#so I can. in turn. info dump about her Oc in context of my oc

[salempie]

tell me about your daisy girlie i can tell you’re about to burst like a can of soup

i’m mostly curious on how psilirim would affect her, as well as non-psychics. or maybe she was originally a non psychic? i genuinely can’t tell from your post oopsies

but yesssss i love people working in psilirim beyond “makes brain hurt and cause delusions” or whatever rhombus of ruin did. idk i couldn’t play it without crashing because the vr headset i used was ass in a tin

if you’ve already answered something in the same vein ignore this oopsie…. i just immediately wanted to ask before scrolling ur blog

Sorry if this is all a mess, I’m not so good at organizing my thoughts!

I’ve actually tried to put some thought into psilirium, because it’s such a neat rock! But it’s basically just…Psitanium but worse? From what I could glean from the game. And other than ‘psilirium poisoning’ mentioned in the second game (bear with me I haven’t played either in like half a year) it was mostly ignored after Rhombus.

As for how it affects Daisy who yes, was born psychic! The first thing I focused on was its ‘magnetic’ effects when it comes to drawing people towards it. The commune she essentially takes over was formed far before Daisy had even considered running off. And it was formed due to the psilirium drawing people to the area! This quality gives Daisy somewhat of a charismatic edge with all that psilirium getup she’s got on. Call it a ‘magnetic attraction’ but people just seem to like the girl <3!

As for how it affects her psychics, I’m not sure how accurate the ‘fandom wiki’ is but it described psilirium as ‘distorting psychic energy.’ With the only other confirmed effects being “mania, hysteria, hallucinations, suppression of psychic abilities, and paranoia in psychics” (according to the wiki). I figure a handwaving of ‘distorting psychic energy’ is vague enough to let me add my own flair. Suppose it’s somewhat of a souped up version of psitanium the way I have been using it? But with the blatant psychological harm a bit more evident.

When Daisy first arrived psilirium had still been mostly undiscovered in the area, so she hadn’t had too much exposure to it. Some people (rarely) reported having strange hallucinations or unusual dreams, but it was mostly chalked up to the area just being a spiritual hotspot. Occasionally some weird glowing rocks would be found, but with no geologists or psychonauts to identify them, no one really knew what they were and kept them around mainly for their striking appearance. As more and more of the rocks were eventually discovered (or dug up), the effects began to compound.

With worsening mental health abound, as well as the decline of the hippie subculture as a whole into the 70s, many began to leave the commune. This left Daisy desperate, as I think I’ve mentioned before, and not in her right mind, she began to hypnotize the remaining members. Only a few at first but later the commune as a whole (though not on purpose). Those effected would begin subconsciously contributing their mental energy to Daisy, thus making her extremely resistant to the psiliriums negative effects.

That’s great! Because despite her resistance due to her now greatly increased mental energy, her mind was still heavily affected by those neat glowing rocks! She was left somewhat delirious, witnessing hallucinations as well as experiences delusions of grandeur at times. She began to order (like, it was more of a suggestion than an order, man, this is a commune not a dictatorship <3) the rocks be dug up more to aid them in their meditations and spiritual connections. Thus, the commune as a whole became a psilirium hotspot.

This meant Daisy, with her heavily fortified mental energy, was the only one to really be able to effectively use her psychics, with the psilirium’s repression of psychic abilities shown in RoR. Technology in the area bugs out too! So it really is a naturalist ‘utopia,’ at least in Daisy’s eyes.

So that’s! Yeah! Most of my thoughts I think? Idk! Heres also some somehow even less organized thoughts too that I can’t seem to place anywhere well:

There’s kinda just a general vague energy in the air around the commune due to the intense ‘radiation’ from all the unearthed stones

Daisy herself is like! Actually psycho-reactive at this point! Like! A walking hunk of psilirium…on a smaller scale of course. It kinda mixes with her actual psychic energy, making that ‘radiate’ as well. Basically with all that psilirium her hypnosis kinda has the effect of making a certain range of people around her more susceptible to suggestability by her! I wouldn’t call it full hypnosis though.

To add to that, she is constantly (and I do mean just like 100% of the time (except sleep I suppose?)) levitating! Part of the vague ‘radiation’ of her psychics. As well as her generally just being in a great mood thanks to weed and delirium!

