#it'd still likely gain popularity in the US market

[libertarian-druid-ny-separatist]

So, in case I got any folks that got folks in video game design for a company capable of running an actually massive MMORPG, I got an idea for a game that could possibly breathe new life into the genre.

Okay, so the idea is, what if we took a world with the layout and skill levels of RuneScape, the economy style of Albion Online, the real world money system of Entropia Universe, then put it on an absolutely massive world, like akin to putting all of earth into a game map.

In detail what that means in order

Set it up so there's regular towns and rest stops between them with occasional events for each area based on a random number generator and coin flip. Rng determines event and coin flip determines if it happens. Could add on other factors but this is elevator pitch.

Economy style where all but the starting items are player made or drops, allowing prices to fluxuate based on supply and demand for each area. If there's a ton of low level slimes dropping slime balls in one area but not another, the price in the high slime pop area goes down. Meanwhile players can run trade caravans for valuable tools, weapons, armor, clothes and not super basic items or go and get the supplies to make them or even actual items from out on the roads and in wilderness or special event areas or wherever isn't a town. Point is, anyone can do it if they put the skill into it. You can be the over the top badass tank that can take 50 billion damage or the ultra rich blacksmith.

If you're familiar at all with Entropia, you already get this. But tldr for that is you can buy in game currency, as well as take out real world money. More players buy than sell in game currency, so it ends up as a net profit.

Entropia also has a system of land ownership which pays out players for investing in the game based on resources gathered in their lands. If a player "maintains" the land by investing in game resources into it, they get paid more. Something like that could do well with the rest of the systems.

Anyway, onto setting. I'm thinking Pangea with magic, dinosaurs, fantasy creatures from as many cultures as possible, and all variety of dragons. Set in a sort of medieval/Renaissance hybrid but with the alternate geography. That is truthfully the best I can describe it without going into excruciating detail that I don't feel like typing with my thumbs. At the moment.

In order to make it profitable, there would also likely need to be either ads occasionally or in a small side window or some sort of regular dlc. Ideally said dlc could be done using the magic in the world to open other planes of existence/multiverses that the players could then own land in as well but with other resources specific to the area. As long as we can justify the cost to the consumer through it being big, cool or big and cool enough, we're good. Honestly the ads might be a less bad idea so rather than that, I'd suggest selling an ad blocker dlc along with semi regular world expansions

[astromechs]

ok i actually want to talk about this a little more, specifically with respect to a few of my favorite things: box office analysis, and industry shifts as a reflection of the wider culture.

i hear the term thrown around, and this article uses it, too — is the failure of madame web a reflection of "superhero fatigue"? in my opinion, yes and no.

is the failure of madame web related to franchise fatigue? yes and no.

while studio-produced and distributed comic book movies have existed and had success since the 1970s (think richard donner's superman, batman '89, etc), comic book movies gained real momentum in the 2000s. sony's original spider-man live action film series directed by sam raimi, as well fox's x-men movies, did pretty well at the box office; these showed studios that there was, indeed, a market here. marvel, which had sold off its film rights to its most popular characters in the late 90s when it was on the verge of bankruptcy, was now crying. additionally, nolan's 2005 batman begins was a modest success.

2008, though, with two little movies called iron man and the dark knight, heralded a meteoric rise in the popularity of comic book movies. which of course eventually brought the avengers, and — i don't need to tell you all of this.

by the late 2010s, it'd pretty much gotten to a point where anything with the marvel logo slapped in front of it printed money, everyone else wanted a piece of that pie, and hollywood had truly thought it'd found its golden goose. yes, they thought, we can keep making these forever and people will come. we don't have to put quality into them. who cares when they'll still come!

but audiences noticed this shoddy craftsmanship, these lazy films. audiences aren't as stupid as the average studio exec thinks they are — and what you've seen since particularly 2021 is people turning away from comic book movies, which have been saturating the market, as mid to low quality shit just continues to get pumped out and released.

