#its just fun seeing what the common points are and where the differences in interpretation happen

[falmerbrook]

I love seeing people's characterizations of Nerevar because the fella is so important, but he also functionally isn't a character. He has almost no characterization to speak of. You can pull some tidbits out about how he might of been, but he's basically a plot device--a backstory for all the important people. The only accounts we hear about him are from the most biased and untrustworthy sources in the whole game. So it's so fun to see what people do with those scraps. At this point he's Morrowind fans' collectively owned OC

[supahstarrr]

Thoughts on Watari Nishino's student spotlight

Warning: there will be discussions of misogyny here & mentions of abuse.

i am so satisfied that Watari Nishino has finally got her student interview. it's so satisfying that her character is allowed to be shown outside of being in The Supportive role or Comedic relief. i also have an opportunity to share some of my thoughts that i left out of my previous ramble post about her, and to reaffirm some of my thoughts I've expressed already!

i will try to organize my thoughts, you know like how those really good tumblr fanganronpa analyzers do? organize with titles, screenshots and all that? this post will still be sloppy though... i'm not fancy with words. And this is (mostly) not an analysis post... I am just very passionate about Watari.

before all, i want to touch on the vocal performance of the VA. the amounts of energy and character that was oozed out... I was stunned!!! and the voice becoming low and breaking at some points was so heartbreaking to hear; the performance expressed her "strength" that was constantly on the verge of breaking down during this interview. the voice having edge to it at some points—the underlying resentment and longing was so overbearing.

Watari's opinion on marriage

Honestly, there's so much stuff going on. I could screenshot everything about what the hell she was yapping about but that's a lot of work.

one of the first thoughts about marriage is how she wants to be the wife of Hayashi, to serve her and care for her! its funny and sweet. but then she remembers about the social dynamics she has put up with all her life, how she has always been a victim of them and witness of them... yikes. its fucked up she she likes the idea to serve people she care or love about as a way to express love, but to some extent, it's a reminder of common dynamics in marriage between men and women that are "expected" as they are an extension of oppressive social dynamics.

it's pretty sad how her perception of marriage and being a wife is so tainted by the previously prominent one in her life. like it is the common occurrence for patriarchal roles to be ingrained in marriages, and it's likely her parent's marriage reflected that toxic normalcy. there is so much disdain and resentment through comments on the "role" as a husband and "role" as a wife as a trauma response.

particularly, she largely associates being a wife with physically and mentally serving the husband and in the process to carry more burden, while the husband is allowed to be more independent outside of serving for someone and be acknowledged as human as he is more allowed to express his emotion (ex: through complaints). despite the disdain about the oppressive position the general husband holds over his wife, she finds some comfort in the role as the husband is allowed to express his humanity and have some independence. this is disdain is personal; its not only just rooted from her oppression in society as a girl, but also the marriage she witnessed.

I think there could also be the possibility that she sees herself as a "Wife". Not even just because of the expectations tied to her gender, but because of the current she has in the family, as the "wife" who must serve the family. Although there is some differences between the wife and her role in the family, the sentiment is that she is expected to serve at the expense of her humanity. Which adds more layers to the commentary on the marriage and her tendencies to put herself in leader positions where she's able to have fun with it (despite doing that having some complications).

Also very specifically this line gave me a mental pause.

What the hell? Suspicious... as i interpret there being an underlying personal tone (not just regarding to her position in society as a girl, but also towards the previous marriage) to the way she speaks about husbands, this... makes me very concerned! concerned! the nature of her previous parent's marriage has always gave me curiosity and concern. and this points to it being more personal as monomoko says it feels they have "strayed away" from the intentions of the question. yeah this is definitely personal.

i've always wondered whether or not the marriage was mutually toxic or abusive. and if there was abuse, i wonder about the extent of the abuse the children faced and/or if they were mostly stuck as the role of the witness of a parent's abuse. i've wondered if they were emotionally neglected while being a witness to physical, verbal and/or other kinds of abuse. now this gives me more questions. was alcoholism involved??? her father was an alcoholic possibly... and i wonder how it affected everyone in the family. good grief so much layers to this!!

and what gets me is that she does reach out to her father sometimes... despite all...? having mommy and daddy issues at once is dangerous.

to give a wonderful, but relatable, end to the topic of marriage... she says this.

this was yet another interesting thing she said regarding to marriage considering her lack of genuine attraction to men. though this is a funny remark she says loosely, this really gives more layers to the way she treats her "attraction" towards men. it's very interesting that particularly speaks about her "attraction" in this context of speaking about marriage and the common roles in them which stem from misogyny, while in earlier videos where she expresses this "attraction" is typically in the context of men serving for her. she plays with a "romantic attraction" about men as a way to reclaim the oppressive position men and oppressive societal expectations which hold over her.

through this play she plays with expectations attached to her gender—the expectation that girls & women must be romantically attracted to men and it must lead to the "inherent" desire to serve them, and that women must be committed and follow "rules" regarding to their attraction. since this immediate perception of how "all girls and women" experience, express or act on their expression has roots in misogyny. when she plays with a "romantic attraction" or "romantic interest" towards men, she gets to decide how and when she wants to be served or be leader whenever she wants to without commitment to those "feelings" that she cannot genuinely feel.

this disillusion with society's expectations and "rules" regarding to girls' and women's romantic interests encourages her to be very loud when expressing her genuine romantic and sexual attraction towards hayashi—though at the expense of hayashi's thoughts on that—as this expression actively breaks the expectation that she must express her desires quietly and how her attraction towards women is supposedly "false" or "less serious". thus, she gets to have a sense of control on those expectations forced onto her.

Watari's family

there was a thought i had about her role in the family, which i left out of my previous post about her as i didn't know where to put it. thanks to the interview, i have an opportunity to share this. i had the thought that her "leadership" role in the family was influenced by misogynistic standards in society. pushing girls into the adult caretaker role plus the lack of concern towards the emotional weight girls & women get from being forced into those positions are expressions of misogyny, which led me to that idea.

this idea i've had has definitely been hinted now shown by how she says her mother never had expectations for her older brother yet had them for her despite previously being the youngest in the family. which is likely the case due to misogyny her mother has internalized. not to be "overzealous" about the this misogyny talk, but there's a chance her brother holds these misogynistic beliefs as well.

and the way that watari is so particularly attentive to raising her sister because she knows that her sister will be pushed to become the next "sibling mom" due to this misogyny being ingrained in the family (not just shown by why she has the "leadership" role but also [likely] the previous marriage) despite the older brother still being around... just gave me a heartache. the kinship between the sisters due to their girlhood... ughhh my god its so bittersweet. there's an extra layer to this i feel. her feeling so obliged to break the cycle through parenting her sister is so reminiscent of how she broke the marriage. back then she tried to break the cycle of the pain that was so ingrained in the marriage; and she did! and now she feels obliged to break another cycle.

The curious case of Watari's mother

Later on in the interview, Watari comments about having a lot of siblings. She has get grievances about this as she knows she will have to step up to take care of them. This comment and grief reminds me of this earlier comment she made:

I wonder if this commentary on being a wife also refers to her mother—I mean this bit on what "it means" to be a husband and wife is very personal for her enough, especially when it comes how she speaks about The Husband role.

There are questions about my idea which is just a very loose theory. I'm unsure about the timeline stuff. But two or three children can already be close to "too much" depending on the culture, then expecting yet another third or fourth child can be considered definitely "too much". so regardless of how many children existed during the marriage and divorce, this could still refer to her mother when she was a wife.

If this is talking about her mother, this gives some interesting context to her. Although she most definitely do not "clean stuff all day" in present times as told about her constant neglectful character, perhaps she did back then. And so when she's divorced... she just.... don't clean anymore? I wonder if her mother is depressed and/or have negative feelings about parenthood as a result of the divorce, which could motivate her to be neglectful in various of ways. and these feelings doesnt have to just be a result of the divorce—they could already be lingering during the marriage, but increased because there's suddenly "no reason" to disregard them for the sake of holding a marriage that isn't there anymore.

this interests me as in Watari's text file, she attempts to reassure her siblings that her mother still loves the family. i would say its not not even just for the sake of comforting her siblings but also for the sake of her comfort, especially as Watari do genuinely hold some love towards her mother. I feel there's a possibility that her mother has shown genuine care and investment to the family before (like through cleaning as that act can be revealing of some care), at least during the marriage, and so she believes her mother has the potential to still be loving and caring to the family.

additional thoughts

the disillusion with societal standards and expectations towards women & girls as they're an extension of systematic misogyny is so heavily tied to watari's character that it hurts! hurts in the "i understand" way as a girl (kind of) myself. her character is so important. her character hits home as unfortunately in black communities, adultification of black girls is an unfortunate common occurrence. though unsure if the creator took consideration of this, or of misogynoir in general, in watari's story & character.

this really ties nicely to the topic of reclamation being connected to her character, which I've now realized is apart of her character even more than I thought. this interview was *really* great to me. It introduced more questions, introduced more ideas to her character, and more context. This interview felt longer than some other student interviews, which is delicious to me as someone who desperately wishes for more Watari-focused content.

