#my writing philosophy is just more 'work with what you have' vs 'this is a round peg and i want a square hole so let's make it a square'

[sageadvice]

I use a very simple philosophy to distinguish between Caterina, Illario, and Lucanis’ motivations when I’m writing my wips. I’m not sure it’s canon, or that anyone else would agree, but it helps me keep them on their three distinct tracks and makes the conflicts between them make sense in my mind.

It comes down to how they each, individually, view the Crows: Business vs Family.

- Caterina sees the Crows as Strictly Business. The Crows are her job, and in order to be good at her job she has, regrettably, sacrificed or unwillingly lost almost all of her Family. But Lucanis and Illario are not Business, they are Family, and even when she hasn’t treated them as such that’s how she views them, and why she would act seemingly out of character when it comes to them. I believe she allows Teia in on this Family definition too, a little bit, though she would not admit it.

(Viago also sees the Crows as Strictly Business. He gets tugged into Teia’s orbit more than he would prefer, but left alone too long and he falls back on the old habits of, this is just a job for me and has nothing to do with my private life.)

- Illario sees the Crows as Family. For him, none of this is Business—it’s all personal. In this Family, you can of course kill your cousin to get ahead! He doesn’t want him to suffer, of course, but that’s just how they operate. It’s how all the Crows in their Family line, all the past Talons and Matriarchs and Patriarchs operated too. He’s never had a job, because he is too devoted to the Family. It’s the Mafia. It’s his whole world, all he wants and has ever wanted.

(Teia, interestingly, is the opposite side of this coin. She too sees the Crows as her Family, but unlike Illario she wants to shape them into a much different ideal of what a Family looks like, not adhere to past traditions where they can all just kill one another with no consequences. This invariably frustrates Viago, who would prefer they keep their business and pleasure separate.)

- Lucanis, however, struggles with this: he wants to separate them, but he can’t, and neither idea dominates. He wants to have his Grandmother and Cousin as only Family, not Business, because he likes his work and he’s good at it, but it is also a source of trauma for him now. He and Illario had the same upbringing. Caterina is his Boss. Unfortunately, they are both, and sometimes he falls into one way of responding to issues, as though the matter is a personal Family problem, and sometimes he responds as though it’s all Business, cut and dry. He is unable to leave the Crows completely because he worries he will lose all the Family he has left if he does, but it is still just a job in many ways.

This is also the main reason I can put Lucanis in the seat of First Talon and understand how it works. Lucanis has to lead these people, all of whom fall one way or the other, and he is truly able to see both sides of people’s motivations. And, at the same time, unlike Illario, he does not value the way the Crows have operated in the past. He sees no glory or honor in killing to get ahead. Killing, as he repeatedly says, is something he wants to think about only as work, with proper compensation; nothing personal. Illario cemented Lucanis’ inability to adhere to traditions of their organization with his actions, but that train really started running with the death of their parents and was fueled along by Caterina’s “training.”

Anyway, I find them all fascinating and feel free to correct me if anything is off about my thought processes. Theres more to say about how Spite factors into all of this, and Rook, regardless of whether you romance him, I just don’t have those thoughts cemented yet.

[littlelilacegg]

Felassan: What His Death Does--or Doesn't--Change About Solas's Characterization

(also: Punitive vs. Restorative Justice, Doylist vs. Watsonian analysis, and what we've misinterpreted about that revenant in the Crossroads)

Spoilers for Inquisition & Veilguard. (Minor spoilers for The Masked Empire, but only if you haven't played Veilguard.)

First, real-life context: That last page of the Masked Empire, when we actually see Solas kill Felassan, was written well before Inquisition was finished. (The book released earlier than Inquisition did, and there's a long time between the initial writing of a book and its release.) Apparently at the time, they were working with an entirely different version of Solas as a character, even with an entirely different VA in mind. THAT version of Solas was more ruthless (and a bit more of a generic Bad Guy) than the Solas we get in Inquisition and Veilguard.

The first issue at hand is of punitive vs. restorative justice. Punitive justice is the philosophy of prioritizing punishing the party responsible for a problem, whereas restorative justice prioritizes fixing the problem itself; restoring whatever was lost, taken, etc. The conflict between these two philosophies is a massive part of who Solas is.

So, my first assertion: The Solas we're familiar with in Inquisition & Veilguard heavily favors restorative justice. It's his whole thing-- "I have to fix what is broken."

Don't get me wrong, he definitely wanted to punish the Evanuris for everything they did; just listen to him talk about how an eternity of torment is "the only fitting punishment" for killing Mythal. (Side note, do not get me started on Mythal.) But even so, he didn't prioritize making the Evanuris suffer over actually ending their reign of terror. In short: If he'd just wanted vengeance, he didn't have to spend so long systematically freeing the entirety of the elven people to do it.

That focus on restorative justice is what makes him such an interesting antagonist, rather than a generic Big Bad. He doesn't just do evil shit for the hell of it. Anything bad he does, he does for the same reasons WE do. Specifically, only if:

The bad thing is necessary; it fills a functional, logistical need.

The purpose it serves is either unavoidable (like self-defense), or to help people.

This is especially true for something as big as taking a life. In Inquisition, he even has a whole conversation about how he hates having to kill random bandits (that attacked him and the party first, mind you), because they're people-- people with lives, families, dreams. He says that a person should feel bad about having to kill them, even though it's in self-defense. (And yes, he's speaking honestly, here; he has no reason not to.)

But killing Felassan? That was punitive. It served no purpose. He didn't need to kill him to take the Eluvians, Felassan just wasn't going to help him do it. It was cold-blooded punishment, plain and simple.

Which leads to my second assertion: Killing Felassan completely skews Solas's established sense of morality. This makes it feel--to me, at least--wildly out of character.

Now, I do NOT throw that phrase around lightly. In fact, I'm only comfortable using it because of the context I started this post with: Solas was literally a different character at the time that it was written. But this event exists in the canon, now, so if we want to examine Solas, we do have to take it into account: The man who expressed so much remorse over killing bandits in self-defense... also killed his own best friend in cold blood.

This leaves us with a question: How much do we take it into account?

When you simplify it, obviously, there are two options:

Disregard it as being OOC, written for a different version of him entirely, and not indicative of the character they presented in Inquisition and Veilguard. (This is called Doylist analysis: analysis that takes into account the real world, and its impact on both the story and its author.)

Take it at face value: Canon is canon, after all, and what would disregarding it be if not editorializing? (Watsonian analysis: Completely in-universe reasoning.)

Personally, when faced with that choice, I look to the revenant The Betrayal of Felassan (nice potential double meaning there, as people have pointed out) in the Crossroads.

Something to note about that revenant, first, because I've seen a lot of people misinterpreting it: Its voice may be Felassan's, but it was not created by any remnant of Felassan. It's not the spirit/echo/embodiment/etc of Felassan's anger, for example. As the Caretaker tells us, it and the other revenants were manifested from more of Solas's regrets. (They're hostile because those manifestations were then harnessed and manipulated into being so by the Evanuris, in the hopes of slowing us down.)

This revenant says four phrases:

The first, "His back, turned," is a reference to Felassan's death in The Masked Empire. It's describing Felassan, who'd had his back to Solas in that scene-- and, very notably, never turned to face him. (If you want more proof that the revenant isn't an echo of Felassan himself, there you have it: he wouldn't exactly refer to himself in third person.)

The second phrase, we'll get to in a minute.

The last two, "For freedom" (third) and "For the wolf" (fourth), are both rallying cries that Felassan used in the flashbacks we saw. First, we have "For freedom"-- what the rebellion had always been for, what it was always supposed to be for. And then, we have "For the wolf"-- what it ended up turning into. (Or at least, what Solas's regret makes him fear it may have turned into.) This is when it's important to keep in mind that this is Solas's own regret, speaking to him in Felassan's voice; he's hearing his friend, whom he betrayed, both mockingly expressing support for him and at the same time, accusing him of becoming the very thing he feared. (Somebody get this elf in therapy.)

Back to the second phrase, because this is the one I think is the most applicable when it comes to how we look at the specific circumstances of Solas's murder of Felassan: "A story, unfinished."

Do I think that this is entirely literal, meant purely as the devs breaking the fourth wall to speak one-to-one with the players? No, of course not. But beyond the general association of death with "ending a story," there's really not much reason to include this line, or to word it in that specific way. So... while I do think it's meant to be behind the guise of that general association--Solas expressing regret for Felassan's life being cut short--I do also think it was meant as a nod to the players, too.

