#the details aren't super relevant to the story so just giving you the 'need to know' stuff

[lynzishell]

As summer turned to Autumn and the days got colder and shorter, Phoenix and Dawn found themselves shifting focus to their careers. They both earned big promotions that led to higher stress and longer hours. With less time to see each other during the week, they made the most of what small pockets of time they could… like their 15 minutes over coffee in the mornings.

Phoenix, who has been working for the San Myshuno Human Rights Commission, is now heading the Department for Housing and Community Development. At first, he was excited and had big plans for the future of the city. Unfortunately, it seems the more power he is given to make a positive impact, the more he runs into roadblocks and red tape. The stress and frustration started taking a toll.

To cope with the stress, he began spending more time in Mt. Komorebi where he’d go snowboarding with his friends the way he used to before Kiyoshi ever presented the idea of climbing the mountain.

Nothing like the rush of flying down the slopes and landing massive jumps to get your mind off things, I suppose.

Meanwhile, Dawn has been working for the Dreamer Foundation as an Event Planner. She organizes many of their fundraising events, and they’ve been doing so well that she’s started putting together more prestigious events for their larger donors. This, of course, comes with its own kind of stress and frustration.

Rather than take off for the mountains though, she felt like she needed to make time to slow down and breathe. So, she started getting into wellness activities like yoga and meditation.

Oh! Also, Atlas and Asher started coming over every Sunday to join them for dinner...

...and to watch the latest season of Somnium.

All four of them are now fully invested in the series. (how could they not be with a genius creator like @rebouks)

Prev // Next

[writingquestionsanswered]

do you have advice on how to write genuine dialogue? i have a very severe case of when getting into the mindset of writing, and specifically writing dialogue, i only regurgitate whatever i have heard/seen from other media. it just seems unoriginal, ingenuine, and for aesthetic value only (i end up writing something out of a poem and not real people conversations). please help 😞

Writing Dialogue That Sounds Natural/Genuine

1 - Know Your Characters Well - One of the most important elements of writing natural/genuine-sounding dialogue is making sure you know your characters well. If you don't know who they are... their personalities, their experiences, what they care about, what they know and don't know... then you can't accurately envision what they'd have to say in a conversation. See: Making Personalities Unique and Keeping Them Straight

2 - Flesh Out Character Voice - "Character voice" is how your character's background, experiences, and personality affect what they say and how they speak. This isn't about quality of voice... it's about vocal personality. See: Giving Your Characters a Unique Voice

3 - Know What They're Going To Talk About - There's nothing that sounds more unnatural and inauthentic than characters having a conversation that has no relevance to anything. That said, it's super important to understand why you're writing this dialogue scene... what are you trying to accomplish with it? How does that move the story forward, move character development forward, or deliver important information to the reader? What needs to be said and why? Being clear on this can help you craft dialogue that sounds natural and genuine because it's relevant and serves a purpose.

4 - Balance Exposition, Action, and Dialogue - Overall, we want our stories to have a relative balance of exposition (explaining things), action (things happening), and dialogue. We want a relative balance of exposition, action, and dialogue in our scenes, too. What I mean by "relative" is you generally wouldn't want a scene that's all dialogue, very little action, and no exposition. (And I say "generally" because there can be exceptions... short scenes, scenes that serve a unique purpose, scenes with unique requirements, etc.) So, it's important to really think about the needs of your scene, what you're trying to accomplish, and make sure you've got a relative balance of dialogue, exposition, and action (as long as it works for the scene.) See: Exposition, Action, and Dialogue, and How to Pace Your Story

5 - Write Dialogue with Sensory and Emotional Depth - We never want our dialogue to be just words batted back and forth between two or more people. Dialogue needs to have depth, and we give it that depth in two ways.

-- Sensory Details in Dialogue -- Sight: what are the characters doing as they talk? What is their body language? Facial expressions? Hand gestures? How do they physically interact with their environment and others in the conversation? Sound: quality of voice (when characters voices get loud or soft, when a voice is gritty or raspy, when the speaker has an accent or speaks with a particular tone or cadence) as we as sounds like coughing, clearing the throat, or sighing... and sounds resulting from the character's interactions with the environment or others. Smell: bad breath or alcohol on the breath... or good breath... the smell of the speaker's perfume or body odor, the smell of a cigarette they're smoking, or a food they're eating.

Taste: there aren't many opportunities to include taste in dialogue, but possibilities would be tasting bile due to something awful someone said in the conversation, tasting food or drink sampled during conversation, or even "tasting" a smell associated with the environment during the conversation.

Feel: again, this will be more environmental... feeling a "chill" in the room when something cruel or scary is said. Noticing things felt due to the environment or interaction with the environment/others. Internal physical sensations felt during conversation.

*** And, it's important to note that I'm not suggesting that you include every sense or lots of sensory details. It's just adding a few that make sense can add depth and authenticity to the dialogue.

-- Emotional Details in Dialogue --

You also want to be sure to explore the emotional impact of the conversation as well as what characters are thinking as they participate in the conversation, and what they feel about what others are saying. As mentioned above in the "feel" portion of sensory details, you can explore the internal sensations caused by emotions felt as a result of the conversation. Stomach turning due to something unpleasant being said. Butterflies in stomach due to something exciting being said. Chill up the spine due to something scary being said. You can also explore emotions through visual emotional cues, which brings us back to things like body language, gestures, and facial expressions. Letting us know what characters are thinking and feeling (emotionally) during the conversation--or what they appear to be thinking and feeling if they don't say or we can't be inside their heads--adds depth and authenticity to the dialogue scene.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[surfclangen]

Good and Bad news

Howdy guys! I don't talk to y'all one on one too much, but I want to keep you in the loop.

To start off, I am so super thankful for the support this comic has received!! This is my first real venture into comic making, I am so incredibly grateful to have such a positive reception.

