into two parts. The first part being about the Ring and places within it, while the second part will talk about citizens and culture.

So, obviously, this will be under read more and likely to be looooong af so...

Okay to reblog, feedback and criticism is welcomed.

Part One: The Pride Ring in Canon

I already said in my last post that I don't mind the city hellscape Pride is going for. Is it the most creative? Not really, but I don't mind it. What I do mind however is all THE GOD DAMN RED! This is a problem with Hellaverse in general (more so Hazbin than Helluva tho) but it's a bit of an eye sore. Everything around it just all blends together. Lets add all kinds of color. In fact let's make the sky less red with more blue, purple and and gray hues the higher the sky goes with the red being more from the lights and pollution of the city below.

But let's put aside the aesthetic for a second and talk about the worldbuilding around it. Like all of Hellaverse, it leaves me with more questions than answers.

Why are Sinners stuck and only in Pride? Is there a reason for this? Why bother having other rings then if sinners of those sins aren't going to be sent to those rings? Why are Hellborn exempt from the Extermination? Wouldn't Heaven be more worried about Hellborn rising up than Sinners considering that Sinners are sent down, or at least suppose to, there to be damned for all eternality while Hellborn are born there and possibility created by the Sins themselves? Wouldn't they fear what Lucifer and the Sins/other powerful demons wanting to start a war being...well they hold the power in Hell and have legions and things? Why are Overlords as powerful as they are? What even are they? How do some of them even have powers to begin with? How did they gain those powers? Am I overthinking all of this? Am I out of touch? Am I out of time? *starts singing* Am I out of my head when you're not around?

...yeah I think I may just be loosing it at this point...

UPDATE: So as I'm writing this, some stuff from Hazbin Hotel's production leaked and we now have a map with the names of those sections:

While this doesn't change too much it has helped me a bit in writing progress.

Part Two: Redoing Pride (Aesthesis and structure)

Found this little tidbit online somewhere (I'd rant about why all this lore shit is behind a patreon paywall suppose to being in the show itself but we're getting a head of ourselves):

Okay I'm kind of curious about these 'nine circles' things and how they're different from the rings. It makes sense for Pride to be the largest and most diverse being not only do you have Hellborn that likely moved from different rings sharing their culture but you also got sinners and their different customs, religions and walks of life. It'd be really interesting to see those sent to Hell regardless if they deserve to be down there or not sharing parts of their past life with hellborn and vice versa but I'll discuss this a little later.

I decided not to incorporate the nine circles thing into my AU because it asks more questions for me than answers but will have nine main areas in my version of Pride. (I guess that is incorporating it but blah!!)

In the center we have Pentagram City, or as I'm gonna rename it The Pentagram, the hub and heart of Pride and likely where you'll land in Hell if your 'crimes' in life were related to the sin of Pride to be processed and start of your new afterlife. I'm getting rid of any other cities in the ring. IMP's office is in one of the neighborhoods in Pentagram while the Happy Hotel is right at the outer edge of it.

Then we have the surrounding areas around Pentagram: The Morningstar Grounds (Lucifer's castle and estate), The Royal Estates (rich and royal demon suburb), various other suburbs made up of Hellborn and other Fallen Angels, and The Bad Lands (basically a Mad Max like wasteland where a lot of biker/punk like gangs make their home.

The Pentagram

Basically it's close to the same idea as it is in the show except I plan to have each section of it having some sort of theme related to sin or/and cultures ruled by different overlords/gang leaders. I talked about Overlords here.

There are eleven major districts:

Red Light/Entertainment District:

Basically a mini Lust Ring but there's a bit of Gluttony in the mix too. Ya know: nightlife, drugs, sex. Basically a hedonist's wetdream. There is various other entertainment options such as bars and shops, but sex and drugs is what sells here! This is also where Voxtec's HQ is. Voxtec owns most, if not ALL of the businesses in the area and is the biggest media conglomerate in Pride (though Vox does want to expand into other rings if he can). Valentino works the sexual industry aspects of it, Vox controlling the mass media of it while Velvet works the social influencer angle while also low key playing PR because as the wise words once spoken by Cassandra Nova from the box office smash movie Deadpool and Wolverine said: Boys are so silly.

(aka Vox and Val can be pretty unhinged at times yet somehow Velvet who died in the late 2010's at the ripe age of 19-20 is more mentally stable, or at the very least no where as unhinged, than the guys that died in the 60's and 70's respectfully).

Look I think I'm funny...

Though there are businesses that have individual owners with no connections to the Vee's, don't expect those to remain independent for long. XDD

As aesthetic go: I wanted to go with the red light district vibe that I hinted at and the first thing that came to mind was Kabukichō in Shinjuku, a part of Tokyo in Japan. The lights, the sneezy bars (not all are in kabumicho obviously but the area is infamous for taking advantage of tourist and ripping them off/drugging them and stealing their money if you're not careful on where you go) plus the love hotels and host clubs.

Cannibal Town:

Basically what it says on the tin. It's basically the same as it is in the show expect it's a mixture of Sinners and Hellborn cannibals. The feel is the same as in the show but the citizens that live there aren't all stuck in the 1800's/1920's or something there's a variety of sick twisted people from different eras, but that side of town does still keeps it's vintage 1910's and small American downtown feel going for it:

Obviously Gluttony is the sin most prevalent here.

No one runs the district presay but Rosie is seen as the de facto leader due to how heavily involve she is in Cannibal Town's politics and her ownership of a few successful business in the area. Of course her personality with her kind, motherly like nature has those looking up to her for guidance also helps. She's also a Hellborn Overlord in this rewrite, granted a small timer compare to many of the others but still powerful enough to be respected. Most of the cannibal's we see in CT in the show are Hellborn as well. They're there own species in Hell that stemmed from Gluttony likely before Hell was established like it is now but eventually made their way all over Hell's rings, with the Pride ring being the biggest community.

The Old Town Historic District (will think of a better name later), REPLACES DOOMSDAY ON THE MAP!!

One of the major Hellborn centric, along with being likely the oldest district in The Pentagram, but Sinners are seen here as well even if its often advised to use caution when entering the area due to Sinners not necessarily looking fondly on. Sinners also aren't able to use most magic themselves.

The Old District is the few areas in the Pentagram that still kept it's otherworldly-ness. It's one of the major hubs for anything magic related. Potions, spell books, tomes, etc. The best, and only, place in Pride for all your magical needs. Sloth and Pride are the themes of sins you'd see here

Zestial is the Overlord (hellborn in this AU) who runs this district due to his major influence and is one, if not THE oldest Overlord to still have power.

As aesthetic go: I really want to make it otherworldly, or at least un recognizable to anything on Earth being it's one of the oldest parts of Hell. The vibe I'm going for:

And of course, book stores. Lots and lots of book stores with spells:

Industrial District

Again, what it says on the tin. Basically a mixture of warehouses, factories, and infrastructure both important to Pride and not so important. Greed is the sin most rapid here along with Sloth due to production and it shouldn't surprise people that some people from the Greed Ring (including Mammon but Ssh don't tell Lucifer xD) have some sake/power in the area due to investment opportunities. The District is also where the delivery and export of goods and services from and to Pride and other rings come and go.