i've been predicting the decline of the superhero movie for a while. when something dominates/saturates the market, it's inevitable; it happened to musicals, it happened to westerns. i'm not saying this as a hater, i love superheroes and have read way too many stupid comic books in my life (also was really wild to see one of my more niche interests become super mainstream in real time?), but it was always inevitable. so, combined with the decline, plus audiences getting weary of very obviously half-assed product, you get all but two comic book movies released in the past year flopping really hard.

across the spider-verse did well; it was a good movie. guardians of the galaxy vol 3 did well; i didn't personally like it very much, but a lot of people did, and it was a well-made movie from a production perspective (all of my issues with it stemmed from the script). comic book movies aren't dead and never fully will be, but people aren't willing to see halfassed shit just because it has a marvel logo slapped on it anymore.

it is bad movie fatigue, yes, but to say "superhero fatigue" isn't a thing wouldn't wholly be true; people got tired of lazy product, and superhero films were the dominant market share for big budget tentpole movies because hollywood had thought they'd found their ticket. so it's a lot of things.

articles like this are so funny

like, the reason why madame web flopped big is not deep; it's a really bad movie lmaoooo i solved it all for you

[116t98]

The Murder of King S'turnn: Whodunnit?

You know what intrigues me so much about this new season (aside from it being marketed in segments/arcs)? The fact that there's a genuine mystery playing out in the narrative that isn't connected to the Apokolips vs. Earth war that everything's been building up to for four seasons now.

(Well... at least that's how it appears so far, but I'll get back to this)

We've only seen three episodes so far, and while they gave us a lot of information, they haven't quite given us enough to draw super-clear conclusions about the ongoing murder mystery yet.

Regardless, I still want to try to figure it out because why not?

Let's start with the general information that we've been given:

we're told the king was progressive

the king was killed around the time when M'gann, Conner, Gar, and J'onn left Earth

no one knows who the killer is, or what their motives were, implying that the killer has mental blocks/filters on their mind to prevent anyone from figuring them out

his death worsened the divide between the G'arrunn and A'ashenn

we're told the queen rolled back most of the king's progressive reforms, but we're not told (or shown) why she did so

Now, with all that being said, let's go over the possible suspects.

R’ess E’dda

So, from these three episodes, we know that R'ess E'dda is rather aggressive, racist towards A'ashenn, against the late king's progressive societal reforms, and he doesn't want any further connections between Earth and Mars to be established (to "preserve Martian culture").

Based on all that we've seen of him, he appears to be murder suspect number one; after all, with the progressive king dead (and the zeta tube gone), there's a higher chance for all his progressive reforms to be undone and the established caste system to remain untouched.

However, I don't think he's the killer. Simply put, he’s too obvious a suspect; I know that in a lot of murder mysteries, the killer is usually one of the first suspects we meet in the narrative, but it's most likely that he's just a red herring. The zeta bombing obviously didn’t disturb him, and the timing of his protest did conveniently coincide with the bombing, but I think it’s just that: a coincidence. Frankly, it'd be far too easy, and boring, if he was the killer.

M'comm M'orzz

The other obvious suspect would be M'comm, especially since we've actually seen this guy in action before. M'comm is angry and aggressive (which makes sense, knowing what he's had to live through in Martian society, and even in his own home), sadistic (he was more than ok with killing meta teens, exacerbating tensions between the New Gods and the New Genesis bugs, and planning to commit genocide), and he looks down on virtually all other races and species. Additionally, he's keeping a part of his mind locked away; there's a chance he knows something about the king's death and he's not sharing it with anyone.

All of this would make it seem like he'd be the most likely person to kill the king (and if he were against the king's reforms, he probably would've killed him), but like R'ess, I think he's also just a red herring. If we take his and Ma'att's words at face value, the king was progressive and tried to slowly mitigate the caste system and give A'ashen more rights/freedoms, which is exactly what M'comm wants; why would he kill the man who was working to give him everything he's been fighting for? M'comm has nothing to gain from the king's death.

