#plus I don't like modding my character to look too different from what others will see in game anyways
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There is one particular FFXIV player hair that is even crunchier than Xenos' (I won't point it out bc I don't want anyone to feel bad or the like) and I can't WAIT to see that in the graphical update. All the hairs looked so much more realistic in every preview they showed at Fanfest!
And since I'm on the topic - this particular before and after was practically a jumpscare to me, because the 'after' image was so much better!
The hair isn't a single, molded piece of plastic, the shadows fall more naturally, the browbone has a more natural shape, the skin is so clear and moisturized and real-seeming, and the lips don't look like a sticker stuck to her face! And the eyes! They don't look dead and flat! The eyes pop so intensely that I was shook when she came on screen!
And two more honorable mentions (though all were excellent) these were the ones that REALLY stood out to me -
Everything I pointed out up there still applies, but look at the highlanders' tattoos and scars! Those also no longer look like bad temporary tattoos/stickers stuck to his face with no actual depth - look how REAL his stitches seem, now! The tattoo looks less like carnival paint, and more like actual ink-on-skin! His facial hair, too, is just superb!
And this gal similarly shook me, like the Elezen did - for similar reasons! The eyes - THE EYES - they're just so much more alive, and vibrant, and less dead looking, she has a realistic lip shape, her face shape as a whole is more real; and look at her scales! Look at the definition on them! They ALSO look less like a sticker stuck to her skin, and the color is overall just better (more white, and less yellow). Plus I keep staring at the more defined noses on every face, and how the shape of the nose, alone, really changes a face. And if you really look, the hair accessories on both of these last two are also much, much better. And that's not even touching on how much better the gear they're wearing looks!
I think I'm more hyped for the graphical update than for Hrothgals, honestly - I'm attached to what I know and love, and can't wait to see not just my OCs, but everyone else's in high def later this year!
#ffxiv#ff14#ffxiv fanfest#fanfest 2024#Who needs mods if you look this good??#I only started modding bc of the low poly bodies/feet/hands#and these updates look as good as any mod tbh#plus I don't like modding my character to look too different from what others will see in game anyways
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I have a small cast of fan characters, for a little story that I do post on here but purposely has a very small audience. All of them have various disabilities. (One is deaf, one has a facial difference and unrelated speech issues, one has a congenital limb difference and autism, one is blind… there are others.) I only have one of those disabilities (autism), and the more I write, the more I feel like I shouldn’t write. I follow this blog, look up resources, and try very hard to avoid any harmful tropes. I make it known that I am open to issues being pointed out to me so that I can do better.
But time and time again I feel like I am doing more harm than good. Tonight I have reached the point of wondering whether I should even keep writing these disabilities at all. It’s not that I don’t consider the research worth doing, or that I don’t want to put forth the effort. It’s not that at all. It’s just that I am so overwhelmed and scared of getting things wrong. I don’t want to contribute to any harmful depictions in any way, but I feel like I will mess up no matter what. I feel like it’s arrogant of me to write characters who deal with things I don’t, and that no amount of research can give me the nuance or awareness to write things I don’t experience. I feel like nothing I could do in this situation would be good or right.
Because on the other hand, I don’t want to get rid of the characters’ disabilities, since that’s bad too!
I try very hard to write in a respectful and informed way. But at the end of the day, I don’t have those others disabilities, so maybe I just shouldn’t be writing them. Is it better to avoid writing what I don’t personally experience, and just stick to my own disability?
— MicronLizard
Hi!
Of course we have to write about experiences other than our own. Otherwise our stories would be boring--we can't only write people exactly like us all the time.
Please write disabled characters of all types. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. You won't know everything and that's okay! It's okay for your work to not be perfect representation. And there are plenty of resources out there to help you fix mistakes. Run ideas by us, get a sensitivity reader, ask around disabled communities if anybody is willing to give feedback!
Even if you've done all your research, you won't create a character that resonates with 100% of people with your character's disability. Everyone has different experiences. Some disabled characters that others love are not what I want to see represented; that doesn't mean it's bad representation!
The goal is just to write something beyond a trope. It's impossible to capture every single nuance of the messy reality of disability within a story. If you are so scared of writing "good rep" that you don't include it, we won't get any more rep. Imperfect but well-intentioned representation is far better than stereotypes or no representation at all.
Mod Rock
Hello!
From this ask, I don't see any way in which your writing would be doing harm. As you mention: you research, you try to avoid harmful tropes, look up resources, are open to feedback, put in effort. Plus on the basis of this ask existing and us answering it, you talk to other disabled people about writing disabled characters.
Just based on this, you're doing more than 90% of published writers who write disabled characters, and more than 99% of writers who only share their stories online. I know that this blog might give off a different impression based on the complexity and specificity of asks we get and advice we give, but the average writer doesn't know there's more than one sign language nor that most blind people can see a bit, most of them refuse to say the word "amputee" in favor of basically anything else. A ridiculous amount of people are under the impression that the only good story involving a disabled person is one that ends in a cure. The bar is on the floor.
Most of the harmful representation we reference in all the posts, the tropes that get repeated all the time, they are a result of not doing research and not looking a single thing up, simply not caring. Most "representation" is done from memory, literally whatever the author thinks the disability is. It's not a rare occurrence to see a disabled character and be able to tell that there wasn't even a Wikipedia article involved when creating the character, let alone actual disabled humans. Half the time the memory isn't even from a real source, it's just a different badly made character.
I can see your worries, but logically speaking, you seem to know too much to do a lot of this dumb shit. You don't have to know literally everything to show something with depth and nuance, things that most writers don't consider as an aspect of disability representation in the first place. We have a "don't just ask us 'how to write a disabled character?'" rule in our FAQ because of this - people don't expect there to be any nuance and are surprised to hear that we aren't actually a monolith. A lot of people, and I genuinely mean it, don't differentiate between disabilities. There are writers who write about their deaf characters using braille to read and their blind Japanese characters using ASL to speak. I see artists confuse mobility canes and white canes. Don't even start me on the nonsense that goes on in the realm of mentally ill characters.
If every writer did what I mentioned in the first paragraph of my reply, life would be awesome. There's a difference between a mistake in the grand scheme of things and literally not seeing disability as something worth thinking about for more than a few minutes. Like yeah, there is a chance that when reading, a reader with disability X might go "oh, the author isn't X" because there was an oversight in how the character did some activity on page 71. So what? That's bound to happen literally no matter what you write unless it's an autobiography. Toph Beifong is considered a beloved character that's still one of the best blind characters in media even though she falls into tropes and gets stuff wrong. Trying to make something absolutely perfect is counterproductive and ironically enough will result in less good representation.
You might decide to scrap your character with a facial difference because you think you shouldn't write them, but I promise you that the new indie horror game dev won't. Characters that will be the pain of my existence, made by people who couldn't give less shit, will keep being made into eternity. There's no avoiding it. There will be ninety-nine horrible characters made that might as well have had "ableism" as their character concept. If you decide to not scrap yours, we will have the 1% that was made with respect and sincerity in mind.
No one reasonably expects 100% accuracy from works of fiction, I personally expect research and respect. If you're doing that, your work will probably be at the very top of representation I've seen. Keep writing.
mod Sasza
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Shhh... secret draft designs. Don't tell Twitter yet. Please give me any feedback, and feel free to read my many design thoughts under the cut. Also feel free to use the designs yourself.
Alright! The things right at the top that i wanted to keep in mind were things in the series that are distinct to mechanites vs things warforged have.
As far as I remember, there are only two notable ones. Mechanites have jaws that cannot move, instead they have face plates that can open up. And while the other isn't stated in canon, warforged have crystals in their eyes, and mechanites are never pictured or described in that way.
I almost broke the first rule on purpose with DX-TR, seeing as he's described as human-like and the negotiator, but as I was going through the series again, he was explicitly stated to have the same stiff jaw.
The only heights (I think) we have were that VR-LA got the haha funny meme number at 6'9", MR-SN was a few inches taller, and C-RA is at least as tall as Finbar (7'2"). From there, I wanted DX-TR to be nearly as tall as VR-LA, so he's around 6'6"/6'7". E-DN is about the same height as him because I feel like with her satyr legs, her being taller made sense. I put K-LB around 6'2" because I was originally going to have a slight joke that this height was after he'd already made mods to himself with heels and his mohawk. I didn't like how the heels came out, so I left it out. AS-TR is the shortest at the bare minimum height for warforged at 5'10". I'll get into that in the section discussing her design.
While it didn't really come up in these designs, since VR-LA has been pictured with yellow eyes, and described with blue, I've headcanoned that mechanites eyes change color based on how much processing they're doing. So the default would be blue, when they're calm and just hanging out. Their eyes switch to yellow when they're concentrating or focused on something specific. Orange is when they're flustered or upset. Red is the dramatic color for when they're really angy. I'd imagine someone like DX-TR can deliberately control it to avoid giving away some tell, but I don't think it's common for mechanites to do it.
The designs are mostly based on the same shapes and pieces that VR-LA has, rather than Vice/He-11, as those feel like they're kind of unusual in that regard. And even if they're not, I'd still chalk it up as a difference in their plane of origin. Onto individual character notes!
C-RA was described as being large, having a sort of knights templar, aesthetic, somewhat like living armor but more organic. Mostly what I referenced was plate armor, so pretty straight-forward. That being said, I feel like her design's a little plain. I wanted to add something to her head to help distinguish her head silhouette more. Plus I feel like her colors are too desaturated, and she just doesn't really have a shape that carries throughout her design. Idk, it's fine, but it just doesn't feel striking.
MR-SN was described as being slender, regal, and with a permanent smile in his eyes. I feel like I had a similar issue with him that I had with C-RA where there doesn't seem to be anything that carries through his design. I feel like I captured the face pretty well at least where he looks kind and kind of like a dad who's just proud of you. He's one I kind of feel like with clothes, his design might work better. I had no clue what color to go for, so it's just a color that I thought would be unique enough to the group.