I haven't decided who runs the district (Likely a Hellborn Overlord who may be secretly a proxy under Mammon because c'mon that guy IS GREED if he can get his fingers on it he'll take it.), but this is where Carmilla Carmine stores most of her goods while also producing and experimenting with angelic weapons.

Most powerful people/Overlords who do business in the area don't end up living there. They have homes in surrounding districts. If anything, the living quarters in the District are where those who live inside The Pentagram but don't have the Souls (Hell's currency) to afford anywhere better to live (or if the owner of their 'soul' forces them to live but more Overlords let those under them live wherever they want). Best way to describe these quarters are like the favelas they have in Brazil:

The Five Border Districts:

I don't have names for these sections yet but these areas are made up of both Sinners and Hellborn, but two of them are more Hellborn centric (The ones on the right near the Old District) while the other three is more Sinner territory. I.M.P Offices are in the district in between Uptown and The Red Light districts. There are two Hellborn Overlords who rule both Hellborn centric districts (Zeezi and that blue flame skeleton looking guy in E3 that I'm call Frederick Fumes for now idk he looks like Frederick xD ). I haven't figured out names for the Three Overlords who rule the other areas yet but they'll likely be OCs though I may have one being an Hellborn despite being more Sinner base. Honestly they likely won't play an important role in the stories anyways so kinda doesn't matter in the long run.

aesthetic wise they're basically a mixture of old, otherworldly and modern, closer to earth architecture depending where the lean on who populates these areas the most are.

Uptown:

What is there really to say here? xD it's an uptown area. Mostly Sinners with a mixture of Hellborn. This is where the Happy Hotel resides. The Overlord who runs the district is a good friend of the Morningstar family which is why they let Charlie set up their 'pet project' there along with whatever 'token' resources Lucifer gave her (aka an old warehouse/building no one was using and nothing else 'you're on your own kid have fun' kinda ordeal).

This is also where Alastor's Radio Station broadcasts his show from (along with the screams of souls that he's taken) every morning and when he feels like ruining Vox's day.

Aesthetic wise it's basically similar to what the Five Border Districts have going on, a mixture of old and new. Tons of bigger buildings towards Downtown while slowly turning more into row housing and smaller buildings towards the hotel.

Downtown

And the final and center district of The Pentagram: Downtown! I mean, there's not much to say about it. Tall buildings, bustling businesses, tons of restaurants, etc. This is also where Sinners who land themselves in Pride after they die go to though 'immigration' and begin their start of their new afterlife. Welcome to Hell, Bitch!

However, the most (in)famous landmark is the Heavenly Clock Tower and Embassy, where the leaders of both Hell and Heaven argue and scream at eachother discuss political matters and other issues like insulting Lucifer and some of the Sins while also making sure they understand 'their place' in the system to prevent another uprising and have them bow in submission in regard to keeping the peace. The embassy remains empty about most of the year with the exception of important meetings. If anything, it's main function is the countdown when the next Extermination is.

Aesthetic is basically the same as above with a few more angelic looking buildings closer to the clock tower/embassy, often left vacant incase Heaven chooses to use them for whatever reason in the future (aka never). There's no Overlords who run the district, mostly due to heavy monitoring from Heaven above. They want to protect their little control of Hell after all.

Okay we got The Pentagram out of the way, lets talk about the other eight sections.

The Morningstar Grounds

What it says on the tin (I know I use that saying a lot but there isn't much to describe what it is). East from The Old District, this is where Lucifer and the Morningstar family live. It's basically a huge estate, one fit for a King.

There's not much more so say. Plenty of rooms, many servants and guards (all Hellborn), a huge garden in the center where Lucifer likes to spend a share of time in in filled with exotic plants from though out Hell, as well as some of his favorites back from Heaven (he's a little more nostalgic and homesick that he leads on).

Charlie no longer lives here both due to her work for the Hotel and well...she isn't on the best terms with her father (She's still good with her mother Lilith though). I'll talk about that another day though.

Aesthetic wise I haven't fully decided on one persay but here are some ideas of what I'm possibility aiming at in regard to the castle itself:

As for it's interior: Think a lot of royal colors. Purple is one you'll see though out because, ya know Pride, and various crystal and metal embellishments. It almost has a similar architecture to Heaven but painted in more dark hues. And of course, the Estates garden:

The Royal Estates

What it says- You know, nm you know the the drill by now. A suburb where various powerful and rich clans and families make their home. Stolas' mansion is here, along with a few other established names and Ars Goetia. The most established clan of demons that live here would be The Aerius, which are basically the bird people in canon we got now. Stolas and his family, Andrealphus (who's also an Ars Goetia of course) and Asmodeus are all part of this clan (for Ozzie's sake and sanity though, he wish he wasn't. XDD). All the homes vary from more 'hellish' to looking similar to the way Stolas' home is in the show. While the suburb is mostly made up of homes, there is a little downtown like area in the center and a main street when you first enter the area with shops and restaurants along with whatever else they desire. Who wants to share a space with those sinners and hellborn presents afterall? Disgusting!

The Five other Suburbs

I'm still working this area out but there are five other suburbs to the Estates but no where as posh/not posh and kinda mundane honestly. Not interesting and likely won't be bought up much outside of maybe I.M.P visiting these areas once in a while. The major four are all hellborn being Sinners took over most of the city and they wish to stay far from them when possible, with one suburb being more imp and lower rank demon centric. the fifth one is a small area that's aimed towards Fallen Angels that aren't royalty or higher rank, but Hellborn live here as well.

(Heaven likes to deny it, but more of their ilk are declared Fallen that they claim though it isn't as common now due to cracking down on free thinkers and plenty of propaganda to keep the status quo)

Each area has it's own culture and feel due to Hellborn from around Hell live in these areas, not just those from Pride. Maybe I'll go deeper into these suburbs later on the line but there isn't much more to say right now.

The Bad Lands

And finally, lets talk about the vast lawless (not that there are any LAWS in Pride, let alone much in Hell), dangerous and unpredictable wasteland that those in Pride have titled The Bad Lands. There's no real civilization out here, only wildlife and dangers that made Hell it's home far before Lucifer's Fall, along with some creations that Lucifer himself made himself that he couldn't tame. There are a few fringed groups that made The Bad Lands their home, a lot of punk and biker gangs, mostly Sinners, along with a few hunting guilds. Cherri Bomb is a part (or at least was) of one of these gangs and Barbie may have hanged with a few of them during her party girl/relapse stage.

