#if you're confused about the context of these characters. you can look through their tags or my oc tag for info

[shmorp-mcdurgen]

False Sunsets

Notes: Holy shit. OC story. Wacky, huh? This is around 1′300 words, and is about my 90′s game OCs, Lawrence and Miss Panack. I’ve been thinking of them a lot. Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Miss Panack had lost track of how long she had been staring at the picture.

           She sat atop a round hill, the flat, low resolution texture on it making it appear to be grass and dirt. A pre-rendered environment surrounded her, lazily modeled trees and plants being placed next to the skybox, devolving into 2D textures of real trees the further from Panack they got. Behind the fake trees and grass however was the picture she had been staring at; the skybox she had become transfixed with. It was a pixelated photo of a sunset, peeking out above the tree line.

           It was beautiful; a bright yellow sun behind pink and orange clouds, the sky turning from a reddish orange to a deep blue-purple. The colors were entrancing to Panack, feeling like a painter’s palate of the best colors one could discover. She kept staring at the sunset through her 3D modeled eyes, her left one being green, and the other being completely orange, with a spiral swirling towards the middle of it, where her pupil would’ve been. Her low-poly hands were placed on her knees, both of the hands having only four fingers, being different colors from the other. She looked as though she was crossing her arms, if she had arms in the first place instead of disembodied hands. She always wondered if it was a purposeful design choice, or the developers being lazy.

           Panack’s entire body was a cacophony of different shapes and colors; deep red and white, purple and orange, blue and yellow. Her neck and head were mostly red, with stripes of blue and yellow going up her neck. Her face was white, with little features aside from the stripe of blue looking vaguely like a nose. Her mouth was full of flat, triangular teeth, turned downwards in a frown. Her body was made up of mostly simple shapes like cones and rectangles, though her upper body, neck, and head were vaguely close to a real person’s anatomy, albeit very simplistic. Panack often wondered why she was designed that way, almost feeling like she looked like a child’s drawing. Perhaps it was supposed to reference the works of Pablo Picasso, though Panack thought they did a pretty poor job of it.

           “Awful lonely…sitting here in silence.”

           Panack was nearly startled by the soft voice behind her before settled, sighing slightly. “Leave me alone, Lawrence.” She said quietly, looking towards her feet.

           Lawrence was an admittedly more simplistic looking figure, with his head being a simple black triangular shape with eyes on the sides of it, the pupils also being triangles. His torso was an inverted cone, and his long neck was just a cylinder with a white collar on it. His thin arms and legs were covered in a “suit”, which had a red and yellow striped suit jacket, along with blue pants, gloves, and a blue bow tie; however, most of it was just the textures on his model. A small red top hat with a white ribbon tied around it floated above his head, and he was holding a striped cane with one of his blocky hands.

           “Is something wrong, Miss P?” Lawrence asked, leaning over to look Panack in the face.

           “No.” Panack wasn’t necessarily telling the truth, though she wasn’t in the mood for another conversation that led nowhere.

           Lawrence remained silent for a moment before looking back at Panack. “You know…if there’s anything you want to talk about, I’m always here to chat.”

           “I…don’t want to talk right now.” Panack leaned forward slightly with a half-lidded, almost tired glare at nothing in particular. “It’s…been a long day.”

           “Really?” Lawrence asked, sitting next to Panack as he stared at her quizzically. “Didn’t think you were very busy. No one even played with us today.”

           “No one’s played with us for years, Lawrence.” Panack stared at her friend with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “Have you been paying attention? It’s…It’s not 1995 anymore.”

           “Well, perhaps so. Though I still think there’s a chance to—”

           “God damn it, can you just admit that we’re irrelevant?” Panack interrupted, her “brows” furrowing and her green eye showing irritation. “No one cares about us anymore; we’ve been discontinued for years. We’re just in this bottom of the bin game you only find in some old box you forgot about.”

           Lawrence seemed stunned, though before Panack could think she made a good point to him, he began to speak. “Language! You do realize this game’s meant for children, correct?”

           It wasn’t even related to the matter at hand.

           Panack let out an annoyed groan before holding her knees even closer to her chest, looking away and back towards the 2D sunset in the distance. Lawrence’s eternally blank expression continued to be faced towards her before he too looked forward at the area around them. “…You…do like your job here…right?”

           Panack glanced towards him, his eye meeting her gaze before looking away once again. “I…” Panack thought for a moment before sighing deeply through lungs she didn’t have. “…Yes. Well…I guess so. I mean…I like being able to interact with them…the player I mean. Seeing the child we helped teach grow up. But…” She paused once again before shaking her head, deciding she didn’t want to go through the same conversation yet again. “…Never mind.”

           “…That’s good to hear.” Lawrence stated, not even noticing the defeated tone in her voice. He stood up, turning towards the doorway at the top of the hill, where he entered the “room” from. The doorway led to what seemed like a black void with orange and black tiled flooring, and a cityscape seemed to be the skybox of said void. However, before he entered it, Panack spoke up, her voice quiet.

           “You think they’re prettier in person?”

           Lawrence turned back towards her, tilting his head slightly.

           “The sunset.” Panack turned back towards the sunset in the distance, her voice somber. “…The colors of the clouds…the pinks, oranges and yellows…do you think they’re prettier in person?”

           Lawrence remained silent for a moment, thinking to himself as he looked at the ground. “Well…who knows, Miss P? It’s certainly possible.” Lawrence stated. “I’ve never seen one before. Though…the picture has to be just as good, right?”

           Panack didn’t think so, hunching over even more.

           Lawrence turned back towards the doorway before taking one last look at Miss Panack. “You know…you can stay here as long as you’d like, Miss P.” He said. “However, I must be going. Have to get everything ready.”

           “Ready for what?” Panack asked quietly.

           “In case anyone stops by!” Lawrence answered with his usual chipper voice. “Gotta be prepared in case the player does decide to drop in…whenever they do of course. Anyway, I’ll catch you later Miss P, and…remember I’m always here to chat. Toodleloo!”

           With that, Lawrence left, presumably to do…whatever he needed to do for the player that may never come. Panack continued to stare at the sunset in front of her, feeling a sense of sadness within her. She knew Lawrence wouldn’t understand her concerns; he never did. It was frustrating, though she knew he wasn’t a bad person. He was simply ignorant and willingly oblivious to the fact that things weren’t perfect in their little digital world. Panack was, and sometimes she wished she was as lucky as him.

           Panack sighed, lowering her head as she stared at her feet. She wished she could feel the cool air of the evening, and breathe in the fresh air. She wished she could take walks in nature, seeing and feeling the plants under her feet. She wished she could be out there, in the real world, where things weren’t made from polygons and textures. She wanted to see the sunset, she really did; and as she cried in the faint orange glow from the fake picture of one, she wondered if it was ever meant to be.

[can-i-see-your-passport-please]

Okay so here's everything I know about TF2. Please no one elaborate on anything I know about, because I think it's so much funnier if I have no context to anything. I have absorbed all of this through Tumblr osmosis

Emesis Blue is an excellent film

Soldier apparently was never an actual soldier, he just loves America and really wanted to kill Nazis (the second one i respect greatly)

Medic would probably give you a lobotomy for fun (i don't think this guy's even a doctor)

Two really old guys are fighting bloody wars over gravel I think and their father is named Grey Mann which was most definitely meant to make Gman enjoyers lose it but to be fair his name could also be Gary Man.

What am I on

Heavy and Medic are apparently gay but idk if this is a fandom seeing two men next to each other and going "gay" thing or a "all but confirmed gay" thing but TVTropes referred to them as "Heterosexual Life Partners" which is very funny

emesis blue is so fucking good oh my godddddd the respawn machine is horrifying just from the concept it turned scout into soup

Scout is half French and loves his mother (who is not french) and does not love his father (spy i think)

Medic presumably died went to hell and told the devil "oh I'm like a cat I have nine souls actually. So I should get to go back to being alive" and it fucking worked??????

THE FUCKING SCENE IN?? IN EMESIS BLUE??? WHERE. WHERE SOLDIER TELLS MEDIC "YOU'RE GONNA MAKE IT OUT" AND MEDIC SAYS "i KNOW" BEFORE HE JUST FUCKING DIES AND HE'S THE PROTAGONIST SO YOU'D EXPECT HIM TO LIVE RIGHT??? AND THEN HE JUST DIES AND DOESN'T APPEAR AGAIN FOR SO SO LONG

Pyro is an any pronouns warrior and it commits great atrocities while also having so much sillyness in his heart. I love her

I think Engineer blowed up his arm. I think

Spy is a cunt and also French. I do not think this I know this. I look at him and I sense his cuntery. It radiates off him. I can feel it.