The psilirium itself ‘warps’ and amplifies her psychics abilities a bit. It kinda ‘enhances’ them in the sense that there is sooo much psychic energy it’s just bursting to get out.

For example, she’s an Empath of sorts (an ability @spaloonbabooguuscooties came up with for her Franke in our ramblings) but, distorted in a way so that, while she can still somewhat feel what others are feeling, it’s more her forcing her own emotions onto them. Not fully but, they can certainly feel what she is feeling. In addition her ‘sensing’ of emotion isn’t just relegated to having to touch them either! Close enough, in tandem with her rudimentary telepathy, she can basically understand entirely what her ‘followers’ are thinking and feeling! Though it’s partially due to their obvious psychic connection.

Her hypnosis of course was effected, becoming a vague radiation of charisma and charm around her even when not using her own abilities.

Aside from just the constant, constant, use of it, her levitation wasn’t changed much.

Her herbophony hasn’t really changed much either, but some of the plants in the area have become psycho-radioactive as well, giving them a bit of a psychic edge. It allows her better communication with them as well as giving some plants psychic abilities for themselves.

Most of what psilirium has done to Daisy is make an unstable person more unstable and a psychic person more psychic. But in an obvious much worse, much faster, and much more overt way than psitanium. Or at least I hop im that’s how it comes across <3!

[theguildedtypewriter]

What Did You Say? A guide to writing good dialogue

(Remember all pieces of advice are meant to help guide, that is all. They are not dogma.)

Ever read something and heard the dialogue in your head, and you just stopped. There was something off about it and for a solid minute there you couldn’t tell if the character was supposed to sound like that or if the author just didn’t have dialogue down. Chances are some mistakes were made. 

Dialogue can be tricky. There’s no doubt about it.

You need to make it sound like the characters are having a real conversation but if you write it exactly like people talk it can get confusing and sound even worse. 

“So how do I write good dialogue?!”

You can usually sense when your dialogue needs work. So here’s a set of some dialogue trick that might help you. When you think something is off with your dialogue use this to help you figure out what and make some changes.

All about that Flow-

It’s said all the time about your first draft, the important thing is to get the words on the page, you’ll refine later. This technique applies to your dialogue, and you’ll even come up with lines you never would have if you spent your time trying to be perfect.

You can even try writing the dialogue first. Get down what your characters are arguing about, planning, revealing, etc. Do it fast, pay no attention to who said what. Just get the words out.

This dialogue can give you a good idea what the scene is about and it might be different than what you thought. Then just go back to it and fill in.

This can be good for when you’re in a slump.

Talk it Out-

You can also practice dialogue or get yourself going by speaking the lines of two of your characters as they interact. An argument or conversation between your two character except you say all the lines as they come to you.

Overt the Obvious-

A very common mistake is creating a simple back-and-forth. Each line directly answers the previous line, often repeating a word or phrase from that previous line, echoing it. Ex:

“Hello, Tina.” “Hi, Jane.” “I really like your blouse.” “Oh, my blouse! You mean this old thing?” “Old thing! You’ve never worn it before.”

No surprises and very little interest. Some direct response is alright, but your dialogue will be better if you overt the obvious:

“Hello, Tina.” “Jane. I didn’t see you come in.” “Nice shirt.” “Did you finish your half of the project?”

Okay, I don’t know why they’re pissed at each other but this exchange is way more interesting and suggestive of what’s going on behind the scenes than the first.

(How could I not use the Crow?)

Zip It-

Another powerful way to overt the obvious is silence. It can be the best choice for an exchange. Hemingway is good at this. By using a combination silence and action, he gets the point across through a short but compelling exchanges. Look at “Soldier’s Home”:

“God has some work for every one to do,” his mother said. “There can’t be no idle hands in His Kingdom.” “I’m not in His Kingdom,” Krebs said. “We are all of us in His Kingdom.” Krebs felt embarrassed and resentful as always. “I’ve worried about you so much, Harold,” his mother went on. “I know the temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak men are. I know what your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us about the Civil War and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all day long, Harold.” Krebs looked at the bacon fat hardening on the plate.

You can express a lot by what a character doesn’t say.