But why adventure out into The Bad Lands to begin with? Only someone that's either stupid or desperate for a thrill that The Pentagram doesn't offer them would dare to step foot out alone. Perhaps some are looking to build there own little community of likeminded individuals or maybe a cult they can have control over. Maybe some wish to seek out and take on the various creatures there and to sell resources gathered to those within the city, or maybe it really is as simple as taking a risk. It's not like you have anything else to lose now that you live in Hell...

The place is also used by many Overlords as a place to execut and 'dispose' of bodies (Hellborn or Sinners killed by angelic weapons) or restrained to suffer a slow death by being left to the elements/be feasted on by the wildlife there.

As aesthetics go, I wanted to go with an otherworldly feel, something you wouldn't see on Earth, but at the same time also feel familiar. Either way, its a place that screams 'fear' and 'danger'.

Anyways, not sure when I'll get the second part of this out. Hopefully sooner than later but we'll see...

Thanks for reading. Pt2 of the Pride Ring coming soon.

[mecachrome]

https://www.tumblr.com/mecachrome/755898222862548992/httpsxcomthisisformu1a1status181200033146074?source=share

This anon reminded me how last year Jenson said that Oscar lacked personality (around the Mexican GP) and then blamed Oscar for the Imolia incident in qualifying even though Tom said it was his mistake. He seriously has a problem with Oscar.

As for the second part, McLaren has a serious operational problem because Oscar was unable to complete a clean lap in qualifying due to a team error. I know that McLaren last fought for regular victories in 2012 and that returning to the top costs many mistakes that have to be made during this process, but these mistakes must end quickly. Especially now that Mercedes has joined the group of teams that fight for something bigger than only points. I'm really curious about the next two races.

hi anon! LOL yes i recall having thoughts on that incident but i don't remember the exact quote, would you happen to have it somewhere? i don't want to get too tinhatty on this but i do feel like jenson sometimes doesn't really know how to feel about oscar... to be clear he's definitely been complimentary before and obviously isn't constantly lambasting him or anything but it's true that a lot of his quotes about oscar tend to be somewhat... measured + occasionally veering into critical??? personally it amuses me a little because a lot of people (incl jenson's colleagues) compare him and oscar personality-wise and constantly talk about oscar's "maturity" & he and oscar have similar contractgate lore except between the two of them oscar is the one who came out on the better side, and it makes me think of how jenson kind of enjoys being the Unaffected Mature guy around younger drivers and is used to being an object of idolization so he's kind of just like .....? what am i supposed to do with this one. but that's just how i see it hlsdkfh i totally get if people are put off overall 🙇‍♀️

anyway re: more important point!!! i totally agree with you, so many of oscar's biggest "what-ifs" have come off the back of mclaren compromising his qualifying performance instead of his own lack of pace which is deeply frustrating as an oscar fan. speaking of their previous competitive era though it's kind of funny that that was literally with jenson AND that tom was on his side of the garage during his entire mclaren tenure (also andrea was race engineering nando at the time... that man is immortal) 😭 but yes, overall the personnel in the team has changed massively since then so it's not really the same "team" anymore and it makes sense that they're struggling with the transition, but as you said there's a lot of urgency behind getting to the other side as quickly as possible now that mercedes have found better form. the thing is that coming into the season the goal from leadership was always cautiously structured around "fighting for wins," so in that sense we've accomplished the goal and are in a good position, but obviously we now need to push toward "winning the championship" with much more insistency and there are clearly still pieces missing. i don't have many hopes for the wcc this year because the fact that there are always teams duking it out in the top 4 (ferrari were stronger than us at the start of the season, but now that they've fallen off we're still getting points taken away because of merc's competitiveness) means it's difficult to meaningfully make up those numbers on red bull so i'm not very optimistic about that 🤷‍♀️ but that being said i'm still excited and intrigued by how the next few races will go!!! especially since spa is 2nd and we all know how oscar feels about it 🥺

[star-spangled-bastard]

Well since you reblogged that post about being open to asks, I'm curious. What drew you in the first place to Northmoor and Ash as a pairing, and what was the impetus for wanting to write Sacred Geometry?

Thanks for the ask! Initially I thought what little info we get in the Foundation DLC was really interesting. I like the idea of them together as part of the apparent pattern of the Directors and Heads of Research seemingly gravitating to each other! Based on the in-game documents they didn't get along, at least in the initial expedition, so I knew it would take a lot for them to start to trust each other and even remotely get along. That in itself was a fun idea. My basis for their stances softening is that everyone was extremely stressed during that expedition, and Ash was, if not grieving, still dealing with whatever mixed feelings he had about Ash Sr. So I could see part of his distaste for Northmoor being that he wasn't in a good state to deal with his kind of personality, or the power trip he went on after making contact with The Board. I had vaguely wanted to write something about the pre-canon administration but didn't have a concrete (no pun intended) plan at first. When I was trying to come up with a title for Point of Contention, I had thought about the phrase "sacred geometry" since Hedron/Polaris are also a geometric structure like The Board. But I pretty much immediately decided to save that title for the pre-canon fic. And I basically started writing it as soon as Point of Contention was done. I planned on it being a oneshot like everything else, and it was going to focus on Northmoor's appointment as Director, increasing rise in power, and tragic fate. I went into it planning to examine the gradual change in Ash and Northmoor's sentiments towards each other but I was thinking it would be a trajectory from "bad" to "lukewarm" or at best mixed feelings. But I ended up having a lot more of Ash's pov than I originally planned once it got too long to not be split into chapters. And as the only other pov character until basically the end, he ended up with the line I was determined to keep in about wanting to bury his face in Northmoor's shirt because it smells like clothes right out of the dryer. (This is based on experience btw. When it's cold out I like to stand close to the forge and cotton shirts will actually heat up and give off that nice clean laundry smell. I like to think some FBC agents would find that feature appealing, though they'd probably be too afraid of him to get that close). The decision to give that line to Ash was made maybe halfway through so I just kind of ran with the idea of there being a lot of complicated feelings between them that they really just don't have a chance to work out because of all the other circumstances. That really helped shape one of the themes going on where the pyrokinesis itself is like a kind of repression. They physically can't touch each other. There is also the undercurrent of "I could love this person but my deity of choice wouldn't like it" which wasn't an intentional thing but it fits with the other themes going on in there. The main one I consciously worked toward was Ash being sort of representative of humanity and The Board of course as some divine power, so Northmoor is caught halfway between both and struggling over whether or not to abandon what humanity he has left to become like a god or to risk The Board's wrath for the sake of just being human when they demand more. That made his emotional connection to Ash make sense to me, and their growing closeness indicating him deciding (too late) that he'd rather side with humanity.

This is turning into an essay, so I'll stop here. I think I've linked this one song before in an ask game, but I'll embed it in its own post. It's a perfect vibe for what I thought the tone of the epilogue was going to be vs where it ended up

[supergito]

Fusion Revived - CH 9 (The Dream of One)

➤ This story is actually complete (finished Sep 2021) over on my Ao3 already; I'm just publishing it here on tumblr too for archival purposes. I hope any and all curious readers enjoy if they haven't checked it out yet!