SOMETHING ABOUT THE LETTER M BEING BRANDED ONTO MEDIC'S FACE BEING A REFERENCE TO THE MOVIE SCOUT WAS WATCHING WHERE THE LETTER M IS USED TO MARK A MURDERER. HE'S LITERALLY MARKED AS A MURDERER BY PYRO. SOMETHING ABOUT THE SCENE WITH DEMOMAN AND DELL'S BAR BEING A REFERENCE TO A SCENE IN THE SHINING WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTER IS LITERALLY TALKING TO A GHOST. SOMETHING ABOUT SCOUT'S MOTHER'S HEAD BEING HELD AROUND A CORNER AND DROPPED PARALLELING PYRO'S HEAD BEING HELD AROUND A CORNER AND DROPPED. SOMETHING ABOUT SCOUT'S "IF THEY EVER HIT YOU WITH SOMETHING, YOU HIT BACK TWICE AS HARD" WITH MEDIC SHOOTING SPY TWICE IN THE HEAD AFTER BEING SHOT ONCE IN THE GAME OF RUSSIAN ROULETTE WHY IS EMESIS BLUE SO GOOD

TF2 is in an eternal war with Overwatch for some reason

I was doing a poll a few days ago and the tags psychic blasted me with the information of "by the way people pay like fifty dollars to see medic's tiddies in game." I have gotten varying answers between ninety dollars to three hundred fucking dollars but the constant remains that people will pay Valve comically high amounts of money to see Medic's boobs. What

Scout almost got Earth exploded because he died a virgin???? But then God was like "Okay go back down to earth I'm giving them one last chance to all have sex with you" I'm so confused what does any of this mean none of this makes any sense but it's hilarious

Scout might be legitimately named after Jerma and bears a frightening resemblance to him (though to be fair scout is every white boy in one)

You should watch Emesis Blue it's free on youtube

Demoman's eye is sentient even though he doesn't have it????

I can't decide who's my favorite the white boy the unethical scientist or the silly nonbiney war criminal

Conclusion: What the fuck is team fortress the second one about

[cheapshrimpysheep]

First Date - Scarabia

SUMMARY: What would your first date with him be like? I know first dates might not go so well, but let's pretend these are different. ;)

CHARACTERS: Kalim Al-Asim & Jamil Viper

TAGS: Fluf; GN Reader; Flirting; Kissing

WARNING: Spoilers from: Book 4 AND A Firelit Sky: over the Sands

WORD COUNT: An average of 670 words per character.

Heartslabyul / Savanaclaw / Octavinelle / Scarabia / Pomefiore / Ignihyde / Diasomnia

COMMENTS: I managed to write this one in one day. First because there are only two characters. But second, because I feel that Kalil is relatively easy to write and because I'm similar to Jamil in many ways, what I write about him tends to flow easily.

I hope you enjoy ;)

Kalim's already taken you on a carpet ride, took you to Scarabia’s Oasis, taken you to his homeland, showed you the fireworks of Al'ab Nariya. What the heck is he going to do for your date?!?! JAMIL HELP!!! First of all: No animal parades!

They both discuss it for some time until Jamil says that it’s not a bad idea to do something you've done before but in a different way. Kalim's taken you on a carpet ride before, but not in a romantic context. And you two have been to the Oasis, but not alone.

He still wants to do something new, something bigger, but he trusts Jamil's opinion and advice. After all, he knows you too, maybe he's right and that's enough for a first date.

He surprises you one night. You hear someone knocking on your bedroom window, which is on the first floor. When you draw the curtains, he's there, sitting on his flying carpet. And he invites you to go with him, somewhere. It's a surprise. Do you trust him?

You ride around the NRC for a while, enjoying the view of the campus at night, before he takes you to Scarabia, to fly once more through those skies, this time at night. And it's Beautiful! The sky was clear, revealing all the stars surrounding the large half moon. And this time, you weren't talking about Jamil, but about each other.

He talks and smiles a lot. He asks a lot about you, you likes, your world, etc. He's so curious about the person he has a crush on. And he ends up getting very close to you without realizing it. Your shoulders touching. Maybe the carpet fakes a little turbulence to get the two of you even closer, to the point where you're in each other's arms. If you don't show yourself uncomfortable, or on the contrary, even smile about it, then you will stay that way for the rest of the ride.

You arrive at the Oasis. The moon reflecting in the calm waters. He helps you get off the carpet and starts looking around muttering something like “Where was it again?” The carpet flies to one of the nearby palm trees and returns with a basket and picnic blanket, and Kalim thanks it. Needless to say, it was Jamil who put the basket in there and prepared the food.

The two of you continue talking as you eat, sitting on the picnic blanket by the water. He looks like he's having as much fun as you are, until his expression gets slightly less excited because he's remembered something: “Um... (Y/N)?... Are you enjoying the date? I mean, I think you are, you're smiling a lot. But... is this really enough? It doesn't feel enough.”

You tell him that this is enough, of course it is. The two of you being together is enough to make you smile. Being alone with Kalim like this, on an official date, is more than enough. And he's so glad about that! He is so relieved that he can make you so happy with so little. That means he can always make you happy and see your wonderful smile.

He hugs you and tells you how he’s felling, how happy he is that you are happy by his side. Then the carpet nudges him in the shoulder. He looks confused for a moment, until he realizes what the carpet brought him that he had already forgotten about. “AH! Yeah, I was having so much fun I forgot. You're a lifesaver.” he says to the carpet.

He gives you a big bouquet of jasmines. At Scalding Sands, he told you about the story of the thief who gave jasmines to the princess he loved, remember? You look at the beautiful flowers and Kalim's big and sweet smile. You have nothing to give him... except for, maybe, a thank you kiss.

Jamil is always busy and stressed. Yet somehow, he managed to arrange a night for the two of you. He's managed to get some Scarabian students responsible enough to take care of Kalim while he's with you. However, if something happens he won't be too far away, because he took you to Scarabia anyway.

He took you to the empty room where you stayed when... well, he kinda kidnapped you... You had no idea what he had planned until he opened the door. It wasn't empty. It had cushions on the floor, a small table for eating, opaque and translucent fabrics decorating the walls. It reminded you a little of his dorm lounge, but more romantic. And it was night, so the only things illuminating the interior were the moonlight coming through the small window and the lighted lamps. He did all that for you?

A quiet and comfy place where he can have a dinner and rest with you, this is what he prepared for you two. You enter and sit on the cushions in front of the table full of food prepared by him. He made your favourite foods, his favourite foods, new foods that you said at some point you wanted to try, an authentic feast to the taste of both of you.

He will look at you discreetly while you eat something you like, to appreciate the face you make when you're delighted by it. When you try something new, he will offer to feed you, again because he wants to see your reaction. Of course everything is delicious, he doesn't have to worry about you not liking the dishes and he knows it. After all, he was careful to make things he knew you would like, removing all the ingredients you didn't like.

You're on a date, which means you have a crush on each other and which makes him allow himself to be more cheeky. At the end of dinner, he will take advantage of you leaning back a little and lay his head on your thighs. When he sees your blushing face he smirks a little. Truth being told, he's blushing a little bit himself. You can see he's tired, despite his attempts to hide it from you. That and you can feel his body relaxing. After all, it's his date too.

You start petting his head his head and playing with his hair, and you see a smile so sweet and so rare that it warms your heart. He reaches out to caress your cheek. “Can I ask you something?” you nod and he smirk once more “Could you feed me some grapes?” you raise an eyebrow, still smiling a little “Please? I've always been curious to know what it felt like.”

You take the bunch of grapes and bring them close to you so that you can take one grape at a time and feed it to Jamil. You see his expression is a little smug, but grateful and appreciative too. You two chat while you feed him the grapes, until he gently takes your hand before you can take it back to the bunch of grapes and kiss it.

His kiss was so soft and caring, you couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like to have them on yours. He gets up, sits beside you, and look you in the eyes. Your first reflection? After what happened when he took you to Scarabia the first time? Quickly look away, as if dodging something.

He lets out a low gasp. “Wait, no, I’m, not...” he gives you a moment, until he brings his hand to your cheek “I'm sorry, really sorry. But I promise you I won't do it to you ever again. It's different now. I didn't know you. But now I do.” with his other hand, he takes yours “I don't do that to people I care about. And know I care about you. Please... let me see your eyes.” You give in and look into his eyes. And you feel nothing but your heart racing. And his face comes even closer to yours.