Honestly, a common theme with Felassan and his inclusion in the DA story as a whole is the interference of real-life logistics with storytelling: His death, as we've mentioned, was written as the now-ooc backstory of a then-incomplete character. Solas's regret over it was never going to be a mural in the Lighthouse, not necessarily because it wasn't important enough to Solas to be one-- but because regardless of its importance, it didn't follow the storyline of him and Mythal, and would feel wildly out of place to the players if it was included. And Veilguard as a whole was never going to let us look at Felassan's death too closely-- because if you do, it just falls apart.

Full-on personal opinion time: As you can probably tell, I tend to lean more towards Doylist analysis when it comes to Felassan-- real-life stuff just got in the way. It happens! Life impacts art! And in this case, it made him into the one thing (besides the Big Varric Twist, which would be its own damn post lol) that completely skews Solas's morals if you look at it too hard.

Now, if you care about fic, I'm gonna talk about the one I'm writing in a second, since it addresses a lot of these things. Otherwise... see you, I guess! I look forward to hearing people's thoughts!

P.S. If you want a great post about Mythal, I'd check out this one by @evanhereonearth :

------------------------

Fic stuff:

Okay. So, I'm writing a fic that covers the entirety of both Inquisition and Veilguard. It's, uh... looking like it's gonna be novel-length, from my current drafts. Don't get me wrong, it's not nearly enough to count as an actual novelization! (There's no damn way I'm writing that much combat, for one thing.) But it does hit all the major plot points of both games.

My goal for it wasn't really to "fix" the canon so much as just... supplement it, I guess? The reason this is relevant is that I came up with in-universe ways to recontextualize things like Felassan's death. Also, I found a logistical workaround for the ending of Veilguard to make it fit the theme of restorative justice more! (And if I can be proud of myself for a sec, it's not only straightforward and logistically viable, but still actually narratively satisfying.)

Promo time: The Inquisition section has an intense, funny Inquisitor Lavellan-- the embodiment of the exhaust-every-dialogue-tree, read-every-book player, who also has a mystery to solve about her missing memories and a forgotten person she was supposed to find. And the Veilguard part has a Rook that's secretly a spirit of compassion, who got dropped into a de Riva's life by mistake-- and now has to replace the real one, who's dead. Also, the Inquisitor gets to stick around a bit more in Veilguard (more or less like a companion).

It's not done yet, and since the manuscript habit is hard to break, I'm probably not gonna start posting it until all the drafts are actually done. But it's the ONLY thing I'm ever gonna post on my ao3, so if you wanna be updated when it goes up, here's the link to bookmark:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/64917091

[utilitycaster]

Thank you for writing up that post about the engagement of the alleged themes in campaign 3. I've seen the argument for them and honestly that plus some of the C3 stuff has almost made me feel weird playing a cleric in this setting. The implications just are so unfortunate if it really is the angle they're going for?

Hi anon,

So I have two thoughts on this. The first is that like...it's actually really difficult to make a story set in a fantasy world that deals with racism and colonialism because you have to develop fantasy racism and colonialism, which is a really fucking unpleasant headspace to exist in! And then, if you do, you have what I alluded to in tags on a different post today, where you will get people up in arms about how D&D or an actual play show or a fantasy work depicts orcs or goblins as racist or antisemitic stereotypes and then it's crickets when it comes to any real-world support of black or Jewish people. Chuck Klosterman said sci fi is philosophy for stupid people, and I disagree, but I do think speculative fiction is frequently sociology, anthropology, and geopolitics for stupid people, particularly if it's a setting with a lot of magic and fantasy races vs say, works like Butler's Patternist series, or a lot of Latin American magical realism, or (girl who just finished Disco Elysium voice) Disco Elysium, where there's a lot more grounding in our reality. I think this post covers the concept of real vs mythic, and I think the Critical Role stuff with the gods is in the realm of the mythic and people are trying to force it into a very human narrative. And yeah, the implications are really unfortunate if you do.

I think it's worth noting that a lot of high-profile (and beloved) TTRPG/AP projects from actual people from colonized cultures imagine a world in which they were never colonized (I am far from an expert but just off the top of my head: Coyote and Crow; Into the Motherlands; Desiquest; Islands of Sina Una) rather than make a story where a bunch of mostly white characters explain how they are the victims of colonization from two separate sources and only really focus on the one that's way less obvious and true but don't worry they're GONNA FIX IT, maybe, idk, should we open this door? I just don't know! golly gee this is tough!

The second related thought is just that D&D isn't a game that is well-suited to dismantling complex political structures either on a narrative or literal level and also it's pretend so you can do what you want forever. I mean don't call other people slurs while playing it but if we're talking in-world? I genuinely think that people who are unabashed murderhobos in D&D are often perfectly fine, generous, and lovely people in real life, and a lot of people who are like "I unionized the goblins! We're playing non-combat D&D! I de-escalate every situation" are often the sort of person to claim it's ableist to suggest that perhaps you should try to use reusable shopping bags. Like, are you living your values in your real life and capable of critical thought? then who cares if your D&D character is kind of a dick, or the show you are watching doesn't align perfectly with what you believe? And I find people who get overly hung up on how good and virtuous they are for their media consumption tend to be compensating for a lack, or at best a deep insecurity, about how they comport themselves in their real life.

so anyway yeah if the cast actually is like "yes i see this as a decolonialist work" I am going to have Thoughts and Pretty Harsh Critiques but to grant the CR cast the benefit of the doubt here, I think it's just...a mythic, epic scale story that draws from interesting sources (creation myths, the idea of a world created as an envious reflection by a sealed hunger) and didn't come together very well. I cannot extend that same benefit of the doubt to those fans who have argued otherwise, however.

[spewagepipe]

On Performer-GM vs. Player-GM

After some analysis and introspection both of my own blog and the discourse I've seen elsewhere, I think I've identified a valuable schism not just in how people design and play RPGs, but in how they fundamentally understand what an RPG is – or more specifically, what a "Game Master" is.

It appears to me that this difference in understanding is leading to a lot of miscommunication, so I want to try to present my findings here as neutrally as I can in the hopes of enabling folks on either side of that schism to avoid talking straight past one another.

I'm calling the first perspective the "Game-Master-as-Performer".

I give it this name because it views an RPG (or more specifically, the campaign) as a kind of show or performance that is being created and presented by the GM. To be clear: I don't mean this in the sense that GMs (or players) are expected to do voices and acting – the "show" can be totally mechanical and flavourless and still exist within this philosophy. Nor do I mean that the GM is necessarily pre-writing the story and the players are just along for the ride – the "show" can often be highly interactive and improvisational (compare it to, say, an improv comic doing crowd work).

What I mean, instead, is that a Performer-GM is seen as a kind of auteur – their job is to create a game for their players (whether in real time or using prepared materials) by whatever means they have available. The novice Performer-GM is regarded like a novice painter might be: their first works are bound to be crude and clumsy because they haven't mastered proper technique yet. The Performer-GM is expected to learn from these awkward first steps, improve their methods and adopt additional techniques garnered from a combination of practice, experimentation, and studying the "works" of other GMs – be it through YouTube videos, personal mentorship, or game rulebooks.

Indeed, a vital feature of the Performer-GM perspective is the idea that systems, mechanics, and other game procedures are treated like "tools in one's toolbox" – to be learned and incorporated into one's personal style in the same way that the developing painter might incorporate chiaroscuro, point perspective, or caricature. The Performer-GM, in their growing mastery of the medium, decides if and when to employ any given tool in the pursuit of the artistic experience they are trying to deliver to their audience. Implicitly, they also therefore ignore the tools that they deem would distract from those aesthetic goals.

I'm calling the second perspective the "Game-Master-as-Player".

I give it this name because it views an RPG as a kind of asymmetrical tabletop game, in which the GM is also a player – but one who is following a different set of rules from the other players. If you're not familiar with the concept of asymmetrical games, the (hopefully familiar) example to use as an analogy is Simon Says. In order to play Simon Says, one of the players has to be "Simon" – that player has to follow a different set of rules from the others, much like the GM follows a different set of rules from the other players of an RPG.

The vital feature of the Player-GM perspective is that the game system (in the sense of the Baker-Care-Boss Principle) is seen as the responsibility of the game's designer, and not as a responsibility of the GM. That is, the RPG designer decides the aesthetic goals of a particular game, and then, through a combination of their own artistic expertise and extensive play-testing, the designer identifies a system (rules, procedures, mechanics, et cetera) that achieves those aesthetic goals with some reliability.

The Player-GM's job, once the designer has completed that task, is to simply use the system as the designer has instructed them to use it – in the exact same way that they would if they were any other player sitting down to any other sort of tabletop game.

