#the character creation and development writing was poor

[manicpixxiedreambitch]

Just went to see that new Colleen Hoover movie, It Ends With Us in theaters with my mom and my sister.

What the fuck is this straight white people shit?

[crimsonhydrangeavn]

Hey there! I'm here to simp for Garret, as usual, but I have another reason to gush today—I absolutely adore your drawing style! Whether it's the colors, the character designs, or the scenes, I just love it all. One of my favorite things, though, has to be the characters' facial expressions—they are all just beautiful!

Marcelo's surprised face? Perfect. Rita's blushing cheeks? Adorable. Camilla's entire design? Has a special place in my heart. And don't even get me started on Teagan's smile—it's so cute, it's almost unfair. But, of course, my ultimate favorite is Garret. I can't handle it when he furrows his eyebrows, whether he's pissed off or has that smug look like he's just hit the jackpot. It's all just so perfect!

Anyway, I do have a question for you—do you have any tips for creating character designs? I feel like the way your characters look perfectly matches the vibe they give off, and I'm starting to work on my own visual novel, but I'm having a hard time nailing down the character designs and I felt I could find good advice from you.

Additionally, I apologize in advance for all the fangirling and for my poor English. I hope nothing I said came across as rude or inconvenient, truly 🙏.

Thanks so much, and I hope you have a fantastic day! ❤🌻

Thank you so much for your incredibly sweet ask! Please, please, please NEVER apologize for gushing about characters for fangirling over them! It always brings a massive smile to my face and I really appreciate hearing how much you enjoy them! <3 I'm incredibly flattered that you reached out to me for advice on character creation and I'll do my best to share my process with you! Granted there are a million different ways to do things so these are just a few things that I've found that helps me in the creation process.

I'll give you a little background about me and my character/story creation journey so you can get a better understanding of my background in writing/character development.

You see I've been a huge fan of text roleplay for the majority of my life. I actually started roleplaying on gaiaonline when I was 12 and I've been doing it ever since. ( Almost 20 years at this point! damn am I old lol) As a result I've had a lot of practice creating and interacting with different kinds of characters in different settings. I've also been playing DnD on and off since high school. That being said, I've had time to refine my craft and create characters that I personally really enjoy and align with to some degree. ( And hopefully you do too!)

That being said, I'll list a few tips and tricks I've picked up over the years below!

Anatomy is key! Yes, my characters are stylized, however I spent a long time studying anatomy and getting a solid sense of proportions, ratios, and musculature. Am I perfect? Absolutely not, but I'm at the point that I can usually notice if there's a glaring error/ something looks really off.

Make sure to put all of the characters in a line up once they're designed! Are their heads the same size? What about their hands and feet? Some slight variations are natural, but if one character's head is noticeably larger than the others, then I'd take the time to adjust. The same could be said for colors. Is one character SUPER saturated while the others are more muted? Unless they're supposed to stand out, consider reworking the colors to make them feel a bit more cohesive.

A basic understanding of color theory is always a bonus in my book! I'd also consider making a general color palette for your game. That way it'll help you make sure everything looks and feels as though it's in the same world.

When I first create a character, I try to think of a general concept of what I want them to be. What's their general vibe? What do they look like? What's their personality like? Ect. Once I have a general vibe down, I try and do a bit of visual research on tiktok, pinterest, tumblr, google, ect. For example, I might have a general idea of what a typical frat bro or sorority girl looks like, but until I actually do the research and look into the kinds of things they wear, how they speak, and their general lifestyle, and real life examples of these kinds of people they'll feel like a flat caricatures of what they actually are.

Then, once I have the general vibe nailed down I start doodling them and playing around with different hairstyles, outfits, body types, ect. I actually have a few different different versions of all of the characters for Crimson Hydrangea! I rarely end up going with my first sketch/ concept when it comes to most of my characters. I also like exploring with different skin tones, colors, and textures/designs.

It takes a lot of thought and trail and error, but once I finally create a character that I'm visually happy with, I really start delving into their personality, backstories, and general psyche. What are their likes, dislikes, positive traits, and flaws? What are their motivations, fears, and traumas? How self aware are they? Then I start asking myself slightly more introspective questions to help me relate to the characters a bit more. What about this character resonates with me? How can I make this character feel more real? What are some traits that we share? For example, Garret inherited my unhealthy perfectionism, Marcelo inherited my love of food and desire to make sure those around me are happy and comfortable, Camilla inherited my sarcastic sense of humor, Rita inherited my unyielding sense of responsibility and unhealthy work-a-holic tendencies, and Teagan inherited my deep rooted insecurities. Granted most of these characters take it to a completely new level than I do in my real life, but at least on a basic level I can relate to them and understand their motivations. That being said, I don't think all of your characters need to inherit a specific trait of yours, it's just something I recently realized I tend to do on a subconscious level to help me write them with a bit more depth.

Let your characters develop a life of their own within your story. It's okay if they end up changing from your initial concept. People in real life are complex and don't always fit into a specific mold no matter how hard they try. They grow and change over time, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst. Do what feels right for the story you're trying to tell. For example, Garret was originally supposed to be more calculated and methodical. Marcelo was originally supposed to be a lot more laid back and go with the flow. However when I actually started writing them in specific scenarios I realized that they're far more complex than a simplified list of traits. Flaws and weaknesses make them feel so much more real than a "perfect" gary/mary stu.

When it comes to facial expressions, I usually have a small mirror on my desk to observe and reference specific expressions I'm trying to convey. In addition to using the mirror as a reference point, I also tend to make whatever face I'm drawing as I'm drawing it. It's a little silly, but I find it really helpful feeling my facial muscles recreate the same expression. It helps me figure out what the brows, eyes, and mouth are doing at the same time. It's gotten to the point of doing it subconsciously whenever I work/animate/draw. (Fortunately I usually work from home so no one has to see my weird expressions lol)

I think the final and most important tip you should take to heart is to create characters you genuinely enjoy. It'll also help you stay motivated to keep writing them and developing the story, especially early on in the creation process.

Hopefully you found my rambling helpful! It ended up being a bit more of a brain dump than I originally intended haha. That being said, I'd love to see what kind of characters and game you end up creating in the future! <3

[nika-vincent]

Some of our reflections on the development of Halsin's personality in Bg3. Long post warning.

I can say that this post is something like a continuation of my previous one, which was devoted mainly to romance with Halsin. This time I gathered some more thoughts from my recent discussions with the guys who love this wonderful character, but this time the main topic will be the development of Halsin's personality in the game. Some things about romance will also be mentioned here a little, the moments we found in the game files, and a few more facts from the datamine. So if you haven't completed the game and don't want to get spoilers, then I suggest skipping this article for now. We will be very happy if this review can also help Larian to see some points that could be supplemented or repaired with patches and also look at how the players perceive our beloved bear and what they would like to see with him in the future.

I would like to start by saying that if we compare Minthara and Halsin in terms of the degree of personality development throughout the game, Minthara is prescribed better and even has her own different ways: to change herself for the better or to remain a bad girl. And I'm not gonna say that she doesn't deserve this because most players choose the path of good and there is no point in investing in the development of her character. Not at all. On the contrary, it shows that it is important for developers to take into account every detail in the game, and if players want to play the game differently for a change, they will discover a lot of new things and say: "Oh, dude! Minthara turns out to be not as bad as she seemed at first glance!". And this is really a wonderful move by Larian, which doesn't allow players to get bored and makes them look at situations and the characters themselves differently. (And by the way, if some character is in the minority according to the preferences of the players, this does not mean that it deserves to receive poor development.)

As for Halsin in this case, at the moment not only his romantic content is missing, but also his very development as a character and a full-fledged companion. This can be explained by the fact that he was probably recently added as a companion, and there simply wasn't time for him to prescribe more things that would reveal his character and potential to the fullest. Considering Sven Winke's recent post on Twitter, where he announced that Larian will again involve voice actors to record new content, there is a chance that these flaws will be fixed in patches and Halsin will get more interactive scenes than those he has now. (As far as I know, Minthara is also suffers from a lack of romantic content, as does Halsin, so I suggest waiting for now and following the official news from Larian …)

It's sad to see that new players who don't experience early access called Halsin a rather boring companion compared to others. However, players from early access spoke about him much higher and more positively, otherwise he wouldn't have become one of the popular characters of the community. So, why did this happen? I can explain this by saying that at that time Halsin was just something like an episodic character that we just had to rescue from the goblin camp and he would tell us everything he knows about our parasite and where we should go for further answers then. (And for an episodic character, that would be enough.) After that, we witness how he scolds Kagha because of the rite of thorns. And I think a particularly strong point was that in the case of Arabella's death, Halsin says in raised tones: "As for the Idol? It's nothing compared to life! A mere object, next to one nature's creations! You showed no pity, no remorse. I cannot absolve you!" I've seen people write admiring comments like: "Until that moment, I thought I couldn't love him even more!". The way he expresses his thoughts, shows concern, compassion, or regret and disappointment mixed with anger (because of the death of a little girl that Kagha allowed) - all this showed us the traits of Halsin's character and caused emotions among the players. Someone thought he was too soft, and someone admired his kindness. And that's how it should work, so that the character evokes different or even contradictory emotions in people, anything but boredom or the feeling that something is missing. This is what makes the character interesting, we want to learn more about him, see how he will behave in other situations and especially how he will react to the Baldur Gate City itself. And I can also note that we were particularly interested in his story with Ketheric Thorm, which he tells us about after the Tiefling party, as well as what he feels guilty about and what unfinished business he mentioned.

Unfortunately, much of what concerned Halsin's personal growth in the release version of the game remained not fully disclosed and seemed unfinished, especially in act 3. His quest during act 2 was challenging from a gameplay point of view, but from a story one it was quite touching and helped us learn a little more about Halsin's past and that the spirit of the land named Thaniel was his only childhood friend. We also learned a little about his parents, as well as the reason why he became the archdruid.