SUMMARY: Majin Buu has been destroyed, and the Earth has known peace for close to a year now. Life hasn't been too peaceful for the person responsible for saving the world and the entire universe however, but when an ordinary woman meets him one day, things start to change.

RATING: Teen and Up. PAIRING(S): Vegito x OC/Reader, alluded Gochi, alluded Vegebul CONTENT: Canon Divergence, Slow Burn, Friends to Lovers, Family Drama CW(s) THIS CHAPTER: None.

She had to make another delivery to Dr. Brief. This was the perfect opportunity.

It’s been long enough, almost two weeks. Surely Bulma would’ve settled in nicely with Vegeta again by now, so there wouldn’t be much of a risk of igniting the scientist’s anger if she showed her face. Theoretically.

She had to take it either way. She wanted Vegito back, more than anything, and that dragon radar was a must to have. It would’ve been far more logical to have Goku get it for her like he offered to, but she needed to step up here. She felt that she owed it to Vegito.

~

This time, Dr. Brief was waiting for her. She entered the building, toting an even larger stack of folders than last time. The CEO was standing by the front desk, and ceased his discussion with the employee there when she approached.

“Ah, thank you my dear! You and your department make my life so much easier.” The man smiled. The small black cat on his shoulder mewled, and her somber mood lessened at the cute sound.

“It’s no problem, sir.” She cleared her throat. She didn’t know where the woman was in the building, and she’d rather not waste time wandering around, so she took her chance here.

“If I may ask, is Bulma in today? I need to speak with her.”

“Yes, she’s in. I can take you to her office.”

“That would be great, thank you.” She’s thankful he didn’t question why she needed to talk to his daughter, but since she had the position she did, he likely assumed it was related to business.

Dr. Brief led her down a series of halls, going past the familial quarters and deeper into the rest of the structure. As they walked, with she keeping a close but loose distance from the doctor, her mind reeled.

Bulma telling her no would be the worst end to this. If she really wanted to go that route, she could ask Goku to take the radar from her anyway, but what good would that do in the end? He was one of her closest friends to boot, maybe he would take offense at she suggesting to go against the woman’s words. Maybe Bulma would try to punish her via legal means to top it off, and that was a headache she did not want in the slightest.

When Dr. Brief led her to the door of his daughter’s office, and left her standing there, she tried to calm her racing heart.

*knock knock*

A balled hand gently struck metal, and she waited with bated breath.

“Come in.”

A feminine voice called from the other side. Not wanting to let her anxiety freeze her solid, she immediately opened the door.

Blue eyes made contact with hers, and their owner went stiff.

“Hi.” She spoke, though the strain in her tone was blatant. “Hope you aren’t busy right now, because I need to talk to you.”

“…About what?”

Bulma’s response was tense, but it lacked hostility, something she was grateful for.

“Your dragon radar. I need it.”

“Why?”

The scientist asked in a raised tone of voice. She could see that the blue-haired woman surely became suspicious now, as her stare harshened into a glare. She stepped further into the room to partially close the door behind her, just in case Bulma started shouting.

“I want to use the dragon balls to wish Vegito back. As his own person.”

She quickly added in the latter sentence, knowing that implying she wanted to refuse Goku and her husband would’ve surely set her off. Her hunch was right, as she did see the spike of fury in Bulma’s blue irises, before it fizzled away just as fast. Curiosity was left in its place.

“His own person? You mean, separate from Vegeta and Goku?”

“Yes. I don’t know if the dragon can do it, but I want to still try.”

“… … …” Bulma went silent, and stared at her closely. She could tell the scientist was examining her, trying to get a better feel of things. This is the first time they’ve properly spoken to each other, and since their first ‘meeting’ involved something that people would see in tv dramas, she couldn’t blame Bulma for being on guard. She’s thankful Chi Chi wasn’t around, as from the exchange of words they had previously, she got the impression that the Son matriarch was the far more emotionally volatile one.

If it were Chi Chi she had to ask the radar for, she had no doubt the woman wouldn’t have bothered to hear her out, refusing because of sheer bitterness…probably pettiness too. Bulma at least hasn’t chased her off yet.

“Well,” Bulma leaned back in her chair. “I don’t see a reason why I shouldn’t give you the radar. I know that you…meant a lot to Vegito. And, I guess he meant a lot to you as well, since you’re here now.”

Considering how the fusion was her ex-husband in a way, she expected Bulma to express a little irritation at the minimum, but she instead started smiling slightly. A more solemn, vaguely sad light entered her eyes.

“Speaking of that…I wanted to apologize to you.”

“To me?” She asked, eyes widening. “For what?”

“…For basically taking Vegito away from you, like that. I’ve done some thinking about it since then, and it struck me that it was…very heartless of me.”

Unsure of how to respond, she stayed quiet. Bulma continued, looking down at her desk and tapping a finger.

“It was difficult, adjusting to him being around. The idea that I would never see Vegeta again…it hurt. Every time I looked at Vegito, I saw Vegeta. But, he wasn’t him. It got to the point that in my eyes, Vegito was almost like…a ghost. In a weird way.” She chuckled, though it contained little humor.

“When he told Chi Chi and I that he didn’t want to be with either of us, it made that feeling worse. He was…fascinating I have to admit, but he confused me. I was so frustrated over everything, what Buu and his handler did, and how Vegito was a permanent reminder of it, that I…never tried to understand how he felt about it all.”

“…It was just a bad, complicated time.” The reassurance left her lips involuntarily. She kept talking, briefly looking down at the ground.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t hate you…or Chi Chi. Took me awhile to stop feeling angry, but I understand why you two made the wish. You don’t have to apologize.”

She cleared her throat. “All I want is Vegito back, and in a way where you and Chi Chi can keep your husbands. It’ll be a happy ending for everyone.”

“Hm.” The scientist brightened up. “You’re right. And honestly, I shouldn’t exactly apologize to you anyway. It’s Vegito who deserves it.”

After everything she and Chi Chi did to him, how they treated him… The memories troubled Bulma. She vividly remembered the last thing Vegito told she and Chi Chi before he left in a fury, and soon, left this world altogether. That bridge between them had absolutely burned to ash, but she felt driven to see if another bridge could be built. If ill feelings could be forgiven, and let go.

Bulma pushed such thoughts back for now, and pulled out a drawer in her desk to remove something from it.

“Here.” The scientist held out a circular, white device with a knob at the top of it. Its screen was currently black, as it was powered off. She moved forwards to take it.

“This is the radar. You’ll know whenever the dragon balls become active again with this, which should be in about…”

“Four months.” She cut in. “Goku told me.”

“Oh?” Bulma looked amused. “You’ve spoken with him?”

“Yeah. He came to visit me a while ago. With the Instant Transmission thing.”