The major distinction between these two perspectives, if you will, is the question of who is responsible for the game system? Both perspectives agree that whoever is in charge of the system is clearly the principal "artist" of the game, the auteur who has the greatest ability to guide the game towards some certain aesthetic vision. But the GM-as-Performer crowd says that person is the GM, and the GM-as-Player crowd says that person is the game designer.

From what I have seen, however, neither crowd is particularly aware of the other's frame of reference – more on that next time.

[xoxitgirl]

˚⊹₊ ⋆ updated manifestation routine ₊˚｡

2024 it-girl manifesto

hi all! so my last manifestation routine I feel like I missed a lot + have a new mindset now so I’m going to break it down in a better way lol. a lot of my mindset has been developed through esoteric philosophy, teachings of neville goddard, and edward art.

the foundation—

so this is what i base my thought process on, everything is mental. this is literally the first principle I learned of esoteric philosophy—mentalism. the mind has effects over all; mentally, spiritually, and physically. for anything to be/exist it has to come from the mind, this is also considered the “law of self” or the “law of one.” since our minds literally can’t comprehend what is imagined to be experienced vs what we’ve actually lived through, we can literally change ANYTHING through consciously shifting our awareness. some things may be viewed as “harder” or “more difficult” but in essence its the same exact process every time. and I only mean like conscious manifestation and not like past events/trauma.

rule one: find what works for you and practice consistency.

rule two: if you have it in your mind, it is already yours. feel it, touch it, smell it, embrace it. use your senses.

rule three: what is inside of you is outside of you—let it reflect without desperation, fear, or pressure.

intention comes first

if you lead with no direction where will you go? being able to understand what it is you want is a necessity to me when it comes to manifestation. I like to think of it as a mini ritual; writing or deciding your intention and then diving into the mindset revamp and everything else in store.

journaling, journaling, and more journaling

I journal literally everything in every style—meaning; when I start journaling I write short paragraphs expressing gratitude for my current manifestations. for more in depth desires, I will write pages about the experience of getting my desire, the feelings I felt, the people involved, the setting, etc. similar to gratitude letters, I just write gratitude vaunts. when I’m not vaunting I’m setting goals. goals can easily help us understand what we want and what we can do in the meantime to feel like we have it. I also journal sporadically, I read through all the things i’ve manifested through a couple months—for some reason this works insanely well for me.

state akin to sleep

SATS or state akin to sleep is basically being completely relaxed/in a drowsy state and envisioning your desire so its like you’re falling asleep in the wish fulfilled. this is useful because when you’re in this state, your mind is more accepting and receptive of your desires. neville breaks this idea down in depth but in short, there will be less opposition because you experience having your desire in this state and as I love saying; as above so below. as you continue this method the mental and physical planes will align.

subliminals + affirmation tapes

I always binge listen to subs for around a week to a month and then stop for at least 2 weeks minimum. idk why i just don’t like repetitive tasks but this way of sporadic listening has always helped me manifest better because I allow my manifestation to come to me. especially if it’s something I think is more of a material manifestation like a new car—I made a car sub and stopped listening after like 3 months of constant listening and my dad told me to clean out my car for my dream car.. like let it come to you babes.

detaching!!!

in my mind detaching is equally as important as intention. if you’re obsessing over something its more likely you’ll focus on the lack in the 3d instead of the abundance you have in the 4d. I force myself to not worry about my sp, put my phone down when I’m worried ab sales, and just relax because what is mine will always be mine. ways to detach… going on walks, drawing, focusing on hobbies, working out, yoga, listening to music, hanging out with friends or family, going for a drive, literally anything that brings you back to center and allows you to stop thinking excessively about your desire.

affirming 24/7

im always asking and telling myself how I would think as my most desirable self. when i’m worried about the weather, my designs, if my dates will go the way i want, or if my packages will arrive on time I affirm immediately, “the weather is always so amazing. I love driving in my area’s calm, nice weather. everybody always loves my designs, why wouldn’t they? I’m literally one of the most famous designers in the world. I always have picturesque fairytale like dates with my SP because he loves me and wouldn’t let me settle for less tff” and like its been mentioned before, we have thousandss of thought a day so a negative thought literally cant hurt you or your manifestation but affirming can be extremely helpful for those with anxiety or intrusive thoughts imo.

manifestation lists

i write a list of everything I’ve manifested every month to remind myself of my power. at times ill even throw in a few things that I am wanting at the moment to remind myself it’s already mine. every time I manifest consciously I scroll through the list just as like a confidence booster I guess.

visualizing + vision boards

im constantly visualizing what I want in my present. literally money in my hands, my new computer in front of me—visualize, visualize, visualize. thats definitely a really big part of my routine, also making vision boards and having them on my phone, on my walls, etc. using apps to make it more convenient like vsco, pinterest, notion.

sigils

making sigils helps me kinda detach too! this is definitely not a necessity, I only remake my sigils every year or when I feel uneasy about something. over time i’ve noticed that with ones i’ve used for safety/peace, I have to actively choose which energy to embody. nobody will come into my space causing me to be in a stressful mood unless I allow it—imo it helps a lot with conscious creation.

challenges + rules

I make a lot of challenges that I do privately and every time I stop/revert to thinking about the 3d I have to restart. I always give myself repercussions for feeding into a lack mindset because why would I do that when I live a life of abundance? im not like hard on myself or anything its just about maintaining the idea until it saturates. I also use like 10-20 manifestation rules that I have and follow on a daily basis, I would also recommend making your own list of rules because if you don’t have a standard to follow its harder to stay focused. some of mine are—

ᥫ᭡ everything I desire manifests the second I desire it.

ᥫ᭡ I manifest anything I want instantly.

ᥫ᭡ only my desired thoughts manifest.

ᥫ᭡ nothing can stop me from getting what I want.

ᥫ᭡ the 3D changes instantly for me.

ᥫ᭡ I have such potent undeniable incredible power.

ᥫ᭡ I always manifest what I want on the spot.

as above so below, as within so without.

itgirl ⊹ ࣪ ˖

[ramenrescue]

do you any headcanons/aus/thoughts on usao/ousa ? loved your analysis of ogata/asirpa

Oh boy, I might have too many thoughts about Usami and Ogata so this may have to come in parts, especially the AUs. I have started writing a modern day reincarnation fic for them because I am just very feral about these two at the moment, so if I ever finish that and feel compelled to put it out to the world I'll let you know. The thing about writing fic or manga is like -- I can write little snippets but to piece them together into one coherent story is very difficult.

Anyway, your ask came at such a prompt time because I managed to buy the Japanese volumes on Bookwalker for almost 50% off and I specifically reread the main parts with Usami, so they are quite fresh in my mind. I think I agree with other analyses I have read about Usami in that he is a direct foil to Ogata. And this can be seen in their superficial traits: Ogata has many square-shaped, angular, sharp motifs on his face, like his square-shaped eyes, square shaped iris, squared eyebrows, square jawline, square hairline, while Usami has rounded tips on his eyelashes, round moles on his cheeks, rounded lips (cupid's bow), concentric circles for his pupil/iris, and rounded brows. Usami excels at close-range combat, while Ogata excels at long-range combat. Usami grew up amongst a large family with many siblings, while Ogata grew up practically an only child.

But here's the weird part -- I actually don't think they are complete opposites -- I think they have some things in common. <- more on this later.

It is interesting how in Usami's backstory (Chapter 227), Tsurumi (in conversation with the dojo owner) refers to Usami as a "dog among sheep" and a "born soldier who is highly loyal, combative, and is able to kill without remorse or regret". Then, it cuts to Usami in present day saying he predicts the serial killer in Sapporo will return to the scene of the crime and masturbate while reminiscing of their crimes because he understands that sentiment on a personal level. Usami here appears to show understanding that he possesses an innate capacity for violence.

Ogata was always wondering about the whole nature vs nurture question -- like whether lacking remorse for the act of killing is something one is born with or a product of one's environment (ex. bad childhood, war). Usami is a shining example that humans can in fact kill without remorse, and everyone except Ogata knows Usami is an exception to the rule. Usami is well aware this is what makes him special and this is one of the reasons why Tsurumi values him so much as a subordinate.