But the story of the shadow curse still remained as if unsaid, and also we didn't see any of his interactions with Ketheriс Thorm, which I think deserved to be realized, and were not limited to Halsin's stories only about Ketheric if we ask him. An interesting fact is that for a long time there were hints in the datamine that Ketheric's daughter Isobel died because of Halsin (correct me if I made a mistake somewhere, please). And I remember, I saw there that Isobel was killed by the spear 'Sorrow', the same spear that we can get in the secret vault in the emerald grove. Not to mention that in Halsin's room we can even find his diaries, in which Isobel was mentioned several times. This would have added a lot of intrigue and special opportunities for Halsin's interactions in the plot of Act 2 itself, but for some reason it remained behind the scenes and even if we ask Isobel about how she died, she cannot remember her killer. Although there are some special dialogues between Halsin and Isobel in the game files themselves at the moment, but there are none of them during the gameplay. I dunno why it was necessary to cut or change these things, and it is not for me to decide what to do here after all. But in my humble opinion, it would have added fire to Halsin's plot in act 2. I would regard this as a fact that even such a good and kind character as Halsin can make mistakes, has his own shortcomings and even dark sides. Therefore, before the release of the game, I had high expectations that Halsin would play a much bigger plot role in Act 2 because of these intrigues between him, Ketheric and Isobel than what we have in the game at the moment. The feeling of the whole story being left unsaid is still present in Act 2, but who knows, maybe it can be improved in patches?

When Halsin became our full-fledged companion in the game, we got new options for the dialogues, but very few of his interactions in the future. It's as if the development of his personality in the second act ended along with his quest. Remember what wonderful scenes with companions in Act 1 we watched over and over again when we stayed overnight in the camp. It helped us to get to know them better, to love someone or hate someone. Halsin definitely should not be deprived of this, we still want to get to know him so that later we can draw conclusions about him in Act 3 and help him find his own path, as it was with the other companions. We got to know our companions during acts 1 and 2 to see the end result of what we experienced together in act 3.

What confuses me is that the developers seem to have paid more attention to his sexuality than the development of his personality instead (not to mention that scandalous story of his sexual slavery to drows in his past, and he only tells us about it after we sleep with the drow twins in a brothel in his company). This looks especially sad for romance, because it looks like Tav fell in love with Halsin more for his sexy muscular body, and not for what kind of person he is. After all, even in real life, we fall in love with someone not for having a fine big booty, but for how a person presents themself to the world and how they treats us. I want to add here one quote that I just remembered: 'Personality is much more important, because the external beauty of a person is taken away by old age, but the beauty of the soul will remain forever.'

In act 3, at the moment, Halsin reveals much less, but we can still see some hints. After he appoints a successor to the Emerald grove in his place, and after we help heal the lands from the shadow curse, Halsin apparently has a conflict with himself about finding a new goal. He notes that he does not like the city of Baldur's Gate, he is saddened by the fate of orphans here, he would also like people to see a friend in nature. And there are also curious moments in his reasoning about shadow druids and their methods. But all this remains so far only at the level of discussions and comments that pop up sometimes. And we can only find out at the very end that he decided to find a new goal in helping people and orphans from the city in Thaniel's world. And you know, it's a really great idea, but I have this feeling again that in act 3 we missed a lot before he came to find this goal in his ending. The idea of his personal path still remained unfinished to the end. I also heard that he was supposed to have some kind of quest with a druid circle in the city, well, let's see if we'll have a chance to see it in patches.

Сomparing Halsin with the rest of the party, he still looks pretty unfinished in terms of development by the end of the game. Because each companion has their own personal options for the path of development, which we are able to influence, and we can notice the difference in the change in the character of a certain companion comparing with what they were in act 1 and what they became by the end of act 3. We can see what Shadowheart can be like if she rejects Shar, or what she will be like in the future if she becomes a dark justiciar. Astarion can remain as a spawn, but at the same time preserving himself as a person and not turn into the likeness of Cazador, whom he hated so much. Or we can help him become a Vampire Lord and the power will intoxicate him so much that he will even begin to dream of taking the city itself in the end. Even Minthara, the companion opposite to Halsin, also has her own personal path of development. But with Halsin himself, unfortunately, this is happening pretty weakly at the moment...

We have been discussing a lot lately what would help for the development of Halsin's personality, so that he could be on a par with the rest of the companions. And I'll start with an excellent thought from my dear friend @merrinla, which would give an excellent opportunity for the development of his personal path, which at the moment in the game looks somewhat unfinished (but I still believe in the power of patches, official writers and the love of fans!❤).

Considering that his background is labeled 'outlander', this makes him a person who grew up in a wild environment, wandering a lot, living in harmony with nature, free as the wind. And even his best friend is the spirit of the land, not from the ordinary people. In his youth, he lived this life, unencumbered by responsibilities, exactly before the crisis moment happened, which was a shadow curse that abruptly changed his usual life. And for 100 years, his goal was to heal the lands from this curse. Plus, his duties as an archdruid piled up here and he didn't have time for his own desires at all. "I was forgetting who I was," as he once told us. After the events in Act 2, he does not seem to be eager to return to the emerald grove, but keeps in touch with Francesca to find out news from there. He speaks quite critically about the city of Baldur's Gate, but he has a desire to help people here and make life in the city better. And I think it would be appropriate here to let Tav tell him something like: 'You know, Halsin, it's not for nothing that people say that everything can be found in Baldur's Gate. Maybe you can find yourself here too?' and also try to change his views on the civilized world, because at the moment he is not familiar with this world too well, and we could help him adapt, convince him that the city itself is not so bad, and find himself here. Even the romance with him will look great with this option.

So it would be a suitable solution if Halsin also had his own development paths: 1 - if he trusts our advice and assistance in adapting to the city, which will allow him to become more civilized. 2 - we agree that he is right in his critical views on the city and civilization, and ultimately he decides to remain an outlander.

I think that even his ending with the orphans could also look different depending on the choice of his personal path, as well as in the case of the romance with him. This is a really great idea, and thank you @merrinla so much for sharing it with me!🙏❤

I would also like to give my comment about Halsin's role in our party. Considering that we have often witnessed conflicts between our companions, in Halsin I see something like scales holding the balance. Someone like the 'father' of our party, an adult wise mentor with whom we could consult about our experiences and ask for his advice. And I would also be very happy to see how he will try to calm our companions in case of any conflict.😂 His wisdom and mentoring experience just have to play a role in our party. If we go on a romance path with him, I would really like him to let us know that he will always listen to us at any moment and support us. Maybe we could even unobtrusively take his hand in return for a while to show how much it means to us. It would also be nice if Thaniel could communicate more with Halsin in the camp, and, in the case of romance, in a dialogue with us, he would notice that Halsin cares about us. These cute moments and his modesty suit Halsin much more than excessive sexual innuendos.

I dunno if Larian will do something about the fact that in the game files Halsin should have received more interactions with Isobel. But I think it would be great and intriguing. And interactions with Ketheric would also be perfect here (Girls, don't start a fight until I find my popcorn😅). And it also seemed strange to me that Halsin had no reaction to Zevlor's betrayal. Maybe it's a bug or just another flaw, who knows. But it would also be good to get this scene, even if he was at our party at the time of the showdown with Zevlor. Maybe it would be nice to organize some kind of his reaction to Nightsong, too, given that Halsin learned about her from Aradin, but he thought she was an artifact, not a living angel. Some interactions with our pets in the camp, I think they should be for Halsin too. (Let him stroke Scratch's belly, haha) And also… the arm wrestling scene of Minsc and Halsin when? Just imagine how funny it might look, 'cause even the dialogue with Minsc about it was hilarious.😁

That's all for today! Thank you guys for reading this review to the end, and also join us in discussions in the feedback about Halsin of the official Larian's discord club! I wish great success to Larian and I thank them for creating this wonderful game for us, which unites people and allows us to discuss many things. We love you and hope that you will also succeed in your future projects, and I also wish you good luck and inspiration in working on new content for BG3!❤🙏

[dedmasya]

HN's lore and fandom are literally broken atm

Every time when something shitty happens with this poor franchise I had the feeling that I should write something about it. And the last AS teaser was like a spit into my face, so here you go. HN has problems, the fandom, the franchise itself. And these problems are huge. We all know that it's a some kind of a milking cow at the moment, it's already a very sad situation. People around me (with whom I hang out and they are/were in HN fandom) liked the way how story went when Nikita was around. It's obvious, that he wasn't involved in modern HN2 and projects that were created after. It may sound stupid to those people, who don't have this feeling, but you just know that he hasn't participated in development. It's like a style, handwriting. You can try to copy it, but it still will be a copy. And his style, his handwriting is nowhere. The last time I felt that HN is HN was when HN2 alpha 2 teasers were seen. I was excited, had high hopes. Felt that special vibe. But later? Nothing. Lore problems. SIGH. Every fucking interpretation of this poor game fails, contradicting each other and original canon. We have the game. The first and original resource of information, everything else should be based on it, not the opposite(!). These books are a cash grab, I have almost all of them, I've read them, but they're a cash grab literally. I can say it as a person who is writing too and who can point out that everyone is freaking OOC in them, including Theodore. And no matter how TB wants to be "an animation studio" or smth, they're GAME PUBLISHERS hiii hellooo hi??? You're supposed to publish games, they spent money on absolutely unnecessary product that can't even give them these money back, as I suppose. You all do know that Ted never freaking ever had a brother. Even the book one had SISTER, but it was just a random fact even and her existence in the lore was... Not important. Lore keeps being overwritten over and over again, it's nowhere HN already. The legacy was destroyed or smth. I won't even say anything about poor HG that had amusing potential! Are u guys really okay with this? Cuz I'm not. It feels at least disrespectful to Nikita, imho. I would be so depressed if my creation was turned into a milking cow for someone else. HN1 had a meaning, morality. It wasn't just a game for fun and giggles, it was a message, it was an art. Like a good movie, like a good book. But a good game. Maybe with bugs, yes. Maybe it wasn't 100% perfect in different aspects, but it had soul. And imho HN could be a russian gamedev savior at some point, cuz russian gamedev is half alive. And old fandom... People who are new to this franchise probably doesn't know a lot of facts, some don't even understand what was HN1 about, even if it's obvious as hell. People are not friendly to each other for some reason, despite they're a part of one community. Stop stabbing the same boat where we all in, you will drown not us, but yourself too. So we should be respectful to each other, we're the one community, no matter if we want it or not. I miss old HN. No fucking mystic, just metaphors and messages. No random flat characters, no 100 boring and unnecessary spin-offs, including a freaking cartoon. And as a conclusion HN = Nikita (and Dynamic Pixels ppl) No Nikita = No HN Text is not systematized as it should, maybe there are even grammar mistakes. But it's an emotional vent.