Em'ree J'onzz

We don't know too much about Em'ree, aside from the fact that she's the chief scientist on the zeta tube project, she changed her name (the reason why still isn't very clear), her relationship with M'gann is tense, she was married twice before, she was supposedly considered as a "popular girl" growing up, and she's not racist towards A'ashenn or other species like most other G'arrunn.

The chance that Em'ree is the killer is very slim since she seemingly has next to nothing to gain from the king's death; she's not the type of person to be against his reforms, and she has no other apparent agenda that would be satisfied by killing the king. Granted, we have no idea what's going on in her head (yet), but based off of what we've learned about her so far, it's highly unlikely that she's the culprit.

Priestess S’yraa

We know even less about S'yraa than Em'ree, but I'm actually not as sure about her innocence as I am about the latter (but only slightly). We know that she was originally G'arrunn, she used to be betrothed to/involved with Prince J'emm, and that she believes in being the change she wants to see in the world.

My instincts are telling me she's innocent, and that's most likely the case, but I think there's still a small chance she's involved with, or at least knows something about, the king's death. (again, I'll bring this up later)

Queen J'alia

The first thing we hear about the queen is that she rolled back a lot of her late husband's progressive reforms, which would imply that she's conservative/racist towards A'ashenn (and possibly other species). However, when we finally meet her, she says and does things that go against that initial impression; she's the one who orders Em'ree to work on the construction of the zeta tube, she expresses her concern for the Earthlings' well being after the zeta bombing, she dissuaded the protestors from trying to stop the zeta tube test, she seemingly believes in establishing a peaceful relationship with Earth, she didn’t label M’comm as a terrorist like R’ess did (“He was an A’ashenn activist and agitator”), she knows that not all humans are bad/that the true danger is Apokolips (and those who conspire with the enemy), and she’s ok with the Earthlings solving her husband’s murder. If she really is open-minded like she’s shown to be, then why did she roll back those positive reforms? Either she's not what she appears to be, or her husband wasn't as progressive as everyone believed.

There is a possibility that she is guilty of killing her husband, either to seize the throne for herself or because she disagreed with his acceptance of J'emm's relationship with S’yraa, but then why would she bother putting up a caring, open-minded front (aside from fooling her son)? She could've just implemented her own conservative legislation without caring about how the A'ashenn perceived her. Her behavior and actions don't really align with what we've been told about her, or her presumed motives.

Prince J'emm

And now we can finally talk about the Prince.

Considering that I've pretty much eliminated everyone else as a suspect (save for the queen), it shouldn't surprise you that I think J'emm is the primary suspect.

From what we've seen of him in these last two episodes, he seems pretty nice; he's seemingly progressive, he's cordial with M'gann's family, he offers to help with the pre-wedding ritual, he saved Gar, he recruits the Earthling into solving his father's murder, he offered his advice, and he was involved with S'yraa, a seemingly progressive woman herself.

He comes off as someone you should trust... and that's precisely why some people are suspicious of him; either he really is a nice person who's just hiding a dark secret, or he's putting up a front to throw off suspicion. Either way, he just seems too genuine, y'know?

Also, he involves himself in the murder investigation by recruiting outsiders to solve the case, and he even directly provides Conner and Gar (not M'gann) with the info/evidence they need. Doesn't this seem exactly like what B'arzz did to M'gann in season two? There's a chance he edited the memories to exclude any evidence that points to him. Plus, the fact that M'gann wasn't present might lend to this possibility; as far as we know, she's one of the strongest telepaths in existence, so she surely would've noticed something was up with the initial info transfer.