VR-LA is just based on his season 1 art. The only thing I changed from how I drew him before, was mostly just proportions, like around the joints. I wanted him to be a thin, scrawny nerd, so he's also more narrow than before. My goal was half of C-RA's size, and I think C-RA's about 1 1/2 VR-LA's, so it's close enough.
DX-TR was described as human-like and bald with a flesh tone color. He was honestly really easy. As a joke, I referenced Seth Everman for his face sculpt, and I think it came out well. Mostly I referenced human muscles for his sculpt. I considered giving him tattoos, but didn't really have any ideas for that. He's got two notably unique traits from the rest of the group. He's the only one without shoulder pauldrons, which I kinda want to change, but idk there, and the light in his eyes is round rather than the cross design I treated as baseline. I wanted a less human saturation in skin, and I don't think I achieved that, but I'm not sure it'd look as good. I kinda want him more uncanny valley, but idk what to do there.
E-DN was described as a similar mechanite design as VR-LA, but with satyr legs. I gave her horns and horizontal pupils, mostly just for variety. I gave her a little more of just a round shape compared to VR-LA's more angular shapes. Her design I like over all. I like the colors, and I think the mint accents help her stand out. She's got good shapes and a good silhouette. And everything feels like it came out pretty well with her.
K-LB I'm torn on. I almost feel like he stands out too much. As far as what's described, I had the hardest time figuring out his design. He's described as a standard mechanite that's gold with fine gold filigree that looks like wire mesh, as well as a blue glow from his arms. I was going for somewhere around a punk-ish Rodney Copperbottom from Robots kind of idea. The filigree mesh I just used a nonsense text brush because i didn't have any specific ideas there. I like how the yellows/blues look together. I like the hexagon shape that carries throughout. His silhouette's mostly different enough from everyone else. I don't think he's too saturated. Yet I just don't feel like his design fits him, and I don't know what to do. He's the one I feel like scrapping and redoing the most.
AS-TR was described with long hair, and a slight glow, but didn't have much of a description as far as I remember otherwise. She had two notable design inspirations. Selûne and my cat who coincidentally has the same name (mostly my cat lol). One of Selûne's avatar's is described as long limbed (which is kind of how I just drew the mechanites), with pale hair, dusty skin, and green eyes. The pattern around her eyes is a less exaggerated version of some of her iconography. Her eyes are tinted green with her holy symbol as the shape of the lights. If I were smart, I'd actually have put all seven of the stars that are a part of Selûne's holy symbol (and I might change that later). Aster (my cat) is a tiny little black cat with a grey undercoat and two tiny lil white spots. So from there, I made AS-TR the smallest mechanite, she's two different shades of grey, and she has two little white spots on her chest in a similar size, shape, and location as Aster's. As a result of the name coincidence, and from what we've seen, similar personality, AS-TR is required to be my favorite, lol. Even excluding that though, I do like how her design came out too. Like I said, I might change the design slightly to have the seven stars across her, and I might change the greys to have more contrast because they're too similar, but the whole design came close to what I had in mind.
Over all, I'm pretty satisfied with all of these designs, and while there's things I'm going to change, I think these are all pretty solid.
#my cool sketches#my cool art#i didn't do clothes yet#ended up putting in a lot of effort into the colors#if you read all of the read more i'm sorry i typed so much lol#i needed to put my thoughts down so i know what i want to fix#rwd#rolling with difficulty#vr-la#c-ra#mr-sn#dx-tr#e-dn#k-lb#as-tr
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Do you have questions about my Mew AU? Wanna learn more? Ask box is open!!!
This Mew is quite an unusual one... She's known as "The Obsidian One", or just "Obsidian" or "Sidia" for short.
Basic rundown lore!
Note: This is absolutely a Horror themed AU. There will be blood, gore, and morally grey characters that make questionable decisions, plus graphic violence and uneasy situations. Read at your own risk.
She tends to live in the Distortion Realm, so a lot of her responses will be from there! Don't freak if you see large shadows, the baby Giratinas like to practice zoomies.
The crystal in her chest is not a shadow crystal. Well, it is, but not quite. You'll learn about it later :)
Obsidian's Earth is also known as "Gaia", as it runs entirely on Pokken Tournament logic. As in, the entire planet runs on Gaia Energy, a mysterious energy that can be influenced by emotions... too much negative energy and it can warp into Shadow Energy. Synergy stones grow naturally from the earth, and some Pokémon look different due to its influence!
If too much Shadow Energy runs rampant... bad things can happen. That's why Sidia's job is so important on her world... but she's the only Pokémon made to purify.
Available for asks!
The Many Giratinas: Yes
Obsidian: Yes
"Mewtwo": No
Anne: Yes
R̴̨̡̰͎̩̭̫̤̠̮̣ͥͬͨ͐̋̈́̾̄̍̄ͣ̈́͜͜͞ͅü̡̧̼͕̠͔͉͓̙͍͕͂ͦͪ̈́͛͋̔ͥ͂ͫ̚ļ̶̵͕̪̮̋ͫ͆ͪͮ̊ͯ̿ͨ͘͟_̴͕̳͎̼͕ͦ̿ͨ̓͌ͫ̉ͮ͝ȩ̸̶̪̪̣̺̱̮̻̖͈̝̲̬͋̊̓̏̈́ͨͯͬͬ̀̆̑̒̆̋̆̑͘͢͞͝͞r̛̘̩̮̫ͬ̌̈̃̽̔ͩͧ̄̿͡ͅ: Yes
The Wyrmlings: Yes
Important Tags-
#the Obsidian Mew au : the main tag for all comics and responses, or anything that has art with Obsidian or other characters of the AU in it.
#the ramblings of Professor Wolf : anything with this tag contains important worldbuilding lore, or character information. Basically me rambling about cool facts and theories/knowledge about how Gaia works and such. Usually this tag is for heavier rambles, so it won't be on every lore art piece unless I've slapped in an explanation of something or other.
#524-A/the girl : This tag is for Anne, specifically.
#ask answered : any asked questions that have been answered, either with art or by the characters.
#tw: blood : BIG WARNING. This means a read more cut to disturbing imagery like excessive blood and gore, though usually it will be art I make. "tw" means a trigger warning, and the tag can change with things like blood, gore, graphic violence, and other themes that can be disturbing to viewers. I'm aware not everyone is okay with horror themed things, so this is to prevent someone from seeing something they don't want. Will usually be proceeded with big red text as a warning and the tag upfront. Basically- Dead Dove Do Not Eat. What you see is what you get.
The Comic
Chapter 1: (COMPLETE) [THEME]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
INTERMISSION - 1
Chapter 2: (COMING SOON) [THEME]
Ref for Sidia Ref for ??? Ref for 524-A Ref for "Mewtwo"
Art 1 Art 2 Art 3
Lore
Antimatter Aspect
An old lab...
Myth Of Creation
Lost
It's... You.
Forsaken
Taboo
Too Late
Crystal Decomp
Fanart
(Now a series of Obsidian interacting with other popular characters! There will be more! :3)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Holiday Game!
Thank you post :3
Mother's Day :D
Mod Info
(Info updates regularly)
Mewsona!
HIATUS UPDATE- TL;DR: I'm not giving up on this comic yet, I just have urgent priorities right now which mean I can't focus too much on art.
EDIT: Comic is back on :3
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Hello, hello!
Welcome to the blog, we're still around!
The main focus is Kingdom Hearts, including the mobile games, but we also take asks for TWEWY/NEO and FF15. As usual, it's yours truly -Mod Demyx- running things around here, feel free to use any pronouns and nicknames when addressing me, it's all chill!
If you'd like to follow me outside of this blog, here are my other accounts!
@jabberwockprince (main blog)
@jabberwockprinceart (art blog)
@vasito-de-leche (multifandom writing blog)
I won't write: matchups, anything regarding rape or self-harm, pregnacy, explicit NSFW.
I will write: Yandere and other dark content, AUs (here's a little list of media I'm familiar with for specific AUs!), platonic and romantic interactions. Continuations of previous works, in-depth analysis of characters, etc. Basically, free real estate!
Feel free to ask if you're unsure about your prompt! Under the cut, you can find the full list of rules and masterlists!
I.
Askbox will always remain open! You're all welcome to drop by for chitchat, to drop prompts, theories, heartcanons... And remember, this blog is not spoiler free! Asks are not answered in order, I generally go straight for those who catch my eye and delete those I don't want to reply.
II.
This blog takes requests for all KH games! But please, specify which version of the character you'd like for me to write, such as using their proper names (ie: Isa, instead of Saix) and from the specific game (ie: BbS Isa, KH3 Isa). Otherwise, I'll write for their most recent versions! You're also welcome to request for TWEWY/NEO TWEWY, plus Final Fantasy 15! I've decided to drop FF7 and it's remake due to lack of interest on those games from my part.
III.
Reader based prompts will always use gender neutral pronouns and be as vague as possible, so that everyone can feel included. The only exception to this are LGTBQ+ prompts (ie: Larxene comforting a dysphoric S/O, Sora reacting to you coming out as a lesbian, etc) Any requests asking for general female or male readers will be ignored and deleted!
IV.
When requesting a specific type of reader, please refrain from using characters from other media as reference (ie: a reader who acts like Nagito Komaeda from Danganronpa). I'm not in every fandom, nor I know every character ever, or what traits you're hoping to see - it's much easier if you describe exactly what you're looking for! Don't be afraid to send two asks if it's too long.
V.
You can request up to 6 characters per ask! The only exception to this is the Organization XIII, because I love them to death! The length of the post varies and depends on inspiration and number of characters!
VI.