[0rczy]

Chaos in Cakesland characters :D

OCs who have been invading my mind since 2022

"In Cakesland, the country of sweets, people suddenly start developing a disease that makes them eat one another. After a series of unfortunate events, Pilóta, a young girl joins an organisation of outlaws who are trying to improve their world by finding the cure."

Yes they're all based on baked goods and cookies. Back then I was desperately trying to come up with a story to write, got frustrated that none of my ideas came out right, and decided to fuck it, and created some OCs out of cookie puns. Because I can.

The whole concept is just a bunch of tropes I liked, smashed together into one weird story. It's like baking, in a way.

The plot has changed a LOT since its creation, and it will keep on changing probably every time I get into some new piece of media.

For those who might care, some info about the characters:

-Pilóta: the main character, young, sheltered kid who's out in the real world for the first time. Tries to help best as she can, but has to overcome her massive fear of failure. Comes from a noble family who placed high expectations on her, ones she couldn't meet. Hopefully through the journey she'll become someone her family can be proud of.

-Levi (gyümölcs leves): Sort of the leader of the group, at least he claims he is. The brains, the one who comes up with the plans. Has been really into science since the disease broke out, but honestly? Kind of a poser. Regarded as the "weird kid" in his youth, but he didn't let it get to him. Levi wants to have everything under control at all times, after all, only he knows what's good for him and the situation he finds himself in. Has to learn to let others take the lead.

-Gombi (szilvás gombóc): The charismatic one in the group. Silver tounge, great performer, excellent manipulator. Despite her poor upbringing, she managed to get a name in the entertainment industry due to her talent and aura. Always jumping from on experience to the other, Gombi has to learn to deal with her problems instead of distracting herself all the time.

-Linzer: The brawns of the group, the muscle. Great in combat, not so much in anything else. Especially at being humble. This guy was titled the "city's hero" at the start of his carreer, and though it's been a long while since he'd last been referred to as such, he still believes he's entitled to carry out judgement in the name of the greater good. Which is to say, he views the world in black and white, no gray areas. He really needs to work on that.

Yup. I like and think about these guys a normal amount, I think.

[beevean]

Nuke Sage. She brings nothing to the table lol

So far, she really hasn't.

I know that many people love her. Some love her arc, how she develops emotions and the need for a familial bond. Others love how efficient she allegedly is, how utterly loyal to Eggman she is even after she grows a heart. I know this, but there is nothing about her that appeals to me. She's bland, quirkless (she supposedly told Eggman one joke, offscreen), repetitive in her dialogue, the discount copy of Rei Ayanami and more blatant about it than the Death Egg, and her sacrifice for the sake of her "father" was literally nullified twice over.

Oh, you enjoy her because she develops emotions? Gamma is literally right there. And his sacrifice stuck. And I got to play as him and experience his change of heart. Frontiers' story is just a half-baked SA1, and that game already needed more time in the oven. no you cannot @ me.

And we talked multiple times how she's actually not as impressive as the game makes her out to be, and by all means, Eggman should have lost his patience the moment she kept insisting that he needed to team up with Sonic, like he did when Infinite disappointed him one too many times. mfw in the Japanese script, Eggman ends up saving himself from Cyberspace because Sage is that incompetent lmao

And the writing itself flipsflops between "Eggman is only proud of her because she's so impressive that it shows how great he is" (mostly in the missable memos) and "Eggman genuinely cares about his daughter and cries when she has to die and call her his daughter and adorable and holds her hand in the DLC and genuinely ponders whether she likes being called 'she'." It's... forgive me for the joke... wildly inconsistent :P

^ the thing is not that he assigned a gender to a creation of his, because he calls most of his robots "he", it's nothing new. The thing is that he actually stops in his tracks and questions if Sage would prefer "she" over "it". It's that he cares about her opinion, when by all means he shouldn't give a single shit about an AI's preference.

Then you add how fans, already juiced up over years of discourse on Mr. Tinker, took this undecisive writing and decided that this is proof that Eggman was Not So Bad After All, that he has a good heart deep down, that this sudden love for his "daughter" is what finally makes him human and tridimensional! They Fixed The Bad Character! Now yes I shouldn't base my opinions on the fandom, but as I said, if Flynn's intentions were to paint Eggman as a self-centered creator, he did a very poor job, because there is a reason the voice director ordered Pollock to sound like he was in tears when he said lines like "I understand. Go, fulfill your function".

And the kicker? Sage hasn't made a meaningful appearance yet. She cameo'd in MOSTH, looking sad and red/black instead of blue/white, and she's nowhere to be seen in Eggman's dreams in Dream Team, which lowkey implies that he actually doesn't love her as much as it seemed like in Frontiers.

but in the Takeover that everyone will take as gospel, Eggman says that she is the reason he keeps existing. Who wrote that. How can you put those words in that order in Eggman's mouth. And fans not only gush about how cute this is, but roll their eyes that Sonic is bored at this wildly OOC display of affection.

Sure, as a character she barely existed for one year, there's plenty of time for her to come back and finalize Eggman's direction. But yeah... so far she hasn't done anything to ingratiate me.

[weaselandfriends]

The Making Of: Cleveland Quixotic

I. Context

After I finished Chicago in 2019, a powerful and persistent fatigue gripped me: the fabled "burnout." The next two years would be the least productive of my literate life. As one day ebbed into the next, I wondered if I would ever be able to write again. I thought of Andrew Hussie, who, after years of feverish activity on Homestuck, seemed now capable of only short spurts of creation, heavily assisted by amanuenses.

It wasn't an issue of knowing what to write. I had been developing the idea for Cockatiel x Chameleon since 2015. I knew its plot, characters, scenes, themes. But when I tried to manifest it into reality I felt drained. What I managed to scrawl was junk, far below my standards. Goaded by a lurking terror of infinite lassitude, I forced myself to blurt 60,000 words of an initial draft; loathing it, I scrapped it entirely.

That was when I got the idea to write a "fun" story.

My vision for Cockatiel x Chameleon was technically complex and emotionally demanding. Maybe something simpler, a straightforward adventure, would be a stepping stone to recovery. I thought back to Fargo, which I had written (unlike most of my works) with relative ease and minimal forethought. How could I emulate that experience? What made Fargo so easy compared to Chicago and Cockatiel x Chameleon?

After reflection, I concluded that Fargo was, at its core, a revenge story. Revenge stories are older than dinosaur dirt. They are fundamental to human experience, easily understood, all structure inherent in their premise. The hero, wronged, seeks revenge on the villain. From that sentence alone you understand the protagonist's motivation and the plot's direction: trending inexorably toward final confrontation. With such a powerful core, it'd been easy to add details and complications to Fargo as they popped into my head, without warping the story's innate trajectory.

If I wanted another "easy" writing experience, I decided, I needed a similar type of story. Something with a clear premise that removes the burden of planning. A "template plot," where beginning/middle/end is fundamentally present and the writer merely adds their own spin. It took little time to think of such a story type. After all, it had been ubiquitous in Japanese media for the past decade. Not only was it popular with readers, it was appealing to amateur authors; many of its biggest examples originated as web fiction.

I decided I would write an isekai.

II. The Isekai Genre

A person from the real world is transported to a fantasy world.

Not quite as old as the revenge story. Nonetheless, this narrative concept has existed for over 100 years. The premise immediately informs the challenges the protagonist will encounter. They will adapt to a world they know little about, introduce knowledge from modern Earth society, and rise in power and prominence. Toss in a Demon King hellbent on world domination and you get a clear narrative climax. The details can be changed nearly any way without issue.

(Or so I thought.)

In retrospect, I myself was being transported to a new world. If we ignore The Chronicles of Narnia or The Pagemaster or Digimon Adventure and focus solely on the contemporary isekai genre (say 2012 on), which is what I intended to emulate, my experience extended to only the following titles:

1. Sword Art Online

2. Log Horizon

3. No Game No Life

4. The Saga of Tanya the Evil (or Youjo Senki)

5. KonoSuba

This is not only a pitiful sample size, but a specifically poor representation of the genre. Sword Art Online and Log Horizon exist in their own subgenre—trapped in a video game—and have many oddities unseen in more traditional isekai. No Game No Life and Tanya the Evil are "real" isekais, but both have unique worlds that eschew most traditional fantasy elements (especially in Tanya's case). And KonoSuba is a parody.

Nonetheless, I felt that, via cultural osmosis, I "understood" the isekai genre. Based on a few video essays I once watched that roasted dreck like Trapped in Another World with a Smartphone, and reverse engineering KonoSuba's parody, I conceived an impression of isekai as wish fulfillment: A loser gets another chance at life, often with some boon to ensure they don't muck it up this time. They become the hero, triumph with their strength and modern intelligence, and meet lots of attractive women.

I smirked. Heh, I thought. What if I made an isekai... that wasn't wish fulfillment! Truly novel. Let us take the premise of KonoSuba—a benevolent god gives a loser a second chance in a fantasy world—and turn it on its head. Instead of a benevolent god, what if the main character was sent by... a devil? The loser protagonist makes a Faustian bargain to become a hero. They get exactly what they wish for, except they're still a loser at heart, and inevitably bungle everything due to their own social incompetence.

That was the flashpoint. Ideas came together quickly, exactly as I hoped. Soon I had a narrative. It went like this:

III. The Original Idea

Our protagonist is a bumbling failure who lives with his mother. One day he sees an advertisement for a devil's wish-granting service. Being a fan of isekai anime, he goes to the devil and wishes to be sent to another world, one where he'll be the most powerful person. The devil, a sleek and professional businesswoman, agrees to the unusual wish, but pushes the work of actually creating the world to an overstressed, chain-smoking intern. The intern cobbles the world together in a matter of hours and our protagonist embarks on his journey.

He arrives to find the human kingdom besieged by the Demon King's army. The humans are outnumbered; total defeat is imminent. Just as he wished, though, the protagonist possesses incredible power. He charges into the fray, destroys the demon army singlehandedly in instants, and slays the Demon King himself soon after. The protagonist enters the human kingdom hailed as a hero.

Soon, the Human King emerges from his castle to express his immense gratitude. He offers the hero anything, including his daughter's hand in marriage. The hero takes one look at the princess―named either Mayfair or Viviendre, I wasn't sure which―sees she is exceedingly beautiful, and eagerly agrees. He's gotten exactly what he always wanted!