This interview support my claims about her taking on "leadership" role as headmaster as a way to reclaim the leadership roles she has in her life, particularly her role in her family. its fucked that the one time she gets to have fun with being a leader... it's soured. it's fucked that the cases she's tried to be selfish by tending to her comfort and fun, some shit happens. its fucked.

"i don't want to be sad all the time"... "i just want to be a normal child for once!" and many more lines are just so revealing of her constant state of grief. Her longing. Resentment. She is so tragic to me. Sigh. I hope that soon, she will be comforted and the one who is reached out to. I hope her grief will be acknowledged by others more.

This was a lot of typing and editing, and im sure ill have to edit later. Maybe i could expand on some things, but i wanted this to specifically be about Watari Nishino, her character, and her background. Not just her character relating to other characters. Byebye :) this took hours and I need to sleep. i hope things were worded nicely and tastefully. i also tried not to be repetitive.

[cosmicaces]

i've never been good at writing intros to posts and that isn't gonna change today, esp since only a handful of people are probably gonna read this. i am making this post for me, because this is something i noticed and i wanna talk about it. leave it to me to make a detailed post about a character from a movie from three years ago.

rody has pstd! let's talk about it

[ID: A screenshot from MHA: World Heroes' Mission. Rody is pointing at Deku, winking. Deku looks annoyed. End ID.]

to preface this:

i am not a professional 👍 i have ptsd 👍

analyzing characters is fun for me! this is how i am interpreting rody with what i know about him from the little media he's been in + some additional speculation. feel free to incorporate this into your belief system. or not! all that i ask is that you bear with me.

now, before i get into it (preface...2!):

everyone knows about fight or flight, right? well, did you know that there are actually 5 trauma responses? fight, flight, freeze, fawn, and flop. (there may be more, but these are the ones that have the most information on them.)

fight and flight are the body's primary responses to a bad situation. freeze, fawn, and flop are more complex responses that happen when the first two aren't available. little self-explanatory, but for the sake of infodumping:

freeze: the body is in a state of hyperarousal. the muscles are tight and ready for action but is ultimately paralyzed. think of a deer in headlights.

fawn/befriend/submit: this response involves complying/befriending the aggressor; people-pleasing in an effort to remain safe. this is more common in cases of abuse.

flop/shutdown/collapse: the body is in a state of hypoarousal, aka its shutting down; muscles go slack, brain stops receiving sensory info. this can often result in fainting. you know how some people faint when they see blood? or when they're on a rollercoaster? yeah, it's this.

it's important to have this context. as a matter of fact, you probably already know where i'm going with this:

rody faints when deku is climbing up the bridge. of course, right? he had reached such a heightened level of fear that, when his brain realized it couldn't trigger one of the other four responses, he just... flopped. why bring this up? well, and i think this is easy to miss, but rody didn't pass out once. he actually passed out twice.

when they first reached the train, it appears that, in their brief moment of safety, rody had collapsed.

[ID: Deku picks up Rody to shield him from Beros's oncoming arrow attack. End ID.]

[ID: Deku is carrying Rody, swinging under the bridge in an effort to evade Beros's attacks. At the end, Rody appears as though he is coming to. End ID.]

up until this point, rody had been freaking out during their escape from the police. for him to have no initial response to being physically moved by deku... hell, he looks like he's just coming to. if we're going based off of the dub, he even yells "what's happening?!" simply put: he shut down and, more specifically, he shut down in what had been perceived as a moment of respite.

the reason i point this out is because, while we don't choose our trauma responses, there are events that can impact what they can be.

so... what is the purpose of the flop response?

quoting from an article here, but it's thought to help people in three different ways: to reduce the mental impact of the circumstances, to cause a physical disconnect (thus experiencing the trauma less directly), and to prevent additional assault.

the point i'm trying to make here is, well...

[ID: A flashback showing Rody protecting his siblings. A villain strikes him with a pipe. End ID.]

rody's been assaulted! and this is only one instance that we know of. we don't fully know what he's had to go through when providing for his siblings, but there is no doubt that there have been negative repercussions on his mentality.

did you notice how he startles easily?

[ID: Rody puts his hand on Deku's shoulder, scaring him. His response startles Rody, causing him to flinch backwards. End ID.]

[ID: Bakugou suddenly appears behind Rody, causing him to jump. He flinches back, turning to face him. Pino is also startled, flying to sit over on his other shoulder. End ID.]

with ptsd, some people can develop an exaggerated startle response. this happens when your nervous system gets stuck in survival mode. your brain is hypervigilant; any sudden sound or movement that you don't expect can make you feel like you're in danger and your body has to be ready to react in a given moment.

look at the difference between how deku and rody flinch. deku has a standard flinch, but rody violently flinches, almost as though he's been struck. do you see how he moves his head? his arms? how, after both instances, he's starting to sweat? yeah 👍

continuing along this line of thinking, let's talk about rody's attempted betrayal.

[ID: Rody being approached by the oni villain. He braces himself for the attack, clutching at his head. End ID.]

i feel like most people, when cornered and under the imminent threat of being attacked, try to block it or defend from it in some way. rody... didn't do that. as a matter of fact, it looks like he's trying to hide.

[ID: Deku runs towards Rody, shielding him from an arrow. Rody panics and turns away. End ID.]

additionally, in this scene, rody is apologizing. in this moment, he sincerely believed that deku was going to hurt him for his betrayal. instead of trying to run, he just... froze. braced himself again. i know he was very scared, but, despite deku having just saved him, seeing his fear at being approached... psychologically, there's something else going on here.

i think rody had been re-traumatized.

again, we only have that one flashback regarding a violent encounter with villains, but i genuinely have reason to believe that it wasn't a one-off scenario. the only reason rody tried to fight was to defend his siblings. they are his reason for continuing forward. but... what if there were times when they weren't there? and he had to face the villains by himself?

... yeah. i think that's why he responded the specific way that he did. his life was actively in danger, yes, but how many times had he been in that position? pleading, trying to garner sympathy about his siblings, wanting to be let go? i think the severity of his psychological distress in that instant is what caused him to try and hide rather than attempt to minimize any incoming damage.

as for feeling threatened by deku, that can be easily explained, too. rody talked quite a bit about betrayal, it seemed like a very natural thing to talk about. he's probably had to betray some villains and gotten hurt for it. honestly, you could probably argue that this contributed to his confusion regarding deku protecting him instead.

similarly with starting posts, i am also very bad at ending them 👍

tldr; rody soul has ptsd as a result of his encounters with villains after his father's disappearance. this has given him an exaggerated startle response as well as both a freeze/collapse response in times where his life is threatened. who knows what other symptoms he may have! what we can say for sure is that this kid needs therapy.

if you read all this, thanks! i hope you enjoyed me dissecting him like a bug.

[tysonrunningfox]

Hi,hey,hello how are you? Remember me, hope not anyway. I have a few questions I've been meaning to ask for a while so mucho texto ahead

Firstly , will Hiccstrids babies go to crime Hogwarts, or will having art thief dad and kickass Interpol mom spawn like...the greatest detectives known to man.

The second question is rather serious. Throughout the two years of reading you stuff, at every new page I just overthink about you writing style constantly. I've been trying to figure out what gives it that unique uniqueness for so long and I think I got it? Cos the thing is, the are a lit of commas and 'and's and that is relevant cos of the way you write the characters trail kf thought. It branches off to seemingly irrelevant things that make sense bot even a line later, it has references, ebbs abd flows and feels closely tied to their personality along with their dialogue and is somehow always relevant to the plot. Like the scene where Hic is tempted to show Astrid his bank account, it's not just a joke it shows about his views on morals and money. Or the alternate pov on The 14k Words of Freak, there are differences in the way they interpret things and yet they have more in common that one would think cos they both worry about the other person dipping. And the characterization. Its impressive how you've interpreted such a complex thing about pre established characters of a franchise that doesn't flesh them out that much ( I haven't seen rtte 😭) especially considering the many ways one could translate Hiccup and Astrids characters in a modern au( Think of Badboy cups, nerdcups, and so on, you've kinda made a mix now that I think about it) So my question is this : How. How do you do it? How long did it take you to perfect it? Any tips for someone who is thibking wanting to write fics? How to nail characterization ? Did any other author inspire you? Have you considered going professional? I'm struggling to articulate some stuff here but I hope you get the picture.