The problem with Ogata is that because he appears to have very little personal connections outside of Usami during the war (which is... kind of cute in a pitiable way?), he misconstrues that people like Usami are the majority. Usami agrees with all of Ogata's skewed interpretations and analyses that "all (majority of) people do not feel remorse in the act of killing" and in doing that, he is straight up lying. Usami knows people like himself are in the minority -- and because his analysis of Ogata's character was so spot on -- I'll go as far to say Usami knows Ogata is "normal" -- because if Ogata were truly a "born soldier" like Usami, he would not be ruminating about the philosophy of guilt and killing and questioning himself and bouncing his ideas off of another person -- he would just simply, be. Usami receives further confirmation that Ogata is simply, "just a guy", when he overhears Ogata calling Yusaku's name in his sleep. Usami also calls Ogata a snot-nosed brat quite a number of times, and I think that is alluding to Usami knowing that Ogata is just a sheep wearing wolf's skin.

It's interesting that Ogata entrusted the inner workings of his mind to Usami. I thought about this and I came to the conclusion that maybe he saw his own mother in Usami -- which I know, it's kind of insane, but I'm going somewhere with this! In Chapter 304, when Ogata is reminiscing about his mother, it appears she has a prominent cupid's bow -- a physical characteristic possessed by Usami. His mother likely called Ogata by his first name, and Usami is shown to be THE only person in present day who calls Ogata by his first name. Ogata's mom was head over heels over a man in a position of power with a wife who never returned the same level of love, while Usami is head over heels over a "promiscuous" man in a position of power who will likely never return the same level of affection that he's outputting. Another interesting side note: Usami chides Ogata for being the illegitimate son of an escort* and back in the Edo period, women in the business would chop off their pinkie as a sign of loyalty to their patron. Although Ogata likely did not have a good vantage point (nor did he care) to observe Usami's final moments, I think it's still worth mentioning that Usami getting his pinkie chomped off by Tsurumi resembles an escort chopping off her finger as a sign of ultimate devotion to her customer, lol. Anyway, I think because Ogata drew parallels between Yusaku and Asirpa, it is not so far fetched that he saw his mother in Usami -- and ultimately his projection made him trust Usami more than one ever should. There is one more important evidence that Ogata saw his mother in Usami -- in that he killed both of them with similar intent. He killed his mom not out of hatred, but because he wanted to put her out of her misery -- and he thought that if his father came to her funeral, she would be happy. Before he shoots Usami, he says something like "if you're so worried about being Tsurumi's cheapest pawn, why don't you see what his face looks like at your funeral," and in a way, he is putting Usami out of his miserable state of feeling inadequate. Ogata killed his mother with conviction that the positive outcome would happen, while he kills Usami with more of a neutral outlook -- and interestingly, Ogata, by killing Usami, gave Usami the thing he wanted most in life -- a reaffirmation from Tsurumi that he was his one and only (which, whether Tsurumi was telling the truth or not is dubious from a reader's POV, but alas, we are happy for Usami).

So here we return to my earlier point -- that they are crafted to be very different from each other, but they do possess similarities. One obvious one is that they both yearn for affection from Tsurumi -- which highlights another difference in that, yes they both yearn for love, but the love they seek are different. Usami yearns for love from one person and one person only, while Ogata is more agnostic and yearns for love from pretty much anyone who is willing to give him attention. But here's the thing -- I think Ogata's yearning for affection is a product of his environment -- and I think Usami's yearning to be someone's one and only, is also a product of his environment! I think that because he grew up in a large family, the love from his parents was dispersed amongst all of their children***, fostering an environment ripe for someone like Tsurumi to sweep him off his feet and pour "love" into this near-empty vessel. Usami felt intoxicated by the notion of being someone's one and only, that his jealousy-filled-rage led him to murder. I'd argue that without the addition of Tsurumi, there would be no Usami. Tsurumi compared Usami not to a wolf or a bear -- but a domesticated dog -- which is not, by itself, likely to commit acts of violence**. A soldier becomes a soldier only when commanded -- STEERED in the right direction, much like a dog will become violent when raised to do so. Therefore, a version of Usami who never met a sweet-talker like Tsurumi in his formative years, would likely not grow up to be an ultra-loyal killing-machine. To sum, I believe Usami's capacity for violence is an innate quality that can only be harnessed by the right environment.

Thank you for the question! One thing I still haven't quite wrapped my mind around is how after Ogata shoots Usami, he says "thank you, Usami, your death has completed me as a sniper." Okay??? What does he mean by that! I don't know! So if you or anyone reading this has any thoughts I'd love to know!

--

*=note that 商売女can include prostitutes and geisha, and the lines between geisha and prostitution was a lot blurrier back then so I'm just calling them an "escort" although Ogata's mom is officially known to be a former geisha

**=note that this is a sweeping generalization and I am aware different dog breeds do display varying levels of unpredictable, aggressive behavior

***=I just want to point out that Usami's parents are portrayed as being in love with each other, so they may have had that many kids as a result of lack of contraception. There's a scene in Vagabond with a couple who are having sex despite their many children crying out of hunger, and it kind of reminds me of that...

[meaculpameahugeculpa]

I'm sending you an ask as a follow-up, because the other post is getting long (not that I mind, I love this conversation) (also doing the lord's work and trying to keep ask culture alive)

"They are both people. Still human. " YESYESYES a thousand times yes

It's always been like that for me too! And since my interest in philosophy in the recent years I started experimenting even more with characters' morality that adds another flavour to their humanity. I love it when characters feel human and they can be as horrible as their little hearts desire and I can explore and dissect it. It's a wonderful thing to do. This also kind of led me to get rid of the "good guys" vs "bad guys" setup in my writing, they're all just guys. And I'm having sooooo much fun.

"Honestly, I am loving this online videogame! Let's play for a long time together, for an extra long time! But the game over is coming for everyone... and that's what we all share"

In one of the first short stories I ever wrote I made this exact point with a different metaphor. It wasn't written in English, so I'm loosely paraphrasing, but it was about that feeling, when you're sitting in a car and stop at a red light. You look around, see the cars next to you, hear them blast their music, maybe you turn up your own, but eventually that light turns green and you go on, on your own. (Damn this still makes me feel things, and I wrote it over a decade ago)

Also I'm so glad you like Marci!!!! She is my baby and yeah she is absolutely whumpee-shaped, I haven't thought about her in a bit, I shall get back to her once I deem the other story finished.

And speaking of; ugh I can't wait to finish Carter's story (again). I swore to myself that this will be the last rewrite I do. (The whole thing was up for a while, but I literally just took some chapters off a few days ago, so I can fix them up). That story is my child, it's a whole toddler now, it's over two years old, I have two tattoos for it (I can't say I'm normal about it unforch) and it's the longest story I wrote that I planned out from beginning to end (it's nearing 30k words, it's a whole novella)

She's a vampire hunter, who has a bad run-in with a vampire, who's extremely vengeful and has way too much time on his hands. And she dies in the end. It's heartbreaking and I love it so much.

Hi! I am enjoying this conversation a lot too! And, also, I agree: I absolutely love this feature, the asks feature! It's a very unique characteristic, and it really makes this site stand out! Tumblr is about reblogs and asks, these two are basically the entire point of this site, haha!

"I started experimenting even more with the characters' morality that adds another flavor to their humanity."

"They're all just guys."

YES! And you know what? I think that this openness to moral nuance is essential for good whumperflies! One of my favorite dynamic is "Affectionate Hero Whumper/Villain Whumpee" (you can switch out "Hero/Villain" with any kind of good guy or gal/bad guy or gal dichotomy): I just love the contrast, the double contrast even! You have a whumpee who is probably at fault, who is probably not-the-best-person-alive™️, and you also have a character that is supposed to be -and is perceived as- the rightful party, but is abusive and immoral by definition (because that's what a whumper is, fundamentally).

But the whumper is also able to feel pity towards the whumpee at times? I am not interested in whumpers who "enjoy abusing others," I am interested in whumpers who indeed are in bad faith, abuse their victims, but are like: why would I deny them a blanket? Or why should I not comfort them when they need it? I don't like hitting people, but I also like the control/I dislike the way they make me feel not in control/I hate that they challenge my worldview/I hate that they hurt my ego/I think that's what they deserve/Insert X motivation.

Sorry for the tangent, but I just adore this type of contrast! The angst, the confusion of having the hero hit the villain, and then patch them up after? Unbeatable.

Love that metaphor! It truly is suggestive, and it also has a sort of liminal essence to it? Which I love, to be clear !

She is really cute, she just is, sorry, haha! Also, also, she is going through a lot and she needs hot chocolate NOW! Hahaha!

You should continue obsessing over this story, and over Carter! You must, to be honest, haha. You should never be normal about that character and that story, lol! Also feel free hit the DMs, or send asks about your characters, and your favorite tropes, I love ranting and I love hearing other people's rants. I'd really enjoy reading that story, I hope I'll find the time to do so!