Unbeknownst to him, the king is a schemer. Advised by two strange beings—the rotund fairy Tetzel and the living plant Tintoretto—the king believes the hero is too popular; the people would side with him if he sought the throne. The king offers his daughter not in goodwill but to tie the hero to his side. His ultimate goal is to control the hero's power to imperialistically expand his kingdom.

Meanwhile, the princess has her own schemes. She's a lesbian and has zero intention of sleeping with the hero. In a comic scene, she gives the hero excuse after excuse why they can't sleep in the same bed despite being married; the hero naively buys it. Eventually he catches on, but while he's upset by the situation, he's too morally upstanding to do anything but accept it. (This would be a recurring theme: The hero could use his strength to force people to do what he wanted, but constantly shirks from doing so because he refuses to act in a way unbecoming of a hero. His morality and desires exist in a constant state of push and pull.)

Eventually, the hero and his wife compete for the affections of various female characters, with the wife always winning. Temporary the elf was part of this subplot: A dimwitted ambassador to be competitively wooed. To keep the hero sated, his wife buys him a female slave to use "as he likes." The hero, possessed of modern anti-slavery sensibilities, is appalled. He instantly frees the slave girl and enters a crusade to abolish slavery in the kingdom. Unfortunately, because he is not particularly smart, when he debates the slaveowners over the evils of slavery they routinely trounce him (using many arguments real-world slaveowners once used). Again, he could use his incredible power to kill the slaveowners, but they're law-abiding members of society. Murdering them would be "immoral" in the hero's eyes despite his staunch belief in the immorality of their actions.

Around this time, the hero finally uses his power for something good and sends gold back home to his financially poor mother. Unfortunately, this charitable act also goes awry when his sister, an IRS agent, thinks his disappearance is a ploy to evade taxes. She gathers a posse: her coworker boyfriend, his two friends (I called them Aaron Van Zandt and Allen Van Langevelde, envisioning an American Psycho vibe), and a private detective. Using security camera footage they track the protagonist's last known movements to a dingy apartment building, where they find the overworked devil intern who created the world and force him to send them there too.

They roll out in a huge SUV: Five people plus the hapless intern, armed with guns and equipment. The king, not wishing to lose the hero, decides he must intercept them before the hero learns of their existence. In a big setpiece-style scene reminiscent of Children of Men, a horde of knights ambush the SUV on a forest road. Arrows fly through the front windshield, killing the boyfriend (passenger seat) with an arrow to the neck and wounding Aaron Van Zandt (driver). The SUV crashes into a tree and the sister flees on foot, followed by Allen Van Langevelde, who has barely spoken before then but who now reveals themselves to be a badass marksman as they dispatch knight after knight with efficient hunting rifle shots. The private detective is wounded in the leg and forced to remain behind, while the devil intern cowers in the backseat. Aaron Van Zandt limps out of the driver's seat and attempts to follow Van Langevelde, but a knight on horseback rushes past him and knocks him down a steep incline, where he smashes his head on a rock and seemingly dies.

The knights surround the vehicle. The private detective fights back, but is overwhelmed and killed. The devil intern is captured to be burned at the stake later. The sister and Van Langevelde escape on foot, but without the intern, they can't leave the world. They need to rescue him before he is executed. Meanwhile, Van Zandt, clinging to life, is discovered by fairies and brought to their court.

And then...

IV. The Problem

And then I got stuck.

First, it should be clear by now that I did not actually have a plot. I had a series of incidents, loosely organized. Vaguely I knew the main character would work to overcome his social ineptitude and ultimately truly succeed, accomplishing the character growth his get-rich-quick Faustian bargain could never provide. But nothing came together in a coherent structure. Despite my intention to stick to a template plot, I instantly destroyed the template by killing the Demon King in the first chapter. I still had character conflicts and ideas to pursue, but no actual story.

Plus, the main character being a loser made him—well, a loser. Even if he eventually grew, he still ate shit again and again before vanishing entirely from the big action setpiece.

So my original idea of quickly and easily constructing an isekai plot hit a roadblock. Luckily, it was now 2021. After two idle years my fatigue seeped slowly out of me. Finally I regained my energy; I no longer needed to write a "fun" story. I decided to shelve the isekai, potentially permanently, and worked on Cockatiel x Chameleon in earnest.

This time, the draft of Cockatiel x Chameleon―which would be the final draft―progressed acceptably. It consumed my entire focus and I might not have thought about the isekai at all if not for two hiccups. First, though I now had the mental willpower to technically execute my ideas, the emotionally intense material of Cockatiel x Chameleon still left me sometimes wistfully longing for a story not quite so bleak and harrowing. Second, I revisited the isekai genre.

V. The Isekai Genre, Part 2

The anime analysis YouTuber Ygg Studio (formerly known as Digibro) posted a video called Is Mushoku Tensei The Most Influential Isekai? (History of Isekai) that outlined the isekai genre's chronology in Japanese pop media. Watching the video, I discovered some surprising origins to the "contemporary" isekai genre. Though there were many isekai stories―even popular ones―before, the current isekai craze seemingly began in 2012 on a Japanese webfic site called syosetsu.com, where several popular isekai were written in close temporal proximity to one another.

The main titles of note were Re:Zero and Mushoku Tensei—followed by KonoSuba, which was specifically a parody of Mushoku Tensei, instead of (as I once believed) a general cultural conception of isekai. In fact, it was these three works that created the current cultural conception, establishing many now obligatory tropes.

So, I decided to watch Re:Zero and Mushoku Tensei.

I was shocked! As it turned out, my clever and subversive idea―treating the hero as the loser he was instead of as a wish fulfillment badass―had not only already been done, it was foundational to the genre! Both works feature loser protagonists whose social ineptitude constantly causes problems for them despite their cheat mode powers. Both protagonists are forced to develop as people rather than rely on their advantages, and the development of their relationships with the other characters is a crucial consideration of both works.

As it turned out, Trapped in Another World with a Smartphone (which I also haven't seen) wasn't the beginning and end of the genre. I had underestimated isekai. In retrospect, the languid existence of my 2019 and 2020 led to me ironically attempting the same cheap wish fulfillment of my imagined isekai protagonist. I wanted a "fun," "quick," "easy" story and intended to use isekai for that purpose, the same way an isekai protagonist assumes being sent to another world is an easy way to becoming a hero.

It was time to return to the planning stage. This time, I wouldn't take things for granted.

VI. The Original Idea, Part 2

First, I revisited my protagonist. Originally an afterthought: a punching bag who failed whenever he exhibited any agency. I decided on another direction. My hero wouldn't be a loser by incompetence, but by choice. He would be clever and intelligent, but unwilling to apply himself. He wanted a new world because the original didn't seem worth it; too rigid, too structured, too immune to change. His journey would be discovering it wasn't the world holding him back, but himself. Believing nothing could be changed, he stopped himself from changing. Thus, Jay Waringcrane came into existence.

Earlier ideas were remixed around this new protagonist. I merged the devil boss lady and the devil intern into a single character, a semi-hapless sort for Jay to outwit. That was Perfidia Bal Berith. The hero's sister, whose subplot originally lacked any connection to him, now became a foil to his ideology. She exhibited utter faith in the "real world"—its mechanisms, its processes—and applied herself diligently to maintenance of its status quo. That was Shannon Waringcrane.

Still needed a plot. Since my hero was no longer a social bumbler, I discarded the original beginning where he annihilates the Demon King's army and toyed with a new idea. The human kingdom, besieged by the Demon King's army, becomes aware via prophecy that a hero is about to appear in their world. The king sends a party led by the gallant prince to find the hero and bring him safely to the kingdom. When Jay arrives, he meets the prince and his crew, but they are immediately beset by demons, who kill most of the party and grievously wound the prince. Jay, the dying prince, and the sole other survivor―a taciturn, dark-skinned mage named Viviendre who is secretly the prince's lover―barely escape. The prince succumbs to his wounds shortly afterward, leading to an emotionally-charged moment in which Viviendre laments his death and blames Jay for causing it. Leading to an adversarial relationship between Jay and Viviendre that, after much character development, would eventually turn into romance.

Then Jay would lead the kingdom against the Demon King, constituting the main plot.

This idea improved on the previous in several ways: exciting start, high drama, and a long-term goal. However, as I became more engrossed in this project, I came to dislike the "default fantasy world" I'd used as my setting thus far. When my goal was "quick and easy," the Dragon Quest-inspired medieval fantasy tropes sufficed. Now, they struck me as banal. In particular, a generic "Demon King" villain disinterested me (which was why I summarily disposed of them in the idea's first iteration), so even if it outlined a clear direction, it wasn't a direction that enthralled. I realized that to continue, I needed to do some worldbuilding.

VII. Worldbuilding

I dislike worldbuilding.

I prefer the real world―or the real world distorted by urban fantasy and surrealism―to an entirely fictitious fantasy world. In writing an isekai, I had wanted to maintain the connection between the real world and fantasy world (hence why one of my earliest ideas was for Shannon and her cadre to follow Jay in a modern vehicle with modern weapons). But by relying on stock fantasy tropes, I only exacerbated the core issue. I decided to think deeply about my setting and design it to both stand out and clearly relate to our world.

To determine a deeper connection between fantasy and related, I pondered the historical development of the fantasy genre, from chivalric romance to Tolkien. (I collected my thoughts into this essay.) Tracing this lineage, I considered writing a fantasy world modeled on Arthurian and Carolingian romance. Then I took the idea deeper. Much of the early modern fantasy genre, up to and even to an extent including Tolkien, was rooted in nostalgia for an imagined and idealized past. Many pre-Tolkien fantasy works were born out of Victorian fascination with medieval Europe, as evidenced by the Waverley novels by Sir Walter Scott, the Arthurian poems of Lord Tennyson, and the paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. The original isekai, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, parodied this idealized medievalism (Twain blaming Walter Scott specifically for the genteel Southern culture that propagated slavery and rendered the Civil War inevitable).

Then I realized that, 200 years before this nineteenth-century craze, there was another major literary work that parodied excessive love of chivalric romance: Don Quixote.