“I see. I’m assuming he already knows about you wanting the radar?”

“Yes. He said that he would go gather the dragon balls for me.”

“Sounds like you both have it all figured out. All there’s left to do, is to wait for the dragon balls to re-activate. I’ll trust the radar to you until then. You seem very responsible, but try not to lose it. Those things aren’t easy to make, believe it or not.”

“Right. I’ll take good care of it.” She gripped the contraption tightly.

It was all riding on Shenron now. If the dragon couldn’t bring Vegito back, then she would have to live with that. Easier said than done. She not holding what happened against the two other women aside, she knew that she would never get over how abruptly she and the Saiyan were ripped apart.

She never got to say goodbye to him. That alone made her not want to accept him being gone. So, she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t even try to, until Shenron was summoned.

…To think, she’s going through all this effort to revive someone who she thought would just be an annoying acquaintance and nothing more…

“Well, I guess I’ll be seeing you.” She turned to walk out of the room, but paused when Bulma spoke up again.

“Before you leave…let’s exchange phone numbers. Just to keep in better contact, in case something goes wrong with the radar.”

“…Ok.” That was good enough logic for her.

After they registered one another as a contact in their cellphones, she bid Bulma a temporary farewell and left the room. After she closed the door and turned back around to make her way down the hall, she was stopped by someone who was standing nearby.

A short, purple-haired boy with blue eyes that looked up at her with an awfully piercing gaze. Despite being 9 years old, Trunks had a bit of an intimidating air to him. Considering who his parents were, she wasn’t surprised.

“You’re really going to try to wish Vegito back?” He bluntly asked, arms crossed.

So, he was eavesdropping…that also didn’t surprise her.

“Yes.” She paused, feeling awkward. It wasn’t every day that she spoke with kids, and unlike Goten, Trunks didn’t seem to be that amiable.

“Do you…not want that?”

“Never said I didn’t. It’s just surprising. I guess you really are his girlfriend.”

“Girlfr-” She started then stopped, the heat of embarrassment immediately rushing to her face. It took some strength, but she managed to keep her voice level.

“Kid, I’m not his girlfriend.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know if he likes me like that; not that it’s important anyway. I just want him alive again.”

At this, Trunks lost the edge he carried. Similar to Bulma, his expression fell; becoming vaguely remorseful.

“…Sorry…” He muttered. She knew what he was referring to, without he needing to say it. Perhaps he had involvement in it somehow, but the details didn’t matter to her at this point. She mustered a smile, even though her heart was still beating at a quickened pace because of the boy’s earlier remark.

“It’s fine. If this works, all will be well.”

Trunks merely nodded, and didn’t say anything else; keeping his stare fixed on the ground. She took this as her cue to leave, as she had to get back to her work place anyhow.

She headed down to the main entrance, but to her surprise, a familiar spiky-haired man left a room just as she came near it. She ignored how her heart jumped, especially when he turned to face her. Off the bat, she noticed that he was…about as tall as she was. A touch endearing, but she wouldn’t dare voice it out loud.

“Uh…” She gulped. “Hi…Vegeta.”

The man’s face was neutral, mouth forming a line. His eyes were in a scowl, but she detected no anger or unfriendliness in his stare. If anything, he regarded her in a faintly…soft manner. It was almost identical to a look she caught Vegito giving her one time…

Vegeta nodded in acknowledgement, but didn’t speak. He stepped past her and down the hall, in the direction she came from. She watched the Saiyan go, but recalled what she was doing before, and resumed on her way.

She walked down many halls, exiting Capsule Corp with the dragon radar tucked safely into her bag, feeling more hopeful that she’d get to see the smug warrior again soon.

                                                                                                             ༻ ❁ ༺

Her office door suddenly slammed open, making her jump.

“She was talking to you about something.” Her visitor gruffly stated, entering without waiting for approval and pushed the door shut behind him.

“What was it?”

“…It was about the dragon radar. She wants to wish Vegito back to life, with his own existence separate from you and Goku. Didn’t Goku tell you?”

“No. The clown’s been too focused on his family, I suppose.”

Vegeta snorted, and crossed his arms. Bulma smirked.

“Well, that’s why she was here. In four months, if her plan succeeds…there’ll be another pure-blooded Saiyan around. However unnatural his origins are.” She hummed thoughtfully. He tsked.

“You say that as if it means anything to me.”

“Maybe it does…or doesn’t. But obviously, Vegito’s powerful. Stronger than you and Goku even. Does THAT mean anything to you?”

“…Hmph. We’ll see.”

Was all Vegeta said in return, before taking his leave. Bulma knew, from the bottom of her heart, that he was going to train. And be training for a while.

She shook her head, entertained by her husband’s seemingly indifferent demeanor. She was aware that he wouldn’t take being the third best on the planet and likely in this universe sitting down, but despite how devoted he’ll be to sticking to the gravity room, she was thankful he was even here at all.

…It reminded her of what had to be lost first. She sincerely hoped things would work out.

[tasteleeknow]

hey jade! i recently became active on tumblr again and I saw that you've started a new job!!! congo!!! (also yaas the adhd meds woke a new version of me when I first started them lolll. never knew I could be so productive tbh)

i remember sometime ago you said that your basic outline for hello stranger was for like 10 chapters?? do you feel like that has changed over the progress of the fic? i wanna write some things for myself too but I'm terrible at planning :( do you feel like you have changed significant plot points or character traits instead of how you initially envisioned them??

im sorry but i just love the way you write and I'm soo curious abt the brainwork that goes behind it

(im sorry if the tone of this msg comes off as pushy. I'm on laptop and I'm feeling too lazy to copy/paste emojis because my laptop doesn't support them :(( )

hi! (the adhd meds have allowed me to accomplish things ive been putting off for actual years, its insane)

its def longer than 10 chapters at this point yeah. i'd say maybe 15 but again i dont know bc i end up adding scenes as i go, beyond my outline.

planning sucks and you dont need to do spend ages on it if you hate it (like me). i use a method where i brainstorm at the very start like super super vague basic outline of my idea and how it will progress as a story (start/status quo, external/internal obstacles or conflicts, dark moment, final conflict, closing). then i just say fuck it and see what happens as i go. it usually ends up completely different than the starting outline. i often edit the outline as it changes with each chapter.

THEN i draft without editing bc editing will keep you (me) stalled forever. just write the chapter/one shot without intending for anyone to read it at all. the first draft is just for your eyes. the sentences can be as ugly and as grammatically incorrect as you want.

like im serious, no editing. aim to not go back and edit at all just word vomit into google docs or whatever until ur brain is empty. pretend you cant move the cursor. you are using a typewriter (with a really fancy backspace feature that you get to use sometimes, so lucky and spoiled). NO REREADING AND OBSESSING OVER PHRASING AND VOCAB AND DIALOGUE AND SENTENCE STRUCTURE. attempting to perfect every part as i write it..... worst possible writing method.

then when ur empty and ur ideas are out of ur head... u can begin editing. which is my least favourite part of the entire process. read it over and over and stew and think abt how u could be better and then remember its just for fun and then stew some more and second guess everything and never write again (until u do).

that's my process.

thanks for asking, i love talking abt writing!!