[basimdasasonst]

tos spock: logic may be a philosophical path that i have dedicated much of my life to the path of -- as far as considering and almost completing kolinahr -- but it does not make me all that i am. i am a person outside of my physicalities, with wants, needs, and other such things that i can allow myself through the cracks of my teachings

snw spock: did u know im a vulcan. only half tho ... raagaghaahhah ... (meek noises of protest against his humanity)

no. but seriously. on that ... thing of an snw s3 recap: others have divested much more time and energy into talking about vulcan philosophy vs biology (and there's a plethora of very good takes about it if you do only the most minor of searching) so i won't harp on the matter, but i want to step back and observe the writing and characterisation beyond the colossal fuck up that is -- well, their disintegration of vulcan culture/complexities.

[i'll -- try to keep this brief but no promises. i did spend 2000 words ranting about how badly they did spock so, brevity thy name is not basimdasas]

let me just. let's just pretend we can get over the fact they mixed biology with philosophy. let's just let that slide for a second. why -- and i cannot stress this enough -- the fuck do (pike, uhura, la'an, chapel -- i'll call them fake vulcans for my own sake) the fake vulcans talk the fucking same ... ? moreover -- why are they the same person -- logical. Purely Wholey Logical (trademark). if you transcribed the text of the 5 minute episode we were given and took out the dialogue tags -- they're. they're all the same person. you cannot tell who's talking, maybe through context clues. Guys. (shakes the writers really hard, enough to give an adult shaken baby syndrome) VULCANS HAVE PERSONALITIES TOO. i've felt a small undercurrent of this in the previous seasons but it feels directly amplified to me now -- spock's "humanity" is -- is his personality. They're making his personality his humanity. dude.

let me put it this way: you put two nihilists in a room. they've grown up in different ways, in different places, and were introduced to nihilism by their parents who also believed and practised in the philosophy. you let them talk. they're going to disagree, they might even get angry at the other. they'll agree. if there is something inherently correct that they can both acknowledge, they will have different viewpoints of tackling the concept -- based not just on the objective teachings, but the environment they grew up in, their communities, their parents, and their own personal traits. now let's take them out of the box. you compare the two at a distance: one likes grape smoothies, the other likes peach. one is a morning person, one is not. one is a competitive swimmer. one works in an office. they both find relative comfort from their jobs, even if in different ways. they are both nihilists. yet, inextricably, they are different in many ways.

ONLY VULCANS WHO HAVE UNDERGONE KOLINAHR WOULD LACK EMOTIONS. VULCANS STILL HAVE EMOTIONS THEY JUST TAMP THEM DOWN.

ok. calm. i'm drawing a tad on my experience as a trans man with gender here, but there are some things about us that are fundamental to our being that we are inherently drawn to for various reasons, i believe. i mean, that's what personality is, in a severe nutshell. that's why we have assholes who continue to be assholes (garner pleasure from it, usually). people who continue to let themselves get stepped over (never learned to stand up for themselves, environmental factor, or is afraid, or what have you). people who learn from their mistakes (ambition, or an intense desire for personal growth. where does this desire come from? changes per person. it's never the same). people who don't. kind people. mean people. we can change our personalities (with work!), but they are as much a product of emotion as they are environment, personal wants, personal needs, etc. everyone is built different (lol, but literally) -- and there really are truly some things we cannot just -- purge completely, by a point. dilute, but never fully erase. example: i know in my heart that i am not a woman. i gravitate towards anger. i have never been good at history, no matter the angle i tackle it from. there will never be a day where i read the fine print of a legal document. i could become good at history, i am fixing my anger, but i will always naturally gravitate right where i want to be, and right where i need to be. i will always understand numbers better than words, because that's -- just how my brain works, and i'm alright enough with it to not feel the need to put in effort to change my state. shift my balance. my memory might always be a little wonky. this is all ok. fuck, it might not be logical that i'm so utterly useless at history, and sure i can work to change it, but i will always find myself more comfortable and more at ease in physics with the same amount of work. the logical thing from there is to just accept my weaknesses and move with my strengths. see where i'm going with this? and sure, i can definitely change most of my personality, but it's hard. sometimes that effort is good sometimes it's not. we have natural tendencies. we have different wants, different needs. and by the universe do we not all share the same body -- we will amble around in our flesh suits differently. my gait will be different than yours; it is no less of a walk.

[tl;dr -- based on how we are raised, and the effort we put in then, and now, to define our natures, i believe we have things we (as people) naturally gravitate towards. they can be changed, but its hard.]

((edit: i don't want to come across as saying we are locked into a person lol. we arent. we as people change often. where we gravitate will change over time -- that's good. never think you can't change, because you can. anyway, i've rambled on my point enough))

anyway. tangent aside. short story -- we gravitate to things. that's natural. that's logical. diversity of a species is logical -- especially for society.

now, vulcans, in my heart of hearts, are definitely more subtle about these things because, you know, surak, but. if every vulcan was the same and had the same inherent -- wants, needs, interests, subdued emotions, way of headbutting logic -- then you have a society of mirrors. snw is trying to make vulcan society a society of mirrors.

pike is caring. la'an is quiet, strict, efficent. uhura, also, is caring but in a different way to pike. chapel is enthusiastic. by embracing suraks teachings and (magically, mysteriously) acting in accordance to them fully, they are effectively tamping down their greater feelings. not completely ridding of them. despite the fact that vulcan!pike would logically find no sense in compassion, he would also find no sense in cruelty. he is, to his heart, a compassionate person because he has made himself one. one philosophical revelation wouldn't remove decades of that. sure, he might tamp it down, but he'd still be more compassionate than anything else. he would not be cruel for logic's sake -- even if, yes, there's only "4.5 vulcans", logically -- he wouldn't say that. he wouldn't fucking say that because he is kind hearted and though it's true, it would feel "illogical to point out" -- he is good with people. has been for the duration of the show, and probably a good majority before that. he'd understand the emotions of others regardless, he's very perceptive. he'd see spock flinch at "a half". he'd roundabout it in that way that tos spock loved to do -- talk in half truths. "5 people to beam down" is not wrong. it is imprecise but not wrong. (bones voice) goddammit, they're not all the same damn stereotypical rude vulcan asshole. i haven't read surak's teachings but i severely doubt he said, at any point: "harp on an unnecessary fact to be a total douchebag as often as vulcanely possible".

this goes for everyone too -- la'an is more the silent efficent type. why would she feel the need to say ... much of anything to the effect? spock knows he's half vulcan. everyone does. what the fuck does it bring to the table to reiterate it? nothing.

you're doing the jj abrams special: creating conflict where they should be none, and ignoring a greater place to create conflict. seriously, even if i do believe the whole thing about genetics that chapel does (WHICH! BY THE WAY! THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IT'S BEEN MENTIONED/PLOT RELEVANT SINCE 1X01!) why is spock not, instead, helping them regulate their emotions? why are they not like pre-reform vulcans? why not use this to help us stir a bit in spock's head instead of using an out that isn't "making spock the butt of the joke". why can't he show vulcan!kindness as he's so often showing in tos. mf let me into that writers room i just want to talk i ju-

also, the dialogue was super cringy. sorry, it was. i say this as a writer who has written super cringy dialogue before and occasionally does so now. it was cringy. i've written better at the age of 12 in the margins of my maths notebook while bored out of my mind. some of these lines made me tense up. misplaced, or corny, or so severely out of character that it gave me a genuine headache by minute 2 of 5, or what have you: it was so so so bad.

i -- selfishly, almost -- hope that it's not too late to go back and fix it, but since filming has long wrapped up -- well. it's probably a moot point, but i'm deeply annoyed. again, i really want to like snw, but everything "spock" (and, by extension, vulcan) has been butchered so badly that watching the show is rather like reading a fic you really like with one tag that just ruins the whole thing. like you'll stick it out, but begrudgingly, and not with a lot of joy in your heart because of -- i don't know, some weirdly prevalent "daddy kink".

tl;dr -- we are not just a product of the objective teachings of our beliefs, and vulcans are not only reflections of surak's teachings.

snw writers: please kick jj abrams out of your writing room. he's not doing you any favours

[kanguin]

Hi, idk who's going to see this post or whatnot, but I had a lot of thoughts on a post I reblogged about AI that started to veer off the specific topic of the post, so I wanted to make my own.