The third one is, will we see Valkas reaction to Stobber marriage?

Fourth, you mentioned a Snotstrid bodyswap and I was wondering what motivated you to do it Snotstrid cos it's brave to post SNOTstrid pn this fandom

Lastly, I'm new here so you might have already answered this, but what happened to Cast Iron ?

This is such a fun and thorough ask, thank you for letting me yap.

1. Aw man, have not thought this far ahead.  I think it’d have to be a purely personality based thing, like where we’re going to end up in the story is very gray.  I don’t think I’ve made the point “crime is bad” in any way here, it’s more like hoarding art and culture is bad and crimes that directly hurt people are bad and perpetuated by bad people but like.  A lot of crime is mostly fine.  Like those kids are going to see both parents shoplift from infancy, they’re going to have a very gray concept of theft and right and wrong.  And as much as I can see that making them criminals, I think they might also grow up to be like a lawyer who does not pay for things 100% of the time because F that.  

2. So like the realest answer to this is that I have probably some of the most ADHD that can exist in a person and am a human incarnation of a run-on sentence.  If you want real stream of consciousness realness, that’s Eret III (my beloved boy), but it infects all of the characters that I write because it’s just how I think, and also I do really keep track of where characters are in an arc by their thought process and where they go in a moment and the connections they make. With these two in particular, it’s been so fun how they’re like funhouse mirrors of each other, like they actually agree on a lot in theory but in practice their backgrounds and egos are built so differently that in practice, there was a lot of early, vicious clashing that took a lot of common ground to soften up.  And I think that’s true of just hiccstrid in general too, or the way that I understand them, they want the same things but go about them so differently that it leads to very fun initial conflict that’s only resolved by getting to actually know each other.  

The biggest thing for me is that to write a character, some things about them are immutable.  Like they have a handful of traits that will not change no matter how much you change their circumstances.  And those traits aren’t like “is the good guy” because that’s totally circumstantial based on the situation/narration/point of view.  Like to use Hiccup as an example, because as you say, I don’t sequester him into a nerd or badboy or Primary Protagonist categories, a few things that are immutable in Hiccup to me is that he’s 1. Weird, as in the way that he behaves is counter to what society expects of him in one way or another and he’s not too stressed about it actually, he just thinks society should change, 2. Heart too big.  Has caused issues for him, there’s a phase (however he does it and for how long depends on The Situation) where he tries to hide his too big heart, 3. Controversial but what I think makes Hiccup fun to play with is: self-centered.  And I don’t mean selfish, I mean that when he’s fully committing to doing something, he’s not great at automatically taking other people’s perspectives into account.  He’s going to do what he thinks is best and he truly thinks it’s what’s best for everyone, even though he skipped asking. And then there’s the fun part, where you take the guy with some base traits who lives in your head and then you throw rocks at them and aim for the soft spots. 

I’m flattered that you think I’ve perfected it, I feel like I’m definitely still learning, but I’ve been playing with these httyd dolls for fifteen years at this point so I definitely have a depth and variety of opinions that have had plenty of time to cement themselves in my mind.  And there’s the old adage that you have to do something 10,000 times to be good at it and like, I’ve put in the wordcount and hours.  A lot of authors inspire me for all sorts of different reasons, I tend not to read that much fanfic actually, because I get so deep in my own self-lore, and I don’t want to mix myself up.  And my reading habits are admittedly kind of weird, I read a lot of nonfiction (about admittedly gross and weird things tbh but that’s kind of just how I am) and love how a good nonfiction book can turn fact into a compelling narrative.  I’m a chronic re-reader of old favorites, and like forming new opinions of them every time, which I definitely do with the canon of a thing I’m writing fic for as well.  

3. Totally.  Everything in stobberalka’s life is so messy yay.  

4. You said you haven’t seen rtte, but like, I’m inspired to write snotstrid because I ship them and I have Snotstrid brainrot.  Like there’s no logical reason for them to act like that if they aren’t in love actually.  I don’t care that it’s unpopular, I’m right.  My largely unpublished snotstrid bodyswap au is iconic, my totally unpublished snotstrid blindlout au is iconic, Know It All is one of the best things I’ve ever written and I’m eternally obsessed with it, and I quote Bring It Back Home at least weekly.  I’m a true snotstrid believer and I’m not ashamed because I’m so correct, actually, and they’re perfect little mirrors of each other in a way that makes me go insane #redandblue.  The snotstrid tag on my blog is like a favorite blog in and of itself, full of hot takes and joy.  

5. It’s still on my blog somewhere, tbh there’s a bunch of stuff I need to move over to ao3 and I’m just…lazy.  And honestly I just lost steam with this one, I’m frequently writing to a joke and just kind of mostly ran out of jokes.  I should honestly reread it, because it was super fun, and I love cheese.  

[ponett]

Got a spoilery ask about SLARPG regarding Melody's character arc and, to a lesser extent, the ending, so I'll put this below a read more!

Anonymous asked:

Heya! I adore adore adore SLARPG, and have latched pretty hard onto Melody and Harmony's dichotomy for a while... I was wondering whether you saw Harmony more as an obstacle to Melody's growth, or something to be worked on and reconciled with more like Madeline and Badeline from Celeste? Unless it's spoilers of course. It's one of the few threads left open after the game, and as a plural woman myself I was just curious. X3

I'll say up front that I've generally avoided stepping in and telling people what The One Correct Interpretation is for a lot of things in SLARPG. I didn't intend for Melody to be read as plural, since in the story Harmony is a parasitic outside force, but I also understand where that interpretation comes from and won't tell folks they're wrong for relating to her like that. That's just the beauty of art. We can relate to things however we want. I just wanna make sure my personal framing is clear before I talk about the thought behind Melody and Harmony's relationship

Harmony is more of a literary device than a character. While she's not an alternate personality for Melody, she's also not really a full person in her own right. I don't think about Harmony having her own arc. She's a magical force that occasionally externalizes Melody's darker, more self-critical thoughts for the audience, where normally she would keep them to herself. She has her own design and name to make the dialogue boxes easier to follow. I also keep it intentionally vague whether or not other people would be able to see Harmony because I find that understated uncertainty more fun.

On a literal level, Harmony is a magical parasite, and therefore an obstacle to be overcome. She's not supposed to be there, straight up. But because she's just the embodiment of dark thoughts that Melody is already having, there isn't really much point in "defeating" Harmony to me - which is why things play out the way they do.

Even if Melody got rid of Harmony, she would still have to deal with those feelings. It would be a purely symbolic victory. And symbolic victories like that are often satisfying as hell in fiction, but in real life you can't defeat your shadow self to stop those 3am "what if my friends are only pretending to like me" thoughts. So instead, Harmony is something Melody needs to cope with and minimize. It's not about getting rid of bad thoughts forever, but rather learning how to deal with them better. And that's an active, life-long process. And so Harmony remains, but Melody is working on having healthier relationships with both her loved ones and herself.

I'll also say that, while I love Celeste, Madeline and Badeline's arc is mostly irrelevant to the way I write Melody and Harmony. (I don't think this ask is accusing me of plagiarizing Maddy Thorson or anything, to be clear. I'm just on a tangent since the comparison was brought up.) SLARPG began development in 2015, so the Harmony scenes, and Melody's arc as a whole, were already planned before Celeste came out. While I worried about getting compared to a much more popular game, I stuck to my guns, knowing that my story was different enough to stand on its own. If anything, I just avoided specific phrases like "reflection" or "I'm a part of you" to try and keep people from just pointing and going "Celeste reference!"