Onto the bad news, y'all may have noticed my posting speed has slowed. I'm very busy in college (graduating with my AA this summer!) between a radio show, being president of the creative writing club, and keeping up with homework, which means I don't have a ton of time to work on personal projects, and when I do, I try to chase what gives me the most dopamine. This isn't super relevant, however, just a peek into my creative process.

The Bad News

Surfclan is going to go onto hiatus after the next two posts so I can work on the overarching story I want to portray. These two posts will finish Arc 1 of Surfclan, which I am happy with and have ironed out, but the draft I have for the rest of the series is kind of cobbled together and not satisfying, certainly not work I'm proud of. If I'm going to dedicate so much time to something, I want it to be work that I am proud of. As a writing student too, it's not right to put so little effort into the writing.

I went into Surfclan without a plan. I wanted a coastal set of clans to worldbuild with, but I had no idea for plot. I let the generator decide what that plot would be, which is fine! But I wasn't given much besides a clan that grew at a decently steady rate and got into occasional shenanigans. I need to put those pieces together properly and figure out how to best portray the themes I want in a respectful manner (right now, there's a heavy theme of colonialism that I just don't think I'm quite ready to handle tactfully.)

If you aren't using Surfclan, can I?

Absolutely! Please feel free to use Surfclan as background characters or cats to fill out gatherings. I am always happy to organize plots in DMs and weave it into Surfclan's eventual finalized script. As long as my babies are kept relatively in character, I have no issues with making it canon. If they aren't, no worries! It just won't be canon to Surfclan. Think of it like an AU!

When will you be back?

I'm not sure, but I'm always happy to answer DMs if you want to chit chat, and I will make a post announcing Surfclan's return when I am ready.

What's the good news then?

Surfclan was always designed to be a "for fun" project that I didn't put too much effort into, hence the scattered upload schedule and art styles, but now that I've experimented a bit, I'm ready to get into comic making more seriously. While I brainstorm ideas for Surfclan I will be shifting focus towards a new Clangen blog loosely based on marshmallow_cat3's Dark Forest challenge and @gray-thistleclan .

Cottonmouth Clan has distinct win and lose conditions and a solidified plot with mysteries to discover. I'm currently working on world building and character design that will be posted to my main blog, @antlermoss. I will have a post up there when I have my details organized with the rules for the challenge, of which you are welcome to use in your own games and comics!

I will reblog Cottonmouth's starter post here when I am ready.

I appreciate your patience and understanding, and hope you guys enjoy the new project (:

[zippdementia]

Metroid Retrospective: Super Metroid

And Super Metroid complete. For the 50th time in my life (I haven't kept track but I wouldn't be surprised).

Completion time: 2:05 (I could have done sub-2hr but I went to some of my favorite unnecessary rooms just for fun and took an extra minute to "save the animals")

Item rate: 55%

Super Metroid is a phenomenon. Released in March, 30 years ago, it remains enjoyable, approachable, fresh, and relevant to this day, an accomplishment that few other games can match, and extremely few action/adventure games.

Also, few games do atmosphere this well. Even coming recently from games with far more complex graphics, like Zero Mission and Fusion, there is something wonderfully somatic about the sprites used in Super Metroid. Sprites might not be super detailed, but they feel "weighty" and enjoyable to look at, the same way old cartoons (in the style of Cuphead, for instance) are just fun to look at. Super Metroid's art is simple but perfect. Every single bit of every single graphical block or sprite is absolutely necessary to illustrate what it is and give the feel of it, and no bit is wasted. It's like it has found the purest essence of sci-fi, action, and horror. The same praise extends to its soundtrack. And honestly, even to its story, which is distilled down to the most critical parts and which still leaves me emotional after 50 times viewing the ending. The whole thing is timeless.

Beyond this, the lasting nature of the game comes down to the move-sets given to Samus and the willingness of the developers to let players use these move sets to sequence break -- to break the order of play that the developers intended by reaching items, locations, and bosses early. I'm not a master sequence breaker, but as an example I managed to reach Kraid without the High Jump and to collect the Wave Beam and Power Bombs early, which saved me about thirty minutes of playtime.

Because of this openness, Super Metroid becomes like a huge playground. If you are new to it, then it leads you on an exceptionally atmospheric journey, with scripted moments and sprite animations that still are impressive and well paced in 2024. For these players, they may never even discover half the moves you can do, like Shinesparking and Turbo Bombing, because they aren't needed to beat the game.

But if you are experienced and know how to use these tricks, then the game becomes something else entirely, a series of reflex challenges to see how much you can "break" the game using these techniques. It's like a game that made glitching part of its mission (because the game doesn't actually glitch out when you sequence break).

I think that many open world games which claim to give the players choices actually don't; they give the illusion of choice but compensate by making those choices unimportant or very brief in their effects on the game world. Super Metroid, though it doesn't let you change anything in the story, actually does give you choices that matter and a world that is open world not by default but becomes more so the better at the game you get.

I only have one complaint about the game and that is that having to hold down a button to run is painful. Switching weapons is a little clunky, too, but doesn't ultimately disrupt my gameplay. However, I have no idea how I ever played this as a kid without realizing how awkward it is to have to constantly hold a run button.

There. I found something legit to complain about. One complaint against a game that forever changed the genre and has been the foundation for hundreds of later games.

World record speed run for Super Metroid currently stands at about 45 minutes, by the way. And people are still discovering new ways to beat it.

Current Ranking:

1) Super Metroid

2) Fusion

3) Zero Mission

4) Metroid 1

Games remaining:

Metroid Prime (SWITCH)

Metroid Pinball (DS)

Prime: Hunters (3DS)

Metroid II: Return of Samus (SWITCH - Gameboy emulator)

Metroid II: Samus Returns (remake of II) (3DS)

Metroid Fusion (SWITCH - GBA emulator)

Metroid Dread (SWITCH)

Fan made: Another Metroid 2 Remake

If I can find a way to play (have played in the past):

Prime 2 (WiiU via Prime Trilogy)

Prime 3 (WiiU via Prime Trilogy)

Other M (Wii)

Not playing:

Federation Force (3DS)

[tapwrites]

Exposition is Learning

Stories aren't just made up of what happens, but of facts--fictional as created by the writer, or real-world facts that are important to the story.