You're free to send in your own [Heartcanons] - a cute term for KH headcanons about the game and characters. To diferentiate them from general chitchat, make sure to add [Heartcanon] at the beginning of the ask! These will be queued and post on Mondays, if there's any left around in the askbox! I also invite people to go feral discussing, rambling and even adding to our posts with your reblogs or in the replies! It's so fun to get together and talk about these blorbos!
That's it for now! Rules might update as I see fit!
You're also welcome to translate my work if you'd like, with proper credit. Just don't repost it to different sites!
ALL MASTERLISTS
REQUEST SPREADSHEET (last updated, july 2022)
KO-FI
KH HEADCANONS
KH SCENARIOS
SUBMITTED HEARTCANONS
TWEWY HEADCANONS
TWEWY SCENARIOS
NEO HEADCANONS
NEO SCENARIOS
FINAL FANTASY 15 HEADCANONS
FINAL FANTASY 15 SCENARIOS
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THE ARCHIVE:
??? // INTRO // 1 // TO BE CONTINUED...
THE (DOG) HOUSE RULES!
Read the following before you ask...
and don't make me tap the sign!
* no NSFW! this blog is intended to be 13+ so please don't send anything sexually explicit or excessively gory, thank you!
* please be patient! I draw all the responses, and that can take some time. I also may hold onto some asks for future pieces, too.
* the Kris of this blog goes by they/them only! please do not misgender them in asks or they will be eaten... I mean deleted.
* interactions with other ask blogs are perfectly welcome and encouraged! I'm always happy to meet another kindred spirit.
* this isn't a roleplay blog! I won't be doing threads here, just silly one-off doodles. I will, however, be making an ask-driven comic!
* treat the mod with respect! please don't come here stirring up drama or sending hate/harassment etc. you get the idea.
* the mod is an adult! please remember this when interacting.
EXTRA ASK INFO AND FAQ BELOW:
Please do:
* send asks directed to Kris! they can hear your text as a disembodied voice and will respond to you accordingly.
* offer Kris objects, either by text or as a submitted picture! accepted items will be added to their inventory.
* use asks to suggest ideas to Kris! if you want them to actually do it though, you'll have to be convincing!
* interact with Kris directly, to a degree! any physical contact will be experienced as a 'hand' that only they can see.
* send IC asks from other character blogs! they're just for fun and games though, and may not be considered canon.
* send asks to the mod if you have questions or concerns! I'll happily tag triggers, explain bits of the AU, or clarify rules as needed.
* send joke m!as for special events! I may be selective on them though, and they likely won't be canon to the main story here.
* tag this blog in any posts you'd like me to see! I'll happily check out anything you'd like to send my way, within reason.
Please do not:
* send asks to characters other than Kris! they can't hear you; if you want to send a message, you'll need to convince Kris to do it for you.
* send asks that alter their world, or force Kris or other characters to do something! you just don't have that much power in this world.
* send asks containing explicit 18+ language, slurs, gore, or sexual content. anything like that is getting deleted on sight, sorry folks.
* misgender Kris in asks; those are getting deleted too. also please don't interact IC if you're an RP/ask blog that genders the kids.
* try to rush the mod on replies. drawing takes time, and I might not get to every reply. you can ask off anon if it was deleted, though!
* send stuff unrelated to the AU to this blog. if you'd like to chatter about other stuff, I've got a main blog and I'd love to see you there!
* repost any of my art without permission! please ask before using my work elsewhere. reblogs, however, are always encouraged!
THE FAQ I'D HAVE IF THIS BLOG WASN'T LITERALLY BRAND NEW
Q: So, what AU is this for anyway? A: I've been calling it 'Deltarune Monsterswap,' mainly since there isn't already an AU named that as far as I can find, and it describes the concept fairly well! Basically; everyone who's a human is now a monster, and everyone who's a monster is now human. Think Overtale but for Deltarune, basically! There are some definite personality differences as a result, though Kris will be the most obvious upfront.
Q: What sort of monster is Kris? A: Kris is a monster based on el cadejo, a mythical dog spirit from Central America! Their dual nature of devil dog vs angel dog seemed like an interesting concept to work with, especially since I personally headcanon Kris to have some Central American ancestry and wanted to pick something local to the region. Plus, I dunno, they've always given me scruffy stray dog vibes. This kid absolutely eats food off the floor when nobody's looking and you can't tell me otherwise.
Q: My ask wasn't answered! What happened to it? A: If it didn't break any of the rules I've listed off and hasn't been answered yet, it's probably still in my inbox! I'm liable to hold onto asks that I find fun but haven't found a place for so that I can use them in the future, so don't give up hope. They still might appear in the future! I promise I appreciate every one, even if it can take me a bit to get some of them done.
Q: Can I ask about future events or for hints? A: You can try! If something is TOO spoilery I might keep my lips sealed, but I'm willing to give hints and ideas on occasion. If push comes to shove, the worst case scenario is me posting it with a little :)c to mildly menace you a bit. I mean hey, lots of 'Players' look up guides to find secrets, too. It's on theme.
Q: Will there be any ships involved? What ones? A: I'll be sticking to canon for the most part on these; characters that have crushes will still have them, but we're generally sticking to canon-compliant territory here and they won't be a major focus. The farthest I get out of the box is that the Kris of this blog BRIEFLY had a crush on Noelle when they were younger, but it went unnoticed and has long since faded. The most you'll really see of that is a bit of awkwardness on Kris's part. Noelle will still have a crush on Susie, but at least for now it's unrequited.
Q: So, who's the mod behind this thing anyway? A: I don't really talk about myself; I grew up in the era of 'don't share personal info online' and still kinda live by that in public! The most you'll get is: I go by Timey, use she/her pronouns, I'm 28, and my left thumb is hypermobile. That's about as personal as I get, sorry!
AND THAT'S IT! Thanks for reading, and here's hoping you'll enjoy bothering this ridiculous critter as much as I do.
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I have 700+ hours in Skyrim across ten years, but ever since Starfield came out and was absolute ass, I've been freed from Skyrim hypnosis. Skyrim is not inherently a good game, it's just the only game of its caliber on the market. There isn't really another open world fantasy arpg with an actually rewarding exploration system and fun quests that lets you make a character and choose how you want to play the game yourself that isn't a Soulsborne/Soulslike, or at least I haven't found one yet. I realized I don't love Skyrim for what it is, because there is certainly a reason why the mere thought of a completely unmodded run makes me cringe into my soul, I love the idea of Skyrim, what it could be if it wasn't held back by so many broken or unfleshed systems. I have so many thoughts about this game, click the read more if you dare.
I could start like everyone else does, by talking about the bugs, and I think they are important to mention. Bethesda always gets off the hook for bugs when we wouldn't accept this level of bugginess from any other studio, and I think it is time we acknowledge that. And it's not like all the bugs that happen are funny mammoths falling out of the sky, there were multiple gamebreaking bugs that if you didn't have a recent manual save, you could lose hours of progress, including in the main questline itself. I distinctly remember getting the glitch where you talk to Esbern through the door in the Ratway in the main quest and he's says "ok let me open the door and we'll talk" or whatever, but the door never opened. This was long before I started modding too, so I was either straight up vanilla or vanilla plus the unofficical patch - which is crazy to me that modders need to patch the game because Bethesda won't, but I digress. The bugs are an issue, but are unintentional. I think Skyrim isn't good not just because of the bugs, but moreso because what WAS intended wasn't great, even for the time.
All three major forms of combat are bland in their own respective ways, for starters. For melee, its literally just hold the attack button with the occasional power move to break shields and very little variety in how you can approach combat. Even if you stealth in, once you enter melee combat its just swing, swing, swing, open a menu and eat a wheel of cheese, he's blocking so hit with a heavy attack, swing, swing, block, swing, swing, swing... You don't have to read movements, no riposte, no dodge or parry or anything crazy. I don't think it's a tall ask to give me a dodge and reward me for using it, give me a parry that I can use to punish an overly aggressive enemy, but I can still just hold block if I'm not able to learn how to do those techniques, but also pressure me to learn to engage with the combat system by having enemies break my block/stun me with heavies unless you parry. It could have learned a few things from beat em ups or hack-n-slashes of the time, tbqh. Not to mention every weapon in the game is the same, something I noticed after adding the Immersive Weapons mod. There's much cooler LOOKING weapons, but an axe is just a stronger and slower sword and a mace is just a stronger and slower axe, and the same is true for two handed weapons. There's no variance to playstyle, something that had been true in other titles of its day. Monster Hunter comes to mind, with unique movesets for all of its weapons so no two feel the same. They didn't have to go hard in the paint, but make my choice meaningful. And because the damage bumps are fixed to whether or not you choose sword, axe, or mace, they can't really get too creative with anything else, which dumbs it down into the realm of boringness. There's no room for reach weapons like polearms, fun but impractical fantasy weapons like scythes or buster swords, chained weapons like flails, thrown daggers or kunai, finesse swords like katanas or rapiers, different damage types and resistances, nothing. Combat feels the same for you no matter what weapon you pick up and I think that's one of the worst choices they made. It makes it so it's super easy to pick up as a new gamer, but once you've been playing for long enough, there's nothing to delve deeper into to keep you interested in it.