Unfortunately the "wow this is just like Celeste" comments were unavoidable, as were the newfound generalizations about what all indie games about trans girls with anxiety must be like because there are two (2) whole games that share some common story tropes, and it seems like the ending may have thrown some people off because of expectations created by Celeste. But what are you gonna do? I at least avoided my absolute nightmare scenario of Deltarune Ch.2 doing glitch aesthetics or giving Susie and Noelle a kiss mechanic lmao

[ijosijen]

i've got zero clue how hot a take this is

but over the years i've become more and more convinced that starting a conlang's sound system with a phoneme inventory is the wrong approach. there's too much emphasis on some kind of systematic approach to language phonemes.

that's the hot take: don't do this. phonemes aren't so immediately important when it comes to designing a language's sounds. start off with your phonotactic rules. abstract the "exact" value of the phoneme away (and the word "exact" is incoherent when it comes to phonemic analysis) and instead focus on dealing with broad classes of sounds. it's these features that you're actually trying to express anyway when you make a sound system, right?

there's definitely a strain of conlangery where you want to have a specific phoneme or two in your language and that's cool, honestly. flair is important. but often i see people trying to go for a feel with how their language sounds. and when you want to design a feel, it's best to start with the broad abstractions and then zero in on the surface realisation from there, imo.

how i go about things

start with syllable structure ofc. consonants and vowels. your classic CVC stuff. Or maybe CV. or maybe you want to start off with insane clusters off the bat - don't worry about it, you can always change it later via sound shifts or other tinkering.

also important here is word stress. this is personal feelings advice but unless you're planning to do smth specific with stress then you don't need to go out of your way to define "how" stress works. just put it on the same syllable of every word for now if you wanna. maybe say some vowels are strong/weak and steal or can't take stress or smth.

you don't need to specify the exact vowel right now, that's the whole point of this post. you can abstract your features until you've built your foundation to that point.

for consonants it's about the same. be as broad and vague as possible before zeroing in on closer values. don't choose consonants like they're discrete phonemes that go in certain places on a chart. treat the chart like one big consonant space that you're going to chop up into distinct segments.

this is the true value of the IPA, in that it can tell you the ways that real humans like to distinguish things. but the IPA is designed to make as many cuts as possible, to highlight every single distinction that every known language makes at the same time. no language makes that much distinction.

like, for example: english doesn't care about the difference between the alveolar and retroflex places of articulation, not really. if you hit someone with a retroflex stop in english, the language and its speakers will interpret that as its "front area of the mouth stop," which generally defaults to alveolar and/or dental because those are the ones that require the least effort.

this isn't really "grouping together" different phonemes, this is not drawing a border between two phonetic qualities. a slightly different thing. at least to start, your language has one consonant (C) and one vowel (V). zero borders whatsoever. start drawing distinctions, your phonemes will naturally emerge like a sculpture cut from stone. if you'd really like a retroflex series - make a cut in that "front area of the mouth" ! add a distinction between "tongue straight" and "tongue curled" or smth. and that's that.

once you've made your cuts and have the vowel and consonant charts diced up into distinguishing sections, you can pick a phoneme from each one to "represent" the space. maybe the most common one, maybe something else if you wanna have a little fun. and then you can add that phoneme or two you really personally wanted into the thing.

whoever might have told you that phonemic inventories "needed" to be as balanced as possible has no idea what they're on about. natlangs only loosely adhere to that kind of "balance," and whatever is there is an emergent consequence of the fact that the cuts you made among various phonetic features are sort of naturally straight lines. if you're distinguishing the fricative manner from the approximant manner, of course you're going to have a "fricative series" and an "approximant" series.

and all of these are just approximations. sounds can enter and leave for any reason at any time. a bit of chaos is always good.

moving back to the phonotactics - remember how you did this before starting on your phonemic inventory? that's 'cause you can update this to be more specific as you get more specific with your conlang's sounds. maybe you've made a cut in vowel space and you want it to correspond to vowel harmony, maybe you've made a weird consonant cut (glides/nasals/approximants are famous for this) might have weird effects/placements on the syllabic level.

ultimately, phonotactics probably has a bigger effect on how your language sounds than the exact phoneme classes you carve out. my last bit of advice is to take biblaridion's advice and start with a proto-lang. for phonotactics, what that means is: if you want a bunch of consonant clusters, then start with a ton of small open CV syllables and begin the vowel loss. If you want the opposite, start with a bunch of consonant clusters and then reduce the ever-living daylights out of them.

it'll take like 10-20 sound changes at the absolute most to end up with a sound system that was the opposite of how you started. make your sound changes broad and abstract. again, think in groups, distinguishable by a common set of cuts, not individual phonemes. do this well, and you'll find that along the way you've ended up with a gloriously chaotic and slightly funky system that's lost the sense of human artifice that a fiat-declared sound system has.

this is all phonetics advice and i'm not even an ijo phonetics. but that last bit applies very broadly. if you work on your language in stages and evolve it over in-universe time, it'll build up a whole host of fun naturalistic irregularities. protos are good. but in fairness that's advice for "naturalistic" conlanging, another incoherent term. natlangs do whatever they want, there's no one single vibe.

even if you're not doing that kind of artlang - i feel like the steps outlined here are a slightly better picture of what languages actually do, at least compared to the mad-libs sound inventory nonsense that the IPA might dupe you into thinking is accurate.

or, rather, mad-libs sound inventory nonsense is not what the IPA is for. the IPA is for quickly notating as many sound distinctions as possible. even the close/"phonetic" [t] is just a broad representation of a common phonological distinction. IPA is a messy system.

a "phoneme" is just a collection of distinctive traits being pronounced "at once." a "syllable" is a slightly bigger and often more abstract collection of distinctive traits. so start with the abstract. work your way down into the concrete. all art starts with a feeling that you want to nail down; make sure you're not nailing at random out the gate.

[bluegekk0]

Do you think it's funny that the entire au stemmed from a fork boi with bad parenting skills and a lanky boi with tumbler sexy man energy?

I do think about that sometimes, yeah. Though it also kinda makes me realize that it could be interpreted as me making the AU out of spite? Maybe spite is a strong word here, but I won't deny that I dislike many of the very common interpretations of those characters in the fandom. So the AU was a way for me to go "no, I fundamentally disagree" and do my own thing.

Vyrm is a primary example here, his canon counterpart often gets interpreted as a shitty dad who killed his offspring for fun and is a cold jerk towards everyone. And if you compare Vyrm to that, he's like the complete opposite. His actions did lead to the death of his offspring, yes, but 1. It wasn't just his idea (so many people put the blame on PK only when WL was also involved, which I found very frustrating), 2. He did NOT want to do it but had no other choice and 3. He tried his best to be a good father to Hornet, and he did his best there. And he's a very emotional being, he craves affection and he really struggles with his identity, confidence and just about everything else. I wanted to do something different with him from the start, and he's really evolved since then to the point where I completely separate them in my mind. Vyrm and PK, to me, are only the same in principle. Aside from that, they're completely different characters to me, and Vyrm in particular means so, so much to me after all this time. But yeah, it is pretty funny in retrospect.

With Grimm I had similar feelings about a lot of popular fanon, but it wasn't as strong. In all honestly, his AU version's beginnings were rooted in self-indulgence. I loved the aesthetic of the character, I loved how vampire-like he was, and unlike a lot of the fandom, I've always seen him more as a bat than a moth or any insect. And as it happens, I also really wanted to pair him with my version of PK. I guess that's the most self-indulgent part, I just thought they looked good together. Later it evolved into a full on backstory with a lot of yearning, self-discovery, and above all, affection and true respect for one another. No regrets here either, their story lives in my mind constantly and I genuinely love it so much. Funnily enough, with Grimm, I started to get irritated at popular fanon more and more as time went on, as opposed to creating him with the sole purpose of going against the headcanons I disagreed with. But just like with Vyrm, I don't consider my Grimm and the Grimm from the game to be the same.

It's actually slightly conflicting since on one hand, it is a Hollow Knight AU and I love reinterpreting the game for its purpose. On the other, it means I have to inevitably be faced with other interpretations of the characters that I find upsetting or irritating. But it is what it is. All I can hope for is that people begin seeing it more like an OC-esque thing instead of just "PK but gay and fat" or "Grimm but buff and fluffy". Because to me they are so much more than that.

Sorry if this turned into a rant-y ramble, I think about this all the time and this was a good opportunity to put those thoughts into words I suppose.

[kittykat-pikachu]

do u know your classpect? :D

YAY CLASSPECTS!! prepare for an ESSAY!

i know my aspect is Breath, theme of freedom and just going for it type thing. and also i have been described as having my "head in the clouds" since i was a kid. adding to that my tendency to disassociate and get emotionally detached if i get overwhelmed and yeah im pretty sure im a breath player. its also what i got on the official homestuck quiz so

but i dont know what my class would be?? i like the sound of Thief of Breath (its cool as hell) and its what i play as on the genesis project, but ive never actually understood the fandom interpretation of the classes so im unsure if it fits me "canonically"

HOWEVER!

i have my own interpretations on what classpects mean and how one fits into them, and by that merit i certainly am a Thief of Breath (at least in this point of time). to give you some reasoning behind it i will give you a (long) snippet of my classpect interpretations:

CLASS - What THEME of your life is most prevalent?

ive noticed that the characters with the same classes typically have similar themes to their stories, and i feel having themes be connected to class in general makes a bit more sense to me? like its a role youre given and that will effect how youll act. might sound weird but hear me out:

Vriska and Meenah play a similar role on their friend groups, being the person that ultimately has the greatest effect on their fates. They also both have an expectation (either self-inflicted or society-inflicted) to become like their ancestor. AND they have a duty theyre born with that has a hold on them as they grow up. each of these similarities, to me, has a common theme of Control. so, i personally think that Thieves are people that have Control to be a big part of their lives.

how does this relate to me? i have a very great need to understand and control almost everything in my life. be it from socializing or my own art, i want to know exactly what will happen before it will happen or else i start freaking out. yes i am considering getting an OCD diagnosis. its not that i /want/ Control to. heh. control my life's story but it IS the thing that i keep having to face time and time again. and this same sentiment is how i feel classes relate to a person.

so. yeah, i see myself as a Thief.