Some background on me: I studied Psychology and Computer Science in college several years ago, with an interdisciplinary minor called Cognitive Science that joined the two with philosophy, linguistics, and multiple other fields. The core concept was to study human thinking and learning and its similarities to computer logic, and thus the courses I took touched frequently on learning algorithms, or "AI". This was of course before it became the successor to bitcoin as the next energy hungry grift, to be clear. Since then I've kept up on the topic, and coincidentally, my partner has gone into freelance data model training and correction. So while I'm not an expert, I have a LOT of thoughts on the current issue of AI.

I'll start off by saying that AI isn't a brand new technology, it, more properly known as learning algorithms, has been around in the linguistics, stats, biotech, and computer science worlds for over a decade or two. However, pre-ChatGPT learning algorithms were ground-up designed tools specialized for individual purposes, trained on a very specific data set, to make it as accurate to one thing as possible. Some time ago, data scientists found out that if you have a large enough data set on one specific kind of information, you can get a learning algorithm to become REALLY good at that one thing by giving it lots of feedback on right vs wrong answers. Right and wrong answers are nearly binary, which is exactly how computers are coded, so by implementing the psychological method of operant conditioning, reward and punishment, you can teach a program how to identify and replicate things with incredible accuracy. That's what makes it a good tool.

And a good tool it was and still is. Reverse image search? Learning algorithm based. Complex relationship analysis between words used in the study of language? Often uses learning algorithms to model relationships. Simulations of extinct animal movements and behaviors? Learning algorithms trained on anatomy and physics. So many features of modern technology and science either implement learning algorithms directly into the function or utilize information obtained with the help of complex computer algorithms.

But a tool in the hand of a craftsman can be a weapon in the hand of a murderer. Facial recognition software, drone targeting systems, multiple features of advanced surveillance tech in the world are learning algorithm trained. And even outside of authoritarian violence, learning algorithms in the hands of get-rich-quick minded Silicon Valley tech bro business majors can be used extremely unethically. All AI art programs that exist right now are trained from illegally sourced art scraped from the web, and ChatGPT (and similar derived models) is trained on millions of unconsenting authors' works, be they professional, academic, or personal writing. To people in countries targeted by the US War Machine and artists the world over, these unethical uses of this technology are a major threat.

Further, it's well known now that AI art and especially ChatGPT are MAJOR power-hogs. This, however, is not inherent to learning algorithms / AI, but is rather a product of the size, runtime, and inefficiency of these models. While I don't know much about the efficiency issues of AI "art" programs, as I haven't used any since the days of "imaginary horses" trended and the software was contained to a university server room with a limited training set, I do know that ChatGPT is internally bloated to all hell. Remember what I said about specialization earlier? ChatGPT throws that out the window. Because they want to market ChatGPT as being able to do anything, the people running the model just cram it with as much as they can get their hands on, and yes, much of that is just scraped from the web without the knowledge or consent of those who have published it. So rather than being really good at one thing, the owners of ChatGPT want it to be infinitely good, infinitely knowledgeable, and infinitely running. So the algorithm is never shut off, it's constantly taking inputs and processing outputs with a neural network of unnecessary size.

Now this part is probably going to be controversial, but I genuinely do not care if you use ChatGPT, in specific use cases. I'll get to why in a moment, but first let me clarify what use cases. It is never ethical to use ChatGPT to write papers or published fiction (be it for profit or not); this is why I also fullstop oppose the use of publicly available gen AI in making "art". I say publicly available because, going back to my statement on specific models made for single project use, lighting, shading, and special effects in many 3D animated productions use specially trained learning algorithms to achieve the complex results seen in the finished production. Famously, the Spider-verse films use a specially trained in-house AI to replicate the exact look of comic book shading, using ethically sources examples to build a training set from the ground up, the unfortunately-now-old-fashioned way. The issue with gen AI in written and visual art is that the publicly available, always online algorithms are unethically designed and unethically run, because the decision makers behind them are not restricted enough by laws in place.

So that actually leads into why I don't give a shit if you use ChatGPT if you're not using it as a plagiarism machine. Fact of the matter is, there is no way ChatGPT is going to crumble until legislation comes into effect that illegalizes and cracks down on its practices. The public, free userbase worldwide is such a drop in the bucket of its serverload compared to the real way ChatGPT stays afloat: licensing its models to businesses with monthly subscriptions. I mean this sincerely, based on what little I can find about ChatGPT's corporate subscription model, THAT is the actual lifeline keeping it running the way it is. Individual visitor traffic worldwide could suddenly stop overnight and wouldn't affect ChatGPT's bottom line. So I don't care if you, I, or anyone else uses the website because until the US or EU governments act to explicitly ban ChatGPT and other gen AI business' shady practices, they are all only going to continue to stick around profit from big business contracts. So long as you do not give them money or sing their praises, you aren't doing any actual harm.

If you do insist on using ChatGPT after everything I've said, here's some advice I've gathered from testing the algorithm to avoid misinformation:

If you feel you must use it as a sounding board for figuring out personal mental or physical health problems like I've seen some people doing when they can't afford actual help, do not approach it conversationally in the first person. Speak in the third person as if you are talking about someone else entirely, and exclusively note factual information on observations, symptoms, and diagnoses. This is because where ChatGPT draws its information from depends on the style of writing provided. If you try to be as dry and clinical as possible, and request links to studies, you should get dry and clinical information in return. This approach also serves to divorce yourself mentally from the information discussed, making it less likely you'll latch onto anything. Speaking casually will likely target unprofessional sources.

Do not ask for citations, ask for links to relevant articles. ChatGPT is capable of generating links to actual websites in its database, but if asked to provide citations, it will replicate the structure of academic citations, and will very likely hallucinate at least one piece of information. It also does not help that these citations also will often be for papers not publicly available and will not include links.

ChatGPT is at its core a language association and logical analysis software, so naturally its best purposes are for analyzing written works for tone, summarizing information, and providing examples of programming. It's partially coded in python, so examples of Python and Java code I've tested come out 100% accurate. Complex Google Sheets formulas however are often finicky, as it often struggles with proper nesting orders of formulas.

Expanding off of that, if you think of the software as an input-output machine, you will get best results. Problems that do not have clear input information or clear solutions, such as open ended questions, will often net inconsistent and errant results.

Commands are better than questions when it comes to asking it to do something. If you think of it like programming, then it will respond like programming most of the time.

Most of all, do not engage it as a person. It's not a person, it's just an algorithm that is trained to mimic speech and is coded to respond in courteous, subservient responses. The less you try and get social interaction out of ChatGPT, the less likely it will be to just make shit up because it sounds right.

Anyway, TL;DR:

AI is just a tool and nothing more at its core. It is not synonymous with its worse uses, and is not going to disappear. Its worst offenders will not fold or change until legislation cracks down on it, and we, the majority users of the internet, are not its primary consumer. Use of AI to substitute art (written and visual) with blended up art of others is abhorrent, but use of a freely available algorithm for personal analyticsl use is relatively harmless so long as you aren't paying them.

We need to urge legislators the world over to crack down on the methods these companies are using to obtain their training data, but at the same time people need to understand that this technology IS useful and both can and has been used for good. I urge people to understand that learning algorithms are not one and the same with theft just because the biggest ones available to the public have widely used theft to cut corners. So long as computers continue to exist, algorithmic problem-solving and generative algorithms are going to continue to exist as they are the logical conclusion of increasingly complex computer systems. Let's just make sure the future of the technology is not defined by the way things are now.

[forkingandcountry-if]

What sort of things do you have planned out for flirting/romantic options? Where do you land on the spectrum from more classic RPG/Dragon Age style where there’s fairly linear romance dialogue for each character that gives characters more of a set dynamic and distinct feeling “route”, vs on the other end, multiple romantic dialogue options for each character like flirty vs coy, oblivious, tsundere, all things like that lol. Now that I type it out, it seems kinda like a breadth vs depth thing? 🤔

I suppose what I’m asking is, how big of a focus/priority is romance compared to other aspects of the game, how does it fit into your general design philosophy? (Hope this doesn’t come off as pushy, I just like hearing authors’ thought processes & knowing how to set my expectations going in 😊)

I say this always and it's never really popular but fundamentally I don't want For King and Country to be a romance game because that's not the intent in writing it, the intent is to write an interesting, challenging fantasy story following the life of a flawed and often underprepared protagonist (the MC) and part of life is romance and hence why I chose to write it with Romance Options, trysts, flirting etc.

Romances shouldn't be too linear because I'm hoping that the story itself isn't too linear and my fundamental design philosophy is that I want the romance to be a natural facet of the story as much as training and intrigue are rather than a completely separate thing, for as many possible routes of story there are I want to design opportunities to develop in the romance of a particular RO or ROs.