Spells are worse though, because the damage doesn't scale with your level literally at all. There's very little difference between a level 100 destruction mage casting flames and a level 15 destruction mage doing it. The only damage amp spell casters get is a paltry non-scaling 25% to one particular element (meaning if you want to use all 3 kinds of damage spells (excluding radiant since its not a primary type, another piece of squandered potential) you have to spend 3 skill points to get max damage on each), one other small bump if you dual cast, but that shuts out other playstyles, like spellswording or even just having ice spike in one hand and lightning bolt in the other. So the only way to keep scaling your damage to enemies is to sink all your stat points into magicka so you can cast highier tier spells that will actually hurt high level enemies like draugr deathlords. You can't even augment your damage via enchanting, all it does is reduce mana cost so you can cast more. And you'll need to cast more, cause the aiming is ass. You know how DnD/BG3 has point and click spells like Magic Missle or Scorching Ray? None of that. Everything is an actual projectile, and the projectile is SLOW. I have no issue hitting moving targets with arrows, but with a spell? Forget it. And iirc unless you have a mod to turn off friendly fire, stuff like chain lightning WILL hit your followers/nonhostiles, which is fine in DnD to make you weigh the cost of using a high impact spell at the cost of allied HP vs switching to something with less or no AOE and less damage, but annoying in Skyrim when Fireball and Chain Lightning are the only spells at that level and the enemy is a deathlord.
Even the stealth archer that is the best way to play isn't as engaging as it could be, because there's no incentive to be GOOD at stealth. There's no red alert phase enemies go into if evidence of your presence is found, they just see a dead comrade, look for you for a minute and a half, then go "🤷♀️ must've run off" and that's it! And the AI is so bad if you have a few levels in sneak they can be looking right at you and STILL not see you. The gameplay as a sneak archer is similar to the melee in that its just get a pick, pick, oops they saw me so I'll hide now, pick, pick, pick, run and hide, pick, pick, miniboss so kite around it/switch to melee and the dungeon is clear. I noticed as I was writing this that I have never had a save where I was a straight up melee or magic combat user and actually continued playing it. Every character I have that I played to level 30 besides the wizard where I was hoping it would get fun eventually (it didn't) is some sort of hybrid spellsword or paladin because doing just one or the other highkey... is Boring! But I'm not sure if it's worse than having to stop combat to open a menu and switch spells. Even with SkyUI, this shit is gross and clunky to use, and it makes combat come to a screeching halt.
Crime is another thing I feel is... eh? It doesn't really feel like people's opinion of you changes based on your actions like they do in Morrowind or even Oblivion. In fact, the entire Speech tree is completely useless beyond lowering shop prices and fencing items, because you can almost never use it to fish out information from people, manipulate people, piss people off, or get a read on someone's opinion of you because that information is literally irrelevant. Everyone's disposition towards you is just "you're the main character so I guess I'll just dump 5 sentences of exposition on you without any hesitation". If I attack Nazeem in broad daylight and serve my sentence or pay my fine, the guards may comment, but nothing of value is lost. No one seems to dislike the player for their actions, or refuse them service or anything. You might lock yourself out of a quest or follower, but it never felt like anyone had much to say if I did commit crimes, unless it's LITTERING, because THEN people will come up to you and either tell you to knock it off or ask to take what you dropped. Even when you're obviously trashing a room, they just ask you to stop, they don't get aggressive. It's not like even RDR2 where the townsfolk will loathe you after you've done a crime, but bringing your honor back up clears the hatred townsfolk hold towards you. People aren't distrustful of you if you're a werewolf or vampire unless you're caught doing explicitly non-human things even if you're in the monster hunter guild, if you are a non-Nord dragonborn, you experience no racism, like there's just... so much that could've been done here. Speech is the most underwhelming skill because it's never utilized beyond things relating to gold - intimidation or persuasion are such rare dialogue choices, why even bother? It's rare that you can actually defuse a situation with words anyway, and it's telling that the only way to really be able to raise speech is to buy and sell over and over rather than just talking to people and trying to glean information from them, being able to defuse arguments, or pick fights.
The characters lack depth I didn't know was possible until Baldur's. I can talk to a lot of major NPCs and companions and get the jist of their life story in BG3, but what can I say about Lydia, or the wood elf you can pick up in Riverwood who is so forgettable I can't even remember his name? Major players in the story like Ulfric or Jarl Balgruf? Even my beloved Kharjo, what do I actually know about him? He's in Skyrim because he blew all his money on gambling while wasted on Skooma, and he has his mom's amulet. That's it. There is ONE fleshed out follower and its Serana. And she ironically is the ONLY NPC you could really and truly get attached to, the only one with a shred of personality, and she rejects your marriage proposal. You can't make this shit up. I get its partly because they have so many companions, but I'd rather have just one masc and femme follower of each race that have fully finished character sheets with ideals and motivations than 50 stubs with non-existant personalities (and this way at least the "uglier" races have more options bc there's so few Khajiit, Argonian, and Orc romances you could count them on 2 hands). And genuinely, this is the central issue with what's wrong with I think most of their titles after Skyrim. They focus too much on having more, more, more, that what they do have winds up uninteresting because it wasn't developed enough. Wide as an ocean with so much you COULD potentially do and how much it offers, deep as a puddle with how much everything is lacking because of a lack of focus on the smaller details. You don't earn your romance, you just wear an amulet and talk to the npc you want to marry. You barely interact with any adopted kids other than "yes bring that skeever home" "no go to bed" "ok ill play tag with you". Even one of the tasks I do every game almost, building the homestead, what is really the difference between buying and furnishing a house in a major hold versus the homestead, other than it being time consuming and slightly modular? Unless you grow plants, prebuilt homes offer the same amenities except the forge/smelter iirc, and your spouse will occasionally hand you gold from stuff they've "sold" despite you never stocking the store. There's such a missed opportunity to actually RUN a store that you have to keep stocked, giving you a decent way to earn passive income with all the trinkets, armor, and weapons you loot. Your spouse and kids should make occasional trips to town for fun and supplies, and you could easily have small optional quests to do for them, almost like a Haruka's Requests system. You don't have to do everything she asks (I sure don't when it's Koi-Koi), but it raises your bond if you do.
The one thing I can say with confidence the game got right is exploration. You can pick up a quest in Whiterun to go kill someone near Riften, and while you're making the trip, you run past 20 different dungeons you could stop in and get new loot, you might find more sidequests along the way, kill a dragon, run into a radiant encounter, pick new herbs for poisons, fill soul gems for enchanting later, etc, etc. It's a positive loop that keeps you locked in like "ok I'll just do this one last small thing" but that thing is so connected to everything else that it builds on itself to keep you invested. It's a truly brilliant way of handling exploration, and I see it echoed in BotW and TotK and I'm glad for it, it is truly the best thing to come out of the game. Truly a journey-not-destination kind of thing, and because of that I don't fast travel nearly as much as I walk places. But everything else.... sucks.
And I really do hate that it sucks, I'm not a hater just because, as evidenced by my playtime, once upon a time Skyrim was my favorite game, and stayed in my top 5 for years. I want to keep enjoying it, but partially because I've been milking dopamine out of it for 10 years, and partly because I can see behind the veneer, it doesn't hit the same anymore. And the central issue I have with coming back to Skyrim now is the same issue I have with Starfield - I've seen every system and idea that's lacking done so much better by other titles. No Man's Sky did everything Starfield wanted to do with space travel MILES better than Starfield and I don't even play NMS anymore, and it was 8 years old when Starfield launched. And because I'm not a broke 15 year old with a shitty laptop anymore and I can actually play all kinds of newer titles and emulate older ones, I've seen everything that Skyrim tries to do done better by so many other games that it's impossible to go back, even by its contemporaries in 2011. I try not to judge the lack of meaningful stealth mechanics too harshly, but Splinter Cell and MGS3 had already set the bar on that many years prior; I try not to judge the NPCs/companions, but Mass Effect is often praised for it's cast of colorful characters and the ways you can romance them too, and it predates Skyrim by a few years; melee combat had been so iterated upon by this point that they could have pulled out any popular non-FPS title and chosen that to look at, or even referred back to the original DnD blueprint; and I've ALWAYS hated that vanilla had no way of either being able to keep track of or summon your horse when Red Dead Redmption came out a year prior and had an icon to to show the horse on your map, and Ocarina of Time, a game that was then as old as Skyrim is now, gave you a method to summon the fucking horse on command. And it is hard to not look at newer titles like Red Dead Redemption 2, or Baldur's Gate 3, both of which are absolute masterclasses on open worlds with strong narratives and compelling NPCs and companions even despite some of their flaws, and NOT judge Skyrim now that I've seen what COULD have been with more care and attention to detail, and probably an engine that isn't Creation. Especially now after Starfield and even FO76 where I can clearly see that Skyrim wasn't overly ambitious and just couldn't achieve all it wanted to do before it had to be shipped (though it plays a part, I'm sure), but everything is the way it is by design.
now its time to bring the haterism
if you think multiple are bad vote for the one you hate the most <3
#sorry for the essay ive just really really been thinking about how much i hate that i had to break up with skyrim a lot recently#i dont have as strong of an opinion about anything else here except final fantasy but only bc thats ewwww mmo#fnv is the only good modern fallout we'll ever get so i cant shit on it. never played ass effect. portal 2 is a classic#disco elysium got fucked by zaum and it sucks bc its such a good game i cant wait to finish and i have no beef with sdv its just not for me#never played dao either but i didnt mych care for dai so i prob wouldnt like it.#it doesnt surprise me that skyrim leads here. dgmw it IS immersive and lends itself to roleplay but the roles you CAN play are limited#and the way you play is so surface level its boring. i just need another studio to form and make skyrim 2: The Good One and ill be cooked.#even if that someone is my by god it must be done.#i have heard kingdoms of amalur and kingome come deliverance are good open world arpgs with good combat so if youre in my boat try those
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"So is BG4 going to be a thing? As far as we were aware, the creator stated they weren't going to develop a sequel, but it'd be amazing if they changed their mind 🙏🏻"
I should've been clear, I'm sorry! Yes, you are right! Larian said they are not going to make a BG4 nor will they change their minds. Whether or not BG4 will be a thing is up for WOTC to decide but frankly, given the success of BG3 I imagine they are going to cash in on the opportunity eventually. It's just that it will be made by another company instead of Larian...which is not very reassuring. Whatever happens I hope at the very least for a mention of Astarion being in a relationship with some guy, in the event he is mentioned at all. Can you imagine the tears from the girlies?