ASPECT - HOW do you play games?

okay i know this is out there but HEAR ME OUT!! the way you approach games can say a lot of how you view life. and the characters who share aspects typically share general views on how to go though situations even if the intent is different.

the Breath players all have very non-committal ways of engaging with games. Tavros never cared if he won or lost, he was just focused on having fun in the moment. he also didnt care about specifically gunning for the prize or figuring out secrets, he was just having fun playing puzzles. whatever hes doing in the present moment is whats most important. same goes for John, really. though where Tavros engages with his games' story, John totally skips over it and makes his own. hes too busy acting out con air to care about the fireflies trapped in the clouds. all that matters is what hes doing in the current moment.

this is also how i mainly play games, though i have a limited sample size of what i can relate this to, since i usually only ever care about whats happening in the current moment. i get distracted easily and set weird goals for myself. i either blatantly ignore the story beats to do my own thing or commit so hard my friends call it overkill. all i care about is having fun, not finishing the game.

so i got to give the homestuck official quiz a star for assigning me Breath.

all of that to say i /think/ im a Thief of Breath but idk i could be way off. i love the idea of the conflict of someone who is obsessed with both control and freedom. having that itching need to know exactly what is going on but only on their own path. i also just really like how it sounds like murder

[margridarnauds]

for the fandom meme, N and X?

Thanks!

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice).

BG3, let's go:

To begin with, since beginning to write for BG3, I haven't let myself read much in the way of BG3 fic, out of a fear of accidentally borrowing or letting it influence the way I'm interpreting it. Which is a shame, because I do genuinely believe in a collaborative fandom experience, but it's just part of my writing process.

I see quite a few Drow characters, but not as many who are tied to the lore, and that's a shame because...even though I have Issues with Drow worldbuilding (and, since there's been...confusion on this point in the past, I don't think it's tied to ANY ONE creator, even though I think that RAS has been the most influential and so a lot of positives AND negatives can be laid at his feet, I just think it's a general Drow Problem) there's a LOT of really cool information out there over the years to pick and choose from. Part of what I love about both Symryvvin siblings is finding ways of tying them into Menzoberranzan politics and Drow culture. Kitrye's time at Arach-Tinilith, Qilué Veladorn's death and its impact on Kitrye (I don't like the Lady Penitent series as much as any Eilistraee fan, but it has some GOOD Eilistraean angst if you toss out the...well, the everything else), Kitrye tossing away her house emblem and the significance of that, the Stinkstreets that Malla would have spent her early childhood in, the Festival of the Founding, Kitrye getting excited about the possibility of sporebread once she's back in the Underdark, Malla's training as a Szarkai and her job as an infiltrator...these are all things that help me understand both siblings. And I know I'm mildly insane about it, and there's a lot I toss out as well, because you're dealing with forty years of lore, but it's the sort of thing that I think can really add a lot of texture to a character (and, for non-fic writing purposes, understanding the characters and where they stand in Drow society and with each other REALLY adds some interesting dynamics when you're playing the game.) For Malla, this was obviously the most important, since she IS the Minthara romance character, and she has a lot to say about current Drow politics at any given time, but even with Kitrye, it's useful with her dynamic with Raphael, since there are all these fun little points where they either reflect or contrast against one another. (Kitrye learning Abyssal when she was younger VS Raphael, naturally, being fluent in Infernal, both of them having languages that have different registers and dialects based on status.)

So basically. I like when people treat Drow culture AS a culture and add in those little details, it makes them come alive. I feel like there can be a tendency of overplaying how monstrous Menzoberranzan is...and it is! Or not engaging with it entirely. But it's also interesting to understand WHY it's home to these characters and WHY it's bittersweet for all of them.

As a Raphael Fucker, I love when Raph-centric fic actually does something with Korrilla and her dynamic with Hope. Sometimes, I see Evil Korrilla in fic and...I think that interpretation isn't inherently WRONG, but I think that speaking to Korrilla in-game AND reading between the lines in her documents, there's a lot more going on there as well. She's fucked up! She's also nuanced!

For Raphael specifically, I wish that we had more Magadon Kest popping up because I think he would have a hilarious dynamic with his theatre kid older half-brother and the game already acknowledges him. (On the record: I'm going to have to read all the books that feature Magadon, but I already have plans for him to show up...and they might involve Raphael getting punted across a bar at one point.)

Actually, have a bonus #4: More religious characters. It feels like antitheist Tavs tend to be more common, and I get it, as an atheist myself, particularly in a game that deals so much with abuses of power, but I see so many Tavs where the Big Thing is "and then they realized that the gods didn't care about anyone, they were merely pawns in their games" and...I think that there are ways that that can work for a character (particularly for a Durge...), I'm not writing it off, especially when there are a lot of Tavs I've liked who've had that, but it just...gets a little boring when you see that and it's treated as something edgy and innovative each time. I'm not saying "all Tavs ever MUST be religious", but I'm saying that I think it's good, when designing a character, to think about what works for them, and how that works with the setting. It's interesting, writing for Kitrye as an atheist, because she has this very close, deep bond with her goddess and it's a genuine stretch to try to wrap my head around that, but that's what makes it fun to work with. I think that having a character and giving them a relationship with a deity, particularly with a setting as expansive as The Forgotten Realms is, where you have SO MANY deities running around, can be a great way of building up that character and creating some interesting dynamics in the camp. (I see a lot of clerics of Mystra who happily renounce their goddess and make out with Gale in front of her statue which...fair play, but there's something to be said for having a genuine crisis of faith, and trying to understand WHY she's ordering this, and maybe even seeing the pragmatism of it, while also on the other hand seeing this person you've gotten close to and even grown to love and not being willing to have them sacrifice themself.)

X - A trope which you are almost certain to love in any fandom.

Sun and moon dynamics, particularly when the woman's allowed to be the broody one. I can't resist enemies to lovers hatesex, either.

[corvidares]

miles and polly (yes, the parrot)

inspired by this lovely art of the two, and the artist’s tags! please show it some love :)

okay SO while i love the idea of miles adopting polly after he’s acquitted, in reality i think he’s poorly suited to parrot ownership source: my personal, pretty extensive knowledge of parrots from years of research and firsthand experiences

this post will have three parts: one, why he’s not suited. two, what fictional “species” polly is. and three! a fun scenario i propose instead of him adopting her

parrots are very demanding pets because theyre essentially wild animals. people have to have a pretty specific disposition in order to fit the bill, and while these people DO exist, theyre not very common. most people just cant, or shouldnt, have parrots

this is all to say, miles is not the suitable type. of course how one interprets and characterizes him may change this slightly, but not enough to make a difference imo.  in canon, he’s a giant stick in the mud (said with as much affection as possible) and i personally hc him as being autistic.  to elaborate, the first point of parrots: VOLUME.

miles can handle volume in court because hes used to it, and because he gets very in the zone while prosecuting. it’s expected, and if it gets VERY loud it definitely won’t be pleasant for him, but he can keep it together. however at home and in his office, he appreciates quiet. noise can overstimulated him somewhat easily.

parrots are always talking, yelling, screaming, squawking, singing, etc. that’s just a fact. there is no such thing as a quiet bird. in the game, polly only speaks if spoken to, but this is (obviously) not realistic at all. she is LOUD and she has things to SAY.

point 2: MESSINESS

all pets are messy to some degree, but parrots are UP there on the list. between pooping every 15 minutes, (yes, thats a real number) chewing on everything they can get their beak on, and loose feathers + dandruff getting everywhere.. they are chaotic little guys.

i picture miles as someone who likes things having their place and his spaces being neat + consistent. don’t get me wrong, i dont think he’s a complete neat freak: he may leave out his tea cup sometimes, or some books stacked on a table. but generally speaking i think he’d be pretty upset at a parrot wrecking havoc in his space - destroying furniture, knocking shit over, etc. which is fair! and the bigger a bird is, the more they can do (though the little ones would probably surprise you)

point 3: TRAVELING

miles canonically travels a lot, and often internationally. even if he fit every other checkbox for having a bird, this alone would disqualify him. while parrots can travel out of necessity (long distance adoption, moving) its not something they can do casually at all. theyre too highly strung and sensitive to changes in the air and in their environment in general. they also usually dont like strangers. so its not just a matter of getting a pet sitter. besides, miles doesnt just travel but moves between countries frequently. its far from ideal.

so, he’s not fit to be a parrot owner. fine. but where does that leave polly after miles is acquitted?

well.. miles has a big heart. even if animals/pets arent especially his thing (besides the fanon of him getting a borzoi dog, which you can rip from my cold dead hands) he does care for them. he’s not heartless! polly is a victim in that situation just as he was, and so he sees it as his responsibility to help her find a new home.

so instead, i propose that miles fosters polly for some time while the local parrot shelter finds a suitable placement (realistically a shelter would Not let someone with zero experience foster but shh this is for funsies)

they recover and start healing from the trauma they share, together

as i wrote this post i started writing a fic of this concept so hopefully i finish that lol

[nientedenada]

Why the Altmeri Commentary on Talos is Important to Lore Discussion (Even if It Isn't the Thalmor's End Goal) 

Originally posted on r/teslore three years ago. To be clear, important in this context means if you're trying to guess where TES might go in the future. And as the years go by, and we now have an almost complete turn-over of developers at Bethesda, it may be less relevant. Still, the new developers will have all these old ideas to rummage through.