On top of all of this, there are two moments that stood out to me:

After the zeta bombing, he asked the queen if there’s evidence against M’comm as the culprit; yeah, he could’ve just been inquiring if M’comm really was responsible (to know if they’d be imprisoning the right bomber), but he also could’ve been pinning suspicion onto a known terrorist who was present at the scene

Before he left the scene, he paused to side eye the queen when she said “I hope the Earthlings are not reacting negatively to this turn of events (the bombings)”. Why animate this moment if it’s meaningless? Why didn’t he just leave? This might not prove he's guilty, but it does mean something; I can feel it

If J'emm is the killer, there's a good chance that the death was an accident (or at least not premeditated); maybe the king wasn’t as ok with his relationship with S’yrra as we'd expect, and J'emm accidentally killed him in a fit of anger or during a heated fight. If this is the case, then S’yrra is either completely ignorant to J'emm's actions, or she knows what happened and is hiding the truth to protect him (this could also work inversely; what if S'yrra accidentally killed the king, which led to her becoming a priestess, and J'emm is trying to cover up her involvement to protect her? It's a long shot, admittedly, but still...)

Now, there is one more suspect left to talk about, but there's not much I can say about them.

We don't know who this is, but it's implied that this is the guy the Legionnaires have probably been after for the past year (Saturn Girl was the waitress who refilled either M'gann or Conner's coffee in last season's finale). We can assume that this person (or someone associated with them) has been following M'gann, Conner, and Gar around, caused the cave-in at the sacred river, sabotaged the zeta tube, blew up the Earth/Mars comm-sat, and apparently knows about the Legionnaires.

Their motives are really unclear; are they trying to kill someone (they've had many opportunities to kill the protags so far, so I don’t think this is the case)? Are they planning on ruining the wedding? Are they related to the Apokolips v. Earth conflict? Or are they a threat from the future?

There's a chance they had a hand in the king's death, but to what extent? Did they orchestrate it? Help the killer cover it up? What was their motivation for killing him? We just don't know enough about this mystery threat, or their goals, to know for sure. For all we know, they might not be involved in the king's murder at all!

And that's all I got! I'm pretty sure none of this is news to most of you, since you guys were probably thinking about all of this already. But, if you haven't (or hell, even if you have), what do you think? Who do you think murdered the king? Do you think we've even met all the suspects yet?? (probably, yeah)

[theangrypokemaniac]

There's a sneering attitude that the dub is inherently inferior solely for being a dub, and when I say 'dub' I mean the American one. No one attacks the South American interpretation, funnily enough, or the variety that exist globally.

Why not if foreign languages are so abhorrent?  Do you think it's kewl to hate America?

That's so original you know.

If the moan centres on the dub changing certain things, well that's a pointless stance, because it's impossible to do otherwise.

What's accepted in one country is not always permitted elsewhere, so either you make those alterations or it's never shown. I'd prefer seeing a slightly toned down version rather than have it never reach the West at all.

This is without considering the technical obstacles that a direct translation brings. The words do have to fit the mouth movements, and if they don't, truncation must follow.

America and Japan are different; the population of the former are not going to comprehend the references to the latter's history and culture, which necessitates some divergence from the original to give it mass appeal.

Anime is a branch of entertainment. It has to attract the public's good will to stay in business. If impenetrable, it'll fail, with all the resulting unemployment and finacial losses that brings.

Those in charge of dubbing understandably think they're on safer ground promoting familiarity rather than the strange, but that's not to say Pokémon was stripped of its identity. On the contrary, it was like nothing I'd ever encountered before.

I may have watched Western cartoons then, but the idea of doing so now is silly. I won't give time to any modern animation unless it's Japanese. Growing up on the dub has not produced an ephemeral fan less serious or 'true'.

The 4Kids dub had wit, humour, deep emotion, suggestive comments and flights of fancy. The voices fitted the characters well.

Unlike the current one, where everyone sounds on the verge of vomiting, but then they're clearly working with substandard material on a miserly budget. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear after all.

Dubs can be bad, but the very state of being a dub doesn't confer worthlessness automatically. Considering the work gone into them, attempting to gain your favour, it seems rude not to appreciate the time and energy spent in production.