Confrontation is your Friend-

We all want to avoid the info dump. Telling out readers everything that happened in the backstory in one chunk that slows down the story. You can avoid this by  using dialogue. When you create a tension-filled scene, typically between two characters, you can get them arguing and then have the information come out in the natural progression of the conversation. 

The not so great way:

Regina Black was a cop running from a terrible past. She had been fired for bungling an operation while she was drunk.

Try it out in a scene:

“I know who you are,” Nancy said. “You know nothing,” said Regina. “You’re that ex-cop.” “I need to be—” “From the 54th . You got your partner killed because you were drunk off your ass. Yeah, I know you.”

This can give you dialogue weight and increase your pace.

You Don’t Need ALL the Words-

People don’t often speak the say way we write things. We leave words out, we use contraction, we shorten. A standard exchange might go down like this:

“Your mom was killed? “Yes, she was in a car accident.” “What was her name?” “Her name was Martha.”

Try something more like this:

“Your mom was killed?” “Car accident.” “What was her name?” “Martha.”

This is leaner and sounds more like real speech without sounding too weird or chopped up for a reader to understand.

Don’t Explain Everything-

I know we always want to make sure that our readers understand exactly what we’re getting at. But consider the following:

“That’s amazing news,” he said gleefully.

Look right to you? 

Well, it’s not technically wrong so yeah. But this is a pretty commonly trap. You’re telling your reader your character’s feelings twice. The adverb ‘gleefully’ really isn’t needed here. Now, that’s not to say that adverbs have no place. For example:

“That’s amazing news,” he said mournfully.

Oh wait what? He’s not happy about that? Why? See in this context the adverb actually gives the reader important information quickly. Many people that they don’t like adverbs but I find them useful when not stuffed into your writing too much.

Here’s another example:

“I can’t believe it!” Marnie said.

Here, there’s no dialogue explanation, so it’s tightened up and the focus is on what is being said rather than how. Plus, readers can now imagine my OC’s surprise, which helps them get closer to my OC.

You really shouldn’t have to explain your dialogue.

Keep your dialogue transparent-

When your dialogue is powerful, the last thing you want to do is move the reader’s attention somewhere else. Explanations and ‘ly’ adverbs can break the flow because they jump out to the reader, making them focus, if only for a second, on the fact that they’re reading instead of being engrossed in the story.

Now, people may not like this, but said is NOT dead. When we see the word said, we tend to gloss over it like it were a comma or period. And that’s exactly what we want. We want the reader to pay no attention to the word but accept it’s purpose.

Study Conversations-

Coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. Fantastic places to do some people listening. This kind of people studying can really help to create dialogue that sounds so natural. I am personally a huge fan of Buffy for this because it genuinely sounded like teenagers/young adults and the pop culture references where amazing. People talk in cliches, gestures, and movie/TV quotes. So many quotes.

Also remember, conversation isn’t just words. It’s body language, tone, eye contact, facial expressions, etc. Consider this:

“You lied to me,” said John.

“I did it to protect you,” said Tate.

James moved toward John and reached for his hand. “We didn’t want you to get hurt—”

John pushed his hand away and backed away from them. “I trusted you.”

You can use actions to break up dialogue. This is a creative way to move the conversation along and show what the characters are feeling using their responses and gestures together.

Just keep in mind that if you intersperse action between every line of dialogue it loses it’s usefulness.

Don’t keep pointless prose-

As writers, we frequently stuff too many details into dialogue. You need balance realism and dialogue purpose. Dialogue is suppose to help move the story along, offer depth, and convey information. When dialogue doesn’t fulfill any of these purposes, it has to go. Look at this:

“I saw Todd in the park the other day,” said Steve.

“Oh yeah?” inquired Susan. “How is he?”

“He has a new job. He has a flexible schedule, so he has way more free time,” said Steve.

“Well, good for him,” said Susan. “Do know how he’ll use his free time?”

“No. I meant to ask him, but forgot,” said Steve.

This conversation is slow, boring, chunky, and serves no purpose. This didn’t really relay any new information and it didn’t move the story anywhere. Now, if the point was to show a stilted conversation between ex-lovers, friends, or a conversation about nothing because the characters can’t face the hard stuff, this would be great for that. But honestly, that’s a purpose right there. If you can find no purpose for the prose, take it out.