This begins with a split among fans, though I don't think it has to be a nasty split. There is a very strong opinion in /r/teslore that Out-of-Game texts are valid if you want them to be, if you find them interesting enough for your Tamriel. And there's another very strong opinion that only official lore is really valid for theorizing. To be completely honest, we all probably dabble in one or the other at different times. Sometimes we are more creative and speculatory about Tamriel, other times we are arguing out the Lowest Common Denominator of agreed-upon lore. (It's never actually agreed upon, but that's part of the fun.)

But there's a third possibility: examining Out of Game texts for the perspective they can give us on In-game lore. A really good example of how this works would be the document: On the Nords' Totem Religion. It was a design document for Skyrim which was not incorporated into the game directly. However, the document gives a lot of insight into the little we do see in Skyrim of the ancient Nord religion. It is useful in interpreting the game itself.

It's also useful for going forward. When ESO returned to Skyrim this year, we could bet that the devs would be taking a closer look at the local religion, as they had in Elsweyr last year. And we could also guess that they might turn to that unofficial Skyrim design document which best explained the original ideas for the Nord religion. As of a few weeks ago, much of the Totem Religion document's lore has been added to the official lore as in-game books in ESO.

The totem religion document is as uncontroversial example of this process as you can find. Most everyone in lore circles has regarded it as a very useful document. You won't find that agreement about all OOG unofficial writings. But I'd like to make the argument for why the Altmeri Commentary on Talos is worth knowing and discussing even if you don't end up thinking it's true.

So, I'll begin with quoting the whole thing. It's pretty short.

What appears to be an Altmeri commentary on Talos To kill Man is to reach Heaven, from where we came before the Doom Drum's iniquity. When we accomplish this, we can escape the mockery and long shame of the Material Prison. To achieve this goal, we must: 1) Erase the Upstart Talos from the mythic. His presence fortifies the Wheel of the Convention, and binds our souls to this plane. 2) Remove Man not just from the world, but from the Pattern of Possibility, so that the very idea of them can be forgotten and thereby never again repeated. 3) With Talos and the Sons of Talos removed, the Dragon will become ours to unbind. The world of mortals will be over. The Dragon will uncoil his hold on the stagnancy of linear time and move as Free Serpent again, moving through the Aether without measure or burden, spilling time along the innumerable roads we once travelled. And with that we will regain the mantle of the imperishable spirit.

What it doesn't say: Nowhere does it say it's a Thalmor document. Nowhere does it mention the Towers. Those two points are pretty well-known in lore circles, but they come up enough to make it worthwhile to point out.

Second thing to notice: its date.

Submitted by Lady N on Sun, 09/19/2010 - 19:53 Obscure texts Author: Michael Kirkbride Librarian Comment: Many of these are in-character snippets taken from various forum posts.

It doesn't have an exact date; the old forums have been deleted. But we do see that it was re-posted on the Imperial Library on 09/19/2010, the year before Skyrim came out. This important detail is glossed over in a lot of the discussion of its relevance. It is not a document written after Skyrim trying to put a creative spin on some details in-game. It's a document published before Skyrim came out, and hence a window on the discussions that were going on in the development of Skyrim. We need to look at the stuff in Skyrim with the question: Does the Altmeri commentary shed any light on what's going on here?

Well, the fact that the Altmeri Commentary suggests that Talos needs to be erased from the mythic makes it very relevant. Maybe this is not the reason for the Thalmor's Talos ban in the game that eventually was released. But it's evidence that during the development of Skyrim, the reason was being kicked around by someone in discussions with the devs. It's that context that finally informs the two lines in-game that might refer back to the Commentary.

The first and most often quoted is Ancano's boast:

You think I can't destroy you? The power to unmake the world at my fingertips, and you think you can do anything about it?

It's pointed out that he can simply be boasting of his power there, without any reference to a supposed greater plan. And yes, that's true. But remember, we aren't interpreting that line in a vacuum. There was a development-related post that brought up a fanatical Altmer idea of unmaking the world before Skyrim, and it's just a coincidence that a fanatic Thalmor member boasts of having the power to do so in the game? These things have nothing to do with each other?

And then there is the other line from Esbern which I think is even more significant.

I don't suppose they want the world to end any more than we do. Or at least, they'd prefer it to end on their terms.

Esbern's statement does not confirm this is the Thalmor's plan. What it does is confirm that the idea this is the Thalmor's plan exists in-universe. And Esbern is not some random conspiracist; he's a lore-master. Dragons were his hobby but we also know from his dossier that the Thalmor consider him responsible for two of the most damaging operations on Dominion soil. He knows his stuff when it comes to the Thalmor. His opinion may be affected by paranoia, he may not even hold the opinion very strongly (suggested by how he corrects himself there), but he is not some random guy in the pub with a conspiracy theory about the Thalmor. If it's a conspiracy theory, it's an important one in-universe.

So, we have a timeline that suggests the Commentary is important, and two references in the game of Skyrim to the idea presented in the Commentary. The references are independent, coming from ideological enemies, Ancano and Esbern. I'd say that makes a very strong case for the Commentary's ideology existing within the universe.

If this concept exists within the universe, the Commentary is important even if it does not represent the Thalmor's ultimate goal accurately.

But where does one go with that? With Michael Kirkbride's historic and ongoing influence on the TES franchise, elements of the Commentary are quite likely to make it into future games. On the other hand, the Commentary may be a window on an idea in development that was tossed around and ultimately abandoned. Maybe it's not Thalmor belief, really. It could even be Blades propaganda. Maybe Ancano believes in it, but he's actually a fanatic who's out of step with the Thalmor in general. etc. etc. etc.

Acknowledging that an Out-of-Game source is relevant does not mean accepting it as the Truth Bound To Be Revealed by TES VI. TES fandom has had enough of that over-certainty already. I think we've all met someone who takes some random developer's post as The Gospel Truth that cannot be questioned. That's frustrating, for sure. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater. It doesn't make sense to ignore it completely in discussions about the Thalmor's ultimate goal. There are enough sources to make it worth looking at, both inside and outside the universe.

This post was about the relevance of the Commentary, but if you're interested in how the Commentary's ideology could function within the Thalmor, I can never recommend enough this old /r/teslore post: Analyzing the Altmeri Commentary on Talos.

Additional reply in comments: I thought I'd hedged enough on my statement. I won't claim Esbern as an expert on the Thalmor's ontological goals, although he definitely is more knowledgable about the Thalmor than the random guy at the pub. I do think, however, that his statement confirms that some people within the universe think this is the Thalmor's end goal. I see his statement there as he's not certain himself of it.

In the comments of the original post, a user who has since deleted their account posted a very interesting timeline of the development under discussion. I also recommend this discussion with Misticsan about the post and whether fans give the Commentary undue importance in contrast to other sources on the Thalmor.

This was only the beginning of a very involved journey into the weird fandom status of the Altmeri Commentary and the Towers Theory. It's a lengthy saga, and I've put off formatting it for tumblr but I do mean to eventually copy all the teslore posts over here.

[froot-batty]

Hii! Important question:

How did you start your AU in the first place? Im having some trouble with mine so if its not a bother and if you dont mind, do you have any tips or anything for starting and developoing a AU?

HMMM, that's a tough question!