Speculative fiction in particular has a lot of these, because they take place in a world different from our own. But real-world stories may have details a lot of readers don't already know. Imparting such facts about how the world/reality of the story works can be vital if the reader is to get the most out of the story... or even understand it at all!

We need to...

Teach about the story through the story.

Remember people read novels for the story. If it isn't clear how a piece of text adds to the story, they won't want to read it. So they won't want to learn from it.

How can we use that principle to teach the reader without them noticing?

It was the Fifth Corner in Althoria, with Lumina and Umbra intertwining where the tapestry of Veridium unfolds.

The reader has got to be able to understand what they're reading, even if that's guessing through context clues. Or they're not going to take in any of it in the first place. There are 5 new terms in that example, with no context clues to help the reader out.

We could rename some of them to make them easier to understand. But I'm going to avoid actually changing anything for now. Let's just add some context clues...

It was the Fifth Corner of the year in the kingdom of Althoria, with the Lumina and Umbra magicks intertwining where the royal tapestry of Veridium was being unfolded.

Okay, so the "fifth corner" is to do with time... like a season, or month perhaps. We've got a kingdom, two kinds of magic, and what seems like a literal physical tapestry that relates to them.

Is it teaching us anything about the story? Well, it's not very clear how it's related to the story. It seems to be just some facts about the world, but we're not motivated to want to know them. It's an info-dump.

There's no reason for us to read it apart from being told stuff about the world. Maybe it'll become relevant later in the book, but right now we just don't care to read this kind of stuff.

There are readers who don't mind a big ol' wall-of-text at the start setting up the world. Tolkien's tome starts very exposition-heavy. So you might get away with it. But then again, a lot of people have tried and failed to make it past the first chapter of Lord of the Rings.

For most readers it's much better, and more enjoyable to read, if the exposition is part of the story... sprinkled in through the book in places where it's relevant to what's happening.

And, of course, if you want the reader to already know something by the time they get to the relevant part... by all means, plant it earlier in the story. But still, make it relevant at the time they read it.

One way of making it relevant is having a character care about it.

"The leaves are falling! The Fifth Corner starts today!" Rav shouted, hopping on the spot. "Isn't it exciting?"

Woah there, Rav! Calm down! Okay, so this guy called Rav is super excited for whatever Fifth Corner is. Something to do with the leaves falling, so... autumn perhaps? I want to find out more--what's so exciting about it?

Let's add another detail back in. We'll give it more detail than a simple name-drop, by putting a knowledgeable character in front of it.

Gann sighed. "Yay for you..." she mumbled, planting a hand on his head to stop it from bobbing in front of her. They turned onto the bustling high street and moved with the crowds. She looked up at the palace towering at the end of the miles-long road, and watched the giant form wrapped about the spire slowly unfurl. The Great Tapestry. It was an ancient device that had laid dormant all year, until now--the Fifth Corner. As it stretched out, it drew in the magic of the land, enriching the earth in the process, and powering the celebrations that were soon to come.

What's happening, story-wise? Gann sees this Great Tapestry. Which, naturally, makes her think about what it is. And as she's the viewpoint character, we're seeing those thoughts and learning from them.

So, by itself, that last paragraph could be seen as exposition-only. But it's not just there for no reason. It's "motivated" by the narrative. The character would think about what they're looking at; that's part of the story.

Find a narrative excuse to teach the reader.

This is the fundamental trick to use. Give the reader an excuse, and you can talk about whatever you want to. At least for a little while.

Here, the object is seen. So the writer has an excuse to talk about it. Gann knows about the Great Tapestry, so when she sees it she thinks about what she knows about it. Simple as that.

Another common excuse is to have a character who doesn't know something that's relevant, and another character who does. Now the unknowledgeable character can learn things the writer wants the reader to learn.

Like Watson in the Sherlock Holmes stories; he may not do a lot to solve the cases, but he's very useful to have around so that Holmes has someone to explain things to.

So we could re-write the previous example like so:

The palace towered at the end of the miles-long road. Rav's eyes went wide. "Woah," he said, in hushed tones. "What's that huge thing on the palace?" Gann looked up as the giant form wrapped about the spire slowly unfurled. "The Great Tapestry," she said. "Know what that is?" Rav shook his head.

You can use any character who doesn't understand whatever you want to teach the reader. They're in the same position as the reader; they know as much as the reader does about the topic. So they can find out the same way the reader could if they were in the world. They can ask questions, they can be taught by others. They can learn by investigation.

Just make sure they're an actual character though. If they only exist to stand there and be told things, they're just a prop. But they should have their own stuff going on, and be part of the story too.

And you don't have to rely on that same character all the time; different characters might know and not-know different things. Rav is young and doesn't know about the Great Tapestry. Maybe Gann is from another realm, and doesn't know much about the kingdom of Althoria apart from the magic. They can teach each other things as needed, and the reader can listen in.

This principle also lets you "emote" with a character the reader identifies with--in awe, or terror, or curiosity. And, as the reader identifies with them anyway, that's a cue for how they should be feeling while reading as well!

Note, this is different to "maid and butler dialogue," in which two characters that both know the facts just tell each other what they already know:

"As you know, the mistress is coming back from town today," said the maid. "Yes, and as you know, her son has been crying for her ever since she left," said the butler.

That's not how people talk to one another in real life. People usually skip giving all the context, relying on the context they think the other shares, and talks about new stuff.

"Everything ready?" said the maid. The butler laughed bitterly, under his breath. "It will be. Barely." He leaned in and whispered, "As long as it stops the kid from yowling, I can cope with a swift return at the drop of a hat."

This is a lot more natural. And while it gives the reader some hints, it lets them discover the details more naturally as things unfold.

Plus, when the characters are conversing naturally, instead of machines for spouting facts at the reader, we get a better sense of how they feel about the situation, and who they are as people--making them feel more real in the process.