Knowing a little about history, sub-only fanatics remind me of the kind of folk who opposed an English Bible, because it was too good for the oiks to read the word of God.

Of course it was alright for them, rich enough to be taught Latin, but not so much the ordinary man.

It amuses me how dozens dismiss the dub, but see no hypocrisy in using its evidence to further their ship or anti-ship arguments, so it can't be that revolting.

It's also bizarre that so many hold sacred the sub of a series currently in a frenzy to shed every aspect of its anime and Japanese origins, leaving a vague, rootless ghost, supposedly making it easier to slip down the gullet of the masses.

Pokémon I've seen referred to as a 'gateway drug', as in the anime that introduced a generation to the entire concept. This means the dub. You would not have got enough kids in the late Nineties to read a screen rather than watch it, and even today most would lose interest rapidly.

Where would you be without that dub? Unless you're Japanese, your first experience of Pokémon will have been a dub, and if not the American, the one where you live, which was only made because there was the funds available.

You may have then progressed to watching the sub, but only because that dub stirred love in your soul.

Where would the franchise be without that dub? You think Pokémon would've grown to be a world-wide obsession raking in billions by itself? No, it'd still be a solely Japanese phenomena, and most likely never lasted this long.

Its decades of supremacy rests on the quality of that dub. It sold games and merchandise to kids by the ton, giving an incentive to keep the series going. If you're not a fan from the first wave, then your favourite era would have never existed had it not been financially attractive carrying on.

The team who wrote the first film actually preferred the dub, moved to tears by its emotive use of music, therefore they aren't so precious as the fans.

Where would anime be without that dub? Pokémon brought it to the West. A handful slipped through previously, but made minor impression.

To those who would dismiss Pokémon entirely in favour of more 'worthy' output such as Studio Ghibli, I would say that Pokémon, first the games, then the programme they inspired, must have an integral quality to have caught on in Japan, which isn't exactly short on similar concepts.

To have gained popularity in a crowded market, and so fervently a dub became an option, can only have come about because it held a certain magic.

It was the dub that smashed a hole in the cultural barrier, setting free the tidal wave to engulf the world. In Pokémon's trail followed Digimon, Cardcaptors, Monster Rancher, Yu-Gi-Oh! et cetera.

Without Pokémon, I doubt they'd have been translated, and definitely never broadcast on mainstream television. That came about as channels desperately hunted down anything Japanese to serve as the next craze.

I really appreciated the effort made by 4Kids in converting every aspect of the series to suit American tastes, including changing text on signs, letters and books into English. I assumed this was standard practice until I watched others.

I could never be as involved in them as I was Pokémon because of that block. It was like being denied access to the deeper waters, fenced into the shallows, and implied a rushed dub, with little care shown but to chase the same crowd and money.

If personified, the dub 'n' sub wouldn't be one human being, but rather identical twins: the same to a casual observer, but easy to tell apart by the more attentive.

It's like the games: Red and Blue are versions of a single adventure, but not totally one. Take the dub and the sub the same way. They are parallel dimensions running on separate rails, and beyond reconciliation, and that's before we consider that, sub and dub alike, each generation has only a faint relation to its predecessor, working on its own whims.

Everyone has a favourite, or can like both, and there's nothing wrong in that, but so many are proud of the fact they hate the dub, as if it conveys a revered status of supremacy.

When Disney films are shown abroad, they too are translated, and I'm sure references and jokes are redesigned to make sense to the locals. It's no use selling yourself as a comedy then being surprised when the audience refuses to laugh, having no idea what you mean.

If people prefer that one, for being what introduced them to Disney as a whole, or as a fond memory of childhood, then so what?

I don't mind if their view of a character is minutely at odds with mine, having seen the original, because what they think is canon to their version, so can't be wrong.

I don't go round declaring every Disney dub to be pathetic by its nature, that viewers of them are of a lesser breed of fan for preferring their own tongue, even though more of the world's population understand English than they do Japanese.