As soon as I made that connection, everything clicked. Rather than Perfidia whipping up a new fantasy world on demand, she would reuse one she created in the 1600s for a Don Quixote-esque figure. Rather than Spanish, my Don Quixote would be British, a royalist in the English Civil War seeking escapism in face of the collapse of monarchy. Pursuing standard chivalric romance activities, he would overthrow a corrupt Catholic church analog, slay a few dragons, and war against a Pagan nation that he later converted to Christianity.

What happened to this world 400 years after Don Quixote used it as his playground? I imagined the ex-Pagan nation a vassal to the Christian nation, while secretly plotting an uprising. Don Quixote's descendants, legitimate or illegitimate, grasping to maintain control in face of their weakening bloodline. Dragons hunted to extinction. A stasis that prevented sweeping change without the intercession of a true human, yet gripped by slow decay. Prayers cast for a new hero to save them from this stupor.

I also wondered how the Christians of this world reckoned with a Christianity whose foundational text is clearly meant for a different world entirely. While Don Quixote's scion, still ruler, promoted the religion uncritically to maintain their grip on the culture, underground grew a nihilist cult that believed nobody in their world was saved, that Christ died on Earth and thus only cleansed Earth's sins. All of this intermixed with the same historical devolutionary forces that ended feudalism and gave rise to mercantile oligarchy.

That was the world Jay Waringcrane entered. A world rife with thematic potential. Finally, a plot was forming.

VIII. Starting the Story

This last stretch of planning happened quickly. (Evidenced by traces of the earlier idea remaining in Cockatiel x Chameleon, specifically in the brief descriptions of the in-universe isekai from which Temporary the elf hails.) Rather than fight a Demon King, Jay's mission would be more chivalric in nature; he would rescue a princess from the evil wizard who led the heretical cult. Liking my earlier idea about the princess who first seemed like an ordinary damsel but turned out to ulterior motives, I decided for an end-of-arc twist where the princess secretly worked with the cult all along. Thus, Princess Mayfair came into existence. For the evil wizard, I reused one of the original king's advisors, the living plant.

The gallant prince and his secret lover from the second iteration returned as Jay's companions, although I changed the lover from a mage to a ranger. Shannon would still pursue Jay, but I merged Van Zandt and Van Langevelde into a single character named Wendell Noh and cut the private detective entirely, giving the sleuthing job to Shannon's boyfriend, Dalt Swaino. I rearranged the big action setpiece where Shannon's group meets disaster: Instead of fighting knights, they would fight a dragon, and this time, Jay would be involved.

After that, keeping with the chivalric romance aesthetic, I threw some faeries into the mix (I love faeries): the obnoxious Olliebollen, who would play off the more sullen Jay, and Flanz-le-Flore, a mid-arc complication. I also decided to make the cult members monstrous demi-humans with magic powers; the Christian anathema against magic must necessarily make it actively corrupting in this world run on Christian precepts.

On top of these plans, several long-term ideas already bubbled: The eventual introduction of the devil world, Sansaime's pregnancy, Viviendre, a battle with elves, Mayfair uniting the two worlds. The ideas flowed one after another now that I established a solid base. Sketchy outlines of the full story stood limned in the distance. I was ready to write.

I decided the work would be published serially at a one-chapter-per-week pace, identical to Fargo and Chicago. That decision was baked directly into my original desire to write a "fun" story. With a serial work, there is less burden of technical execution; the focus is on a fluid pace with regular updates instead of unimpeachable prose. Furthermore, serial writing lends itself to story speculation as readers comment every week, turning the work into a collaborative experience. Some readers of Chicago have told me that the reviews on fanfiction.net are an integral part of the experience, for instance.

When I post serial works, I first build up a "backlog." Essentially, that means I write several chapters ahead of what I'm posting online. The backlog ensures I can regularly post chapters even if one chapter takes longer to write than usual. (I can generally write a 6,000- to 7,000-word chapter in one week.) For this work, I decided to complete four chapters before posting the first. This generous backlog allowed me to post the entire first arc weekly, without a break prior to the climactic chapter that took two weeks to write.

When establishing the backlog, I also gave myself more time than usual to edit, which allowed me to polish the beginning for a better first impression. I meticulously pruned the first chapter to make the dialogue between Perfidia and Jay as snappy as possible while also minimizing exposition. (Originally, Perfidia explained the Seven Princes and their increased quotas in an internal monologue, since I knew they would become important much later in the story, but I cut it for streamlining purposes.) Additionally, I spent a long time deciding when Chapter 2 would end and Chapter 3 would begin; originally, the scene at the beginning of Chapter 3 was at the end of Chapter 2, but I moved it because it better matched the tone and scope of the third chapter. Olliebollen was originally far more in-your-face obnoxious; I toned them down. Lastly, I added the part in Chapter 4 where Jay remembers being beat up by Shannon's past boyfriend, which not only hinted at a soon-to-be-introduced major character, but gave Jay a reasonable chip on his shoulder to cause friction between him and Makepeace.

With four chapters completed, I was ready to post. Almost. I still needed a title. The entire time I operated only thinking of the story as "my isekai story." Thinking long and hard, I came up with titles such as American Isekai, The Waringcranes, 144k Angels, and—my personal favorite—Hellbrowned, the last of which I was strongly advised not to use by every single person I know.

(Side note: Setting the story in Cleveland had been an easy decision. It's such a funny city, taking Detroit's tragic Rust Belt decay and removing all grandeur. The Jon Bois video The Browns Live in Hell and the famous Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video sum it up neatly. Setting the story in 2017, the same year the Browns infamously went winless, was also a snap decision.)

Finally, I thought back to Don Quixote, the impetus for much of the worldbuilding, and the title revealed itself.

IX. Writing the Story

Because of my fast-paced schedule, I lacked the luxury to make major changes to my plans as I wrote. I started with a plan for the first arc and scattered ideas for the future. As I wrote the first arc, I planned the second, and as I wrote the second, I planned the third.

Room remained for tweaks, though. Each time I write a story, I try to do at least one thing outside my technical repertoire. This time, I wanted more flexibility in my characters. I usually only introduce the bare minimum necessary, and aggressively cut or merge characters to reduce the total number. In Cockatiel x Chameleon, however, some commentators criticized how the Consortium's limited number of characters gave the impression it was as dead and empty as Harper's real life. While that impression doesn't necessarily conflict with the story, it did expose limitations to my economical approach.

I dislike having limitations. (Unfortunately I have many.) Thus, I decided to write more characters whose storylines were not plotted from the onset, characters I would develop spontaneously as the story progressed.

An example is Lalum. I introduced Lalum in Chapter 5 as an enemy with a unique power for Jay to fight. Zero subsequent intent for her at the time. Then I realized her power would interact well with Flanz-le-Flore's, so I kept her around for that fight as well. When Lalum is attacked in the Flanz-le-Flore fight, I was 50/50 on whether she would live or die. However, a friend reading the story really liked her and wanted her to live, and I realized it might streamline the plot if someone was around to point Shannon and her crew in Jay's direction.

Having spared Lalum from death twice, and also conceptualizing more concretely the second arc—including Viviendre's role in it—I decided I had a use for Lalum after all. I conceived of Viviendre and Lalum being foils, envisioning their eventual confrontation in the last arc. Thus, Lalum went from monster-of-the-week to major character. To a lesser extent, characters like Theovora were introduced offhandedly, and while they did not become major characters, I found small uses for them later.

Speaking of Viviendre, that was another challenge for myself. With her, I wrote something I wouldn't normally: A romance. Cockatiel x Chameleon, believe it or not, was originally intended to be a straightforward romance, but I found myself incapable of writing one and pivoted to its current direction. Nestled within the sprawling undertaking of Cleveland Quixotic, the romance between Viviendre and Jay was my attempt to write two people who genuinely liked each other. Their three-chapter mini-arc in the middle of the story moves at a more lax pace than usual, but allowed me to develop a relationship I otherwise wouldn't have been able to.

In general, Cleveland Quixotic is larger than my other works. More characters, more plot threads, more locations, more everything. Though Fargo and Chicago are also large, they operate in a more enclosed and linear space. My thought process with Cleveland Quixotic was to open up and express that feeling of world-spanning storytelling the fantasy genre is so known for. It pushed my limits, but I accomplished that goal more than in any previous work.

The real challenge is, once you go big, how do you reel it back? So many of the isekai I mentioned remain ongoing, proceeding through arc after arc without end in sight. Today's most notable ongoing fantasy literature, George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, is likewise mired in endless expansion the author seems incapable of curtailing. On RoyalRoad, it's easy to find million-word works with early reviews uniformly positive, but recent reviews expressing a new sentiment: "Dropped after nothing happened for the past 200 chapters."

Above all else, I wanted to avoid that trap. My solution resided in the second arc's climax, which I developed midway into writing the first arc. Uniting the two worlds made it natural for all the distinct groups of characters to join up for the finale, tying every plot thread together. As such, I cultivated multiple storylines in the long and less immediately plot-focused second arc, secure in my knowledge of how it all eventually connected.

Even so, at times it grew overwhelming herding so many characters. Many characters wound up less prominent than I initially intended, sacrificed for the good of the overall pacing. Fortunately, few characters wound up utterly vestigial, and those that did were minor. (There's no worse feeling than a character given loads of screentime and dialogue only for them to end up inconsequential when the curtains finally close. Homestuck reeks of it.)

A few miscellaneous changes that occurred while writing:

I intended for Viviendre's brother, the "mad king" of California, to appear in the final arc, wielding ten relics for an epic duel with Jay. Given the large amount of characters already prominent in the story, I cut him.

I intended for Sansaime to die at the end of the second arc and for Avery to live. This was mainly because I wanted Jay and Shannon to have a cathartic moment with Avery in the final arc (Avery still would have died afterward). I realized that, using Pandaemonium, I could have that cathartic moment anyway, and Avery wound up saving Sansaime's life both outside and inside the story.

On the flip side, I originally intended for Mallory to die at the end of the second arc, but decided I wanted her and Mayfair to have a climactic conflict, which could only be done if Mallory were still alive.

I intended to kill off the minor character Gonzago of Meretryce the entire story, probably by having him jump in front of Shannon to take some attack or another. I never found a way to work it in, and I feel like the actual use I got out of him in the climactic fight, though minor, was far more unique. I likewise considered killing Mademerry by having her take an attack for Mayfair, but I prefer her current ending. I did not intend to kill Pythette, but found at the last moment it would be more convenient if she died.