If you would like to read more from me, you can find it in my pinned post: INDEX

[fromfiction]

(excuse the slight lengthiness of this ask pls 😭)

um hello! i’ve seen you answering questions on this blog, so i hope you can answer this one! /nf

i’m entirely new to the term and idea of “fictionkin” but ever since i found out about what fickin was and what it meant, i figured it might be me but i couldn’t be 100% sure because of a smaller thing.

for a bit more context which i feel may be important: i pretty much spent all my life mentally viewing myself as literally animated, as animated medias have always been a special interest since i was little (i’m now diagnosed w/ autism which is why i used that term btw). though i never truly viewed myself as any canon character, i always viewed myself as my self insert sonas growing up, my finest examples of this through the years would be self insert sonas of mlp and eddsworld. nowadays, as my main special interest is my own work (as a writer and artist) i mentally view myself as my persona, i always have during these current years and i believe i always will, to the point where i don’t even associate myself with my body or face physically bc i’ve always viewed myself as some sort of fictional version of myself and in my mind that’s how i look to myself. to put this in terms of an example, i once told someone that my physical body is like a car because i like to decorate it and make it look nice and i use it to get around in this world, but my persona is the driver because in my mind, that’s who i am and i’m simply using this “car” to get around (remember this is an example i don’t literally think my body is a car lmao)

but yea, the reason i’m very confused is because i always see fictionkins identifying as canonical characters from a media, or ig even self inserts as i’ve heard somewhere (correct me if i’m wrong) but i never hear about people identifying as their OWN characters if this makes sense. in my mind, a fictional character is a fictional character, which would include my persona that is very much fictional in every way (atp my persona is a developed character with fictional lore, other worldly traits (like magic), and is always a part of little scenarios or short stories i make up for comfort or outta boredom, just happens to resemble me irl in most ways but is basically how i view myself mentally down from personality to clothes that i really connect with but don’t really wear irl)

but anyway yes, i’ve tried and tried to research for anything that might be similar to my case but i don’t really find much at all.

i hope this ask was okay to send, ik it might be lengthy ik you weren’t asking for my “life story” it’s just that i’ve always wondered what was wrong with me in terms of this topic and why i viewed myself as being a fictional character, and now that i feel closer to a possible answer it’s very relieving but still confusing since i don’t know if the label really fits what i go through. i can’t help but wonder if it’s also maladaptive daydreaming or multiple things/something else but i prob can’t expect much advice or help w that on this blog which is perfectly okay lmao

again, if you read this or even answer this, thank you i’ve really needed to ask this desperate question to someone who seems to know a lot about this subject for possible help so i came here bc i saw that this blog was active for the most part! i’m also sorry if i asked things that weren’t okay to ask or have said/assumed things that weren’t okay either, again i’m very new to fictionkin as a whole.

have a great day and thank you <3

Hey friend. No worry about asking!

It sounds like you're asking if you can be fictionkin of an "original character".

The answer is absolutely. There are plenty of people who are kin of their own ocs, you just don't usually see them talking about it, mostly because their posts don't end up in fandom tags.

[queer-ragnelle]

I am so sorry if you have answered this before, I was just wondering if you knew of a good way to get into Arthurian literature? Like… what to read first and what definitely not to read first?

Everything I can find when I search for a good list or order talks about modern retellings, but I am not sure how to get into the older ones. They are a bit hard to approach, so I am worrying that I may be going about it wrong.

I’ve just been slowly collecting different tellings from old book stores over the years, but there is so much that I am not sure where to begin..

hi there! no need to apologize, it's all very overwhelming and confusing. i've answered this question before, but have since added more literature, so i'll go in depth. :^) determining where to start really depends on what you're looking to get out of your reading experience.

lots of people recommend le morte d'arthur by sir thomas malory for an overall understanding of the basic premise without having to read the long and scary vulgate cycle. but as i said in this ask, it's not my favorite text, as it truncates the story so much it can cause confusion. yet it's the "shortest" (ie 1,000 pages lol) recounting of events from arthur's conception through his death, as well as incorporating the often-excluded story from the prose tristan, and adding character-defining elements we've all come to accept as part of the "canon" such as gareth beaumains's humble beginnings as a kitchen boy. (in the vulgate, his story is largely the same as the elder bros he tags along with. in fact, @lefresne and i discovered each of us had a transcription/translation of the vulgate which referenced two different manuscripts of the same story, but had swapped the names guerrehet/gaheriet [gareth/gaheris] and confused the hell out of us bc we had varied accounts of the same scene and were both right! scribes mistake? point is there's not a substantial differentiation between them until the post vulgate and le morte d'arthur, so reading that will give you needed context/depth!)

on the other hand, le morte d'arthur doesn't include some even later additions to the "canon" that are now famous and get incorporated into many retellings, such as sir gawain and the green knight and the wedding of sir gawain and dame ragnelle. (are these a deal breaker to comprehend a retelling? not necessarily. but despite gawain's track record with many ladies, if an author writes in a wife for him, on god, they always choose ragnelle. so that poem is a must<3)

so it's really your own judgment call! no matter what, you'll likely need to read more than one book for fuller context to understand the common "fandom" talking points and frequently adapted stories. in any case, i've just made an FAQ where you can go and figure out what stories will suit your needs. i hope this helps. have a nice day!

[bamdelune]

In Hindsight 📹 Ch. 04: "the day i died once pt. 1"

notes. please do me a favor and pretend the first slide is actually edited to be posted as a twitter circle tweet 🙏

A familiar pattern of knocks echoed throughout the room. Your head turned to the door in confusion, Baizhu wasn't supposed to be coming in here today. He only came by on weekends.

The door slides open with the rolling sound of the gear to reveal the doctor and what looked like to be Kunikuzushi behind him. The general aura of the mood Baizhu entered the room with was eerily heavy as if someone just died.

"Good afternoon, Y/N." He greets, his tone slightly awkward. You return his greeting and say your hello to Kunikuzushi as well, to which he nods at in acknowledgement.

"Doctor Baizhu, is something the matter? You don't usually come in here on a weekday like this." You ask, nervously fiddling with your fingers. A sense of dread was pushing against your stomach and spread throughout your body.

Baizhu clears his throat, "I'm afraid there's something that needs to be discussed that prompted my visit."

Kunikuzushi has now also turned his attention towards the physician, eyes curious as well. Baizhu takes a deep breath, "I don't wish to scare you but it's inevitable. I fear that your condition has worsened. Ergo, you don't have much left, dear."

Silence fills the room, save for the whirring of the air conditioner. Other than that, you might as well have heard a pin drop. The tension was far too thick for your liking, anyone could cut through it with a knife.

"What?"

That's why Baizhu looked mournful when he came in. He was mourning a dead man walking.

"How much do I have left." Your tone comes out more strained that intended, as if your voice was about to crack.

"11 months. Even then, you're pushing it."

That wasn't so bad, right? You just wouldn't be there to see your album, the one that you've waited so long to start on, in all its glory after the production process. You wouldn't be alive to celebrate it with Xinyan, Aether, and Lumine.

notes. and we're finally at turning point #1 of this au! things will get easier to lay out from here and i hope everyone enjoys what's to come <;3

synopsis. You are a singer-songwriter. Music has always been a part of you, it's a part of your identity that no one can ever take away. However, there's always a catch: you are diagnosed with a chronic illness that puts your life on a timer. Those who have heard your countless melodies have grown to notice that the notes on the sheet played a gloomier tune. Would the snarky and capable medical student you've met be able to bring life back into these melodies? Even as life begins to seep out of your own body? (scaramouche x gn!reader)

tags. gender-neutral reader, angst, fluff, crack, heavy contexts of death and illnesses, friends to lovers, slowburn, profanities, drinking (characters are in college), suggestive themes but no nsfw.

taglist. (open, reply or send an ask to be added) — @beriiov @alatusorrow @br0oke96 @ohmyfinggod @itzblazekun @featuredtofu @sketcheeee

masterpost ★ masterlist © bamdelune 2023. do not repost, translate, plagiarize any of my works without permission, thank you so much! reblogs, notes, and comments are always appreciated!

[cacodaemonia]

20 Questions for Writers

Thanks so much for the tag, @lyntergalactic! :D I feel like I've done this before, but it must have been a whole ago. It looks fun! (also, I'm pasting just the questions at the bottom of the post if anyone wants to copy those)

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 247, though I'm not really sure what the ratio is for images versus fics... Okay, apparently, 97 of them are tagged with 'fanart' and have fewer than 100 words, so somewhere around 100 image-only works and 147 fics.

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 1,141,145; which includes a few collabs and fics for which I just contributed an image.