If you enjoy one tailored to your country there's no crime in it, just as I like one at least comprehensible to mine. It's not even my culture, but I pick it up mostly.

The choice must be made on which to follow, and this blog runs on dub canon, as that has a claim on my heart. Just because I don't acknowledge what takes place in the sub doesn't mean I'm unaware of it, but it has no bearing on what I write.

The idea that the dub alters things willy-nilly without rhyme nor reason is also mistaken. Often it does it because the original does not make sense.

In the sub, I know Nanny and Pop-Pop are just a couple of old duffers taken at random and dropped in to a castle, supposedly as James's far away nannies.

Oh yeah, that's a cushy position. You doing a lot of child care from miles off?

Mind you, it used to describe 'em as 'caretakers' on Bulbapædia, as if Nan serves as housekeeper whilst Pop tends to the garden.

That's right. Ma and Pa finally got some work out of this pair of freeloaders.

They're not related, remember? No, no, absolutely not, no way. Of course their style reflects that. They just gave Pop a 'tache, thick eyebrows and a bigger nose, and Nan got a bun and lines in her hair, but there's certainly no connection. Oh no. Such a thing is ridiculous.

They're NOT family. No. Yet Hoenn James still panics they might learn he's joined Team Rocket, spending the whole episode trying to hide the truth.

Why? Who are servants to criticise the son of their employers? Why should their opinion be of any consequence to Hoenn James, especially when his parents, fiancée and butler are cognizant of reality?

Children of aristocrats are usually brought up by governesses, thus develop a stronger attachment to these figures rather than their parents, but that isn't the case here.

James lived with Ma and Pa, not the codgers minding the castle. He would have very little contact with distant employees compared to those who waited on him daily, so why seek out their approval?

Hoenn James apparently was permitted visits to Nan 'n' Pop, which is strange considering they're not relatives. Why them and not any other house-stters?

That's right, Ma and Pa sent their son to one of their properties without them, entrusting him to the care of two shrivelled pensioners of his size that he barely knew, and who could keel over at any minute. There are no other servants present. Apparently Nan and Pop clean an entire castle by themselves.

Oh, and they run a makeshift Pokémon sanctuary, but since it's not their home it has to be done with Ma and Pa's blessing, who also have to pay for it, but they're eevul aren't they?

The idea that somehow Nanny and Pop-Pop have not cottoned on to James's occupation by now is risible.

Servants gossip about their masters. I bet the entire household of his home know, and so in turn does the county. That Nan and Pop remain oblivious proves how isolated they are, for no one's thought to inform them.

When it came to dubbing it, they were made his grandparents, removing all the above nonsense. Of course he visits his nan and granddad, it's their gaff and their money funding the place, and it is likely his mother or father would keep James's job a secret, for fear the shock would finish 'em off.

It should do really. If they're not bothered by it that's a sign of where his rapscallion ways were inherited.

They aren't facially akin to Ma and Pa, but display the same additions, so if staff it's bloody lazy, as if nannies have to resemble your parents, but inventing a blood link excuses the slothful characterisation.

Every reference I've seen on Tumblr relating to the coffin-dodgers calls them Nanny and Pop-Pop. Apparently the dub decision is met with universal approval. It does have redeeming aspects then.

Now the sub writers, rather than ignore this development, took to it too. They aren't exactly bursting with ideas these days and are probably grateful for the lifelines offered.

Remembering James had parents, they forced a likeness between them and Nanny and Pop-Pop. How else do you explain the inexplicable ageing, even when Sinnoh Ma and Sinnoh Pa are younger than Ma and Pa?

I've also known for years that the sub has this woman as Jessie's foster mother, not Ma Jess, but that's stupid.

I can grasp the idea that Jessie and Ma might have endured extreme deprivation, considering that's what Team Rocket has brought to Jessie anyway, and that they may have lived at the bottom of Mew's mountain prior to Ma's death.

What I find difficult to take in is that social services (or as they're known where I live, the S.S.), however notoriously awful they are, would give a child to a mad bitch in a shack with no running water.