[bi-bard]

Hunting Practice - Jack Kline Imagine (Supernatural)

Title: Hunting Practice

Pairing: Jack Kline X Reader

Word Count: 1,450 words

Warning(s): canon-typical violence

Summary: Sam gets a call from a friend asking for some back-up on a case. He decides that it's a good time for Jack to get a shot at the hunting life.

Author's Note: grumpy character x sunshine character is my favorite thing!! Even though I apparently can't write grumpy characters.

Hey! I did a rewrite of the ending of Supernatural. It took a really long time to complete, so it would mean a lot to me if you check it out. Here’s a link! (it’s on my personal account)

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

I didn't make a habit out of calling for help.

I never had.

So, the boys took it seriously when I did call.

"Hey, hey," I said, cutting off Sam's rambling. "It's not a hard hunt. Based on the news and stuff that I've seen, there seems to be more than one spirit and I don't wanna try to juggle fighting multiple dickheads while digging up a grave."

"It's an easy hunt," Sam asked.

"Yeah," I replied. I was immediately suspicious. "Why?"

"I... I have a friend that can help," he explained. "They're a bit new, but they're helpful. If this is an easy hunt, it could be good practice."

I rolled my eyes, "Sam, it takes a shit ton for me to call you. I'm not interested in training somebody."

"Please," he begged. "They need to get the chance to use what they're learning. Please give them a shot."

I sighed after a minute, "You are so lucky that I don't mind you and your brother."

"That might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."

"Don't tempt me, Bigfoot."

"There it is."

"I'll be at the bunker in a few hours."

"See you then."

--time skip--

I walked down the bunker steps a few hours later. Sam was sitting at the table with someone. When he saw me, he stood up.

"Hey," he said. "How've you been?"

"Good," I replied. "I'm much better on the road."

"I only stopped you because you were hurt-"

"It was a flesh wound-"

"You needed stitches," Sam stopped me. "Anyway, this... is Jack."

Sam motioned at the person behind him. Jack picked up their hand as a way to wave at me.

"Hello," they greeted happily.

I could already tell that I was going to hate this.

"Hi," I clenched my jaw a little as I responded. "Ready?"

They nodded and grabbed their bag.

"Good luck," Sam called out as Jack and I left.

--Sam's P.O.V--

"So, why didn't you go with (Y/n)," Dean asked after the pair were gone.

"Jack needs to get out and practice," I shrugged. "We don't have a case. This is the best choice."

"Yeah... you aren't playing matchmaker at all," he continued.

"No," I scoffed. "Pretty sure (Y/n) would rip Jack's head off before anything like that happened."

"So... you're trying to soften (Y/n) up a bit by sending in the most cheerful person we know?"

"No, it's just hunting practice."

"Alright, Sammy," Dean said before going to leave.

--time skip--

--(Y/n)'s P.O.V--

The hunt wasn't super far out from the bunker, but when you're driving everywhere, it always takes longer.

The drive was... a lot.

Jack was talkative. They continued trying to make conversation and tell me stories. I wasn't one for long and detailed conversations. When I was hunting, I focused on the hunt and relevant information. Everything else I just kind of shrugged off and didn't pay any mind to.

Jack seemed committed to talking my damn ear off.

We had about two hours left in the drive when I looked over and saw Jack nodding off.

"Hey," I said, tapping their arm. They jumped a little. "Don't leave one person awake on their own when you're on a long drive."

"Is that... Is that a rule," Jack asked.

"Well... not officially," I replied. "It's just rude."

"I'm sorry," they muttered tiredly, rubbing the sleep out of their eye.

I just nodded and focused back on the road.

When we pulled up to the motel, I told Jack to head inside while I pulled out my phone. I quickly dialed Sam's number when the door to the room closed.

"Sam," I said, leaning on my car.

"Hey, is everything alright," he asked.

"Yeah, yeah," I nodded. "Listen, I get the idea. Send Jack hunting with someone around their age, right?"

"I thought it'd be good for them," he explained.

"Yeah, I get that," I replied. "Why didn't you warn me that they were the physical embodiment of the baby-faced sun from the Teletubbies."

Sam chuckled, "Jack is not that bad."

"My migraine begs to differ."

"Listen," he sighed. "Give them a shot. Jack can do good work on hunts. I wouldn't have asked you to work with them if I didn't trust them."

I pinched the bridge of my nose, "Fine. Fine."

"Thank you," he said. "Good luck."

"Yeah, yeah," I muttered.

--Jack's P.O.V--

"I think (Y/n) hates me," I told Dean as I sat on one of the beds.

"No, they don't," he replied. "(Y/n) is just a bit colder than most. A lot of bad crap."

I didn't reply for a moment.

"Listen, it's not my job to share all of (Y/n)'s baggage, but," Dean sighed, "(Y/n) doesn't make connections very often. Probably has more walls than I do. Good heart, though. Good at what they do. They don't hate you. They just don't open up to people."

"Okay," I muttered before the door opened. "Gotta go."

I hung up before Dean could reply.

"Who was that," (Y/n) asked.

"Dean," I replied. "He was checking that we made it to the motel alright."

(Y/n) just nodded and dropped their bag.

"Should we start working on the case?"

(Y/n) nodded again before grabbing a folder out of their bag. They held it out to me. I grabbed it and started looking over it.

"Every record sighting and disappearance in that house," (Y/n) explained. "It's how I figured out there were three spirits."

I nodded and read over the news. Maybe this hunt was going to work out.

--time skip--

--(Y/n)'s P.O.V--

We made it to the house the next night.

We had figured out where the bones had been buried, so we had everything in line for this to be a fast hunt.

And then a spirit snagged me as I got the things together to burn the bones.

I groaned after my back hit the wall. I fell to the ground. I pushed myself up quickly but was thrown against the wall again. I struggled to try and grab a weapon out of my pocket as the two other spirits appeared next to the one that had grabbed me.