Beyond that, I wrote the story generally according to plan. Leaving aspects of my plans malleable meant I could write quickly without needing absolute certainty in the precision of every line and action. Only in Chapter 45, the climactic chapter with Beelzebub and Moloch, did I sit down and carefully outline what each character would do at each moment in the chapter. (The chapter's seven-minute time limit made such meticulousness essential.) Otherwise, even in other climactic fights, I relied only on general ideas about what should happen and when.

Ultimately, I successfully completed the longest story, with the largest number of characters, I'd ever written. It pushed my limits, but in a way that didn't leave me gasping for air. Instead, I feel ready and eager for my next story. What'll it be? I have an idea and I've already begun research. I hope to start writing it by the end of the year, and publish it by mid-2024. I'll let you know more as things become more concrete.

X. Names

Before I end this post, a few name origins.

Perfidia Bal Berith: As mentioned in the story itself, "Bal Berith" (or Balberith, Baalberith, et cetera) is a false idol mentioned in the Bible. It is also a demon of the Ars Goetia. My familiarity with the name primarily comes from a weapon used in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

Olliebollen is based on oliebollen, a Dutch pastry.

Mayfair is the name of a character in Shining Force: The Sword of Hajya, the first video game I ever played. Her middle name, Lyonesse, is a character from Arthurian legend.

Makepeace came from an attempt to make a name that would pair well with Mayfair. My primary knowledge of the name comes from British author William Makepeace Thackeray. His middle name, Gaheris, is an Arthurian knight.

John Coke's name was modeled on the character Wicks Cherrycoke in Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. I only found out after I posted the first chapter that John Coke was the actual name of a person involved in the English Civil War notable enough for a Wikipedia page. I was more than happy to pretend this incredible serendipity was actually my plan all along.

Sansaime's name was modeled on the characters Sansloi ("without law"), Sansfoi ("without faith"), and Sansjoi ("without joy") in Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, which was the primary inspiration for the romance elements of Whitecrosse. "Without love" is also a notable phrase in the visual novel Umineko When They Cry.

Whitecrosse's name also comes from The Faerie Queene, being modeled on the Redcrosse Knight, an allegorical representation of England (with its red cross flag).

Many names in Cleveland Quixotic have an "allegorical" sense, being words that suggest a clear, often moral meaning. Charm, Charisma, Mayfair, Makepeace, Mademerry, Theovora ("god eater"), Condemnation, Obedience, Tricia (short for "patrician"), Meretryce ("meretricious"), Mordac ("mordacious"), Malleus ("malleable"), Astrophicus ("space plant"), Viviendre ("life ender"), Perfidia ("perfidy"), and so forth. These allegorical names are a play on The Faerie Queene being an allegory, although many of the names in Cleveland Quixotic are not an accurate representation of their character, indicating the breakdown of allegory and thus clear moral meaning.

California is the name of a location in Amadís de Gaula, Don Quixote's favorite romance.

Dalton Swaino is the real name of a semi-pro League of Legends player.

Wendell Noh's surname comes from a professional League of Legends player. His given name is the name of a character in Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light.

Kedeshah is a Hebrew word that possibly refers to sacred or temple prostitutes.

Ubiquitous is an ordinary word with a clear meaning, but its abbreviation, Ubik, is a Philip K. Dick novel that was also the name of one of the demons in Berserk.

The Seven Princes, rather than refer to the traditional Ars Goetia representations of the Seven Deadly Sins, are pulled from John Milton's Paradise Lost, which was the primary inspiration for most devil theology.

Flanz-le-Flore is a corruption of Blanchefleur, a name that appears in a few romance legends.

Lalum is an alternate translation of Larum, a character in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade.

Pluxie is a feminization of a semi-pro League of Legends player's screen name.

Tintzel is a corruption of the character's original name, mentioned earlier, which was taken from historical corrupt priest Johann Tetzel.

Jreige is the surname of a semi-pro League of Legends player.

Justin "Just" Vance is a play on J.D. Vance, an Ohio politician.

Temporary, one of the earliest names that persisted into the final form of the story, is modeled on the elves in No Game No Life, who have names like "Think" and "Feel."

The other names in the story do not have any particular meaning or genesis.

XI. Conclusion

I believe that covers the generation of Cleveland Quixotic from beginning to end. If I missed anything, or if there's anything you want to know more about, please send me an ask and I'll be certain to answer. Thank you again for reading and stay tuned for my next work!

[lost-technology]

Dear My Brain, I do NOT need to do another massive Trigun AU right now. However, just to make you happy, I'll toss out my ideas here for "maybe someday." Okay, I'm on a Fallout-kick lately. Good show for my games, yes? A rare pretty decent live action adaptation of a set of video games. Definitely nods to fans / players there. Also been doing a little playing of Fallout 4. (Fallout 3 is the only game of the series I've played all the way through main quest sadly (maybe I'll download the classics from Steam...) Anyway, I've played with this notion for Trigun before - but only in the "if they were players." I made perks / gameplay styles for the main characters. So, what are you doing, brain? Why are you starting to come up with ideas for an actual story for me to write as a crossover?!!! Especially when I do not know if there are enough people who like both properties AND read fanfiction to be interested in a crossover AU / fusion fic - then again, I tend to write things primarily for my own delight, anyway. I was telling myself "no, these two things are already too similar, there's really no need," but then came the idea that "no, there are some things unique enough to the Fallout setting that you could really have fun with the Trigun characters wandering a post nuclear North America rather than Planet Gunsmoke / No Man's Land." I could even interchangeably refer to the Wasteland as No Man's Land... Okay, Brain, so you're telling me that in this fusion universe, Vault-Tec had a subsidiary that worked closely with the budding U.S. space program, which if I am not mistaken, is canon (that satellite-dish quest in Fallout 3 and that experimental for space-colonisation front Vault concealing the real experiment in the Nuka-World expansion for 4). SEEDS was sort of its own separate thing, more benevolent than the Vaults and free from their wild secret experiments. Their mission was open: Developing a new, yet profitable, source of power for the cooperate overlords to profit from, being a failsafe for re-terraforming the Earth in the event of a nuclear war, and being a study for close-quarter scientist-living for potential space colonies. SEEDS Vault 05 (as distinct from Vault 5, SEEDS gets a different class) saw the successful bioengineering of life forms they called Plants. They were actually developed shortly before the war of 2077, but were not considered perfected. After the bombs dropped and the doors sealed, further study showed the Plants' potential as essentially living G.E.C.Ks (Garden of Eden Creation Kits). A living answer to the G.E.C.K, water-chips, cold-fusion... Even a potential way to divest from the atomic energy that America had been depending on since the end of WWII. (Fallout, for non-players, is an AU of reality diverging at WWII's end). And then Independents are born. Rem Saverem, a rogue scientist who rebels against Vault-Tec's lack of ethics managed to smuggle out the first Independent. Poor Tesla, being a little girl she had to send out, but the Hell of the Wastes were literally a better shot for her survival than for her to stay in the SEEDS-Vault. Sometime later, a pair of twin boys are born and Rem manages to convince the crew not to make them into test subjects. Until she can't. Cue big escape scene where she gets Vash and Nai out of the vault and dies in a hail of bullets right before them as guards cut her down and come after them... And so starts the journey of pair of living McGuffins who can either save the world or destroy it in search of their lost sister. Nai eventually becomes Millions Knives, a brutal Wasteland warlord bent on the destruction of humankind. Vash is on the run with bounties upon bounties upon him. He meets a ghoul named Wolfwood, dependant upon a certain kind of Chem to heal his wounds and to keep him from going feral and a couple of reporter-ladies from one of the larger settlement-cities intent upon uncovering Wasteland mysteries.

[onewomancitadel]

I actually wrote a post yesterday about fandom critical posts on here going too far and deleted it because I felt I was fighting imaginary ghosts, but this is going too far, in my view; I wouldn't take it to the post because I doubt OP would care, though.

I don't keep a reading tally. I read. I thoroughly endorse reading as panacea to the soul and for developing the mind. To say that fanfiction don't count as books, is it because

Fanfic is published online

Fanfic is often of poor quality

Fanfic does not have a middleman (agent, editor, publisher) between author and reader

Fanfic follows predictable tropes, formulae, character, etc.

Panfandom practices mean you can be reading more about fanon-wide accepted archetypes as opposed to canonical texts

Fanfic is derivative

I can't peer into OP's head, and this is really more about background radiation of fandom criticism (when I am often myself reflective on the matter), but these are the ones I can glean. 'Sour gummy worms' certainly suggests number 2 is the salient point.

Fanfic is published online

Is The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect not a book for having been published online in 1994? It's a sci-fi cult classic which has never been officially published because it's too strange and offensive. Clearly, in the web age now, online is not the problem. Once upon a time RWBY was a "webshow", now it's just a show.

2. Fanfic is often of poor quality

Many popular releases are of poor quality. Masturbatory "litfic" navelgazing hyperrealism is of forgettable quality. If we lowered the bar to "literally unintelligibly written" like some fanfics are, then yes, I will allow that fanfic does not even have a base quality filter from the proofreading perspective or even indeed necessarily obeys the traditional literary form. At least if you pick up a published book, it's generally guaranteed to actually be legible. Fair suck of the sauce bottle. But is a published book with poor proofreading, or rejection of literary norms, now not a book? Is a book defined more by publishing practice or over actual discrete novelistic output? If it's the former, we can end the post here. If it's the latter, we can keep going.

3. Fanfic does not have a middleman (agent, editor, publisher) between author and reader

Are self-published books not books? This is another problem related to the first point; my favourite romance novel, The Land of the Beautiful Dead, is self-published. It had no middleman. It would've never been published if it had a middleman, I suspect: too long, too literary, too weird.

4. Fanfic follows predictable tropes, formulae, character, etc.

Take that up with the romance genre, and the historic science fiction conventions, and probably even fantasy too, whilst we're here. Genre fiction has never enjoyed the reception that literary fiction has, and is often intellectually demarcated, but genre fiction books are still books. That being said - I'm sure somebody has made the argument in the past that they don't count as reading, but consuming. I've certainly encountered creative writing teachers who don't just view genre fiction as silly, but actively hostile to real writing.