Come on, they have to at least pretend to be concerned for Jessie's welfare.

As Jessie is very young, bereavement can't have befallen her in the distant past, so how can she be happy this soon after becoming an orphan? How could the grieving period be a cherished memory?

If that woman's creaming off the money, why hasn't she fixed the place up by now? Where do the payments go, sniffing glue?

Then there's the depiction. If this is just some daft bint never to be mentioned again, why do they conceal her face? Who cares what she looks like when she's unimportant?

Here's another figure from Jessie's past. She isn't disguised, and why not when she too briefly appears and is then forgotten?

Who was she?

The only sort of characters they tended to hide were other members of Team Rocket:

During the early scenes featuring Giovanni, he was enveloped in shadow, adding both intrigue and a sense of menace.

Madame Boss also got this treatment, even though there was probably no intention to ever feature her in the anime. What's the use in keeping an appearance a mystery if it'll remain masked?

With that pattern, it implies this woman is in the same category, like Ma Jess.

When it came to animation, it definitely was intended to be a foster mother. Not her real one. No.

What did they do?

They gave her Jessie's skin tone and purple hair hanging down her back!

You know, like Ma Jess?

Any colour would've done. Any at all, and being anime I do mean any colour, but no. The choice was made to give her the looks of the exact person she's not meant to be!

Is it that surprising the dub simplified things?

I don't mind if you like the dub, sub, both, or any from around the world, but I'm tired of the smug condescension, as if we all agree the sub is the only one that counts, and that dub fans are grunting troglodytes, or not 'proper' aficionados.

None of us would be here were it not for the dub. Pokémon would not be here. I think it deserves some respect for how much of a difference it made, to my life and to yours.

[carbonateddelusion]

hey

don't worry about the fact that they share songs. that won't come up later

anyway, I'm starting to form a sharper image of these two, the main protagonist and antagonist, in my head.

MC (I still need to give them a name. I'm thinking of calling them Cori) is very much... burnt out. they have a family history of suffering, have cut out most of their family for their own wellbeing, never talk to their siblings although they wish they could, tried to do community College and is drowning in it all. they used to be popular and the "good child". until they hit puberty, where they started to get severely depressed for a multitude of reasons. and they weren't perfect anymore, gaining the ire of their mother, their one "caretaker". eventually, they managed to get away, but they're terrified that their siblings won't forgive them for "abandoning" them to deal with their mother.

they've been in and out of therapy. eventually, they came to the conclusion that the system doesn't care, and stopped trying. they're stopping by their mother's to get their stuff that's been left behind there. they just try to ignore her as best as they can as she lovebombs them, picking up their boxes full of memories and heading back to their shitty apartment in their run-down lemon of a car.

as they're unpacking, they come across a little box full of old drawings and writing. they read through it. they're having their little nostalgia trip, remembering all of these things they made and used to love, and then they get to the bottom. it's a little cardboard board marked up with pen, pencil, crayon, and marker. the pieces are just on top of it- a deck of cards and miscellaneous small things. an old mini figurine, a stapler, etc etc. a tiny realistic wolf that they'd painted red. the acrylic is flaking off in places.

they take a moment to process it. they remember how hard they worked on it... they felt so smart for coming up with the idea. a little board game, something for all of the different parts and pieces of their creations to come together cohesively.

they reach to take out the board to get a better look...

and everything goes black.

they wake up in a garden.

they slowly get to their feet, shaking. they look around-

annnd someone's there. I haven't decided who, but I DO know that it's probably not Pen or (current) Eris. Pen is busy running a kingdom.

I'm thinking it could be the version of Eris as she used to be? as MC's best friend. all goofy and bright and cartoony. maybe Eris leads them by the hand out of the garden, skipping and giggling and chatting with them. and then something, someone, spooks them.

and Eris tells them that they have to RUN.

and so they're being chased by something, running past the garden's walls, through what appears to be a town, a market-

until they bump into another person. meet Blade, they stereotypical "edgy" character. she looks pissed.. until she sees what's chasing MC; she grabs their arm and starts RUNNING with them until they can manage to lose the thing.

and then Blade introduces herself.