"We had no clue Astarion's female fanbase were called Astarionwives, but I (- mod orinthara) don't see how that would be misogynistic tbh! Vampire lords having multiple wives is a popular trope, and it's typically not represented as a degrading position to be in, even though that could be discussed."
Frankly, they would've probably embraced the moniker had it referred to the vampire lords having multiple wives trope, but it's obvious they are pissed because of the reference to the Snapewives, which is not something positive or to be proud of. The Snapewives were a bunch of mostly middle aged women in the Harry Potter fandom who genuinely believed they were in a romantic relationship with Snape and were meeting him on the astral plane, plus other unhinged shit including creating a religion around his persona.
I believe they began calling it misogyny mostly because it's a gendered term ("wives") that's unfairly singling out women. Yes, it is wrong to refer to all Astarion fans as Astarionwives (some of them are gay men) but most people who use it only do so when referring to the most unhinged part of his fanbase, which coincidentally enough consists of like ~99% women, most of whom only care about fucking the guy.
(in case you were wondering, yes, there are a few Astarion girlies out there who ship him with...themselves and pretend to be in a relationship with him)
"All of the fans who went insane about Astarion picking a man in this ending are homophobic, point blank, lmao. It's all "he's pansexual actually!!" "
One interesting thing about this ending is that in the devnotes they mention the man he picked is a noble. Now what I'm going to say further is my own interpretation but to me it looks like he does have a thing for noble men?
There is a party banter where Shadowheart asks him what type of blood he prefers and he answers with "young noble". In another party banter with again, Shadowheart, she ask him who would he bite out of everyone in the party and he answers with Wyll, who is of noble blood after all. Speaking of Wyll, he has several other remarks about him which may indicate some attraction.
As for the rest of the male party members, I don't remember him saying anything that stands out with Gale (they have a flirty banter in act 1 though) but what's funny is how he's one of the few who doesn't seem to be attracted to Halsin when even Wyll comments on his physique. I guess he's just not his type unlike others. Maybe I am biased here since I don't see the appeal of his ship with Halsin, they seem incompatible to me.
Now we don't know about the darling boy but Sebastian, given his rather fancy clothing, I wouldn't be surprised if he was of noble blood either.
If I may offer a suggestion, could you perhaps consider making a pinned post with a link to each of your most important analysis? It would help a lot and it would be easier to access an older post compared with going through the archive.
Since BG3 has so many different endings, I imagine there wouldn't be clear mentions of how the origin characters ended up, if BG4 became a thing: we'd probably get different companions as well, considering the previous game's endings were very divisive too.
But yeah, wouldn't that be objectively hilarious? 🫢
Jesus, people's obsession with the "shifting" trend is very concerning, especially because it seems like it mainly brainwashes young girls... or at least that's what I imagine the so-called Snapewives were doing. I wouldn't be surprised if some Astarion fans believed in that stuff as well, it seems to have resurfaced from the depths of 2020 tiktok lmao.
Oo absolutely, I've always seen Astarion as someone who fancies charismatic noblemen, and it's probably canon at this point.
He seems to dislike Halsin in my opinion as well, Astarion probably saw him as a glorified hippie when they first met. "enjOyinG thE fReedOm of NatURE's gIftS" 😭 – though I like when fanfictions explore a potential friendship between them, especially since they share similar trauma. If I recall correctly, Halsin was kidnapped and sexually enslaved by a couple of Drows before the game began?
Of course we can! We were already thinking of making a masterpost with links to our previous essays, we just never got around to it. It'll be done soon 🙏🏻
- mod Orinthara
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Welcome to Creation help! On this blog I'll be making prompts, oc questions, and general creativity! I can boost you if you want :] tag me if you use any of my original ideas presented here bc I wanna see what you made!!
You're always free to ask me for creative advice or prompts related to different subjects! Sharing ocs or story ideas, or asking for advice on developing either is also a thing here :]
I'm welcome to suggestions! And remember, basic DNI criteria, no radfems/terfs "gender critical" or other transphobes, exclusionists, real people shippers, serial killer thirsters ect ect. You can ask me to use tone tags! /gen
I focus mostly on help with original content, though I am in some Fandoms! I'll try my best to help with whatever I can. If not I'll direct you elsewhere to look. Please be patient and understanding with me, I do this in my free time and though there is passion for the topic, I put alot of work into my original content or the advice I give. I'm only a (mentally ill) person who's barely able to work.
Replies from @morsobaby, and my personal art blog is @grokebaby! I'd be happy if you checked it out and shared my art!
Additional info under the cut (not mandatory but the "Blog etiquette" section is highly recommended)
- Person running the blog is a queer person 18-20 yrs of age. I'm genderfluid, and you're free to ask how I'd like to be referred but you may default to it/its or xe/xir. I'm fine with any neopronouns and they are preferred for me. You can call me Mx/Mr creation, Mod, or any funny "professional" nickname you can think of. I'm finnish.
I have a great passion for storytelling (art, visual mediums, writing, character design, media analysis, cinematography to an extent) which might be obvious judging by the blog.
Blog etiquette:
- Reblog the art I feature on here and support small artists whenever I boost them. Are you a small artist? Ask to be featured! But I repeat: Reblog the art I boost on here. This is an artist supportive space. Includes pieces of writing also.
- If you need help developing your ocs, stories, or want advice on writing or character building, ykno, all the stuff that this blog is for, please use my inbox for that! I use dms for more personal interactions so it's not my preferred work method to advise you 1x1 like that. Plus I talk alot, so you'd just get a bunch of very long texts. Please don't take it personally if I leave your dm unanswered, it's simply a matter of how I run things here! Though if needed you can drop information, links or images in my dms, if you find it more convenient for something. You can always ask me to reply to your asks privately or ask to remain anonymous.
- Though I do enjoy socializing, please don't try to befriend me for perks, or cross some social boundaries. I know that should be obvious, but I've had people act way too comfortable in my dms, or expecting me to immediately do something for them, or pestering me about something that I haven't done yet, or am still working on. This is part of the reason for that prev section. I love helping people here, and it's not a matter of me having "high standards" for relationships. Simple fact is that I'm a stranger running this blog and though you as followers may learn things about me based on this blog, I don't know any of you personally, and vice versa. If you want me to boost something just say so and I'll gladly do it. But it feels really deceptive if someone comes to chat me up and then few replies in go "Can you reblog my post btw?" (Ps. If you've dmed me and I've ignored you, don't worry if this is automatically talking about you, I understand that there's also just simple instances of people not knowing I prefer the inbox and that is fine!)
- ADDITIONALLY. Do not dm me on my main or art blog with the expectation that I'd do you some favor or promo you or something similar. This blog is for all the fun creative help type stuff, if you come to me personally with the expectation that I'll do something for you, you will get ignored, bc honestly, it feels hurtful to think someone would wanna get to know me just for "I have a big blog" perks such as reblogs on your content. Listen, I really do understand how it is being a small artist (I am one myself! Even with a large following on here, I don't get alot of engagement on my personal art!), but remember that I am a person, and not doing this for profit. I am here for fun and the help I offer is with my own boundaries.
- Though I am an adult, this blog is intended to be friendly for minors too. Due to this if your ask or story contains mature themes, please put a warning upfront! This includes anything from homo- or transphobia, to abuse (sexual or otherwise), to self harm or issues with body image. Ect. And though I do believe it's important to talk about healthy and safe sexuality openly, it should be Context and age appropriate. So I will answer asks relating to sexual orientation for example, or talk about body parts in relation to character design or gender identity, due to representation. I will also answer asks relating to how to handle certain touchier topics (IF I feel I have anything valuable to talk about on the topic, and with the appropriate warnings attached!). But I will not answer any explicit asks (maybe, MAYBE privately, depending on the intent). I use heavy discretion on this but generally speaking I won't discuss explicit NSFW/kinks/fetishes/sex acts or generally things that are intended to be naughty and for an adult audience. Again, Heavy Discretion. I understand any forms of storytelling may contain explicit topics and it's also important to know how to handle those tactfully but if I feel an ask is too spicy, I likely will leave it unanswered. This blog is for general audiences, not specifically meant to be a "Kids" space, but appropriate for minors and youths ykno. Besides you shouldn't be on Tumblr if you're like, under 13, was it?
Bottom line is that darker topics will need responsible handling and I won't be tackling anything pornographic or anything I find inappropriate for this blog and it's audience. You may also use your own discretion depending on how heavily or explicitly your story handles darker topics, when sending an ask.
- Last but not least, be clear and upfront on what you're looking for! I can do a variety of things here. Stuff you can request including (but not limited to): Oc/story reviews (original or existing franchises), writing tips, art tips, input on an oc/story, art reviews (pls specify deliberately if you want constructive criticism on something), commentary, inspiration, prompts, boosting, names, ideas and so on. Just ask and we'll see about it! Depending on how big of a task your thing would be, it may take a longer while, be prepared for that. I answer asks a bit sporadically at times. Thank you for reading, please enjoy! Feedback or general nice comments are always welcome!