(and it doesn't come off as pushy at all, ur all good!)

p.s i often just give up on editing and let it be bc i will stew forever (i'm a struggling perfectionist) so yeah editing can die

[rhythmantics]

So first of all, I did not know you had a tumblr??? Second It Will Not Obey You SLAPS. And third my question: How in god's name did you do so much research for your fic??? What is your secret. How do you go about organizing or even knowing where to start for that matter. I struggle with research cause I never know where to start or stop and often I'm really uncertain if the info I'm gathering is even needed or if it's extraneous. I am both stupid and a perfectionist HELP ME

Hi Anon, thank you so much! I always appreciate viewer support and I hope you're enjoying all the art on this blog that isn't in the fic. In any case, I don't know if this method will work for you, or if it's how other authors do research, but here's my process. It's pretty long, so I'll put it under a cut for you:

First, I start with a story. When I say story, I don't really mean a beginning-middle-end, this happens and then that happens; it's a little more vague than that. For me, a story is more like a feeling, some truth or impulse, and all the writing or plot structure or everything else is built around it. I don't generally bother with things like plot structures (which I think should be descriptive and not prescriptive anyway), and I do make outlines, but you'd be surprised by how barren they are. Here's the original from 2016, with some spoilers blacked out:

And as you can see, I threw about half of it away during the writing process, haha. A surprising amount remains, though!

Something that comes about from approaching the story as a single entity is that oftentimes, things just fall into place. A big fight taking place in the congo where most of the cryptids from the Kur flash-forwards get called up, or the gang getting shot down over the Amazon like in the first two episodes of the show - little coincidences like this happen all the time. I think it's because, while writing, my brain starts making connections that I'm not consciously aware of - I often go by what "feels correct," and I've rewritten whole chapters multiple times before to chase that feeling of "correct."

How that ties into research is twofold: first, I'm a naturally curious person, and I'm constantly reading about stuff like mythology or ancient history or science etc. on my own. I like to have an approximate knowledge of many things - that way, there's more for my brain to make connections to. For example, I already knew about the chinese five-element system (wuxing), and remembered mystic hotspots from the show, and Excalibur, and video games, so when I decided on a plot device to keep Zak and Francis together during the main story, it was fairly easy to land on the idea of a quest to power up a special weapon only Francis can wield by hitting up mystical hotspots, each one themed after one of the wuxing.

The second part of the process is this: I have the general vibe or concept of the story in my head, and now I've settled on something concrete plot-wise - the magic weapon wuxing powerup quest. That makes it really easy to start researching specific details. I know I need a magic weapon, and I know this magic weapon has to be tied to Sumerian mythology, so I start digging around in Sumerian mythology for magic weapons, and find Sharur, the talking mace wielded by the Sumerian god Ninurta. Then I do some more research into the wuxing and see that each element is attached to a color, so those are the colors Sharur changes into. Now, a big part of the original show was its globetrotting nature, so obviously, I need to make each of these hotspots a different part of the globe. (And incidentally, "mythic hotspot" doesn't really roll off the tongue, so I rooted around myths for power spots etc. and found the Quechuan word "huaca," which has a meaning very similar to what I'm trying to make each huaca out to be).

So I scatter the huacas out so they're all roughly equidistant to each other, and none are too similar in geography or concept, and we go back to existing connections: I want to have one in China, because 1) I'm Chinese, 2) there's plot reasons (Sharur uses the wuxing because it was enchanted by a Chinese guy), 3) China has a long history comparable to India, the latter of which already featured extensively in the show. So I root around for the "secret science" parts of Chinese history and stumble across this semi-mythical Xia dynasty with its emperor who may or may not exist. That feels very Secret Saturdays to me, so Yu the Great and his tomb are now the second huaca. Now, we know so little about Yu the Great that there's not too much to draw from for how his tomb looks, but I already know about the tomb of Qin Shi Huang - his tomb's excavation was put on pause because ancient records spoke of him having a scale mercury replica of China complete with flowing mercury rivers, and while these claims were initially considered massive exaggerations if not outright lies, they DID find a TON of mercury in the tomb, making them go "unless..."

Mercury obviously fits right in with this huaca being "metal"-themed, so it's a perfect reference. The idea of a scale replica of China was blown up into the idea of a magically-powered VR simulation of ancient China. Now I need a cryptid for this arc, and hey, howdy, turns out Yu the Great has a serpent-slaying myth, Xiangliu! And what's this? Xiangliu's blood was so virulently poisonous that after it was slain, when the floodwaters came, the land became barren! There is such a strong pro-environement and pro-taking care of animals even when they seem monstrous vibe in TSS that if this story is seen through the lens of TSS, it looks a lot like a cautionary tale for why you don't just murder rampaging animals - they're natural parts of their natural environments, and there are repercussions for messing too much with the food chain.

And hey, doesn't that sound like a lesson Francis should learn? The last huaca, we got as far as Francis going from "I don't want to be here" to "I guess I'm stuck here." This huaca, we need to highlight how different he and Zak are, and how shortsighted - and human - Francis's ideals are, where he repeats Yu the Great's mistake, and humanity's mistakes as a whole.

Again, a lot of these connections aren't necessarily being made consciously. In the moment, they just sort of "feel right," which I know is unhelpful, but I can't really explain it any other way.

For an arc that had more secondary research than already knowing things ahead of time, the arc in the Congo took the longest to write (there was a two-year hiatus between it and the previous arc), in large part because I had so little to go off of. Myths from the Congo area are fairly sparse on the ground (for many reasons), and the ones I did find didn't really feel very TSS or IWNOY. I knew that this was the arc where everything went to shit - that we'd been building to that for a while - but I didn't have in my notes exactly how things went to shit, or even what the huaca was going to be. I knew it would be wood-themed, but this being the Congo Rainforest, pretty much anything I did would count. I knew I wanted to do something with the origin of humanity and/or the lemurians, because Africa was where humans first evolved.

So, actually, I wound up doing research into pretty much everything - all the cryptids from the area, all the myths from the area I could find. Previously, in my research on lemurians when working out what their Deal would be, I found out that a lot of writings on lemurians came from occultists in the 1900s, who also had many (racist and misogynistic) writings about where THEY think the first humans come from, about mystical ancient societies that were hyper advanced, etc. etc., which fit with the way that the lemurians seemed to have a veritable magical paradise in Shangri-La before the nagas massacred them. I could at least use the names from these hippies, because I couldn't find comparable mythology from the actual area, but I stripped out the... less savory parts.