In my personal experience, I started off small. I had a handful of characters I liked and who's personalities and relationship dynamics I had the basic grasp of and just started posting about them. I didn't start out with a storyline or character arcs in mind, just the characters themselves and how they interacted with one another. All of the rest came after, and even still I don't have that much planned out in the grand scheme of things! I just let ideas take me wherever my brain wants to go, and I add or rework characters as I see fit

For making your own AU, I'd say one of the first things you want to think about (besides a few characters you know you want to include and their dynamics) is whether you want to tell a more linear story or not. If your AU follows a linear story (say the kind you'd find in comics), then think about your characters as devices within the plotline. You might want each of them to fulfill a role to progress the story, so how can you change them up to serve the purpose of the narrative? Of course this doesn't mean characters all need to be a plot device, you can have characters outside of the story you talk about, but the main ones should lead from point A to point B!

If you're going for a "whatever goes" kind of AU like I and a lot of other people do, then honestly, it's up to you how you want to do it! I had no idea where I wanted to go when I first started out, I just knew I wanted to talk about characters I liked and the trials and tribulations they went through. And you never have to stick with the things you first come up with - I CONSTANTLY add new characters, new dynamics, new plotlines, and new elements to backstories. I leave a lot of my AU open to changes like that

For developing characters themselves, I'd look at their canon backstories/abilities/characterization/events as well as fan interpretations of them. A lot of the time you can get good inspiration from what other people are doing - I know I did! But there's no stopping you from completely changing a character all together. In that case I'd say just do whatever interests you that you think you can apply to them. You can take elements of their common characterization and flip it on it's head; give it new meaning. You can make them fulfill themes and character tropes you think would be interesting for them. It's really up to you! All I'd say is have a basic knowledge of what the character is in canon before you do something completely different - it'll give you elements to work with!

But honestly, the main thing is to have fun. You have the freedom to develop the story and the characters within it however you'd like, and I don't think any two people will do it quite the same. Don't overthink the beginning, either! All beginnings are messy and complicated, and your best bet is to just go for it; you'll never properly develop it unless you dig your hands around in there and start playing

I hope that all helped! My DMS and inbox are ALWAYS open to anyone who wants to infodump or bounce ideas off of me. I love seeing the creativity people can have :]

[fioras-resolve]

I wanna talk about how developers have gone about making new games out of Minesweeper.

You know, I love Minesweeper, been playing it for over a decade, but it's the kind of game where you've probably had some problem with its design. Its core interactions are that of a puzzle game, but it's also very common to get into situations where you just have to guess. And if you guess wrong, you die instantly and have to start over. It sucks!

It's very strange design, coming out of the game's random board generation. But that randomness is how the game keeps its variety. Minesweeper is a roguelike, I'd say. It's a turn-based, grid-based, exploratory game with permadeath and random environmental generation. It fits the Berlin Interpretation better than a lot of modern games bearing the moniker. But it's also a logic game, where you spot patterns in abstract numbers and use deduction to solve logical puzzles, even if they're generated. There's a contradiction there, and the games I wanna talk about resolve it in very different ways.

DemonCrawl by Therefore Games is a fun little game that leans into the roguelike aspect of Minesweeper. It's an RPG, kind of, where you play several small Minesweeper maps while gaining items and equipment over time. One item might let you take a hit unscathed, and another might reveal the location of a mine or three. It is a more "fair" version of Minesweeper in many ways, in that it gives you a healthbar so you don't die instantly to mistakes, and that the items let you clear the board in more interesting ways. But at the same time, this RPG layer is unfair in its own right. It's very common to enter a board with negative effects, and to get items that are either unhelpful or detrimental. It improves on a lot of the roughest edges of Minesweeper, but like... Adding this whole extra layer of management and decision-making can make it feel like the mine-sweeping gameplay isn't really the point anymore. It's just the hook to another indie roguelite. An enjoyable one for sure, but not what I really want from Minesweeper. Also, DemonCrawl's method of achieving longevity is to have an account leveling system and like, materials collection. It feels like the game isn't confident in its gameplay.

On the other hand, 14 Minesweeper Variants by Artless Games is very confident in the game it's trying to be, and that game is often terrifying. It is exactly as the title says. (Well, it's more than 14 now but those are secret variants.) Tens of thousands of puzzles with different rules, most of them hard, but all of them solvable. So you might get, for example, "Every clue is either one more or one less than the actual number," or "There cannot be a straight line of three consecutive mines." These are often very intimidating, and make me groan out loud, "Oh, god." But it's a unique sense of accomplishment, figuring out these variants, and learning their intricacies. It's a kind of puzzle that I've never seen anywhere else. It leans hard into the logic game aspect of Minesweeper, by completely ditching the roguelike element. As with most Artless games, it cuts to the bone if you're not deep into puzzle games. But as someone who is, it's a lovely time. Also, Artless Games has a Discord server, where you can actually suggest new variants! Honestly, this dev is really underappreciated, give them their flowers.

The last thing I wanna talk about is actually much more straightforward than either of these. It's a Minesweeper Probability Calculator, by Merrick Huang. It's Minesweeper, but at any time you can press a button, and see the odds of any given cell being a mine. It's still Minesweeper, no modifications to the rules, but it feels more honest than Minesweeper usually is. It actually reveals how much depth there is even to guessing, as true 50/50s aren't as common as you'd expect. It also belies the truth to guessing, that there is always a chance you're just wrong. You can make an educated guess, but sometimes the cards don't fall in your favor.

Now, I could talk about plenty more. There are the various attempts to repackage Minesweeper aesthetically, including through porn. (I have two separate hentai minesweeper games and I will forever bear that curse.) There's the kind of garbage Microsoft Minesweeper you can get through the Windows Store, like they tried their best to sand off the rough edges but that just kind of makes it weak. And there are plenty of small devs making their own variants, to varying degrees of success. But I think I've done what I want to here. This is Angie Nyx, and I have a play to go to. Peace.

[enbysiriusblack]

“severus fights james and his friends because he wants to control/be with lily and he thinks james is in the way of that, even though lily just doesn't like him in that way. and james fights severus because severus is picking a fight with him/severus is bigoted. “

Hey so I was scrolling through the tl ans saw you responding to an ask. I totally agree with you that Lily is more of an important character on most of ur points. But i saw this and was genuinely wondering how you got that from the books? This is genuinely not to attack you or be rude. But I saw the canon completely differently than how you have interpreted it, and I do wonder where you get that point from? Specifically that Severus is the one starting things while James is only fighting back? And that Severus wants to control Lily?

Once again this is not me trying to be rude, and I also do not hate James. But Jkr said that James went after Severus mostly because of his connection to Lily. And in the only scene we really see, its James and Sirius going after Severus first while he was sitting under a tree by himself. I wouldn’t call two vs one a rivalry. And I wouldn’t call that Severus going after James.

Once again genuinely curious bc it seems to be a popular notion and I truly dont know where ppl are getting it from.

the moment we see james and sirius going after severus is what i meant with james pocking on severus for sirius (i mentioned that in the post)

Sirius stared around at the students milling over the grass, looking rather haughty and bored...

...'This'll liven you up, Padfoot,' Said James quietly, 'Look who it is'

James is very happily playing with his snitch, he only approaches Severus because Sirius is bored and wants something fun to do (Sirius finds fights fun- i mean he's a british teenager with family issues. it'd be surprising if he didn't find fights fun, and everyone found fights fun at school)

i didn't mean this specific scene. but, for instance, severus invented the sectumsempra curse. which is like,, very dark and torture-y. i can imagine him using it on james or his friends (without knowing how bad the spell is, like harry does with draco). i do think he wouldn't have used it knowing how bad it was, but based on being a kid/teenager with people i hate and have ongoing drama with and having drawn their gravestones and dead bodies (i also have a neighbour kid that recently did that exact thing so i'm assuming imagining the classmates you hate dying as a kid/teen is a fairly common experience), i can very much imagine severus would have made the curse with james in mind. and i think he does use a version of it in this scene, where he gashes james' face so deeply his robes splatter with blood.

also, as i said in that post, i don't think when we see people's memories, it is a completely true viewing of the past. i think it's like how memories are- biased and wavering over time. and since this is severus' memory, i wouldn't take it wholly to heart (but that is more my hc, and i don't think jkr wrote legilimency to be how actual memories work)

continuing on this actual scene (i'm reading it rn and i'm trying to focus on answering your ask but i can't help giggling at the amount of times sirius is called handsome, every line is like "sirius handsomely turned to snape", "sirius head turned, handsomely" /j) i sorts get what you mean with james picking a fight with severus because of lily, but it seems to be more for sirius' entertainment in this scene. lily asks him what severus has done to him, and james just says it's the dact he exists- which does show james doesn't really have a reason for this particular interaction, and it was purely for sirius. but he does say he'll stop if lily goes out with him- making it seem as if he is fighting with severus for lily. but i honestly think that line was more james just trying to wind her up- he knows she'll say no. james acts, during this scene, like a standup comedy act. every sentence seems to intentionally said to receive a specific reaction from his audience (his classmates). the line gives me the same vibe as a heckler at a comedy act, and the comedian interacting back with them.

one of the spells james uses against severus (where he dangles him upside down) is in severus' book of spells that he invented. so for james to know that, it means severus must have used it in the past (not sure if it was canon or not about that spell being a trend at this time or not), but severus would have used it on james or his friends previously for james to know the spell.

then what i said about severus picking a fight with james for lily, and james picking a fight with severus because of severus being bigoted/already picking a fight with him. this comes from when harry goes to remus and sirius after seeing severus' memory.