5. Panfandom practices mean you can be reading more about fanon-wide accepted archetypes as opposed to canonical texts

Panfandom practice is really something that makes me think about fanfic not just as a particular medium of creation but the cultural archetypes assigned to it. I think it's true that recent social media culture has forced more stringent and constrained interpretation of a given canon text and encouraged Migratory Slash Fandom-esque type approach to storytelling... but in some ways I think that's sort of inevitable? All practices have particular cultures. Anything that gets burrowed is repurposed within reason. If Spirk is the heritage of fanfic, the reason slash is predominant is probably because slash was the foundation from the beginning. That being said, I don't think that literary convention means it is not literary. By nature, it has a convention.

6. Fanfic is derivative

This is where you get those really embarrassing "Dante wrote fanfic" justifications when they are not meaningfully the same. But the impetus for this is the fact that transformative storytelling is normal, not aberrant, and not just fangirls wanting their dollies to smush together. When you have a story told to you, you get enjoyment from telling it to others. That's how folkloric traditions survive in part. There's a gross tradition there that I actually can't even really get into, but fanfic is certainly different in terms of cultural value (it is not of religious or philosophical or moral value, for one), medium, tone, genre, conventions, etc. and these are radical divergences from fucking Dante.

Like, let's be honest, it's not about fanfic not counting as "reading" (reading as in reading a book), it's about the embarrassment of fandom, the happy resurgence of cringe culture about fandom, the shittiness of crappy fanfic which flanderises and ruins the characters, and the poorly behaved fans who cannot distinguish transformative fandom from the canon text and the poorly behaved fans who cannot distinguish the canon text altogether. The real accusation here is less that whether fanfic materially counts as a book and reading and more to do with the fact that fanfic is seen as childish and intellectually offensive, which is hostile to reading culture. I follow people on here who say they're too old for it at twentysomething. As a fellow twentysomething, I enjoy fanfic more now than I did as a teenager.

Relatedly there is an issue of fanfic readers celebrating the fact that they don't read books. So they themselves are somewhat responsible for this; there's a proud ignorance to it, that fanfic does things what published work doesn't or is afraid to, that fanfic is free, that they can access fic authors churning out work for them to binge when they want and just move onto the next thing without a thought. This is not a correct perspective either. Reading is good for you. Fanfic can function here as hyperpalatable convenience which supplants expanding your palate. To even know what your palate is, you need to develop that aesthetic and narrative language, which means not just reading the canon but being curious and reading as widely as you are able.

Part of the issue with fanfic, in my view, is that the practice is incestuous. Not just that it has its own conventions, but that it is largely limited by endorsing this very dichotomy that OP of this post is similarly endorsing. Fanfic practices beget fanfic practices beget fanfic practices. The gulf gets bigger.

Is fanfic, then, a book in the sense that it widens your palate? If it's an incestuous tradition, it can leave you out to the cold of broader literary narrative conventions. And that, to me, is actually where the most convincing argument can be made in that fanfic is a narrow corner of a field of infinite possibility. But fanfic doesn't just encompass a type of story, fanfic comprises self-published short stories, novellas, and novels, working with transformative IP (as is rather natural, bar for copyright disrupting this practice). Judgement of quality and convention is not really the same as judgement of the medium. I can readily make criticism of the former, but I can't really complain about the latter, especially because I believe that you get better at writing - irrespective of what constructive criticism you do or don't get - by just writing a lot. A lot of writing, and a lot of reading. This is why fanfic can be bad if it does not foster widely reading but it can equally help develop your skill by matter of writing a lot and having an avenue to pursue that (and a supportive community).

That is my spiel. I don't intend this as a vague about OP; I have criticisms of fandom myself, but I didn't take it to them because I don't think they would like to hear what I think. I am just interested when arguments like this have their real meaning nested in implication.

Also, I don't make a tally of what I read, so that angle of the argument holds little water for me. I read; what I read makes me read other things to follow the body of an idea; and then I read some more. Pretty straightforward. I think it's weird to gameify that stuff online, and I'll never quite understand it. It's somewhat related to the point OP originally made, because fanfic would "inflate" that book count, but maybe if fic readers thought of themselves as readers altogether, we could all hold hands and read Dostoyevsky and be happy forever.

[swordnbored]

Currently Running: Historia by Mana Project Studio

Historia is a D&D 5E hack about telling stories in a dark fantasy renaissance setting with Anthropomorphic animal characters.

Typically, I don't run D&D and I definitely don't run D&D overhauls that I didn't design myself. However, Historia caught my attention for a couple reasons. First, I love fantasy RPGs that borrow heavily from history for their settings. Second, Historia changes how hit points and dying works to make the game more lethal. Lethal and dangerous combat is a must when I run a campaign. And third and finally, the art is absolutely gorgeous.

See what I mean?

When I saw Historia at Gen Con I was interested, but to be honest I dismissed it because it was just another D&D hack. However the more I thought about it the more it seemed to fit with my group, or rather lack thereof.

You see, a couple weeks prior to Gen Con my TTRPG group fell apart for social reasons and I was on the hunt for new people to run games for. The primary issue for me was that for a lot of people D&D is the default RPG and convincing them to try something new, and then teaching them something new, can be pretty difficult. Especially teaching a new game over discord. Historia shares all of its combat mechanics with D&D, so it hasn't been nearly as intimidating for new players to adopt. I knew the renaissance setting was something I could sink my teeth into and write an excellent campaign for. Also my fiancé is a furry, so I knew he would be excited to build a character.

At this point I've successfully gathered a group to play, and we've had our session zero. My players are all very enthusiastic and have all built their characters. We haven't played our first session yet but here are some of my thoughts so far.

First off, I'm not using the official Historia setting. That's not my style. I am however picking and choosing elements from it. I think the factions are compelling and useful, and can be easily slotted in to a homebrew world.

In traditional Dungeons and Dragons, hit points are a measure of how much physical harm you can take before you are downed. Historia treats hit points quite a bit differently. In Historia Hit Points should be considered a measure of how ‘rattled’ a character is. Because of this, the GM might dish out damage as a result of particularly stressful situations, experiencing horror, or generally doing difficult things as well as in combat. When a characters hit points reach zero they suffer a level of exhaustion. Every time you are hit afterwards you also receive a level exhaustion. In Historia reaching tier six exhaustion is what kills you, rather than running out of hit points. I've also incorporated exploding dice to enhance the randomness of the violence. Historia also has a chart of permanent injuries PCs can accrue. I personally really like this approach, it enhances the value of hit points as a resource and I think it will heighten the tension of the game. Permanent injuries also make sure that players will always second guess any potential combat encounter, heightening the value of role play focused solutions.

As we went through and made characters I noticed some issues. Historia was developed by the Italian company Mana Project Studio, and its clear that on translating to English there was some issues. Several abilities and mechanics were very confusing to parse out. There were also some pretty significant typos. It is especially disappointing because the game book as a whole has a very high production value! Its well organized and down right gorgeous! But the poor proof reading can make character creation a bit of a slog.

All told though we figured it out. Made calls on some confusing rules and moved on. Session 1 is coming up this week and I don't think I've been more excited for a campaign in years! I certainly haven't put this much effort into a campaign in years. I am excited for session one, and it sounds like my players are very excited as well!

[sleepyiswhumping]

10, 11, 19, 20 for the ask game :)

10. Ooh, this one's hard. While I'm not satisfied with most of what I've written and plan on rewriting a lot of my work, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have favorites. My current favorite piece is untitled, and is the aftermath of Theo, our poor whumpee, being released back into the world by his whumper, Z, and the trauma he's suffering from after the 2 years of abuse, manipulation and pain Z forced him to undergo, and his recovery, with the help of his boyfriend, Lynn, who's been searching for him ceaselessly since he disappeared. I'm actually currently working on a rewrite for a part of this that I may share soon!

11. Agh. There's not really anything I'm comfortable sharing, but this'll have to do. It's not great, but one of the few scenes that's more than a sentence or two that I think is okay.

Z ran his hands across Theo’s hips, up his stomach, his fingers playing across the scars and fresh wounds on his chest, before coming to rest on Theo’s neck. Theo gasped as Z wrapped his fingers around his throat, struggling to get one final breath in as his hands closed tight, crushing his windpipe. Theo’s hands flew to his neck, scrabbling at Z’s, trying to pry them off, but found no purchase. As panic began to set in, Theo hammered and scratched at Z’s chest, but his efforts grew weaker as his vision faded, his mind going blank, running out of oxygen. The last thing Theo saw before he blacked out was Z’s hungry, intense smile, looming over him.

19. Funnily enough, I started writing whump last February, so I haven't been part of the community for very long at all. Despite how fresh I am, however, I've fallen in love with both the community and my writings, even though most of them are pretty bad lol.

20. I actually haven't written whump for any fandom yet. So far, I've written exclusively about OCs. While OCs are, in my eyes, tougher to start with, due to having to construct a character from scratch, I prefer the versatility and freedom you have with an OC compared to a pre-existing, developed character. I have much less obligations and pre-existing tropes and characteristics to follow with characters of my own creation, making the process easier for me. That being said, I have been considering writing about some specific characters in some fandoms. I'd probably write about R. Daneel Olivaw, from part of the Lije Bailey series by Isaac Asimov. From the first story I read about him, I was in love with a robot so complex as he was, to be essentially human, and I've recently been thinking about all of the whump you can do there. I've also been considering whumping Erasmus from the Dune prequels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson, but I think that's just due to my obsession with his character as a whole. Lastly, there are so many characters in the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson that are ripe for whumping, and considering this was the series that spawned my love for wing whump before I ever knew what whump was, it'd be remiss if I didn't whump at least one character from the series.

Thanks for the ask, @stalecabbage! <3

[fansandtheic]

Boat of Grass's Story

Warm greetings, Chris!