3. What fandoms do you write for? TCW exclusively 😅 Though I've done a handful of images for other things like Arcane, Dune, Trigun, The Expanse, House of the Dragon...

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos? A bunch of my works with the most kudos are images, but if we're talking fics, then I think it's just some of my oldest ones...

That’s Not How It Happened (This Is How It Happened) - Fives arc fix-it and my first fic.

Orbital Decay - Codywan that I haven't edited since I posted it, so I can't vouch for the quality.

Modulation - Another one I haven't touched since I posted it, but it's an 'Echo gets rescued much earlier than in canon and he and Fives reunite' fix-it of sorts.

Will You Walk With Me? - Waxer's pov from the start of the war to the (fix-it) end, and it mostly focuses on his and Boil's friendship (Waxer & Boil or Waxer/Boil pre-relationship - take your pick). Even though this certainly isn't the best thing I've written, it's my baby. 🧡

Interference - Umbara fix-it featuring minor canon characters and some necessary OCs in the first chapter, then more major canon characters later.

More stuff below the cut, since this is a long list...

5. Do you respond to comments? Yes!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Probably You're Just Harder to See Than Most, which ends very sadly on its own, but it's part of a larger fix-it including Modulation above, so Fives and Echo get reunited.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Pfff like basically all of them, idk XD;

8. Do you get hate on fics? No, just on one sketch dump, where someone went through 6 chapters of spicy cloneshippy images and then decided they needed to complain about it being gross and immoral 🤣 It was hysterical kjlksahfg

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? Oh yes, I'm a certified smut goblin. Not really sure what the question means by 'what kind,' but I guess 'porn with feelings' is probably the AO3 tag that would most accurately describe all of the smut I've written XD

10. Do you write crossovers? Nope.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes! :D

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? Hm, I suppose if we're defining that as like, "what ship have you intensely shipped for the longest amount of time," it would be destiel? I was veeeeeery into that ship for many years.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I've had one wip sitting around for over a year, and for a while I was thinking I wasn't going to get back to it ever. But I made a little vibes playlist for it and had some help brainstorming, so I'm hopeful I can start tackling it again after I get some current stuff drafted.

16. What are your writing strengths? Starting something and working on it until it's finished.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I have a lot of trouble generating ideas on my own.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I think it's fine as long as it's either A. very short and clear from context or B. for some reason, the writer is intending to confuse the reader and obfuscate what was said. I know I've said it before, but I'm not gonna scroll to the bottom of a fic every few paragraphs to find the translations for whole phrases or sentences. If the amount of 'other language' starts making the dialogue difficult to follow, I'm just gonna nope out.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Technically, I wrote one thing for Gundam Wing back in like 2000, but I can't even remember what I did with it or what it was about, exactly. Other than that, TCW.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? flsdlfg that's really difficult... idk man, if it's quality we're talking about rather than sentimentality, I'd say it's a toss-up between these three 😅:

My Heart's Red Muscle - Canon-divergent AU where Waxer is a cyborg.

Kinktober 2022 - Character studies/development through smut, where Waxer and Boil find a list of sexy things to try out, so it's kind of meta. It's from my main Open Skies AU, and I'm weirdly proud of this one XD;

We Could Breathe Underwater - Force-sensitive Waxer and Boil AU

Phew! Okay this took me like three sessions to answer, but it was fun :)

No-pressure tags: anyone who sees this and wants to do it, plus @lizardberries @elismor @bilbosmom-belladonna @valkeakuulas @petrifiedforests @marbled-polecat @writegowrite @sophronist @marbled-polecat @ivalane

20 Questions for Writers

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments?

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

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

8. Do you get hate on fics?

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

10. Do you write crossovers?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

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

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

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

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

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

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

[0junemeatcleaver0]

Anonsense: A Deconstruction of a Bad Faith Argument

I honestly don't know why I'm even posting this. Will it be helpful for people who don't know how to immediately clock a bad faith argument? The people pleasers who might feel compelled to answer every anon no matter what? I hope so.

Do I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet after being woken up at 4am because I forgot to silence my phone only to see this bullshit after living through the most stressful week of my fucking life?? Also yes.

Whatever. At best this is a learning moment, at worst it's an opportunity to point and laugh at someone who thinks they deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for failing at being real pussy cunt-cunt in a stranger's inbox.

I am confused. You haven't watched the show but you hate the show...? Correct! You can, in fact, hate a thing you've only gotten a taste of. I saw the trailer (you know, the thing networks release to get you interested in a show?) and didn't care for what they were doing. That opinion was only cemented when I saw the ridiculous clip of Louis chasing a fucking goat around.

Something fans of colour especially black fans talk of so enthusiastically and fondly? You're right, VC fans of color are all a monolith and all enjoy the show. And the fact that I--a rando white person--hate the show is mortally wounding to them all. This is in no way infantalizing to fans of color, to imply that I somehow have enough power as some random person to ruin their good time by making posts about how silly I think this show is--posts I don't tag so that fans of the show don't have to see them.

And these fans aren't always show onlies. I know. I've talked to a few of them. They seem nice.

Idk if this ask is going to come off as bait Yes you do. You absolutely know that. And if you didn't know that, that was your clue to go back to the drawing board re: how to phrase what you meant in a good faith way.

-think of it as you will How kind of you. Thanks for the permission.

but this...you realize this comes off as some type of way, don't you? Only to the people who are actively looking to be upset, yes. And I don't care about those people. They are not of my concern.

You have had an ask that you published where the anon says they don't care that "certain demographics" of people are loving AMC. That's very very sus. 'Very very sus'. Am I suddenly on Twitter? Anyway. You do realize that book-only fans are constantly accused of belittling all show fans no matter what we say, right? That it's much more likely that anon said "certain demographics" meaning "the fraction loud, obnoxious fans who will accuse you of being immoral for not liking the show" and "people who never read the books and have nothing to compare it to" and not as some dogwhistle to mean "fans of the global majority", right? Also, my memory is shit. I may have used that phrase and if so, see the above reasoning for why I used it but also if I didn't: Why am I being held accountable for a random person's choice of wording?? I'm not anon's mom.

I don't particularly care if you answer or not. I'm sure. That's why you wrote an essay in my inbox. To not get a response.

If you block. I did. Fuck outta here.

I just had to put it there. Did you? What was the goal in this? Do you even know?

Maybe this is rude as per tumblr etiquettes. It's pretty rude regardless, but hey what do I know. I'm no Emily Post.

But this was just so odd as I am new to both the book and show fandom and while going through blogs I found yours So what I'm hearing is you're missing a lot of context for what's been going on around here and you've not realized that, is what I'm hearing. And you're either purposefully ignoring of didn't wait to find the many, many posts I've made detailing why I personally think the show is bad, why I think the white cishet frat bro turned wanna be auteur showrunner is doing a bad job of including characters of color in the text, the reblogs of fans of color who have brought up similar points, etc?

Stretch before you reach this hard, anon.

[tapwrites]

How to Write Dialogue

A lot of a story is told through narration: action, description, exposition, and so on. But a big part of characters interacting tends to be speech. In prose, we call this "dialogue."

The key to what happens in the scene for this is...

People communicate in their own way.

To a new customer entering their store, a gruff character might say "What do you want?" Whereas a more personable character might say "Welcome in! Can I help you?"

Maybe the character would use body language, with a wave as they speak. Or only use body language to communicate in this moment, with a polite nod and smile to the customer with no dialogue.

If they share some knowledge with character they are communicating with, they may speak differently, with an unspoken shared context for their conversation. Compared to speaking to a character who doesn't have that knowledge.

If both characters have the shared context of knowing Frank is coming for tea at 6, it would be odd if one said "Frank is coming for tea at 6." Because the person they are speaking to already knows that. (Unless they have some reason to believe they've forgotten.)

But it would be natural for one to say, "When was he coming, again?" or "I hope he doesn't start smoking like he did last time," without even declaring who they're talking about, or what the situation is. Just the new stuff. Just like people do in real life.

Think about why the character chooses to speak at this time, not before, not waiting until later? What do they want to communicate? How do they want to communicate it, how do they phrase it, what other things go along with it like tone, volume, body language as I mentioned earlier?

And of course, all of those things are affected by the character's personality, their mood and emotions in that moment, their relationship to the people they are communicating with, and the subject they are talking about.

A lot of times all of that just comes naturally from our understanding of the character, and we don't have to think through each of these one at a time. But if you're stuck, making it more of a "process" can help you get rolling.

And now, onto the mechanics of dialogue in the prose itself...