"I think James was everything Snape wanted to be... And Snape was just this little oddball who was up to the eyes in the dark arts, and James- whatever else he may have appeared to you, Harry- always hated the dark arts."

"Snape was a special case. I mean, he never lost an opportunity to curse James, so you couldn't really expect him to take that lying down, could you?"

sirius says severus picked a fight with james because james got what severus wanted (lily, but also academic validation, with james being naturally talented, which i should have mentioned in the previous post, but i was focusing on lily, not james and severus). sirius then says james picked a fight with severus because of severus' interest in dark magic (and we do see james getting furious when severus calls lily a 'mudblood', james was about to stop before severus said that). and then remus says james, in later years, only went after severus because severus was still going after him.

i didn't mean severus was starting things- more that severus was continuing things. i know they argued when they first met about houses, and i think lily then being put in gryffindor after that argument infuriated severus and caused him to see james as a threat, whilst james found it humorous and would likely mock severus for losing his best friend to gryffindor, which then their rivalry escalated from there and continued because severus was into lily and because james didn't like how severus was into dark arts/severus was already going after him and his friends.

about severus controlling lily. most of what we see of their friendship is very much severus trying to control lily. he tells her she better be in slytherin, he tells her not to listen to petunia because she's just a muggle (this could just be trying to comfort a friend, of course, but the insinuation that lily shouldn't listen to her because she's a muggle, not because she's just jealous and bitter is very weird), lily tries to get severus to stop hanging out with bigoted people that hurt her friends and severus just complains about james and remus, turning the subject to what 'she's doing wrong' instead of actually listening to her, he threatens to sleep outside gryffindor tower unless lily comes to see him, he asks for only lily's life to be spared (not caring if james or even harry, a 1 yr old, die). seems pretty controlling to me.

[golvio]

Current top five Slay the Princess routes I want to try first:

Damsel (Not because I have any delusions about romancing her, but because I suspect there’s something really awful lying in wait further on, particularly since this was THE route we were explicitly warned away from. I’m also a sucker for when “safe” things turn out to be absolutely horrifying in retrospect, when horror takes a crowbar to the boring one-dimensional love interest lady archetype, and Maria was my favorite character in Silent Hill 2 to the point where I still write essays about her existential nightmare of a life at a moment’s notice. Also, it has my favorite track next to the initial theme.)

Stranger (I love visiting the uncanny valley, plus I want to see what happens)

Nightmare (Who doesn’t love that sleep paralysis demon intro? Also, she sounds like fun in the way Freddy Krueger was fun for the audience, not so much his victims.)

Specter (Like Stranger, it’s the route that diverges the most from the expected structure, although in this case the protag flipping off the narrator happens later instead of earlier. Also, Princess is now a ghost who can’t be stabbed, and she might do that American Werewolf In London thing where she decays more and more each time we see her. Finally, I think one of the writers mentioned it was her favorite route to write for, so I imagine it’ll involve some really interesting twists and turns.)

Witch (The way she speaks is fun, and I love a good dark fairytale)

As for the rest, it’s not that I don’t want to see them, but I want to get my top 5 out of the way first as they’re the ones I’m most curious about.

I’m saving Prisoner for last, because…it feels fitting. It was the first ending I got in the new demo, and it felt like…it was maybe closer to the Princess’ actual wishes? I mean, it is an “alternate interpretation” of the Damsel route, and could just be the player still seeing what they want to see and projecting their own feelings of being trapped onto her. But the one thing the Princesses have in common is that they all want to leave the cabin. Maybe I’ll change my mind and immediately flip to Prisoner after seeing how Damsel goes to get the other side of that particular story, I don’t know.

I’m going to try to go through every route to see what happens, particularly since each is supposed to be its own self-contained story. I still stand by my belief that every route’s going to reveal something about the story or the characters that I might not see in other routes, and that experiencing each will give a greater understanding of the story as a whole. If there’s no “true ending,” then every ending is, in its own way, “true.”

I also imagine that my final verdict on Personal Favorite Princesses may look very different from my Most Anticipated Princesses list. I’m expecting that some of the routes I ranked lower will have some surprises in store, or that my opinion on past routes might change depending on new information I gather. There’s also the possibility there may be Secret Princesses we haven’t seen yet.

I also suspect that I may have separate contenders for “Favorite Route” and “Favorite Princess,” as strange as that may sound. It feels like it’s going to be that kind of game—sometimes you love the horror story for the tale as a whole, and sometimes you love it exclusively for the monster.

[enlighten3d]

i know i said id write this post four hours ago but i had to do the merge dragons event. anyway.

WINGS ! how the fuck would they be treated on smps where theres pvp? (this is an au where Everyone has wings. and talons but well get into that Later. this is about the wings sdhkjgl)

(context post btw: here)

they are very much a weak point in combat, id saying. if you fuck someones wings up, they are done for. cant fly away, permanent damage. and theres not many ways to defend them (beyond putting armour on the flesh and bone part of the wing - which would do a lot more than it sounds like!). so i do think that it would be social taboo to go for someones wings in battle.

but even if it is social taboo.. accidents happen, and it works differently on different servers, right? and thats what this post is about ! focusing on smps where theres actual Combat (sorry hermitcrafters and kww collab fans)

first off, my beloved.. the dream smp. honestly! i think people would NOT go for the wings. there may be wars and actually genuinely fucked up stuff, but going for the wings in a fight is taking it too far. accidents have DEFINITELY happened tho, what with the sheer amount of withers and explosions. like phils wings being fucked up! yes i know thats a canon thing but im using it to prove my point here. the EXCEPTION to this 'people not intentionally going for the wings' thing is, well. c!dream. the fucker would INSTANTLY go for the wings whenever he has an opportunity. its a weak point, of course he'd abuse the fuck out of it, like. its impossible to expect anything otherwise.

lifesteal!! this ones fun to me because i think theyd have Concrete Rules on this. like they already do! from off the top of my head, i remember that netherite armour is banned, for example. i think going for the wings would just be... another thing thats banned. and no matter how deep into the Lore that people get, those rules are GEEENERALLYYYYY followed. the wings one for sure is. it may be the dEaDlIeSt SeRvEr, but theyre all there willingly. getting their wings fucked up is not something ANYONE wants. i dont know enough about lifesteal to pinpoint specific times that Accidents wouldve happened but! whatever. this is one rule that they always follow i think. (please dont kill me for this one if you disagree, i havent watched enough lifesteal)

now the life series... naturally, going for the wings is banned. ..but only nominally, really. all bets are off when youre on red, right? i really dont think there could be anything to stop people on red from going for peoples wings in fights. i mean, depending on your interpretation of the life series (as in, does being on red actually make someone Bloodthirsty like most common fanon, or is it just a Thing that lets someone attack others?), this can change, but i like the first one, so with that in mind... yeah nothing would stop people on red from going for the wings. this only gets MORE INTERESTING if you believe life series and hermitcraft to be connected in some way... with the inevitable wing injuries that would come from the life series, if they just... go back to hermitcraft and other servers afrterwards... if those injuries are permanent (which i do believe they are), then... oh that would be Something hehe. keeping this in my back pocket a fic idea, yall are free to yoink it.

and last but not least, bcs i dont actually watch that many smps (esp not with fighting) or whatever... unstable universe. pretty much what i said for lifesteal! like! i dont see any reason why itd be any different. yes unstableverse doesnt have Rules like lifesteal, but... theyre mostly the same people. if they can follow that Rule in lifesteal, combined with the social taboo thing, i think that they wouldnt really go for the wings. thats just a line you dont cross. (..also wemmbu did canonically yoink Most of the elytras on the whole server at one point, and in this context i think it would be funny if he just somehow managed to disable flight for a while, but thats a whole other thing unrelated to wings in combat lmao)

ANYWAY YEAH THATS THAT. I HAVE SOOOO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT HOW WINGS IN COMBAT WOULD ACTUALLY WORK. might write a post about that.

this is all headcanons !! im making shit up, as always !! o7