There will be multiple different romance options when it comes to each opportunity to flirt (and opportunities not to flirt at all) to go with the different possible types of MC and to that extent not all attempts at romance will work or result in increasing your romance status; being overly shy with an RO who dislikes people who aren't direct will be slower and different to a very direct MC.

So I'm not sure how that answered your question 😭 basically it's not like a giant deal but it gets the same amount of time and importance I dedicate to working on developing how I want to do fighting mechanics or lore.

[arcadekitten]

I'd like you to know how Sweet No Death has impacted myself and my friends even though it's such a short game. Whenever my friends and I argue or recreationally fight (pretend fight/argue?) one of us will say "Stella! You evil f+¢h!ng," y'know, and it would instantly diffuse the situation and we would all laugh remembering our reactions to when Lambchop said that. It still makes us laugh and never gets old because of how sudden and comical it was for us.

I would write article-type documents for fun where I often reference, include, or talk about indie games. One instance I was typing up a long one and had fun writing about the philosophy of Lambchop and his view of the world vs Stella's. It's not a publish article or anything, something I did just for fun but playing Sweet No Death by myself and again with my friends will be one of the warmest and sweetest memories I'll have so thank you so much for developing it! ♡♡♡

Reading this has just put the brightest smile on my face, oh my gosh!! ♡ This is so darling to hear about, and I'm so happy that something I made could have impacted your friend group in such a positive way!! And thank you so so much for telling me, because hearing of the positives people are able to take away from my games and the experience of interacting with them makes all the hard work feel worth it and makes me so so excited to make even more! I hope I can always be making you guys happy with what I make! Thank you so much for playing! ♡

Your article sounds so cool and I'd love to read it if you ever feel comfortable enough to share it with me! But if it's something you'd rather keep private I completely understand--I'm happy just to hear about it! ♡

[bellshazes]

i am very curious about your academic history! uni or informal or personal interest or otherwise. i've seen you mention a number of disciplines from time to time, v cool to see medieval studies be among them. always awe-inspiring to see someone use their wealth of lit knowledge to help create incredibly provocative posts about minecraft youtubers. your experience with philosophy is one i'd love to know more about.

(if you're comfortable with sharing it! otherwise, feel free to ignore this ask :P)

this is a very lovely ask and i don't mind to share at all because it's really just... a hodgepodge. it took me twelve years to graduate college. i flunked out my junior year and tried in fits to go back and chip away at my last requirements only when i got reimbursement through my job. i concentrated my courses on medieval culture/literature, french, and general linguistics (these often overlapped). i didn't study any actual theory in my courses until i took my final 2 humanities ones. which in fact i took and blogged through right here.

taking that theater of the absurd class (as Last Life happened!) connected me to academic game studies, which was easy pickings since i spent about a decade teaching arkham horror (and occasional other pinch hits for e.g. catan) at game conventions. so i have a lot of friends from those cons who enjoy and have the vocabulary to dissect games' mechanics and feel and the social dynamics of them. i love rehashing the difference between game mastering a co-op board game vs. an official strategy tournament vs. casual improv games vs. casual competitive vs. asymmetric, and then rehashing the player pov of each of those and more, and people who can argue back.

i'm very lucky to have friends who also think of philosophy not as being walled off from daily life but a practice of examining the world and our relationships within it. we sit and argue for the sake of tearing a concept apart, like "what differentiates art from craft?" or "does the platonic ideal suck or is it romantic?" or "what are you most afraid of?". do this for at least 5 years and you'll end up with complex opinions and perspectives. in my early 20s, biking from my restaurant job to free museums and writing about local art history kept me alive.i'm lucky my very bizarre career path since has led me to jobs where taxonomical flexibility and philosophy are necessary skills.

i think everything is worth taking seriously, even the most unserious parts of life, and i think you can take play seriously while also remaining playful in your examination. i think all your experiences build on themselves by virtue of aging, if you allow yourself to play with them. i think that there are a thousand silver threads between each thing and every every every other thing in the world and universe and imagination and drawing those lines of juxtaposition illuminate the edges of a negative space that is dynamic as it pulls and is pushed by all of its interrelationships, even the most obscure thinnest threads. i wouldn't have worked all that out without talking with the same people again and again.

at a work conference last year i was introduced to gregory bateson, whose ecology of mind makes me feel like i just stepped off the tallest rollercoaster in the world. i'm still not sure that i've got a good enough understanding of pedagogy of the oppressed (which i discovered via um les mis fanfic?) but i reread the second chapter even more often than i revisit quine's the ways of paradox. for good advice on how to be an amateur, tampopo lays it out the best. i lead with being a college dropout because i want to emphasize i'm no master of anything, just a lover of many, but that i think a critical amateurism, a love that drives learning and development and communion with others is just about the best most life-giving thing there is.

[autistic-ben-tennyson]

How Dinosaurs made me a leftist

I’m going to change gears a bit after being burned out from with dealing with liberal Zionists all day. Since one of the most prominent paleontology blogs on tumblr, a-dinosaur-a-day/jewish-kulindadromeus, has been exposed as a Zionist, I decided to write my own post about why dinosaurs have been important to me and how they’ve actually had a significant impact on my political philosophy. Dinosaurs are a stereotypical special interest for a lot of autistic kids and can be a good jumping point for getting into other science fields.

I first discovered dinosaurs when I think I was 5 with the first movie I saw in theaters being Ice Age 3 as well as being given a bunch of old models by my uncles. When I was 7, I got a documentary for Christmas and that same year, we visited a traveling exhibit at the Detroit zoo with animatronics. At the time I thought they were real. They became one of my favorite things and something I could ramble about for hours. During Christmas of 2013, the Walking with Dinosaurs movie was what I really wanted to see when everyone else was gushing over Frozen. I know it’s not a good movie but I liked it at the time and it was even a bit emotional for me.

Jurassic Park became an interest of mine after a trip to Universal Studios in 2014 and seeing JW the following year, although now I hate it especially because of Chris Pratt. Out of the movies, TLW was actually my favorite and I was surprised people hated it. That actually contributed to my dislike of the Nostalgia Critic/Doug Walker for his nitpick filled review, before I learned about any of the Channel Awesome controversy. I still have the collector’s set of the first two JP films as well as Disney’s Dinosaur and the Walking with Dinosaurs series in my dvd collection.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit this but I used to be a big fan of Jack Horner, the infamous “T. Rex is a a scavenger” guy. At the time I was interested in his Dino chicken experiments as well as his work on the JP series. Then I learned about the controversy of him dating an undergrad student and that ship sailed. I do find it a little amusing that the irredeemable villain of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish has the same name as the sleazy paleontologist I used to admire. I can appreciate him for mentoring Mary Schweitzer who’s an actual good paleontologist and has made some important discoveries.

So what does being a leftist have to do with any of this? When I was 6, I was exposed to creationism for the first time. My parents thankfully weren’t but we knew a lot of people that were. In middle school, I met a lot more of them. Many of whom went to the same church youth group and school. It was there that I got into some debates about evolution. Sometimes, kids would tell me “dinosaurs aren’t real” or “you should read the Bible more” and I was expected to just put up with it. At the time I really wanted to be a paleontologist and while I no longer do, sometimes I felt bad for wanting that because of what people said. I stopped talking about dinosaurs for a while after that.

Becoming more knowledgeable about evolution pushed me to learn about climate change too and many of the same people who were creationists were also climate deniers. I watched parts of the Bill Nye vs Ken Ham debate and began doing more research. Climate change in turn was a big part of my radicalization which led me to breadtube. I know that breadtube is heavily flawed but it helped me see a lot of the problems with milquetoast liberals and the lies told by American propaganda. I watched those videos during the pandemic around the same time events like George Floyd’s murder and BLM and that cemented me as a leftist.

So that’s the story of how dinosaurs helped make me a leftist. They’re not my special interest anymore, that’s anime, but they still have a place in my heart. Spielberg may be a Zionist but the first two JP movies are still fun to watch. My favorite paleontologist these days is Stephen Jay Gould who that racist Zionist, prismatic-bell, should read after their disgusting post about aboriginal people with his work against scientific racism. I may not want to be a paleontologist anymore but I am considering anthropology. Some may view them as a childish thing but they were a way of escapism for me and pushed me to learn more about science which in turn cemented my disgust towards conservatives who want creationism in schools.

[thefandomexpert]

adding on to that issue I had with the living memory/ascian plot parallels they forced.