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So I decided to squeeze in a ME3 (only) playthrough to finally do MShep and an Engineer in ME3. I started this guy many years ago and never went very far with him, despite really loving the character design. BTW, I captioned all the screenshots above if you wanna clickthrough. So (re)meet Aldis. I tried to do his initial facial design off of Aldis Hodge, though I’m bad at creating/mimicking faces I think he still turned out as one of the most attractive mSheps I’ve ever seen, if I can say so mysellf without sounding too braggadocios. :) When I made him, there were a couple of goals I wanted to accomplish... Obviously, just finally do ME3 with a MShep. I did ME1 and ME2 with one even longer ago, but I romanced Liara in those and I really wanted to see a MShenko romance, to see the more gradual “Hey let’s get together” in ME3 instead of the “let’s reaffirm our relationship” like with my FemShep. I also wanted to do a more renegade playthrough, since it’s been many years since I did my Femshep Shakarian Renegade playthrough. He is still the “I’m nice to my crew, and I’ll try a diplomatic approach but my tolerance for bullshit is near zero.” And last, I’m just gonna wear a bunch of the dumb armors I almost never wear and just try and do things different in other ways than my main FemShep. Since the next time I do a full trilogy playthrough, it’ll be with my canon femshep in the Legacy and there may not be the possibility of mods then, I wanted a heavily modded run to see all the mods again, plus the improvements since my last ME3 playthrough about a year and a half ago. So this time I’m playing with:
Lights Effect as the FX mod
Girl Plays Game Hair Mods as DLC (Maleshep’s ”Macho” is the specific hair mod.)
Project Variety, which, btw means no Thanemod or Backoff. because they’re incompatible. Project Variety adds SO MUCH to the game, several of which are highlighed in the screenshots above.
Expanded Galaxy Mod (I have no idea how I can ever play without this mod again, gonna make the LE playthrough so hard and bland.)
Spectre Expansion Mod... also one I don’t ever want to live without in the future.
I have MEHEM installed because... yeah. I still don’t feel like not having a happy ending.
So of course Citadel Epilogue Mod to close out the game.
ME3 Recalibrated to fix all the lore and errors that need fixing.
And Better Journal to make quest descriptions better.
Casual Outfits for MShep. There’s also other new casual outfits installed for MShep and I don’t know where they came from, but I do love them. (See pics for more.)
Priority Earth Overhaul Mod to make the endgame even more epic. The creator also made Immersive Thessia which is sadly incompatible with Project Variety so for now I’m not using this... maybe a future playthrough will swap out PJ for Immersive Thessia, ThaneMod and BackOff again.
Omega Hub for extra Omega content post Omega-DLC, really looking forward to seeing the improvements in this one. It was just a fun 10-minute diversion last time I played through.
Ark Mod for extra missions that bridge the gap between ME3 and Andromeda.
Better Dreams for awesome and non-annoying dreaming... getting rid of The Kid as much as possible.
Alliance Warpack for more Companion outfits.
Citadel DLC Redone so most companions wear unique casual outfits during Citadel DLC
ME3 Opening Remaster to make those few seconds of the opening a little more epic.
Miranda Mod to have Miranda on the Normandy and give her cool stuff to do after Horizon. Also if you’re a Miranda Romancer gives her a better ME3 romance. Also better clothes.
Respawn - Mission Overhaul IDK why it’s hidden on the Nexus, but I had an old download I’m using. Makes combat more difficult by giving the bad guys more varied powers. A nice change of difficulty without making it crazy on normal.
Allers Redone to put Allers in a decent outfit. Still don’t know if I’m going to bother talking to her, though I did put her on the ship.
A Lot Of Videos 4k - I’m a 4k gamer finally.... I want what I can make look good... look good.
I’m NOT using ALOT this time -- I didn’t want to not be able to easily fix things should some mod installation be wonky. I figure the Legendary Edition is gonna be my big “Take ALL THE PRETTY SCREENSHOTS!!” time... this one is just for fun, and enjoying the mods and my pretty, pretty mShep.
Hey the new post editor SUCKS because I’ve run out of space for new paragraphs but I can add new bullet points. Anyway, I’ll probably make a few more screenshot posts as I progress through the game.
#mass effect#mass effect 3#bioware#video games#mshep#mass effect mods#david anderson#james vega#kasumi goto#kaidan alenko#liara t'soni#annakie's mass effect stuff
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I do have an OC, but haven't played as him yet (don't really play the game at this time. Too busy modding it to my liking.). He's mostly used as a half-joking self-insert at this time and most likely will always have an element of that. Still, I know some details about him. I'll probably do a playthrough with him once I'm done with my modding binge and when I have time. Then he can be more fleshed out.
Who are they?
For now, you can call him by my normal online name, King Feraligatr (or KF) (he has no proper name). He's not much of anyone, but I do know that he's a commoner with Imperial citizenship. I also know that he's anti-slavery. His current tags are Scholar and Jester (but that could change).
What is their damage?
Is this meant to be mental or literal damage type? Or both? Anyways, since he lacks fleshing out, he has no real mental quirks. His main damage types would probably be melee mixed with hydro. :)
What do they look like?
He's currently just a standard lizard who's blue. Mostly because I like the lizards in this game and blue is my favorite color. :) He does use use some assets from Majora's Character Creation Plus , so recreating him using base game assets isn't completely possible.
Are there any differences between their in-game model and how you imagine them?
Not currently, but those aforementioned assets make it hard to recreate him in the modding editor if I ever want to do shots of him in it.
What is their fighting style?
Currently melee mixed with Hydrosophy. Modded to make that combat style more viable. :) He also likes to heal people and such.
Who do they love and why?
(Art done by Faneposter, Ace.Vermilion, and Neon Runes in that order.)
If the name of my blog didn't make it obvious, it's Red Princess Sadha. Specifically my edited and expanded version of her (now ingame due to a mod. :D). Sadha is my primary fictional "crush", so you'd better bet I'd find a way to get her and my OC together. Though it happens sometime after the game. The way I see it playing out is that TRP, being his usual sleeping around self, cheats on her. However, in this continuity, he doesn't prioritize her or really even seek her out (specifics are TBD). So, ignoring her on the Reaper's Coast (RC) (though maybe the OC passes by and says "hi" or something) and meeting her in Arx and with Sadha knowing about TRP's unfaithfulness, she breaks up with him. My version of Sadha may prefer monogamy, but she'd be willing to working out polyamory if TRP followed some simple conditions and treated her right. Not in this case. Anyways, this obviously makes Sadha upset and she's not in much of a talking mood in Horrorsleep. Still, "KF" still feels bad and gives her a Swornbreaker, for which she is grateful for. They may not be able to talk much now, but they know each other and are acquainted. After the events of the game, "KF", having little better to do (and maybe taking some slight interest into the Red Princess), looks Sadha up and chooses to work for her and the royal family of the House of Law. Sadha and "KF" befriend each other pretty fast. And eventually, over time, they develop feelings for each other. They start dating and eventually get married (especially important to make their relationship more "official" in the eyes of the public since Sadha's royalty and all). Like myself, my OC is asexual and I have that play into his and Sadha's relationship. They have no kids (like I would want) and while they still have to deal with Sadha dreaming of TRP at times (I don't think that would go away even if they broke up. (: .), they work through it. The two work together to try and bring about changes they think would benefit the Empire, like abolitionism (to things simple, Sadha is also anti-slavery.) and being more peaceful. Sadha has repaired her professional relationship with TRP (now probably Emperor) as well. So from helper, to acquaintance, to protector, to friend, to partner, to spouse, to partners (could make a pun on this... :)) in politics and other areas, I'd say "KF" and Sadha have a good relationship. :)
Anything else you'd like to share about them?
Uh, not much. He still needs fleshing out, as I've said. He's not directly possible to recreate in the editor easily, so shots like this:
have him looking differently.
Anyways, there you go. :)
@faneposting-my-beloved I answered your ping... HAPPY?! (:
@sabin1108 @aetherneadraconis @laytonsgal Respond to this plz.
DOS2 fandom, show me your Godwoken? Tell me about your Godwoken? (For example:) Who are they? What is their damage? What do they look like? Are there any differences between their in-game model and how you imagine them? What is their fighting style? Who do they love and why? Anything else you'd like to share about them?
Everyone who sees this post, consider yourself invited. And feel free to tag your friends if you'd like.
@flower-khajiit, @divinityiswasted
Just do it. This is a threat.
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hi so I've just eaten too much ice cream, feel vaguely ill, and I'm here to tell you All About How I Failed At Outlining for SGKF this year!
that's partially just a fun tagline, but it's also a bit true. I told my friends I'd be trying to use several different outlining methods to try and knock out a plotty piece for the fest, and things did not go to plan!
important to begin with: I am what is referred to as a "pantser." I tend to just start writing. this is strangely contradictory to my personality, which deeply loves plans. unfortunately, what often happens is plans and outlines ruin my excitement and drive while working on a project (it tricks me into thinking I've done all the work and resolved the plot), leading me to abandon it.
and though I can throw together pretty words and made a decent fic, my fics never turned out as good as they could have been. I kept telling myself that if I planned in advanced and worked out what I was doing BEFORE I did it, I'd be able to craft a fic with such care and attention as to make it really SHINE.
so, uh, kinkfest rolls around, and since I was a mod I could see all the prompts before they even got released to the public, so I basically had a WHOLE EXTRA two-ish weeks to start planning and writing.
did I? NO.
so, despite the fact that I collect writing advice like a magpie , I'm not the greatest at implementing it. if you go into my SGKF google folder, you'll find a few instances of me TRYING to implement writing advice like metawriting:
(and you'll see some fics that didn't get finished/make it into the fest!)
my issue was (and still is) that I think I value every little word too much. this is a bad thing: I'm an overwriter by nature. when I get words down, I want to keep them because I feel like I worked hard for them, even if they're not great or don't actually serve the story in the way they should. that's not to say all my metawriting was bad; it wasn't. I tried it out for A Drowning in California as well [which will henceforth just be referred to as "California").
I had a whole subfolder for California. what kind of amazed me is how different my initial notes for the prompt are from what the story actually ended up being. here, take a look:
literally almost none of this is in california. the WWE and UFC stuff made it in, and so did sid wrestling with horny, but that was it. I was going to start this fic in the locker room, with sid wrestling someone, and it was seriously going to be a story about sex—about sid wanting to hold geno down in bed. that was the premise.
and instead, we got a really emotional story about familial rejection and the isolation it can make people feel. SO! something happened along the way, right?
when I started getting into the plot that would support this supposed sexfest, this is where I went at first:
geno wants the relationship to get serious, sid is like mentally still a 12 year old who just wants to wrestle people and doesn't want to talk about his emotions, and prefers to use physicality to communicate. this doesn't work for geno, who wants ... more
we can start to see the actual emotions come through, the things I was interested in: sid using touch to talk, and geno desperately wanting more
what did the most good for me, in the end, was "doing" the metawriting by talking with my friends.