I'm thinking either it's that with Blade OR. there's this concept of a Clippy-like character that's been in my brain forever. I think it'd be clever if the little Tutorial Character or whatever was their first guide.

GRABS YOU. hi I have Bored Game Thoughts please let me share

[scumtrout]

Thing is, though, I have no idea if he's good enough at anything apart from perhaps writing, because the proof is in the pudding for that. (And, granted, when it comes to writing, 'good' is a very subjectibe term; 'popular' and 'widely-sold' might be better metrics. Fifty Shades is a popular and widely-sold novel but I still don't have any time for it.)

I don't know what he's actually like as a parent, manager, or law student. The context in which he references these things makes me feel like I'm meant to be impressed by them, e.g. he's giving me little tells that are meant to make me think 'this guy knows his stuff in multiple domains'. Unfortunately for him, this then makes a little red flag pop up in my brain because… I am assessing this guy on his ability to write a book on writing, and I don't particularly care if he's a parent or law student, unless he also explains how this makes him a better writer. I would care if the blurb said something like, '[author] is a regular contributor of [popular writing magazine] and he is the author of [award-winning novel]', but the stuff about him being a law student is like… Okay? It's a bit like something a guy would say while trying to chat you up. It feels like the writer is impling I should be impressed, which then makes me feel like I'm being subjected to a teeny tiny manipulation attempt, which then makes me feel skeptical.

It's entirely possible that he is very competent in all of those domains. I just think that the probability of someone being consistently competent in all of those domains drops after a certain point, because there are a finite number of hours in the day. And I have a little rule in my brain that says 'if someone makes claims of being competent in multiple domains, then you need evidence of this - e.g. qualifications, eyewitness accounts, personal observations - before you belive them'. My mind likely works this way because it's one of those areas where it seems beneficial to err on the side of caution; people tend to have a lot to gain by hyping their own competence, whereas actual competence tends to speak for itself (e.g. it's easy to learn that this guy CAN write and market a lot of books, so the other info included in his description seems… not very relevant unless he thinks it should impress people).

Funnily enough, he would've seemed more credible to me if the blurb had just said '[author]… writes 6-8 novels a year', and not included '[author]… is a manager at a Fortune 100 company and law student'. It would've worked MUCH better on me if it said, 'he writes 6-8 novels a year and last year his books sold [N] copies'. There are still ways for someone to massage their writing stats (his books sold [N] copies? Compared to what? I'm naive enough that I'd be susceptible to any big number!), but at least it'd feel more relevant instead of giving a small laundry list of stuff that probabily impresses people at parties.

Granted, I'd bet that the book's blurb is unlikely to be a 'problem' that deter people from reading the book, despite my personal aversion to it. If I was just looking for a book on writing, I'd be okay with it. But instead my conditions are 'I'm looking for a book on writing AND I want a book that's unlikely to be a reshash of things other people have said, churned out as part of someone's side-hustle' and... eeehhh I'm getting churn vibes from this guy. It doesn't help that I found his book through Everand, and a good chunk of Everand's catalogue consists of works that feel like a rehash of something else.

Everand seems to have a pretty big catalogue covered by its monthly subscription fee, and I do feel like this catalogue has been padded with stuff that's not technically bad but still stuff I wouldn't buy if it was a one-off purchase. (It's telling that despite having an Everand subscription, I've still kept my Audible subscription; when I use an Audible credit, I'll feel confident that I'll enjoy the book I've chosen, whereas whenever I find a book I enjoy on Everand, it's, erm, a pleasant surprise.)

Man I read the above and unfortunately my instinctive reaction was 'there's no way I'm reading any of these guy's novels unless people stress to me that they're actually good'.