I almost had my hand wrapped around my weapon when the spirits suddenly burned in front of me.

I looked up to see a scared Jack standing next to the hole of burning bodies.

I let out a breath and started walking over to them. Once I got close enough, Jack pulled me into a tight hug. I froze up. I awkwardly patted Jack's back, trying to fight the small grin that formed after they hugged me.

I stepped back a moment later.

"Are you okay," Jack asked.

I nodded, "Yeah, yeah. I'm fine."

--time skip--

The drive home was a little bit different than the drive there.

Jack was just as talkative. I just didn't mind it as much. I talked a little bit more. That was it, really. It was just a little less tense.

It got quiet after a while.

I looked over and saw Jack had fallen asleep in the passenger seat. I was about to wake them up, but I stopped myself. With a small grin, I looked back toward the road, both of my hands settling on the steering wheel.

I didn't wake Jack up until we got back to the bunker.

"Hey," I said, nudging them lightly. "Home sweet home."

"I fell asleep again," Jack muttered. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay," I replied.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I don't mind."

I walked Jack inside so the brothers could see me and know that I wasn't hurt.

"How'd it go," Sam asked.

"No serious injuries," I reported. "Pretty quick for a new hunter."

I patted Jack on the back as I spoke.

"Thank you for letting me go with you," they smiled.

"Don't mention it," I waved them off.

Just before they left, Jack leaned over and kissed my cheek quickly. They took off before I could say anything. My eyes went wide, and I stammered, not knowing what to say in response to that.

Sam and Dean stared at me. I looked back at them. Dean started laughing as soon as he looked at me. Sam tried to hold back his chuckling.

"That was adorable," Dean teased. "Aww, look at your face!"

"Watch it, Winchester," I snapped, ignoring how warm my face felt. "You too, Sammy."

Sam held his hands up and nodded, looking down at the floor.

"I'll see you guys later-"

"When you come to visit Jack?"

"I will shoot you," I threatened as I walked out.

"Can't wait for the wedding!"

I flipped Dean off as I left.

What the actual fuck just happened?

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

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[saltwukong]

Nitpick November #3: Fairy Tales

After a while, I finally managed to think of something significant about Volume 8 that amounts to a nitpick, and not something that makes me blindingly angry. It's one of those Miles-and-Kerry-isms, the dependence on old legends and fairy tales in-story that you can tell usually appears when they're doing some Plot Bullshit they didn't bother to properly set up.

Some people are probably going to be scandalized by hearing this, but I really...don't care about the 'thematic rules' as they apply to minor details. If a character's name doesn't relate to a color, I really don't care. If a character doesn't link back to some old legend or literature, I'm not bothered. Really, those aren't things that affect the story all that much, and that's what I care about: the story. I don't find these things absolutely necessary.

In fact, you could probably excise them and I wouldn't notice. In many characters, they have. But that only makes it all the more jarring when the whole fairy tale nonsense pops back up as something it was never meant to be: a hugely important part of the story.

I mean, they did that the first time, and it was already bad then. Our first true delve into overarching plot came in Volume 3, when the maidens were introduced and came packaged with a whole fairy tale bit that Pyrrha explains. The thing is, nobody in the audience cared about in-story fairy tales. Why would they? This isn't an urban fantasy show. They cared about the slaying of monsters with huge badass weapons. It shot the story into that abysmally frustrating "MAGIC IS REAL?" nonsense that was so rightfully mocked every time it appeared.

And that should've been the end of it. You got one free pass out of that because it ostensibly did double duty as worldbuilding. Made-up in-story fairy tales should have had absolutely zero presence or impact in the story from there forth. Yet, at the end of that volume a mere six episodes later, came "silver eyed warriors".

When you do that, just drop random legends and myths out of nowhere the second they're ostensibly relevant, you make it abundantly clear that you didn't really plan for this and are just making shit up as you go. That you're too lazy to actually, properly establish something--because if you weren't, you'd have other options than this, and better ones, too. Naturally, the silver eyes nonsense resulted in a lot of complaints of exactly that.

Volume 4 provides us this in the form of the Only Religion That Matters, with Generic Good God and Generic Evil God, and from then on whenever a character needs to swear they say "Gods!" or "Brothers" even though they've never done that before and it sounds really awkward. Again, another Old Legend featuring as the star of an exposition dump, this time from Qrow, to actually hammer in a plot for the heroes to navigate.

There's no new legends dropped for Volume 5 and 6, mostly because they're busy dealing with the first two--maidens and silver eyes. Volume 7 features no new legends as well, along with almost zero mention of either of those, because Volume 7 is awesome and can carry itself with a plot that doesn't rely on Randomly Generated Exposition Lore. But then of course, comes Volume 8.

In Volume 8, it's "maiden" this, "silver eyes" that, along with something new: "the girl who fell through the world". Because of how far we'd come, I knew the second that Oscar brought this random fairy tale up out of nowhere for no reason that it was going to be super important Plot Bullshit dropped out of nowhere, and I was right! This is supposed to be "foreshadowing" for the Ever After, the alternate "plot" Miles and Kerry pulled out of their ass after they finished bludgeoning, shredding, and burning the actual plot that Volume 7 had set up to that point. You would think that after nine years, these two would've learned that they can't get away with that, but not. They show their hand every time.

It's lazy. It gives the audience absolutely no reason to invest in a plot point and relies on their existing attachments surviving the awkward transitions (and they might have, had those existing attachments not been villainized and killed off). It's a hand-wave for when a plot just happens, with no input nor logical action from the cast themselves. There's no way to have characters drive plots like these because it's all referential, ordained crap.

It doesn't even have the guts to be original crap. RWBY has now entered the dull and unsatisfying world of Alice in Wonderland recaps, because creating original mythology to contain their writing decisions is too much work.

And all of this, for what? Am I supposed to be impressed that Miles and Kerry can crib Lewis Carrol like everyone else on the planet? Cause I'm not. This was never what RWBY was supposed to be about. Fairy Tales were an interesting feature and source of design notes when this show started, never a whole major facet of the story. I'm bored by this.