To mark text as being spoken instead of narration, it should start and end with double-quotes, "like this." There are novels that use single-quotes, but this is a rare exception and tends to be more common in older books. But if that's your thing, you do you.

Apparently, the UK flips this and starts with 'single-quotes'. I've lived in the UK all my life, and was taught to use double-quotes. So... I guess your mileage may vary, I don't know what that's all about... 😅

If a line of dialogue ends with a complete sentence, it will normally put the punctuation before the last quote. There are exceptions, and stylistic choices, but that's the general rule for dialogue.

"The sky isn't blue."

You can have quotations within the dialogue, marked with single-quotes. And, in theory, the further down the rabbit hole you go, it switches back and forth between single and double quotes.

So, a quote within dialogue has single-quotes. A quote within a quote within dialogue has single quotes again. And so on...

"And he said to me, 'Go over there and tell them, "Frank said, 'The sky is blue, darn it!'"'"

Yes this does look weird, and yes it can be confusing keeping track of the layers of quotation. Which is why it's very rare, in fiction at least. Instead of making a direct quote, a speaker normally paraphrased, or rewritten in other ways to simplify the structure of the dialogue.

"Frank said to tell you the sky is blue."

If the dialogue ends its own sentence, but the sentence as a whole continues with a dialogue tag, the full-stop/period at the end of the dialogue becomes a comma.

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine said.

This is because a dialogue tag is actually part of the same sentence.

A dialogue tag is like a luggage tag tied to the end of the dialogue to tell us more about how it was said.

In the example above, there is a dialogue tag to tell us the character who said it: Geraldine.

You could write the dialogue tag in a couple of other ways:

"The sky isn't blue," said Geraldine. Geraldine said, "The sky isn't blue."

But this is uncommon in modern novels, and makes it have a different old-timey vibe that may be confusing or distracting for readers. So bear that in mind if you want to try it out.

Now, if it's part of a longer piece of dialogue, you could leave it to the end of the spoken words to have the dialogue tag as normal. But the reader will be wondering through the whole thing... "Yeah, but who's even saying all this?"

To avoid this, try to have the indication of the speaker sooner rather than later. You can use any of the methods from this article to do so. But one example would be:

"Fourscore and seven years ago," Lincoln said, "our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal..." (and so on)

For longer text like this, you can actually have paragraphs within the dialogue. The paragraph doesn't end in a quotation mark because the dialogue isn't ending. But then the new paragraph does have a quotation mark to remind the reader it's still dialogue.

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."

Again, confusing to read, and rarely needed or used in modern fiction. But something to know about. A better way would be to break up the dialogue with some "Blocking"--a stage term for people moving around the scene.

This would be a new paragraph, as it focuses on something else, and then another new paragraph continuing the dialogue. If we focus on a different character with the in-between paragraph, you might want to remind them who is speaking when they continue.

Lincoln stood for a moment, taking in the crowd. Then drew in a breath. "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." The crowd looked uneasy, a low murmur floating across them. Lincoln shook his head. "Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure."

Going back to dialogue tags... Other verbs can be used instead of "said," to better describe how it was said.

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine muttered.

There is a general tip that the same word shouldn't be used over and over in quick succession, because it draws attention to itself. But this doesn't apply to all words. Structural words like "a" and "the" shouldn't (and often couldn't) be replaced with a new synonym every time they're used.

This is because they simply fade into the background; the reader knows that they are common words and don't matter to the meaning of the sentence so much. So they just sort of brush over it. "Said" is one such word.

Don't be afraid of "said."

Some writers still try to not use "said" much, and instead use "thesaurus words"--synonyms with the same meaning--throughout their writing. However this actually draws more attention to it that using the simple "said," which people brush over anyway.

Take a look at the following examples:

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine said. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine stated. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine explained.

Is "stated" describing how the line was said better than "said"? Not really. And is "explained" adding anything to the story that isn't from the dialogue? Nope.

If there is a line of dialogue, then it was said/stated/explained/said in reply/asked, depending on what was said and the context. We know what was said. So when a character asks something, the verb "asked" doesn't do anything that reading the question didn't do. So you may as well put "said."

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine smirked. "The sky isn't blue," Geraldine yawned.

And if you go too far with it, trying to incorporate an action into it, you can get yourself into a real mess. Smirking is not saying anything. You can smirk while saying something. But if the action you are performing is a smirk, or yawn, or laugh... you, my friend, have uttered no words!

These are known as "said-bookisms": words used to avoid writing "said." And named after a book that was written listing such words for writers to use (you may have seen similar posters/graphics on the internet). But as we don't need to avoid writing "said," we can safely throw out the book!

Earlier we used "muttered" instead of "said." Was that okay? Well, did that add to story? Does it tell the reader more about what was said? Yes! Now they know the words weren't simply spoken; they were said quietly, muttered under the breath.

Anything that tells us more about how the dialogue was said is fine. If the character shouted or screamed, or they muttered or mumbled, or slurred... they aren't necessarily obvious from the dialogue. So if they fit, and they describe the utterance of words, then go for it!

Sometimes writers have entire actions as a dialogue tag.

"The sky isn't blue," Geraldine moved over to the window, peering out.

That action isn't describing the act of saying that dialogue. So it doesn't make sense for it to be part of the same sentence. Just split it into its own sentence, and you should be good.

"The sky isn't blue." Geraldine moved over to the window, peering out.

However, these things may be indicated earlier in the paragraph, before the dialogue begins.

Geraldine looked up. "The sky isn't blue."

Because Geraldine has been established as the focus of this paragraph, any dialogue will be assumed to come from Geraldine.

Here, the first sentence describes an action the character took. But it could be a narrated thought. Or an expression. You can indicate the focus of the paragraph in many different ways, but however you do it, that can be used by the reader to infer who the speaker is.

You can of course add a dialogue tag anyway, using the pronoun of the character.

Geraldine looked up. "The sky isn't blue," she said.

The tone of the dialogue--the way it is said by the character--can also be implied by the context in the paragraph up to that point.

Geraldine laughed. "The sky isn't blue." Geraldine gasped. "The sky isn't blue."

Whatever context the reader has before the dialogue will colour how they "hear" it in their minds as they read.

Geraldine whispered, staring up in awe. "The sky isn't blue." Geraldine screamed. "The sky isn't blue!" Geraldine staggered through the door, drunkenly. "The sky isn't blue."

In the last example, the character's general state or attitude is shown. So as you read what she says, you'll naturally imagine it being said differently. That's the beauty of writing...

The final story in the reader's mind is made from the teamwork between writer and reader.

You can actually get away with having no indication of the speaker at all, in particular circumstances.

Geraldine smiled, her nose wrinkling. "The sky isn't blue." "I think you'll find it is, Gerry dear," Frank muttered, packing. "No, no, you don't understand... the sky is not blue!" "Poppycock." "Look!"

Did you have any trouble knowing who was saying what? If not, why not? Because we had other context clues.

The first couple of lines had the speakers clearly declared. And, as they're the only two characters that are in the scene, it's natural that they'd each take turns--going back and forth in their conversation. Also, if this is in the middle of a book and you're used to how the characters talk differently, that can help too.

Just be careful to not rely on this back-and-forth effect for too long, because it will get confusing after a bit. Just pepper in something to remind the reader of whose turn it is--the character does something as they speak, or a simple dialogue tag is added. And the reader will keep up better.

[burning-sol]

Had a talk with someone about traumacore somewhat recently, and it's got me thinking about the weird backlash it got all over again. People seriously approached the subject matter with no nuance, no understanding, no want to understand, and ended up basically just telling traumatised people to go back to hiding where nobody else could see them.

People earnestly would ask, "but why do these artists have to use cute characters? they shouldn't have bad things happen to them," and not see the obvious answer bestowed upon them by they eyes. I wonder why people would be portraying innocent characters, arguably symbols of innocence in themselves, as going through bad, undeserving things. I wonder if there's any context there. At all. I wonder if the artists have any sort of experiences that they obviously blog about that could shed light on this.

"People shouldn't make trauma an aesthetic though," truly being the most mind numbing of takes as if you could, again, not just see what is being blogged and come to understand that despite being trauma'core' this art has no intention to be an aesthetic. "Well why don't they just choose a different name then," <- the words of someone who has no idea how communities or linguistics develop. Sometimes the words and labels that come to be aren't well fitted to what is being represented, but that's just how shit works. For example, I personally don't like a particular ship name in my community, I think it's confusing and ill fit, but am I going to call those people bad because of a name that has come to be integral to the community? No. The community in the time before I was even active came together to make that ship name, and has become attached to it, and it's not my right to say that nobody should use it because it doesn't fit perfectly.