I wanted to use the eloko/biloko when I found them, because their myths give them magic bells that compel people who hear it to do what they want - much like how the lemurian's charisma was set up (this being one of those interesting little coincidences that happen when the story "feels right.") Doubly so when I found out that eloko/biloko sleep in trees, which - wood-themed huaca. But I still wasn't really... piecing anything together.

So I switched tracks and started looking into Gilgamesh, the man, the myth, the legend, at the center of this all. Read the Epic of Gilgamesh (or, re-read, rather), and found the myth regarding Utnapishtim and Gilgamesh's quest for eternal life. An old man gifted by immortality from the gods? Given that I already had in my notes that the lemurians struck a deal with the devil with Kur and became what they are, and the eloko/biloko were a failure as a result of the lemurians going "wait, not like this" halfway through, Utnapishtim sounded like he could fit in as a lemurian from this original hullabaloo. And in the original Gilgamesh myth, the plant Utnapishtim points Gilgamesh to, which would grant him all his youth and vitality back, gets stolen from him by a serpent. Hey, nagas!

Okay, so now I had the origin of the lemurians, Utnapishtim's character being involved, even a hook for the nagas, and thus Argost, but it still wasn't coming together. SO...

... I gave up and started looking at biblical stuff. I'm a sellout hack. BUT, at least you can argue that biblical stuff is always potentially relevant, because the Saturday line has biblical names (Zakariya/Zechariah, Solomon, Elijah, Samuel) and Zak is set up with a minor Jesus reference (sacrifices himself for the good of mankind, is dead for 3 (minutes) and is resurrected). Specifically, I started looking into the "secret science" part of biblical stuff - apocrypha, or non-canonical texts. There's tons of interesting stuff in there, but it turned out to be mostly useless, aside from the chapter titles, but it did help to form this idea of making deals and regretting them - and I'm realizing now as I'm writing this that this was another one of those unconscious connections - ch12 is literally named after the part in Goethe's Faust where Faust makes his deal with Mephistopheles ("Die Wette biet ich" - "the bet I offer").

So now that I'd been freed to do biblical stuff (which, hey, also fits in with the wood theme, because Garden of Eden, get it?), I had access to the imagery of the snake tempting eve with fruit. And suddenly, everything started to come together. Themes of trying to defy what you are by nature, the nagas as betrayers, Kur and its entourage as demons, getting what you wished for but at what cost, a fall into darkness as the major players fail to defy their natures (and the consequences that result) - once I started, I couldn't stop.

So it's a bit hard to answer your question because it's all so intuitive, but I guess if I really had to say, the real answer to where to start and where to end is to just pick a topic you like so much that you wouldn't mind doing tons of research on it, even if most of it winds up being unusable. I LOVE ancient history and mythology, so even if nothing I read is useful, I don't mind reading. And not minding the reading means I have so much already floating around in my head for when I need to write something new. If you forced me to write, say, a crime drama or sci-fi story - two fields I have much less interest and much less knowledge on - I would also be pretty lost! At that point, I'd have two options - either I write something by the numbers just to get it done, or I do enough reading on the topic that I find something about it to love and care about, and then write based on that.

I think more is always better. Anything you don't immediately use becomes a potential connection for something else down the line. I'd say a good 30% of weird little factoids featured in IWNOY are things I knew before I did research for it, and now, for other projects I'm doing, the stuff I learned for IWNOY sometimes becomes relevant.

And I would always try not to worry too much about overstuffing or making your first draft bad. The secret is, most of the actually good writing happens in the editing. Your first draft exists for the purpose of existing. It's fine if it's riddled with holes, if the dialogue sucks, if there's way too much exposition and "essay-style writing" (what I like to call it when you randomly infodump all the research you've done - I've done this sooooo many times), or if it's so bad you have to delete the whole thing and start over (this is a regular part of my writing process!). The point of draft 1 is to throw the damn spaghetti against the damn wall. Edits and revisions are where you tastefully arrange it so that it's good and an art piece, haha.

[andromedaexists]

Hello I am gracing your inbox to give you the excuse to exposite about Desecrate changes because I am the epitome of that one Spiderverse meme waiting to hear about it. I'm curious. Pretend there's an eye emoji here I'm on my laptop

HI HELLO ALEX I WILL GLADLY TALK ABOUT THE CHANGES

There are mainly two (2) sections of changes: academic changes and structural changes. The structural changes are much more spoiler ridden though, so as soon as I feel like there's more in depth information being talked about imma throw it under a cut

So. Academic changes

I have talked a little bit about the creation of Desecrate and where the idea came from, but that was a long time ago at this point. Desecrate became a WIP in late 2022 when I was taking a class called Ancient Christianities with the amazing Professor Larson (whom I miss dearly now that I am graduated)

This class, as the name implied, focused on the Ancient sources of Christianity and really the birth of the religion (specifically the start of the organization of religion after the death of Jesus and all that). we learned a lot about the proto-orthodox christians, what processes and theologies went into the creation of the canon texts, the heresies that were birthed in the time between the life of Jesus and unification of the church, and looking into the texts themselves and what qualifies them as canon-worthy or not. I took this class at the request of a good friend of mine (I see you, Vinny. I am never taking a class you recommend again) who was a religious studies concentration, though it wasn't hard to convince me seeing as I have a history of academic interest into Catholicism specifically.

The section of that class I really focused on, though, was the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Nag Hammadi library, and the heresies of Gnosticism and Marcionism. All this to say, I looked at all these and went "what if the heresies became the dominant beliefs? how would that change our current Abrahamic religions?"

That is what Desecrate was based on. However, I have recently had an academic shift from this to something more along the lines of "what if the beliefs the heresies were based on is correct, but they went about it in a really fucked way and also the universe course corrected to cover up this change?" I am now more interested in picking apart the Church as it currently stands and incorporating more themes of "the Church lies" and "the Church hides stuff" than I am at looking at a full alternate history.

Okay this is getting long now and also about to get spoilery so here's the cut:

So basically, while I originally intended for there to be 2 Gods with one chained in the basement and needing to be freed, it has shifted from "that's just the way the church is, look at the history" to "This is really fucked up that the Church hid this information for so long and literally lied to the world's face when confronted about it"

Another major thing that has changed is the structure of the story. In a couple ways.

First, Desecrate was supposed to be a novella. It was supposed to be a short, quick, and punchy story about this kid who finds God trapped in the basement and wants to get fucked by them. That's it.

Desecrate is now a full length novel, actually it's looking to be the longest things I've written! It's going to be a tome of a book split into sections based on a prayer I said growing up. And that was a bit issue and most of the reason why I'm starting over. I started this as a novella, but the pacing stayed as that of a novella even as I expanded it. The dream sequences were just moving too fast, the characters were developing at a rate that would leave them stagnant by halfway through the book, and I just didn't know how to fix it.

Another thing that's changed is the ending. The original ending that I planned the entire story of Desecrate around was an open ending. It was a "Oh my God you found God and you're freeing them and also you're the messiah?" then a cut to black. That's it. End of story.