[poisonnxkki]

Hi Poison, I'm an author who is currently writing a North African fantasy and I want to make sure I'm not offending any practicing witches who may read my story if I do publish it! One of my characters has been cursed by her mother, who is angry about the way her daughter lives. Because I have to raise the stakes, the character needs to find a plant and get it to the Old Witches to rid herself of the curse by a certain date. But what dates in your beliefs would make it so a curse stays forever?

Thanks for your question! I contemplated this question for a while because quite frankly, I’m not really the best person to answer it. I still want to help and will do my best to provide some suggestions but if you want a more accurate answer, I would suggest going to someone who is BIPOC!

As for dates, I don’t have any specific dates that could be helpful but I can give you moments that may be relevant.

Moon phases- phases like the new moon have been associated with curses for a long time. Also, phases like the super-moon, which are more rare, are considered to be powerful.

Eclipses- both solar and lunar eclipses have positive and negative associations and are often used in stories as a “doom’s day” dates (Avatar the last Airbender is an example).

Days associated with a deity- this will take some research but if your old witches worship a specific deity then you could use a date that is significant to them as the day that the curse fully manifests.

Zodiac signs- this may not be relevant but you could make the day the beginning or the end of a specific zodiac. For example, the planetary ruler of Aries is Mars which is associated with war and aggression.

I would stay away from days like the Sabbats (halloween, yule, etc.) because they aren't really associated with African spirituality (I could be wrong but not to my knowledge). I would also avoid using specific dates because they may accidentally overlap with days that have historical significance to the black community (ie. independence days for certain countries, etc.). Just something to keep in mind!

I hope these help! Since I don't have more details on your story, I can't really provide you with more specific answers. I really would recommend finding someone who is BIPOC and who practices a form of witchcraft that is based on African traditions because I really don't know enough about those traditions to provide a more nuanced answer.

[ashilrak]

hello, you've given advice about writing but was wondering if you have any specifically towards writing multi-chapter/long fics? I find them infinitely more hard to write than just oneshots, partially because of endurance/motivation but also of pacing and what's relevant to include, plot structure, how to not ramble, etc! thank you in advance if you can answer!!

Hello!

So with longer fics, endurance and motivation are going to be a HUGE part of it. But like you said, that's not all of it.

Honestly, the planning isn't that much different for a one-shot and a longer fic, it's a matter of scale. I don't know if I can consider myself the best resource for some of this, but I'll try my best and hopefully give a good starting point!

To start off, I'm someone who outlines, so I'm going to be coming from that perspective. My outlines aren't super detailed, and a scene can be a single bullet point of "Percy and Annabeth talk", but they're there and I rely on them a lot. This is my process for approaching longer fics and what works for me. If it's just me, I do it with outlines and by talking out loud, if I have friends who are willing to lend an ear, I'm going to them.

The first thing you want to do is think of the story you want to tell. Is it plot or character focused? Is it about the relationship? Is it about a character's sense of identity? Is it a what-if? You don't need genre definitions or to be able to sum it up perfectly in a single sentence, but you have to know what you want to achieve.

And then, you're going to be to outline. Get your thoughts on the page, it can be a single scene for now, but let that grow. Have the ending clear in your mind, have the beginning, and then connect them. The middle can be this great, amorphous thing, but I will always advise having a beginning and an end point.

So now, you have a general idea of what you want this story to be and you know what you're working toward plot-wise. You have a goal now. You've figured out what you want you do, much as you would for a one-shot, but now you have a lot more to fill in.

Now, take a break. A couple days to let it settle.

This next bit isn't always possible, but it's something I see in advice a lot and something I find extremely helpful for figuring out pacing, plot structure, and what's relevant: talk your story through with someone. After you figure out what you want to achieve, summarize it to a friend, talk out loud, or write a few paragraph summary on a blank doc with our outline out of reach. The bits and pieces that come to mind as you talk through your story are the important ones, that's what's crucial.

Do you find yourself having to backtrack to tie something in that's relevant later on? Congrats, you have a side-plot. What character elements are you focusing on? That's the main character line. What other characters keep coming up and up again? Those are more side-plot/secondary characters.

After you do that, you can look at your outline with a fresh set of eyes. See things that you need to add to make it make more sense. Would foreshadowing help there if you know that this character is going to be a little bastard later on? Well, is this scene really important since that character never comes up again?

Pacing also changes depending on the story you're telling and you're writing style. Are you trying to focus on the slice of life details, highlight the domesticity for a character who's gone through a lot? Or are you trying to keep the tension high? Those answers will affect your pacing choices.

I also find that it's really helpful for me to start with a one-shot. Maybe it's a one-shot in the verse if it's an AU, just to get a feel for it, or maybe it's a matter of answering the question of "does this need a long fic?". You don't have to post it, but write that scene, write that one-shot, and see if it scratches that itch. Not every idea is a long story, and the times I've tried to force it have ended up terribly.

I know this certainly doesn't answer everything, and you might read this and be like 'what is wrong you, that is NOT how my brain works' and that's okay. But, I hope this is a good starting point and makes sense! Writing is a very individual process, and what works for one person might not work for someone else.

My first couple attempts at longer fics were not good; I wasn't lucky enough to nail it on the first few tries. It takes time to figure out your approach and what works for you.

💛💛💛💛💛

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

Sometimes I lowkey feel bad for JC in terms of Skye. I mean sometimes it's clear that they want the fandom to like & care about her & are trying to make it happen, but it just... isn't working. 😅

Not for most ppl anyway, like I'm not saying ppl don't sympathise with her, but that's different to liking her. Even then quite a few ppl sympathizing with her are getting fed up & dropping more than they used to. I think a lot of ppl just want Skye to be held accountable for her wrongdoings & for her to apologise which I think is the only real chance Skye might be more tolerated. Because even if getting hit by a bludger was supposed to be "karma", that doesn't make up for anything & no one really wanted that to happen anyway. It's a lousy method & no one's satisfied with it. So no one's forgiven her for her actions in s1. Her wrongdoings shouldn't have been swept under the rug the way they were.