"But what if people are harmed by the art." You can avoid it?? Block the tag. And if someone goes out of their way to trigger themselves by not blocking it and engaging with it, that's none of your business, and you're not at fault for someone else's issues. Mental health is fucked up and it's not your place to speak over other people and say what's good for them when everyone heals and improves in different ways at different rates. You know what's actually harmful? The fact that trauma victims are likely to be victims of trauma again, and there are people on the internet who seek them out KNOWING this. The traumatised people minding their own business and making art to comfort themselves (which can also be comforting for others to see) are not the problem here. Tired of traumatised people being talked over by others who have no clue what its like to live that life, trying to tell them what is or isn't acceptable and what they think they should do to heal. It's NOT your trauma to bear, and it's NOT your trauma to heal.

And leaving my least favourite for last, I've seen people who don't HATE traumacore, but still feel the need to make fun of it (in a not friendly way) because of the artistic choices at play. I do think traumacore can look silly, but so can a lot of art depending on your own sensibilities. Sometimes what people think are well rendered art pieces, I think are too maximalist for me to not giggle at. And I'm allowed to giggle to myself, but would I then go about saying, "how does ANYONE take this seriously???" Ideally not, because that would make me a self centered asshole. Sometimes you have to let yourself sit with art for a while rather than just glancing at it passingly and brushing it off. Look at the art and sit with it, engage with it, earnestly recognise the elements at play and the style and the intentions behind the artwork. Art can exist outside your sensibilities and that does not dimish it in any capacity, that just means it's not for you.

Also, to point out the obvious, so obvious I nearly forgot to make this point, YOU'RE MAKING FUN OF ART ABOUT A *VERY* SENSITIVE TOPIC. But let's not forget this art is not only ABOUT trauma as a general subject matter, but also a lot of the art can be tied inextricably to specific incidents the artist has experienced. These aren't just vague pieces of art that say "what if hello kitty was sad and hurt," this is art that can be horrifying recounts of what someone actually experienced. There is someone on the other end who has been hurt, and you're laughing at the work they made to express that. "But what if they aren't trauma victims like you say," I was engaged with the traumacore community for I don't know how many months and I NEVER came across art that wasn't made by someone without trauma. Even people who reposted traumacore were still people who were victims of trauma. These blogs were all run by people, ALL blogs have people behind them, and it's no surprise that every blog I came across was ran by someone who was traumatised.

Traumacore is not a silly trend people want to hop on. People who 'hop on the trend' are usually people who have recognised for the first time that they've been traumatised, because it's quite literally a symptom that trauma victims are unable to recognise or acknowledge their own traumas. And even if people WERE hopping on it as a trend, making fun of them still harms the others who are engaging with the art earnestly. You can't just trash an entire community because there are a couple of bad actors, that's just shitty behaviour.

So yeah, that's my big rant on why people who make traumacore are the coolest and I love them and their art and I think traumacore deserves to exist and be respected. For fucks sake, just think about something for more than two seconds or, idk, actually try to engage with the community and art before you just to conclusions. The answers to your questions are literally right there in the text itself, you just gotta put in the effort to read it and process it.

[anneapocalypse]

Elaborating on my feelings about this post a little, particularly in the context of video of games with high replay value like Dragon Age (which may not have been what the op was talking about at all, but that's what was on my mind when I saw it)!

I definitely think a good game of this type should give you a complete and narratively satisfying experience if you play it through one way and never return to it. (I mean there are also games like Zero Escape where discovering every ending is part of the "complete" experience but that's not the kind of game we're talking about here.) You should be able to play a Dragon Age game once and enjoy it without feeling like you got an incomplete story, just like (in my opinion) you should be able to pick up the game and enjoy it without having seen other canon material that is by definition supplemental. (Whether these particular games succeed at the latter is another discussion for another post).

I love a book that rewards a re-read--Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb series really does this for me and I'm looking forward to re-reading them again before Alecto comes out, and I went back and checked and the OP even tagged Locked Tomb on that post which doesn't surprise me one bit. Because it's true! Going back and reading Gideon after you've read Harrow and understand more about both characters and know more about the world and have starting to pick up on the hints about the true nature of certain characters... it's a thrill! Not because the story was incomplete the first time or incomprehensible, but because now you have the additional context to see all the breadcrumbs the author was dropping in a new light and it's just so, so rewarding and so much fun.

And I also love games that give me high replay value not just because they're fun to play (and let's be real I am not starting my ninth run of DAO because I'm obsessed with the combat mechanics) but because every time I get to experience a slightly different story and see the world and the characters from different angles. There is so much more to experience that way than you can possibly get on one playthrough. (And that's good in this type of game! We want our choices to change the story.) In DA2 there are sides of characters you won't see if you've only taken the friendship route and never rivaled them. I've written before about the templar ending of DA2 and how it reveals things that the mage ending doesn't and yeah, it's a "bad" ending and not everyone wants to play it but it's still another story that has things to tell us about the world. (And I'd venture to say that sometimes, we don't necessarily realize we are talking from the basis of experiencing slightly different stories.)

I don't think a story should set out to confuse its audience (in general--there are instances where intentional misdirection serves a narrative purpose but that's a digression here) but I also enjoy the experience of playing a new game unspoiled and without walkthroughs the first time and letting the chips fall where they may, and maybe getting a "bad" outcome because I didn't fully get what a quest was about, because you only really get one shot at the Chaotic First Playthrough. Being confused because you're in a funhouse labyrinth but it's definitely leading you somewhere is different than being confused because the story doesn't make sense, you know? And that first playthrough isn't an incomplete story, it's just one of many different ways you can experience the game. There will be plenty of time after that to replay with more knowledge and build the perfect world state, or make it Worse, or just choose something different.

So yeah, a story should work on that first level, that single read or playthrough, in order to be successful, but my favorite ones are the ones that do give me a reason to come back, and either offer me a new experience or deepen the one I had before.

[amorficzna]

user experience research in (large) games

Ok I saw user testing catching strays in the tags of another post so I figured, since I've worked as a user experience researcher in larger game studios that I'd give a bit more context on what we actually do - since we seem to catch strays both from random people and from the studios themselves.

1. UXR does not inherently change ideas or parts of a game.

That is not our job. We're not designers! There is, in fact, huge debate about whether UXR should be giving designers any suggestions at all because we're not as close to the project as they are. But I've found it really comes down to the UXR's familiarity with the project as well as their relationship with the development team on if they will take or want suggestions to begin with. Many times, we're showing off results to them where players are finding snags in their play experience, and it's really up to them to find better solutions for how to make the experience smoother.

Additionally, UXR is a mediator between the game development team and players. It's important to capture player experience and insights, but it is also very important to stay in line with the game's vision. You have a weird and fucked up game? UXR is not meant to bring any feedback about how the game is too weird or fucked up to the game team. Because that aligns with the game's visions and goals.

2. UXR is there to make niche parts of the game approachable to all players.

Everyone always talks about making more gritty, edgy, or weird games. Which I 100% agree with. But the rub comes from if players can even access these parts of your game at all. Then you get a bunch of questions. Why can't players use this ability? Is it because it's not useful? Is it because they don't know they have it? Is it because they know they have it but they don't know when they can use or how to use it?

These are generally the kind of questions we're asking players as they work through a game. Without a lot of this work, a lot of this would go under the radar because, unsurprisingly, when you work on a game for a long time, you tend to forget that new players may not know to press U in order to access their character ability sheet, which may also not be properly explained in the tutorial, which may lead to them never being able to access it.

This is especially important for accessibility. Great, you chose a brand new random control scheme. Can you change that control scheme? If you can, can you adapt it enough to be accessible for all players that may need aids to play videogames? If yes, can they access the control options easily to even get to them in the first place?

3. UXR is not there to gather the opinions of players.

At least in my experience (and I'm talking about big studios here) UXR is not, in fact, there to capture the opinions of players and make sure characters are more likeable, etc. We can do that kind of research if the team specifically asks it of us, but generally, if it is not literally breaking the player's experience when they work through the game, it is not important enough for us to bring to the team because they have enough other shit to deal with.

If you're seeing that kind of reaction from collected data, either UXR is not filtering the results and thus production or leadership is looking at it going "yeah ok let's change that" putting the work on the developers/teams, or its from the consumer insights side of things who is looking at general user trends, user reactions, market reactions, etc.

So yes, while we look at trends in data, a lot of the time I was tasked to ask questions like "what was confusing for you" and then I would aggregate that to see where players were struggling with understanding a game.