I told them what i thought this story was about ("I'm thinking about making this a story about relationship-defining, maybe? and the communication needed for a lasting adult relationship? I think I'm going to set it in california/LA, where Sid has invited Geno along for the first time for his California Summer Fun/Training/Escape, whatever, and Geno's going to be emotionally preoccupied with Defining The Relationship—maybe they've been on-again-off-again? maybe they're just new to this, like almost a year deep, and they're not getting younger—and thinking this trip is about that [or hoping this trip is about that, and realizing it isn't, and being disappointed].") and they told me what jumped out at them.
Jes told me what would ramp up the tension would be a deadline of some sort; "Geno’s going to break up with Sid or make some decision or something, or there’s something approaching where they have to make a will they or won’t they decision of some kind related to the core ‘defining the relationship’ issue. Geno’s going back to russia and in previous summers they’ve always slept with other people while apart? or Sid has a wedding coming up and he’s offhandedly mentioned taking someone else as his plus one?"
I liked her thoughts. it made sense to add an external pressure to all this, and that wedding idea stuck out to me the most.
Lis said I should add a jealousy angle, so you can largely credit her for the club scene: "one thing i like to sort of headcanon/imply about sid's california trips is he uses them to hook up anonymously. so you could have, like, sid and geno seeing sid's friends, but also accidentally running into some of sid's friends. and geno's like oh, great, so here i am doing this horrible summertime training that i hate because i don't need to train in the offseason actually, and i'm learning what exactly sid gets up to when we're apart."
My magical solution these days is GOING FOR WALKS. do it if you're able. it clears out your brain. so on my walks I ended up deciding that I wanted a taylor crosby wedding. I like taylor as a character, and as a person with sisters I just like writing her in. best of all, she and sid are close and I like writing "I'd do anything for my family" sid.
and then I was like. oh. what if it's not that sid is afraid/nervous to bring geno, it's that he can't.
I... wasn't as conflicted as I thought I'd be about writing sid's parents as homophobic. I prefer to write them as supportive; I think troy crosby's been eviscerated more than he should have been in older fanworks, and though I respect their right to make fictional!troy whatever they want, I've been a little skeptical of outlandish takes on him ("he doesn't say I love you to his son because a camera caught them mid-interaction once!") ever since I read how the media has found him a convenient narrative villain while he tried to keep his underage son safe from the media as a child and while they needed to cook up Spicy Stories about squeaky-clean sid.
uh, tangent aside, I always thought I'd never write a "parents are the villains" story, but I did here. it felt right. it was easier, too, because they're not PRESENT in the story. I didn't have to write trina actually being horrible to her son. I just had to skirt the edges of the wound.
which works well on two fronts: I don't have to actively write the crosbys being horrible to sid, and I also leave more to the imagination of the reader, and that almost never fails to make the work better. whatever the reader imagines them saying to sid, it's going to be 10x more hurtful than anything I'd write.
I dug really deep on some personal emotions and fears I experience as a gay person for a lot of sid's arc here. sid is deeply imperfect in this story, and he's internalizing his pain and the horrible thing that's happened to him, which is making him pull away from his partner, and sid is not responding how geno wants, nor is he responding well, period, though he's trying in his own wounded, stilted way.
and beloved geno, whose tender heart is so hidden away for fear of someone hurting it. I really like writing geno; he's huffy and emotional and sometimes bitchy and feels things SO deeply.
once I had more of an idea, I was already working on a more detailed outline. this is where I seriously took Jes's advice and WROTE EVERYTHING OUT! it made it so much less daunting, because I didn't have to be figuring out my next steps AND crafting sentences at the same time. also this is where I tell you that the title of this post is mostly a lie, it was metawriting I failed at.
This outline also meant I avoided writing large swaths of things that should've been cut. Another beta told me I should delete three scenes and condense a bunch of emotions into the club scene, and she was SO right. Cutting events out of an outline is WAY easier than cutting out pages of text.
Ironically my outline kind of deteriorated after the club scene, but that's alright: after I wrote the club scene, I actually had a clear vision of what I wanted the end to be. I just had to trust myself. I CAN do this, I CAN still just write intuitively sometimes!
I think California did what I wanted it to do. I'd love to try something out that's longer and has more story arcs in it (jes has a post for that too!) but I think that's best saved for another, longer project, though 18k isn't short.
next up is maggie stief's writing seminar that I bought a month back. I'm going to start working on that this month and see how I like it. I have a few halloween fic ideas, plus spookfest, so these next two months we should be cooking in the kitchen!
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Hi!! I’m wondering if you have any advice for writing for a zine? I just got accepted as a writer for a zine for the very first time and I’m a bit nervous! I know you do a lot of zine writing, so any advice is appreciated. :)
Yooo, congratulations! :D That's freaking awesome, anon, I'm really happy for you. Zines used to be an unreachable dream for me as a kid, so I feel your excitement! I genuinely adore writing for zines because you get to write short and snappy, and I think it's a really good opportunity to focus a lot more on quality over word count, plus the community aspect (and the compensation of course, haha).
It's kinda wild to me to look back and realize that I've written for 8 zines now (which feels like a lot until I look at people who have done dozens), but here's somethings I learned along the way:
Take advantage of what your writing mod offers! If they offer to give you feedback prior to the final check-in, take it, it can be very helpful for knowing if you need to amend things early. If you want advice early and they haven't specifically offered it, ask anyways! They're happy to help and it's what they're there for.
Create pitches that you genuinely enjoy the thought of writing! You should be having fun, not doing chores.
Start with a strong hook! This is a bit personal, but I don't usually like opening a zine fic with 4 paragraphs of background exposition unless that exposition is itself a hook. You want to be interesting throughout the whole piece!
One of the big difs between zines and regular oneshots is the word count restriction. I find that a really good way to make something that's punchy and feels like a full story in a shorter word count is to focus on dialogue and character interactions.
It's hard to fit multiple scenes cohesively into a short word count. I've done two zine pieces that were designed around being multi-scene, and it involved a lot more cutting down on words than my other pieces (and for one I actually asked to go over by about 300 words). Usually I try to take one "scene" and expand it enough that it is its own story piece.
Aside from the word count restriction, schedule, and maybe the emotional pressure of wanting to do something really nice, writing for a zine isn't too different from writing for yourself! There's definitely some adaptations to be made for the medium but overall I wouldn't worry overmuch about it. You got accepted because the mods liked what you showed them, and now you get to do this really fun thing! I hope you have a blast, anon. <3
(And feel free to ask me if you have any other or more specific questions about anything!)
#and the free stuff of course#personal#replies#anonymous#zines#I almost said but then I realize that was selling myself and other zine contributors short#it IS compensation because you're doing work for a zine#even if that zine is a charity zine and you're not making anything on top of the contributor bundle#asks
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ALERT! New UT AU UNIVERSE!
youtube
Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking.. (maybe.) Seriously, I had this cool thought of making a new undertale AU universe. Better, cool, errie, and mysterious one yet. I thought of making...
Strangertale
Yes, Strangertale. It is based on the famous show on Netflix called Stranger Things. It had been the best show I still loved, yet since seasons three is coming! It coming on July 4th! Yes! July 4th!
Now, since I going to be making the new AU, this AU belong to me now so uh, since I decide to put humans and monsters already on the surface. Living well and happy. Our favorite character is more modern, adulty-teen and more knowledge but yes, their trait will change but I will be using inspiration from other AU Universe what seem fit into the character. Their clothes will be different. New look, don't worry, it is still the same character, still fun and bad puns, and silly things.
I thought what character from Stranger Things could fit into the Undertale Character, yes, new character must be made too. So I'll put the name of the Stranger Things beloved character here, and see what you think of the character could be fit. Plus, shipping will be included, like Frans, all that. Some role or gender will be switched and family role will be switched too to make the story more isteresting and not so alike the show (some scene may be the same but not always!) I'm a good skilled writer but I do have grammar problem and I need my vocabulary to be proved. So, a lot of help can help me fix the setence or a idea can guide my way to make my story much better and awesome! I'm a artist too but I don't draw well, I don't mind if someone want to draw me a character idea for a look or clothes, trait or a expression panel. But I would be happy to receive ideas, help or guides.
Eleven - Frisk the Human
Chief Hopper -
Steve Harrington -
Bob Newby -
Dr. Martin Brenner -
Terry Ives -
Ted Wheeler -
Becky Ives -
Murray Bauman -
Officer Powell -
Officer Callahan -
Dr. Owens -
Will -
Dustin -
Jonathon -
Mike - Sans the Skeleton
Nancy -
Karen -
Lucas -
Joyce -
Barbara -
Billy -
Max -
This story will contain strong languages, sex scenes, not alway but yes, love and horror will be included even the Upside Down Monsters and Beings. But if there is no room for any monster, I may put a OC auction as well.
It must be a Monster or a Humans.
What is it age?
What does it look like to head to toe.
Must have a drawn experisson panel of your OC!
What is your OC Height and Length?
What is your OC Traits?
What is your OC Personlity?
What is your OC Background's Story is?
It must be a good detail character and good quality.
No OC under the age of 13.
Must be 16+
Must have good story behind the character, not just one sentence. Must be a paragraph.
No clothes too lewdly or too expose,
Must have variety of clothes, including piercing, jewelry, bracelet, and etc.
(Monster OC ONLY!) If they have powers, what is it? 3 per different powers. (No Immortal, or God-modding.)