Read it aloud-

The last tip is to read your work aloud. I do this. Complete with facial expressions, gestures, and voices. It can be a really fast way of finding a problem. Pace, punctuation, flow. When you read out loud, issues with these things become crystal freaking clear.

Where did you stumble or pause unnaturally? Fix that. Any accidental rhymes or repeated words? Edit them.

Does the dialogue match the character? If your character is uneducated , make sure they sound that way. A professor? Make sure the OC sounds smart.

When you read a bad sentence you’re sure to flinch or stumble along the way. When you do, you know where there’s work to be done.

Applying your dialogue tips- 

The tips above aren’t quick fixes. You’ll need to work on them throughout the course of your writing. Don’t feel overwhelmed. Consider them one at a time. Do whatever works for you. This is all just meant to help. 

And remember,

NEVER STOP WRITING!

[tysonrunningfox]

So question for you. I know you're a big fan of Star Trek Voyager (Who isn't tbh) and I was curious. If you could replace the crew with people from Festerverse....who would do what?

Yes, a star trek ask, my heart.  

And this is hard, I don’t know if I can really do it justice within the context of voyager because it’s hard with my festerverse crew, mostly because of age differences.  Like…if I”m talking about these people, Astrid, Hiccup, and Eret Sr. are looking at being admirals and captains and commanders and like Eret III is basically Wesley Crusher at this point, like, a smol bean being put at the helm of a super big ship.  

So instead I’m just going to kind of sort them and say where I think they’d be in the context of starfleet?  I think that makes more sense?  And then we can just pretend they’re all on the same ship dumped in the delta quadrant and they pick up not-evil!Johann/Neelix and I don’t even know who would be Kes.  I just can’t with Kes.  I still don’t believe Kes happened.  

(this goes for like…a Long Time and I’m sorry)

Eret Sr. wouldn’t still be in starfleet, for one, the whole Eret III thing would have left a bad taste in his mouth about it.  Astrid would have been a lieutenant commander before the whole Eret III debaucle and I could see her stepping away from her rank to avoid the scandal.  In the context of Eret III, she’d step back into her rank and I’m just going to pretend that starfleet would be cool with that.  Hiccup would be a ship’s captain who’d had offers to move on to being an admiral, but he’s not willing to give up the whole trekking through the stars thing and also, as an admiral, he wouldn’t have a chance to cherry pick a upstart young ensign graduating early from the academy.  You know him, he’s got an ironic name and a thirst to prove himself?  

Eret III would be an academy star, honestly, his heart’s in the right place for starfleet and he’s smart and hard working and honestly, the kind of kid that would really really like his name being on plaques on a wall because he likes validation with a physical presence.  He’d get shunted towards engineering again and again because he’s crafty and good under pressure, but his heart is in command (until he gets that paternity info back, but whatever).  

Fuse is in engineering and isn’t necessarily good at it.  They want the warp core in one functioning piece and Fuse really wants to drop it on something.  This gives her a reputation of brilliant, but distracted, but I could see her coming into her own when a frustrated and not entirely honestly promoted Eret ends up a lieutenant in charge of her in engineering.  He knows how to talk to her to get her best work and that is a good thing because it’s star trek so there are always shenanigans afoot.  

Arvid barely graduates the academy because he wanted to drop out and go the soldier route at every turn and his mom was always like, no.  He and Eret would graduate at the same time even though Eret is younger and Arvid would struggle with that.  

Aurelia would also be pushing for early graduation from the academy, but she struggles in the physical aspects of star fleet training as well as the general nature of the thing.  Aurelia is my daughter and she is brilliant and strong and stubborn and trying, but she is not unfailingly kind or loyal.  She would not have that captain composure in a no win situation.  She is not above calling teachers stupid when they’re wrong.  Hiccup would probably be forced to endorse her early graduation, even though he doesn’t think she’s ready, because he’s more than a little worried about her getting kicked out otherwise.  

Ingrid would be an upstart safety officer.  Smitelout would be an engineer specializing in replicator function.  Rolf would be an assistant professor at starfleet academy.  Stoick would still be a small, sassy child.  

This got really long.  I’m sorry.  I just love my garbage oc’s and also love star trek.