If there are specific attributes of a game being tested, such as a new champion in Apex for example, then you'd probably want players experienced with the game coming in and testing it to make sure it 'feels right' and balanced, and that they especially don't have issues with it to make sure players can actually play around with all the cool, new, weird, fun stuff you wanted to put in the game in the first place.

There are other parts of UXR like expert reviews (ask me why I don't like them and think they're not useful!) but that's a whole nother pack of worms.

Anyway, that's a little rundown of how UXR can help with games. There's so many issues with it and politics within the industry - for example, if a UXR does a study and finds that players are really not having a good time with a game set to release soon, the development team is going to have consequences. So how high up can those results go? Additionally, if a study finds that players are doing well with a game, and it releases and it bombs, that leads to a whole other mess of shit. Which is why I hate strategic work tbh - it becomes so corporatized and more about future sales output and less about the game itself.

However, that is a cog in a much larger machine of issues within the games industry. And UXR itself is trying to get our work down to make games accessible to all.

[timegears-moved]

totk rant anon here again! i sent an ask yesterday but it might not have gone through? or you just might not have gotten around to it yet. in case you didn't get it at all, the most important info i wanted to convey is that if you do the windblight fight in air and lightning with any character other than link you get a very interesting line from revali at the end which i feel provides important context for the following cutscene! and if you want i can let you know exactly what he says so you don't have to play through that mission again.

now, on a slightly different note, i'm a bit late in saying this, but i believe you can actually progress relentless as a waterfall even if you have mipha on your team? you just have to take her over to the relevant captain and use her healing powers yourself (either by using her special move or, if you don't have that charged, using her water spout move.) alternately you miiight be able to order her to go there while switched to a different character and that might work too?

to be entirely honest it's been a while since i played through that particular mission so i might be wrong, but i think that generally when missions have requirements for specific characters to do certain things (i.e. move to a specific location) if you have that character on your team you have to do all the work yourself to progress the mission, whereas if they're an npc they'll move on their own. that being said, mipha being a healer makes it a bit more complicated than most instances of this, since she's also required to use her healing powers here, while with most characters all you need to do is move them to the right location.

OOPS sorry anon i did get your other ask but i didn't see it until just now!! i'll answer them both here!

OKAY SO LMAO i just finished redoing air and lightning with your advice (i had to go back and get the korok seeds anyway) and ummm? what the fuck GSJSBSKWJKSH???

jesus christ revali. i have to admit i have seen this quote in another post in his tag before but a lot of the replies were saying that this was in regards to teba??? so i didn't think much of it at the time. but like. learning now that he ONLY says this when you don't play as link makes it obvious that this isn't about teba at all??? insane.

and you're right about it giving additional context to the scene right after. like revali's very abrasive backhanded thanks to link seems to me like it's stemming from embarrassment at being saved by someone he wants to impress (not that he'll ever admit that). but link not being there allows revali an opportunity to say that he doesn't want to seem weak or vulnerable to him.

i'm gonna be honest totk is looking to be my least favourite of the trilogy rn so i'm not too bummed out by that sjbsjejdj. excited to get the aoc dlc though my autism desperately needs it

also in regards to relentless as a waterfall my issue was that my objective never changed from capturing the three outposts even after all of them were captured? i wouldn't have even known that mipha had to heal that captain if i hadn't seen a video of it. i may test what you said out though! not rn since i've had enough of that mission after doing it three times jshsjsosksk but of that is the case i wish the game was more clear on that because it was very confusing.

[androdragynous]

Context of the bits I'm talking about for those who aren't familiar with the source materials (because I've gotten tags of people being confused about what I'm talking about or implying I am phrasing things badly)

It's long because I mentioned a lot of games so I'm putting it under a break.

Stardew Valley

Penny is one of the romance-able bachelorettes of the game, and one of her heart event scenes is her pushing George, an elderly man who uses a wheelchair, out of the way to "help" him get something out of his mailbox. She does not ask before doing this, and George gets angry at her for intruding. The game presents you with three dialogue options:

to side with her, telling her she was doing "a kind thing" which increases her friendship level with you

to side with George, telling her she should have asked if he wanted help, which decreases her friendship level with you

to remain neutral, telling her you're minding your own business, which does not change the friendship level.

George's friendship level is not affected by any of the options, and regardless of which one you select, he apologies to her for being angry and tells her it was kind of her to help. After he leaves, Penny talks to you, sympathizing with George for getting older. One of the options the player can reply with, in a discussion about needing a wheelchair as an elderly person, is "I'd rather die young."

Sources / Verification:

Stardew Valley Wiki - Penny > Heart Events

Penny ALL HEART EVENTS - JNEY [O:09] (intro has shaky / glitchy text, timestamp of link should skip it)

Mass Effect

Following the opening events of Mass Effect 2, Shepard - the player character - goes through a reconstructive surgery performed by the human-supremacy group Cerberus. This surgery leaves them with dramatic cybernetics scars all over their body.

Over the course of the game, conversation options can be weighted with Morality Points; Paragon options are generally considered to be the "nice" options, presenting a character who is polite, patient, or otherwise understanding (or is lawful, which isn't necessarily a positive trait). Renegade options are generally considered to be the "mean" options, often being rude, blunt, angry, or aggressive. These points change how Shepard interacts with the world and the characters in it.

In Mass Effect 2, the visibility of the cybernetics scarring is directly related to these points. As a message in the game informs you, choosing Paragon options reduces the scarring, while choosing Renegade options increases it dramatically. There is also an option provided for your Shepard to pay to have the scars removed. The game also has dialog reference how Shepard's scars detract from their looks in (what I think is) the Citadel DLC.

Sources / Verification:

Crew comments on Renegade Shepard's Scars - WildCardHoney

Paragon (fShep) compared to Renegade (mSgep) scarring - sorry, it's difficult to find a good comparison that I can be sure isn't modded.

Vampire The Masquerade (TTRPG)

VtM focuses on secret underground societies of vampires in a usually city-based setting. Players can select the types of vampires they play, but the game is intended to be gritty and brutal with how it approaches being a creature that preys on humans to survive.

One of the player classes is the Nosferatu: vampires whose transformation is incredibly painful and creates "grotesque abominations". This transformation results in "deformities similar to terrible birth defects, cancer growths, crippling injuries and leper-like sores". One of the mechanical drawbacks to this class is that their appearance makes them "Repulsive", an effect which detracts from their "Looks" stat and makes it difficult to impossible to pass as human.

In the illustrations given by the book for character appearances, the designs feature canes and leg braces as examples of these "monstrous echoes".

Sources / Verification:

Dark Souls

Dark Souls is a third-person RPG that is structured around combat, rewarding pattern recognition, reaction times and player dexterity in battles against enemies much stronger than the player. It, and other games in the Soulsborne genre, are praised heavily for their perceived difficulty barriers and required skill to complete. The inherent barriers to disabled players who cannot rely on visual or auditory attack cues, or who are physically unable to react or press keys in the narrow time windows attacks provide, have been discussed for as long as the genre has been established.

I've debated this one before and I'm not doing it countless more times. Putting players in offline mode with a god mode / invincibility option or a slider for percentage of damage taken is doable. It literally doesn't matter if an able bodied player uses these options to win a fight they're struggling with because literally who gives that much of a shit about how someone else enjoys a game.

Sources / Verification:

Unsure how to source for "the games are fast paced and punishing and lack built-in accessibility features".

The Sims

Yes, really, they don't have wheelchairs. They also don't have crutches, or canes, or prosthetics, or missing limbs, and so on. As of earlier this year, 2023, they have added cosmetic versions of hearing aids and glucose monitors.

Any claim that it is coding issues is misinformed, as the game includes various animals and mythical creatures and the coding is already broken. Additionally, canes were available for Elder sims in The Sims 3: Generations, but were not made available for all ages, and are absent from the current version of the game, The Sims 4.

Sources / Verification:

The Sims Fandom Wiki - Walking Cane (Sims 3)

Polygon - The Sims 4’s new patch adds hearing aids, binders, and more inclusive options

Ace Attorney

This one is pretty self explanatory. The games have a lot of white-screen flashing effects, shaking effects, sudden pop-up text, and so on; standard cosmetic effects that should be able to be turned on and off. While some games ( Dai Gyakuten Saiban / The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles ) have the ability to disable the white flashing, it is not an option across the full franchise.