Ngl I also feel bad for you too, like even if I don't like Skye either, I've seen whole essays from you going into great detail about her character & trying to paint her as sympathetic & likable but they aren't really sticking the landing with much ppl either. Maybe it's hypocritical of me to say so cause they don't push/sway me to like her, but I feel super bad that your efforts aren't having much affect on ppl. 😅

They probably aren't at the point of no return yet with Skye but the damage has already been done to many ppl & JC're just gonna have to try harder if they want more ppl to like & care about her. But not to the point where Skye's the only one getting focus cause no one liked that aspect either. Guess they can't win on this one.

...Okay, first of all, I need to know one thing: How in the heck did you bypass Tumblr’s character limit? I didn’t think it was possible to get an Ask this long in one single post. Do you have some kind of advanced tech? Are you a wizard? Teach me your ways! 

But in all seriousness, I know what you mean. I don’t know what’s going to happen with Skye. I don’t know what Jam City’s plans are, but I can only assume that they do want people to like Skye. And if that’s the goal, they are failing disastrously. Like you said, even people who don’t hate her are gradually getting fed up. Because she’s everywhere in the story, like Penny...but she’s not nearly as likable. She’s closer to Merula in that sense. I suppose I’m just a sap, because I went from being wary of her and recognizing her flaws - to seeing her vulnerable and starting to feel sympathy. Combined with the Comet TLSQ for which I had the opposite reaction to most people...and she had Luca’s loyalty. It takes a lot for Luca to ditch someone. 

That being said, I think you’re right on the money. No one is going to start thinking of Skye as a better person so long as her past transgressions go unmentioned. I can understand if she’s not at the point in her arc, emotionally speaking, to recognize that she was wrong and own up to it. But she’s not going to make too many friends in the fandom until she does. And it had better be an “until” thing. Like, it better actually happen at some point. They shouldn’t consider those events to be completely over with and no longer have relevance to the story. 

I appreciate your kind words! But you don’t need to worry about me. The truth is, Skye isn’t really my favorite or up there on my list. She’s just the character that I get the most messages about, so I’ve inevitably gone into detail and analyzed her. I’ve definitely grown to care about her more as a result, but my favorite Quidditch character is still Orion. And it’s no big deal if people’s opinions don’t change based on my essays of dorkng out. I’m just having fun.

At this point, I think the way forward is to, first and foremost, give the other characters relevance. Skye can still be at the front if they really want that for her, but let Season 3 have an arc that focuses on Orion or Murphy. Have Skye’s rivalry with Rath be a subplot. And please, oh goodness please, call Skye out on her nonsense. That can be the secondary arc of Season 3. But the primary one should be about one of our Quidditch boys. 

[eloarei]

1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 13, 17, 23 (some of these are random and some aren't)