Then, I was like "okay but what if they escaped and then walked away from humanity and the church and disappeared forever?" to which I went "nah I don't like that that invites a sequel". Then it became "okay so I need to figure out what happens after this scene. I can have this scene, cut to black, then we hit the last quarter of the book and the last prayer transition" to which I realized that no matter what I try, I can't think of another way to end this. Kit's story was meant to be open ended, it was meant to be a story of learning to live with who you are and there will never be an ending satisfying enough for me on that. This story is a love letter to the kid I was growing up, and I can't end that story yet when that kid never got theirs.

Speaking of that last quarter, though, another major part of Desecrate that's changed is the way I use the prayer and dream sequences. The prophetic dreams were a lot more important to the story in it's original iteration. The prayer that the story was created around is this one:

Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep If I shall die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take

This is a prayer I grew up saying, one that I forgot about until roughly late 2022. It is one that has become incredibly important to me again as I learned that not a lot of people know that prayer in the area I was raised in. I had to say it every night, though, and I've started to piece together a reason why (that I'm not going to go into depth about here but I will say it is chronic illness related).

So the story takes place in Kit's dreams for the most part after he says his prayer before bed, right? Not anymore.

Now the story is mostly in the waking world, though Kit still has prophetic dreams. It's just become more along the lines of "i don't know what these dreams are and I feel like I'm losing my mind because of them" and then finding out what they mean through his studies and the guiding hand of a scholar.

So yeah, these are the majority of the differences in what Desecrate was pre-scrap and post-scrap. Also I was forced (/hj) to sit down and create a usable time based outline for Desecrate by Clanky when we were in VA and now I have a masturbation calendar for out boy Kit. Just quirky things, y'know?

[the-real-lyra-vale]

I accidentally started working on an ancient WIP again.

im having some inspiration for an older story that i never finished…… that will need significant structural changes eventually which is why i quit writing it…………….. but also i have this new story………………… that im less interested in 😩

Okay, so I ended up diving into it. Just a bit of background, it's like a contemporary teen romance. It was all i wrote for a long time because someone told me "write what you know" and i took it too literally and thought i couldn't write about magic because im not a wizard.

ANYWAY, this story is so confusing to me. it's like, completely awful, obviously. but it's really just some of the dialogue is how i talked as a young teen and reading it now has me wanting to choke on a fork. I started writing it when I was 17 so im not terribly surprised about that.

suprisingly, i love this thing.

the visceral feeling of completely flipping the fuck out when you're near your crush in only the way a very horny emotional teen can, juxtaposed with the crush just being absolutely chill about eveything, is fucking mesmerizing. like one of the boys is a very anxious/everything must be perfect/holyfuckhe'sinmyroom/looking crazy in front of a conspiracy corkboard but about movies/bedroom is spotless/addicted to redbull even though it fucks with his medication kind of guy. and the other one is just a very quiet/thinks about everything he says before he says it/was sheltered growing up so he's just reverently curious about all the stuff he never got to do/also having the crush on the other boy but is being normal about it kind of guy.

This relationship dynamic is something fucking else. And I think I had to not think about it or look at it at all for 5 years to even remotely see anything good about it, but I'm so glad I did.

[vriskarlmarx]

this past year i sort of unexpectedly ended up writing regularly again, for the first time in years. i blame cassian andor's big wet baby cow eyes, but overall it's been a really fun hobby to take up again. i'm gonna do a little reflection on what i wrote in 2023 (fanfic-wise, i wrote some other stuff too but won't talk about it here).

putting this under a read more since it's mostly just for me to talk to myself, pulling a few questions i found interesting from other writers i follow who are doing this sort of thing (feel free to take the questions for yourself too!)

how many fics did you write in 2023? how many total words?

as it turns out, a total of 16, and it totaled out to 45.578 words. which is kind of lot considering that the last time i wrote fanfic was in 2019 and all 1000ish words felt like pulling teeth, and the time before that had been 2013. so i'm very happy with it!

what are you most proud of, fic-writing-wise in 2023?

a few different things:

being able to maintain a consistent rhythm and interest in writing

being able to connect my own feelings and experiences to those of different characters, which i think gave my writing some additional layers

experimenting with a few different structures (i get bored just writing a standard linear narrative sometimes, i think)

putting more actual thought into character/plot/theme analysis. i think writing fanfic made me engage with the things i was watching/reading in a different way

what fic meant the most to you to write?

definitely No Return Address. it was a pinch hit for yuletide but it hit me like a baseball bat, it ended up being crazy personal and the feedback has been better than anything i could've hoped for. i could talk for a very long time about everything that fic means to me personally, but i think it might honestly come through in the fic itself.

what is a fic you didn't expect to write?

so either Bitter Fruits or Hostia, but for different reasons.

with Bitter Fruits, i was just suddenly and unexpectedly overcome with inspiration from a fanart that is honestly completely unrelated to the premise i ended up going with, and i wrote it in like 2 or 3 days like a daze. and it was sooo much fun to write, honestly.

with Hostia, it is what happens when you sign up to an exchange, see a ship in the tagset that you find kind of curious so you put it in your offers and unexpectedly match on it, so you gotta step up to it. i definitely did not really expect for it to end with oral sex on a pomegranate but hey when life gives you lemons. or pomegranates. whatever.

what is something you learned about yourself while writing this year?

that deadlines are sooo magical, even if they're mostly in my head. exchanges were super helpful to keep me writing, because i knew they had a time and date to be done by! Late Harvest 100% only got finished and posted because of WDLF.

the other thing is that changing the place/mode of writing really helps me. i found out that switching between handwriting in a notebook and then copying that into a google doc, then continuing to write on the doc was the best way to keep myself going and unblock my head whenever i felt stuck. ditto going to write in different places, like coffee shops or other spots.

and lastly, having written fanfiction really helped my other writing in some other aspects. i think other things i've written are more creative, flow better and are more literary/beautiful/interating to read than before, and i love that it's had that effect on my other writing.

what fic was the most difficult to write?

Conventional Weapons, which i ended up really liking in the end. but i had to fully re-start that one, because a few different things happened in my life that ended up making it a much more personal fic to write than i had anticpated, so i had to switch POV characters at one point because i wasn't going to be able to do it from Roy's POV anymore. it's an interesting pairing to begin with, with a ton of baggage, and at times i felt like i had written myself into a corner, or had to put it down because i was thinking about personal stuff and getting really upset. still, i'm happy with how it turned out!

what fic was the most fun to write?

petite mort. writing L as a weird necro freak who gets turned on by dying was hilarious and incredibly fun.

what are you looking forward to in 2024, in terms of fanfic writing?

i look forward to continuing to write consistently, and am thinking about a couple of ideas that i want to get around to writing! i think i will also try to write things without deadlines and see if i can get them done anyways, now that i have more of a rhythm going :) but there are also a few exchanges i'm excited to do.