Sources / Verification:

Any playthrough or game clip will show it; I don't feel a more detailed source is necessary to prove flashing effects exist in the games.

as my own direct immediate list of game grievances i hate that stardew valley expects you to side against a wheelchair user who is upset that he was moved without his consent. i hate that the mass effect trilogy gives you visible scarring as a direct result of choosing mean dialogue and heals it if you're nice. i hate that the vampire the masquerade ttrpg has a monstrous player class that can appear as horrible vampiric monsters or as visibly disabled people and both of these appearances are mechanically the same. i hate that dark souls games have a difficulty level implemented in a way that cannot be adjusted for disability. i hate that i can play as a mermaid or a werewolf or a horse in the sims games but can't use a wheelchair. i hate that the ace attorney games have so much flashing and not all of the games can disable it. i hate that disability is constantly something that happens to teach a lesson, i hate that disability is something that happens as a punishment, i hate that disability is either compensated perfectly with no drawbacks or something that is endlessly sought to be cured. i hate that no character customization will ever include the mobility aids i use, that the player avatars that represent me will never look like me. i am so goddamn annoyed and so goddamn tired.

[winter-spark]

Reposting a Reblog as a Separate Post #2

[I might be less lazy with editing this one or I won't. If I was lazy but edited it I'll just cross off things lol, If I wasn't lazy and added edits it'll be in brackets, if I don't edit something that should be edited 🤷🏾‍♀️ have fun. Also this is still a copy and paste just so you know.]

[Related posts for 'context': initial thought, sketches I did]

So you're probably thinking "Gee Spark you're gonna talk to yourseldf some more about some no one asked about" to which I say:

I will answer your inqury on what I was going for for their clothes! At least as to what I was trying to inspire their outfits off of.

So first up the Orange's outfit 'moodboard':

There's one more outfit I want in consideration for this but I'll explain in it a second. So! I really think Orange might like to wear the sort of jacket thing Yuki's got on there, and while I opted out of the choker for him I do think he'd wear multiple necklaces. As for Citron's outfit there, I like the belt.

Also, those large gold bracelets seem to be mandatory and possibly a while jumpsuit of sorts. The owl earrings I legit just found right now(or well last night because I did fall asleep writing lol) to give an idea of what his earring might look like when I finalize it and pick out an Owl for it. I'm not sure if he always had an Owl earring or not but if he didn't that's fine because then it could be his little piece of abroad that he keeps with him, but if he did that's also fine because it's a sliver of his interests and personality shining through.

There was one more outfit I wanted here but oh well you don't need an image. It was the one with flowers on it. I think if Orange is allowed to wear some with more designs than what we've seen Citron and Tangerine in, it'd have flowers on it. Why? Well after all he's a nature boy. I know because they[/the company] telepathically told me when I was trying to draw him.

[Editing in this new version of the post here, too lazy to cross out and adjust last paragraph but I did think I should update this part: I didn't want to include the picture initially because I'm not tagging these character and I know one of my moots doesn't vibe with the character in this outfit so I hope croping his face out helps in case they see this. Here's the picture.

I don't think either sketch includes the scarf but I think I did consider it a lot when I was initially sketching them]

Okay so next up Navel's outfit "moodboard":

So here we go. I like the collar on Sakyo's outfit. Then I think Navel would have a visible choker like Citron does(tho tbh in my head it looks more like Yuki's but to avoid confusion I didn't put Yuki in this set.) There's the flowy part of the outfit & I'm leaning towards how Sakuya's is but Idk for sure, I kinda also really like the whole shoulder section of Sakyo's outfit so Idunno. He probably definitely has the stars though like Sakuya does. (As you can see I'm less sure on this outfit lol.)

[edit/Update: If you saw the other pictures I had here no you didn't:

THIS. Like like when I had the pic with Tangerine's outfit from this event I was confused why I picked it but I liked the energy like the soft poofiness of it and I sorta want a similar vibe, this sorta has that same vibe. BUT also like the collar!!! I want Navel to have a collar somewhat like this so that his choker that he definitely has is visible!]

Anyway, longer hair seems to be a trend for the royal family and Citron only sometimes wears a ponytail. SO why not let Navel have a ponytail? I think that Navel would try to differentiate himself from Orange in some ways since they're always together and so close in age(confirmed in my heart) and so a ponytail is a good start and easy to do.

I know that these ponytail cuff things exist. While looking up pictures for these, I learned that a lot of them have elastics in them? I didn't know they did? But regardless, I think that Navel should have one. Maybe without the elastic like the rhinestone one, but be bigger and more solid like the second one. It for suresies should have a star design on it. He loves the stars, fact.

So yea that's what I have. Just struggling to articulate it. Thanks for reading this.

Anyway. Yea. I know I'm kinda like the only one here but like if anyone wants to help with these outfits or has any additions or anything feel free to add on.

[animedaddymilkers]

💍husband "prank"💍

summary: referring to them as your husband even though you're still dating.

characters: katsuki bakugo, eijiorou kirishima, shoto todoroki, izuku midoriya, dabi, GN!reader

tags: pro hero!au, fluff, domestic prank, marriage talk, hospital talk(for izuku🙄)

💖reblogs > likes💖

bakugo: "I'll have the chicken fingers with the side of fries, yeah, and the honey mustard please," you paused as the employee on the other end of the phone repeated your order before asking if there was anything else. "Uh, yeah, my husband will have the shrimp alfredo, with an extra side of bread sticks." You finished giving the order, oblivious to the confused look Katsuki was giving you. When you looked over at him you just raised an eyebrow, "what's up?" He nearly scoffed, half offended, "what's up? what's up? how long have you been calling me your husband?" he looked like he was practically pouting as he waited for your answer. "I guess a couple months now..." Katsuki huffed, cheeks tinted pink, "does that mean I can call you my [wife/husband/life partner]?" now it was your turn to look at him blankly before you shut your mouth and nodded, "Y-Yeah! I'd like that..."

kirishima: it was just supposed to be a simple trip to the grocery store in your hometown, but of course, nothing is ever that simple. Not even five minutes into the store and someone from high school stopped to 'chat'. The person you barely talked to all those years ago suddenly wanted to do nothing but talk with you. "Oh, yeah, this is my husband, Eijiorou!" you cheerily introduced Eijiorou who looked at you shocked before smiling at your old classmate. As you were walking away to continue shopping he leaned a bit closer to you and excitedly asked you, "Husband? Really? Would you really marry me???" his eyes twinkled when you laughed and told him "yes, i would marry you." the rest of the shopping trip was filled with Eijiorou asking you questions about the potential wedding, head off in dreamland as you inspected the apples. "Big or small? What color theme? Roses or lilies? Church or beach?"

todoroki: Shoto was innocently playing on your phone while you were in the shower, all with your permission of course, when you received a text message. "(Y/N), (Friend) just texted you!" he called out to you from the bedroom. "Oh, just go ahead and answer it for me!" Shoto nodded and opened your messages app. He read through the conversation to gain enough context, seeing you responded to your friend >Can't hang today, spending it with the husband!<, explaining their most recent text of >Awh, you two are so cute! How about tomorrow?< Shoto paused, rereading your text over a couple times, his cheeks blushing as he read you referring to him as your husband. After a minute of internally screaming he realized he still needed to respond for you. >Tomorrow the husband has something big planned for us, how about next week? I'll have something to show you then.< After he sent it he smiled to himself, knowing if you read it you'd be slightly confused. But the small black box Shoto kept in his shirt drawer would explain it all tomorrow.

midoriya: izuku groaned as he came out of the anesthesia, the commotion outside of the door breaking him from his rest. "that's my husband in there, you have to let me see him!" your voice was desperate and rushed as you talked to whoever was keeping you from entering. Whoever it was must have relented because soon after the door burst open with the sight of you rushing over to his bed. "darling! Are you alright? Well, clearly you're not alright, heavens, look at you..." Izuku smiled weakly at you as the nurse trailed in behind. "Please make sure not to stress him out. And only ten minutes." You scoffed and looked over your shoulder to them, "I won't stress him out and that's up to my husband, not you!" Izuku tilted his head slightly, wondering who your husband was. His slower thought process then came to the realization that it was him and then he spent ten minutes wondering when he proposed to you and another twenty trying to remember your wedding anniversary.

dabi: "Oh please, my husband could kick your ass with his eyes closed, now get lost you pervert." Dabi overheard you sass some man in the bar as he returned with your drinks. Mildly confused at the way his chest tightened when he heard you talk about him. And the whole husband title...shit, maybe it affected him more than he wanted it to. Regardless, his chest puffed out, more than willing to play that role of protective husband for you. "We got a problem here, dearest?" he questioned lowly, eyes locked with the man who was bothering you, Dabi relishing in the fear that flickered through the man's eyes. Maybe he could get used to that husband title after all...