I was barely 13 when I first picked up Eragon. I spent my free time helping out in the school library, so I got first dibs on all the new books. I already had an obsession with fantasy and sci-fi, and unfortunately for my religious parents, your books held my attention like no other. I grew up reading the rich works of C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, so when I got my hands on a secular book that incorporated positive relationships/dealings with dragons, I was beyond thrilled. I spent many nights reading Eragon under my covers, slightly suffocating from the heat of the flashlight and worried my parents would discover me. I had seen my dad rip a library book in half because it had a wyvern on the cover. In a lot of literature, dragons and serpents tended to be associated with evil and greed, but I had always marveled at these creatures and dreamed of befriending one. In my mind, dragons were beings of enormous power, wisdom, and personality. I was inspired by your series and began writing my own book about dragons in middle school, and continued to work on the story until my writing was discovered and banned by my parents. I'll admit that I was a bit young to write, but my interest in writing has forever been impacted by this series and the love that you poured into it. I have read and reread the Inheritance Cycle, and while it brings me much comfort to dive back in, it never fails to rekindle my hatred for evil and desire for justice. I have cried with and for the characters, I have drawn them many times, and I’m sure I’ve glimpsed them in my dreams. That being said, most books I read nowadays are absolutely ruined by the standards I formed based on your writing. Now that I have graduated college (BA in ENG) and dabbled in a masters (don’t ask), I’m an absolute snob when people try giving book recommendations. I’ll complain about the lack of character development/design, the lack of descriptive detail, the poor rhetoric, etc. Strangely enough, I recently had a vivid dream that inspired the creation of a new tale. I believe it’s time to put my money where my mouth is and test my skills as a writer. I’m 26, living with my parents, and jobless, but now I’m suddenly back in the shoes of that middle school girl obsessed with the romantic notions of dragons and magic. I suppose she never really left me. So I thank you for sharing your dreams, for testing your mettle, and for continuing to grow your story. Even though it’s been many years since I’ve written creatively, your books still inspire me to chase my dreams. Just as Murtagh found his conviction in the inky depths, we cannot truly live if we cling to past misery and fear: we must fight for what we love and the freedom to forge our own path. 

Sincerely,

Boat of Grass

[cwmonsterhigh]

Major Updates? Maybe! Maybe Not.

Maybe in the middle. So! With the voice acted version of my DISGUSTING creation in development, I’ve had to reflect on my writing a bit:

I am NOT letting a poor group of people voice (or even read anymore!) the PILOT of my writing from when I was 14 years old! 15? Some time around then.

I mean, I’m keeping most of it of course, but I’ve decided to go through the first few chapters and write some well-needed rewrites. Going back I’ve been noticing some improper grammar, sentences that don’t make any sense, and most importantly, lore that I decided to drastically change later on that I forgot to go back and correct. Especially some character personalities I decided on later.

So yeah, whilst I’m not, like, doing HUGE REWRITES YOU WON’T EVEN RECOGNIZE THE STORY ANYMORE, I’m just going back and correcting mistakes I don’t want anymore. I’m done with the first chapter, almost done with the second (you can already see some revisions on there), and I’ll probably stop before the Halloween chapter since that’s where it picks up how I wanted it to be. It’s still gonna be cringe in the first few chapters as that’s how I intended it, but just less confusing and more of Frankie being new and learning.

I am in no way associated with Lucasfilms btw

Byeeeee!!!!!!

[trans-clown-catgirl]

another media hot take because i feel like it ahe .

ok so uhhhh i think anyone who uses A6A6I5 as proof that Vriska did change and grow as a person and redeemed herself for all the terrible shit she did is kinda deaf to bad writing . A6A6I5's early portions (pre-gigapause) were hastily put together and not well thought out.

like oh, Vriska got punched and now suddenly she 180s and she's good, she's solving the problems of everyone on the meteor because CLEARLY, she's the most stable and well adjusted person there. she solves Rose's alcoholism, prevents Terezi from entering a toxic relationship with Gamzee, and just solves everyone's problems and is really nice and perfect and flawless. even though we got to see NO actual development, no gradual change, she suddenly without explanation is absolutely perfect, makes plans that always work perfectly (even though before that every single plan she made was god awful and either blew up in her face or harmed people who did nothing wrong, often both), and every bad thing she's ever done is suddenly perfectly excusable

and don't get me started on how buddy-buddy she is with Terezi, someone who she had been nothing but awful to up to this point, she's instantly forgiven and faces no pushback whatsoever from anyone, because clearly all she needed was to be punched Once and now she's perfectly fine and worthy of forgiveness

the fact Hussie sincerely tries to sell the reader the idea that Vriska is worth trusting now, that she's amazing at making plans along with the fact that nothing she ever does during the chapter backfires, how the version of her that actually realized what she did was fucked up and tried to improve herself just gets shoved to the wayside and treated like shit, it's all just. baffling

and then she wins. she gets to be a hero. suddenly, the fact that her whole goal of becoming a hero no matter what, no matter how many people it hurt or how badly it doomed everyone (LOOKING AT THE FACT SHE DIRECTLY CAUSED THE CREATION OF BEC SO THAT SHE WAS GUARANTEED TO HAVE BEC NOIR AS HER OPPONENT SO SHE COULD SAVE EVERYONE AND GAIN FAVOR WITH THEM), her genuinely solidly written arc of her doing terrible things in a futile attempt to build herself up as the hero of the story only to then have it backfire, being dealt a finishing blow by one of the many people she's severely harmed, or being shown firsthand how stupid her plan was and that the people who OUTRIGHT TOLD HER Jack would just go back to the meteor following her trail and kill everyone there, all that, all of it, is suddenly thrown out the window in favor of an idolized version of a character that the writer clearly has favoritism for.

in conclusion, Vriska is NOT redeemed, the author's poor attempt at rushing a redemption arc is bafflingly stupid, and not only are the people who say A6A6I5 redeems Vriska completely blind to a poorly written out character arc, they're doing their favorite character wrong by failing to recognize that she COULD have had a better arc, she COULD have been better written, she COULD have been redeemed in a believable way, but she wasn't. they're being complacent. they could have gotten something better, but they didn't, what they got was awful, but they're gaslighting themselves into believing it's good.

Vriska deserved better. she deserved a genuinely well thought out redemption arc that wasn't just pulled completely out of nowhere with no forethought whatsoever. A6A6I5 fucking sucks and the only good parts are post-gigapause, in the ending portion.

[missnobodymadness]

AOT OCS Show and Tell Days: Day 1

Saw this and decided to join the fun with my girl because you know...she is extremely important to me and I need to tell everyone about her as much as I can. :'D

Day 1: Basic Introductions

Name: Evelyn Thorburn Gender: Female Age in setting: 16 (850); 20 (854)

Bold all of the following that apply to your OC!

Context: Canon Setting | Modern AU | Other AU

What niche does your OC serve for you? Self-insert | Completely original character | Self-shipping | Roleplaying | Writing fics | Creating art | Only the scenarios and adventures that I imagine inside my head and share with no one! get fucked I ain't creating shit | Something else

A Bit More

If your character is in the AOT canon setting, what's their allegiance? Survey Corps, Military Police, Marleyan, Warriors, etc?

She was a Survey Corps member, becoming a member of the Special Squad later but now serves Marley as a cadet (it's a long story :'D).

If your character is from an AU, what's their occupation?

----

Do you ship your character with a canon character? If so, who?

She has an unrequited love for Reiner, the poor thing never had a chance, the bastard didn't even realize it until she died for him. At a certain point of my fic, Evelyn starts to question her feelings for Pieck as she noticed how different she felt around her despite her feelings for Reiner. Evelyn is fascinated by her intelligence and finds her personality very curious, for her, Pieck is a mind ahead of its time, she really admires her.

Yes, Evelyn is just an indecise person. Yay.

Do you have any cute art or picrews of them together? Let's see one.

I wish...I am not an artist myself and couldn't really find a Picrew that would fit their physical features, HOWEVER, I talked with a good friend of mine about ordering a commission of Evelyn and Pieck this month, I'm just waiting to have enough for the payment, pretty excited though!

Character Creation

How long have you actively been developing your OC?

I created Evelyn only three years ago and have been developing her since then, only very recently I had the pleasure to finally buy her a reference sheet from the amazing horizonzbusy!

Is there any significance behind your OCs name?

To be very honest, not much, I just really loved that name and how it sounded, I then did a fast research on it, finding out it is European with french and german roots, seemed like a good fit for an AOT character and decided to use it.

If your OCs appearance is based on yours, do they have any different features?

She is not based on my appearance, at all.

Is there anything you want to try doing with your OC that you haven't yet? (ex RPing, art, fics, etc)

Lots of things, to be honest! From memes to animation (this will probably never happen because I don't have that cash buuuut).

This was honestly very nice to do and I am so grateful that I came across this! Thank you for doing this, @shingekinomyfeelings !

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Just realizing that I did once write a fairytale story (a Once Upon a Time fanfic, not a very good one because my English was decidedly poorer than it is now, yes, I know, not that easy to believe considering the grammar of some of my posts, but it is the truth), but it didn't completely register as such because I was really basing it on Horacio Quiroga's Meningitis and its Shadow.

And that made me realize what a peculiar and weird little story it is. If you pick Quiroga's tales of love of madness and of death (not only those compiled in the book of that name, but in general), most of it comes across as Gothic Horror, more in the line of Victorian Ghost Stories than true Poe -Quiroga was called the Latin American Edgar Allan Poe, but he held one guiding principle of his writing that Edgar Allan Poe sorely lacked, and that was that what is good, it's twice as better if short. The Feather Pillow is deservedly famous for the creation of the Gothic atmosphere and the development of the main couple's tortured relationship with just a few strokes, and for the sudden turn in the end from Gothic horror to plain physical slasher-but-not-so horror. Blonde, angelic, and shy, the stony character of her husband froze her childish bridal fancies is still to me one of the best openings I have read for a short story, in which so much is established with so few words.

Other tales of Quiroga, like Drift Away and The Son are great captures of what dread feels like, while stories like The Slaughtered Hen are pure, unadultered disgusting slasher horror.

But what is so peculiar about Meningitis and its Shadow is that it is a fairytale wrapped in Gothic Horror; the young daughter of a wealthy family falls ill every night, deep in a delirium, where she recognizes no one and wants no one, except for a middle class guy she met once as an acquaintance of her brother. She calls for him, night after night, until her family gives in, and he's reluctantly summoned. And so the poor guy spends night after night by the bedside of this young woman, that in the depth of her delirium seems to know him well and love him, but who during the day barely seems to recognize him. Until one night in her delirium she asks him "and when I no longer have a fever, will you still love me?" The guy naturally experiences all of this as unsettling and surreal, as he spends his every night falling in love with her and thinking he's running mad. But the story has a happy ending, and none of the scientific explanations given by the doctors can really explain what happened. It's as if the story itself has broken the boundaries of its genre, and it's precisely its reaching into fairytale that contributes to the sense of uneasiness somehow. IDK, I find it fascinating.