I would have loved a discussion on the difference between the We Can Keep People Alive Through Their Memories (by actively working to maintain our memories of them and to keep their teachings and experiences we had with them in our hearts) philosophy vs We Can Keep People Alive Through Their Memories (we steal the memories away from everyone else and shut them away in a simulation where nobody else can see them or make use of them to grow as a society and we don’t even have space to put them all out at once but they’re all there!! we still have them!!)

like that’s an absolutely FASCINATING and twisted take on a philosophy that clearly holds an amount of importance to the people of tuli (and therefore wuk lamat) and they just. ignore it so they can turn to the wol and go hey remember the ascians?

and maybe someone coming in fresh, or with a surface level memory or interest in shb/ew, would go ohhhhoho ok i see, this is a parallel to that other fan favorite thing! very neat.

but I’m invested in ascians, and neck deep in the cumulative 10+ years of ramping lore regarding their demise and still am 4 years after being introduced to it, so I go, uhhh yeah i remember the ascians. mind telling me which one of them fucked up this shard? which lightning calamity was this. don’t walk away from me. is this our fucking lightning calamity or not. where is the ascian who was in charge of killing this shard? we had a successful lightning calamity. why isn’t this shard dead. if it was a failed calamity why didn’t emet selch mention it when he explained the 13th’s issue and the potential failure of the 1st. did he not know there was another Fucked shard? are calamities more gradual than we thought? did the dome separate them from the rest of the shard that thoroughly. hey. are you listening to me. why the fuck isn’t this explicitly attached to the lightning calamity we KNOW HAPPENED. why is this event weirdly separate from the lore that’s been in place for 10 years when you insist on DIRECTLY REFERENCING THAT LORE. CONSTANTLY.

and they’re like oooh we’re not actually. talking about ascians anymore it was just to compare vibes we weren’t actually going to get back into- and then i kill them. with my teeth. because if the vibes were going to be the same they could have just. had another minor ascian be involved.

and this issue is compounded by the fact that there’s this other, new, tailor-made plotline contrasting tulioyal’s philosophies vs what’s happening in living memory, that’s RIGHT THERE and just fully not addressed. at all. like I would have rather alexandria not have had such a strong thematic contrast with tuli so it was just a boring rehash of The Ancients Issue because then i could accept from a writing standpoint that they just wanted to make sure newbies experienced the ew emotional beats and it would have been jarring at best but understandable. but instead it’s like. we could have had something new and these places could have been Thematically Connected really thoroughly, in the kind of philosophical and heartfelt plot ffxiv is specifically known for doing Really Well, and you didn’t do that even though i can see it sitting right here so now what you did choose to do is an Actively Bad Writing Choice. why.

[radioregine]

Hi! Thanks for the reblog! 🤗 You mentioned being into writing that explores the "meta part" of fanfic - YES!! Are there other people who do this/fics you can recommend?

yes indeeeed. below are works surrounding this topic i've really enjoyed over the past decade:

-> TRAD PUB. BOOKS

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell [link to NPR review] this came out when i was finishing high school + starting to get disillusioned w HP (for story reasons & 'the author is Unforgivably Shitty' reasons lol) so i was very intrigued with how this book worked as a metacommentary abt HP (seriously, it felt like the book was deconstructing a lot of the issues fans had with the o.g. canon) while being a cute fantasy in its own right. i haven't checked out the sequels yet

New Waves by Kevin Nguyen [link to LA Times review] i read this a year or two ago and enjoyed what it had to say about online vs IRL friendships, grief, hustle culture, and creative identity.

-> FANFIC PROJECTS

running after two hares by chaparral_crown on ao3 this is probably my favorite fic of all time. no exaggeration. i have the whole thing printed out on 200+ pages of copy paper bound with comically large binder clips. and it's not even finished! there's this fanon concept called HEU (Hannibal Extended Universe) where people consider all of the different characters that the main actors played outside the show (in other shows, film, etc) to be connected to the showverse. for some reason i've never been able to suspend my disbelief enough to get into a lot of HEU content. i'm picky about fic just as i am with any other creative writing i engage with -- i have been for most of my life. THEN. i come across this author's insanely popular HEU fic, and i've read non-HEU stuff from them before that i adored, so i figure 'why not' ... and this 'crack treated seriously' quickly became one of my fav things ever. the prose alone is so masterful. and it's such a DENSE read, like, you really gotta slow down to appreciate all the introspective asides and jokes and commentary about the text (show) and metacommentary about how unusual pairings thrive, inside and outside of fiction.

Starsky & Hutch Virtual Season [link to Fanlore wiki] i got into S&H fandom in 2012. i remember how intrigued i was at the concept of the Virtual Season, which had its heyday a decade before i got into the online fandom. this kind of fan activity is the precursor, imo, to stuff like people calling installments of their webnovels 'episodes', the concept of a 'dream season' (ex: how hannibal ppl talk about how season 4 would play out if the show hadn't been cancelled), etc. people weren't just writing serialized fic, they were cultivating a really unique Experience

-> COMMENTATORS / ESSAYISTS

Shipper's Guide to the Galaxy (has not updated their channel in years but has such a huge backlog of thoughtful content about the relationship between media and its fans, including entire segments dedicated to fic recs)

Fionapollo (discovered them recently! i used to watch a lot of art commentary channels that preceded this one, and i'm obsessed w this channel because they focus more on the philosophy of creative practice & cultivating community between fans and media, rather than feeding into toxicity for views. they cover negative topics sometimes, yeah, but not in a sensationalist way at all. super refreshing)

[thecoramaria]

Hello! I was wondering if you could give some tips on how to make fanfic chapters longer. I see a lot readers tend to like chapters around the 4k word mark or even more, but it's a feat if I write a chapter longer than 2k. The content I write is still good (imo) but I want to do more and am stuck on what to add that would benefit the fic and not be pointless filler. Thanks 🩷💛

Hey, Nonny!

First I'd just like to say that chapter length preferences among readers depend a lot on things like the type of fanfic and the platform you post on. For example, short chapters and frequent updates tend to be the standard on Wattpad. They're also pretty typical of episodic and/or slice-of-life stories. Because they rely on pre-established stories or worlds that the characters are familiar with, you just don't need to use as many words to move the plot forward every chapter (and in the case of an episodic story, you don't need to move an overarching plot forward at all, but from your ask, I don't get the vibe that you're trying to write that kind of thing).

Point is, sometimes short chapters work better for the story you're trying to tell, and they can also serve to make your story more binge-worthy (since it's easier to justify reading one more chapter), but they could lessen the experience for people following update-to-update, particularly if you don't update often. It's like the difference between being given a single piece of chocolate vs a full bar, you know?

If you really are set on posting longer chapters and believe this will make your story better, then here are my tips:

Figure out why your chapters are short in the first place. Is it because you make each scene its own chapter? Is it because your pacing flies past? Is it because it's light on details, or doesn't get specific enough? (E.g. "He set a tasty breakfast before her. She dug in with gusto." vs "He set a plate of steaming sunny-side-up eggs and crackling bacon before her. One wiff of the smokey, savoury aromas, and she snatched up her fork, shovelling it in. The salty crunch. The burst of creamy yolk. It was heaven.")

Combine chapters. If two or three chapters tie together nicely because they're part of the same arc, or take place in the same location, picking up where the other left off, those are good candidates to combine. Also if a chapter has an ending that doesn't give the reader a good reason to keep reading, but the next scene adds a jolt of tension back into the plot, that's also a good candidate for combining scenes/chapters.

Ask yourself what you can add to enhance what you already have there. For example, if you have a plot twist planned, is there a way you can include more foreshadowing? Is there an opportunity to flesh out your characters more? (If we mostly see a character put on a strong front, it'll tug our hearts when we see them show some vulnerability.) Is there an aspect of your worldbuilding that could use some explanation or showing off? (For example, if your plot involves saving the world, it's definitely a good idea to get your readers attached to said world.) Are there more obstacles you could add to the story that might also serve the previous purposes? Do you have a lot of high-tension back-to-back scenes that could use some quiet breather scenes in-between?

When editing, I've adopted the philosophy of "Cut as much as possible without sacrificing anything that enhances the story" as well as "Concise and precise" which means "say The Most with as few words as possible. To me, this is the key to avoiding filler in my own work, and how I create long stories that don't drag. I think that as you make your chapters longer, these are the ideas you should keep in mind, as these will help you determine if you're lengthening your story will pointless filler or adding something with value.

If you still struggle to make that distinction though, maybe find a beta-reader or a buddy who doesn't mind being spoiled for your work. You can soundboard your ideas with them to get a second opinion, because sometimes that's what you really need when you feel like there's something "wrong" with your work but you can't quite put your finger on it.