Show and explain all feature on their look as you possibly can.
Only the 1st place who have the most detail and drawn, in the list will get the role IF the role isn't taken by the Undertale Characters.
Welp, that all I have!
Please do PM or Comment down below, to show ideas, helps, guides or UT Character fitted to the role.
This will be UPDATED constantly.
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I'm actually really happy and excited to be running my first Doctor Strange fan group on Facebook. 😄
Tho I'm still a bit new to it & figuring out how I want to run it, and I've been crazy busy these past few months, plus still overcoming/managing my mental health better to be able to do much atm, but so far I feel like the base of it is good, and it's off to a good start. I also have some draft ideas and plans in the works for the future. Including some old ideas I wanted to bring to life earlier for fellow fans, but failed to follow through with due to many reasons.
For now tho, I kinda felt like sharing a bit of the inspiration and history behind what drives the type of fan group I want to build.
At first I felt a bit uncertain on my ability to run a group. But I'm pushing through and not gonna let others past judgments or my own uncertainty stop me from giving it a go and learning as I go.
One thing that's definitely a new feeling to me is feeling this sense of freedom. Like it's actually up to me to decide what is and isn't allowed in the group and what I want to see in it. I've been a mod before, and tho I felt like I had some leeway to influence & shape the group to an extent, I felt this growing pressure, judgment, & strictness around me. And I felt like I couldn't do much about it without being made to feel bad or even subtly threatened for it. Like constantly walking on eggshells. It was especially rough for other fans. I felt like me encouraging people to open up and share creative works was like a trap for them to recieve hatred, "firm education", or even being kicked from the group by another mod.. for an aspect or character they shared that I personally encouraged and gave the ok for, but the other mod did not like it. It was not fair and it did not sit right with me. The group had 2 mods with very conflicting goals that didn’t seem would be finding any common ground any time soon.
So I feel like I finally have room to stretch out of that curled up position and like I can breathe again. And knowing how much potential and possibilities are now open to me is lighting up that magic spark in me again. That I get to shape, grow, and share a space with fans. But I want to do something different. Something that reflects more of the atmosphere and experience I want to have, like I have in the past, and provide that to other fans looking for the same thing.
I've been in many Marvel fan groups. And one thing that bothered me about a large majority is how many people mock, ridicule, shame, and guilt other fans who are either newer or don't match up to their expectations, beliefs, and high standards of knowing everything they do for example.
Being someone who joined these fan groups back when I was newer, seeing this frequently kinda ruined my joy and excitement for getting into my love of Marvel tbh. I didn't feel welcome as a newcomer. So I avoided the groups for some time. Having to mostly enjoy it on my own. Which is not exactly how I wanted to enjoy it. Tho I still did get to enjoy it with some great fans along the way too. ^-^
I remember joining fandoms online back as a kid. The older/long time fans in fan groups would often be more like loving guides, happily welcoming new fans with loving arms and excited to have them around. Encouraging & supporting their passions, creativity, and skills. Letting them learn and enjoy it at their own pace. But also happy to help explain things respectfully. And overall being a great example of being respectful and setting healthy boundaries, even through disagreements. Building a loving fan community like that. It felt like a type of home to me. I miss that. And I want to be able to bring that experience and atmosphere back. That to me is what made the fandom experience such a wonderful thing. Times to cherish and keep close to my heart for years to come.
There were of course still a few intense loud fans who felt like they were above others and looked down on newer fans, or saw other big fans as a threat to their sense of being the #1 fan. Whether consciously or unconsciously. Getting any small detail wrong or not believing exactly as they did/liking or disliking what they did, brought out a merciless cold warrior inside them, delighted to conquer other fans and stir up drama. But they were pretty far and few between the rest of us, were generally pretty easy to avoid, and they often got kicked from groups for always starting drama and getting on people's nerves.
Lately after years of not being a part of any fandom, getting back into it, it seems like it's grown into a larger majority. Maybe it's because there's way more people online now, or because Marvel is a much bigger fanbase than any previous ones I've been a part of and maybe it's always been a big problem. Idk, but it's definitely not as easy to avoid them. And it almost seems like it's acceptable in most groups I go to. Including some of the admins & mods being like that themselves.
This isn't every group of course. But I've seen enough to make me question what the hell is going on.
I've been accused of not being accepting or allowing people to be passionate about their love of (x) thing, or being allowed to disagree, argue, or defend one's opinions & speak their mind. But this is far from what I stand for. It could have very well just been a misunderstanding, or potentially deliberately being manipulative and gaslighting as a way to confuse me and get me to say nothing about how they treat and talk to others however they want. (Yet I noticed anytime someone started speaking similarly towards them, they would be considered a problem). Regardless of intention or misunderstanding, I want to make it clear I am all for people being able to do such things. I'll be honest, a part of me even enjoys reading some debates, even for opinions I don't agree with or see the same. So it really is not an issue to me. As long as it doesn't veer into elitism, entitlement (as if they own the creation), mocking, ridiculing, degrading or dictating other fans worthiness, harrassment, or outright manipulative and abusive tactics as a way to silence others, as if it backs up their points, or as a way to drive fans away.
I'm all for passion. But I don't believe that passion should ever be a free pass to cross certain lines, or an excuse to talk to/treat others however they want without any accountability. I do believe passion and respect for others can and should go hand in hand.
Being disappointed, not being able to find this space and experience I missed (except in at least 1 cosplay group), I decided to create my own group for those who are looking for the same atmosphere.
Excitement, passion, creativity, a welcoming, fun, loving, supportive, & encouraging community to grow with. One built upon respect and openness to a variety of fans, new and old, casual fans and deep explorers into all they can find. Artists, cosplayers, crafts & other hobbyists, writers, actors & video creators, collectors, enthusiasts, etc. Including those who just really love and enjoy Doctor Strange, close characters to him & the mystical side of Marvel.
So, that is what I aim to create, and the history and drive behind my passion to create this group. I'm excited to see it grow and hopefuly flourish. And I hope to see those of you interested to join, contribute/share, & grow with us sometime. ^-^
If interested: The Bar With No Doors: Doctor Strange Fan Group
#personal#doctor strange#marvel#marvel comics#mcu#fan groups#fan group#fandom#fandoms#bar with no doors#the bar with no doors#doctor strange fan group
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how realistic is it if i have a character manage to time their plants to flower at the same time. they have a large space and various environment and can have multiples of the same plant so if some don't flower when wanted, another one just might.
Hi there!
I’m going to have to say that this is dependable. Technically possible but dependable, either way, it wouldn’t make me throw my book across the room.. It’s a nice picture for the reader and mother nature never gives a damn, to begin with. Which brings us exactly to why this is dependable but more about that later.
If your character wants to try and get their plants to bloom at the same time, I’m going to recommend them trying that with an already established garden which has several hardy plants with similar care requirements grouped together. This is important for several things. For one, some plants like hydrangea need time to develop their flowers/bracts, but more importantly, it takes time for a plant to take root. As a rule of thumb, there is always a chance for frost till ice saints. This will differ between different regions, but generally, nobody plants anything before the frost is all gone because that’s an instakill for plants.
Other than that your character will have to make sure the plants they picked have the same blooming period so that when the month in question rolls around they will actually get to have their flowers blooming at more or less the same time. I say more or less, but I really mean mother nature does quite frankly whatever the fuck she likes. There’s always something which can wind up screwing with your characters garden, be it too much rain, too much, too long and too harsh frost, too much sun, wind that’s so harsh it snaps over fragile plants, wild animals if they live close to a forest, or a dog who decided to have some fun digging around their beds. A virus, some bugs, bad seeds or really anything that ends with dead plants but nobody has any influence on.
Mother nature doesn’t run on a very accurate schedule, so while your character’s plants might get away unscathed, your character will still look forward to a week or two instead of a single day where everything starts blooming. It should be possible for them to estimate a date around which all of their gardens should be in bloom though. There’s always the chance of the odd one out that takes longer or less time than everyone else, but that’s perfectly normal. But your character will never be able to predict which one it’ll be and some years it might be all and other none at all.
There are a lot of pretty plants which aren’t hardy so raising them in a garden can be quite difficult or downright impossible, but from your words, I gather that resources aren’t a problem for your character. So they should go for a greenhouse to raise all the plants that can’t or won’t make it out in the cold. So they are the right size and full of pretty flowers/buds by the time your character can plant them outside with the others.
Greenhouses are like cheat codes for mother nature. They’re the reason we have Christmas stars in December (they’re actually growing them through summer, with fake short days by putting like a large blanket of sort over them), orchids and other warmth-loving plants all year around and primroses in January. Or hydrangeas in January. I’m selling hydrangeas in January. They’re late summer plants. I cry.
Now let’s consider indoor plants for a moment. In all technicality, it should be easier with them when you think about the fact that it’s always snug and warm inside and no wind and weather can get to them, but that’s exactly the problem. Your character will definitely have several plants blooming at the same time, but it’s more like mother nature forgets how seasons work when it comes to indoor plants. Pretty much anything from orchids to azaleas can bloom in winter like that’s totally what they’re supposed to do, meanwhile, three other plants decided to take a three-month break. But even though it’s winter your character can now crack open the fertiliser for the ones that bloom because again who gives a damn about seasons. Not their plants. That’s who.
So I’m going to conclude this post with that your character should try. Look up plants and when they bloom, when they should be planted and such. Usually, however, they are sold around the time they’re supposed to bloom plus-minus a month at most. If you have any more questions feel free to come back to our inbox.
- Mod Jana
Disclaimer
This blog is intended as writing advice only. This blog and its mods are not responsible for accidents, injuries or other consequences of using this advice for real world situations or in any way that said advice was not intended.
#horticulture#writing advice#gardening#blooming period#hardy plants#indoor plants#ask answered#mod jana#Anonymous
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