Thanks for the many questions, Socks! Sorry I didn’t answer them earlier; I decided answering asks on mobile sucks.  ALSO, this is going to be super long haha sorry.  1.  Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it?       Well, my most current project is one I just started brainstorming. It’s (hopefully gonna be) a Fallout 3 series, with my latest fic being the starting point. LW/Fawkes is a ship I liked immediately when I played the series some years ago, but I never got around to writing for it, probably in part because there’s already a super good longfic about them, and I just didn’t think there was much else I could say. But my LW is different from Choco’s LW, and lately I wanted to start something self-indulgent. Although I have enough ideas for this to maybe be a single 30k fic, I’m choosing to do a series of shortfics instead, so that I’m not burdening myself with another long project. Fic series are great in that way, because it’s basically complete with every new fic.       On top of that, I have... probably 3 other things I want to make significant progress on this year. First is another Fallout fic: Same Heart. I’ve posted 8 chapters already and have almost 2 more done, but due to the slow-build nature of it (and my tagging) I don’t expect to have almost any readers until at least chapter 10 (when the ship characters finally meet). I’d like to at least get that far this year.       A project I’d love to finish by fall is the unreleased “The Wilderness”, a Venom zombie AU that I started for NaNoWriMo 2 years ago. It’s about 55% written, and my goal is to have as much of it done as possible before the sequel movie comes out. If it’s not done by then, I still plan to post whatever I have.       And lastly-ish, my novel... thing. Rogue. I’m in the process of editing it, although I’ve taken kind of a break lately. And as soon as I’m done with the edits and can get a couple of people to read it (just so they can tell me if certain parts are stupid and need changed) I plan to start the next book in the series... which will probably end up being book #1, actually, if I do them modern-era chronologically. It’s... gonna be a process. ^^;  2.  Tell us about what you’re most looking forward to writing – in your current project, or a future project.       In my upcoming FO3 fic series, I’m honestly just kind of weirdly looking forward to... how do I put this? Exploring my own vaguely-traumatic experiences through fic. I’ll always do a happy ending, if possible, but before we get there I really want to run these two through the ringer of... being given something they were led to believe was impossible, being judged for it, having it taken away, and then being told “well maybe it’s for the best”.       When it comes to future projects, I guess I’m really excited about writing the new Rogue book. “Reaper”, I guess, is its unimaginative working title. I’m anxious about it, because I thought Rogue had some really deeply emotional scenes, and I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to accomplish that as well with this new one, simply because the characters don’t have the same level of desperation about each other. I need to figure out what’s unique about their dynamic and push that. I guess I’m looking forward to the challenge.  3.  What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)       Hmm gosh. Technically there’s a scene in the later chapters of Mobius that I already wrote, but it wouldn’t take place until probably chapter 3 or later, and I just lost all steam on that fic, sadly. But every time I poke through my notes I make myself cry reading it. It’s a scene where one character knows it’s going to be the last time he sees the person he loves most, and he can’t explain his pain to anyone. I really just want to get there so I can see if it makes other people cry like babies haha.       But on a completely unrelated note, there’s also this ZADR fic I started writing in like 2009, and I absolutely didn’t want to do the work to get to the fun middle scenes, but basically it was an AU where young adult Dib went to live/work in the thriving multi-species space community, where he’s... I dunno, studying alien biology I think?, and he ends up with Zim as a roommate. The scenes I really wanted to write were about the two of them getting into like a bar fight with some tough types, and Zim gets his pak ripped off/damaged in the process, and Dib has to sort of take care of him through a horrible fever. But then it turns out that the pak was not a life-support system like they thought, but actually a growth inhibitor so they (the people in charge of the Irkens) could choose who became the Tallest (the leaders). (And also it hindered reproduction, etc.) So basically the two of them accidentally start to unravel a galactic conspiracy which also involves corruption in the Earth government, etc, and Zim gets taller but spoiler alert, he still doesn’t get tall enough to challenge the Tallest lol. Sadly, I doubt I’ll ever actually write that fic. Sounds like too much effort lol.  7.  What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?       That’s such a hard question. Ummm. How do I put any of that into words? ...I think one of the things about my writing is that a lot of the time nothing really happens in a scene, and the story mostly focuses on a character thinking. Like, enough happens so there’s something for them to think about, but I think I tend to put a lot of emphasis on POV character’s thoughts, to the point of sometimes seeming stream-of-consciousness. I’ve been told that this makes my stories feel alive though? So I think it appeals to some people, though I’m sure others would find such stories boring.       Oh also, somewhat along these lines, I like to add commentary that is only somewhat relevant, usually in parenthesis at the end of a sentence or paragraph. (Honestly, it’s not unusual to see one in every paragraph if I’m writing something slightly humorous.)  9.  Are you more of a drabble or a longfic kind of writer? Pantser or plotter? Do you wish you were the other?      I would LOVE to write primarily longfics! However, I just don’t have the time or energy for it, and I don’t write fast enough. So I end up with a lot of oneshots under 10k. I had to challenge myself to learn to write short things though, and then it’s really about writing something short, not about writing a specific story.       Generally, I’m both pantster and plotter. I tend to write the first chapter/few scenes/maybe as much as 10k, just by the seat of my pants. After that, I look at what I’ve got and write out a plot to continue from there. Plotting everything out before I start just doesn’t work for me, but if I try “pantsing” anything longer than 15k I know I’m gonna have an absolute torturous hell of a time.  13.  Do you share your writing online? (Drop a link!) Do you have projects you’ve kept just for yourself?      Lol I think anyone who’s reading this knows I share my stuff online. Primarily on my AO3, though there’s some other stuff floating around here on tumblr too.  Most of the time if I keep something to myself it’s only because it’s not finish enough to share. So, sure, there’s plenty of that, but the goal is always to share it eventually. If I ever get around to finishing a novel, those will probably be the only things I don’t just post online. (Though I do post most of my OC stuff currently.)  17.  Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?       I think that inevitably my readers will always perceive me and my writing a bit differently than I do. That’s just... interacting with people. Nobody knows you entirely. However, I am as open and honest in my writing as possible, and I actually think that reading my fic is the best way to get to know me. I like to hope that I am an open book to anyone who has read many of my words. =] While you may not know the details of my life, I think you would have a good insight into my personality.    23.  What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?       Like... my oldest fic/story that I’ve never written or posted? Not counting stuff I’ve consciously abandoned (things from middle school, mostly), my original fic series, “Damsel and Company in Distress” aka DamselCo. is definitely my oldest story. I think I started fiddling with it in 2006-- which makes it pretty disappointing that it’s gotten next to nowhere. XD; But the story is my baby, and it’s been my baby for so long that anyone who’s followed me ever is probably at least vaguely familiar with a few of the characters.  Now maybe one day I’ll actually give it the attention it deserves, though I’m sure it’ll need significant revamping. After all, a lot has changed in 14+ years. Ideas that were new and subversive then are probably already stale. 

[thefarrons]

Everything right with XIII

With opinions so mixed on XIII either going from one extreme to the other, those being either "XIII was the best game ever and has no issues" or "It was the worst game ever and a disgrace to the franchise!" I thought it would be interesting if I (someone who legitimately enjoyed the game and noticed dozens of problems in my over 100hrs of playtime) did a (almost) unbiased look at the game and go over everything wrong and right with XIII as well as give opinions on what could be improved or changed in a future port.

​

for the sake of time and page space im going to be breaking this up into two separate posts. this first one is going to be on everything right with the game.

​

\*EVERYTHING GOOD WITH XIII\*

​

\*STORY AND FLUIDITY\*

with XV coming and showing us just how much we take game narratives for granted XIII presents it's on-screen narrative particularly well. the games narrative flows pretty well as relevant and exciting cutscenes happen every half and hour or so always giving the player something to look forward to while playing. You never go for long stretches of playtime without something happening in the story unlike XV (don't worry im not going to just bash XV) and most chapters end in a cliffhanger like fashion giving incentive to players to keep playing to see what happens next.

​

The datalog is another debatable feature of the game but one that ultimately does more good then bad. say you missed a term, character's name or location in a cutscene? no problem cause the game essentially gives you an in game glossary to scroll through giving you all the data you need to keep up with or lean about the games plot or world. Now this does come with a downside "yes" but that'll be explained later.

​"no need for a wiki search now"

the game also has brief chapter summaries that can be read every time you load up the game. Say you last played a week ago and are a bit rusty on what happened last. No problem as you can now just read a quick paragraph and get all caught up.

​

the ending to the game is also pretty sound as conflicts brought up earlier are resolved and although there are two sequels afterwards you don't feel obligated to play them as the ending here is ultimately satisfying.

​"no need for a sequel here"

\*PLOT AND CHARACTERS\*

​

Im not going to delve super deep into either of the two as both topics could easily take up an essay each individually.

​

The plot of XIII is overall messy. While you certainly don't get the "obviously unfinished" vibe like you do with XV you also can't help but feel there was a lot left on the cutting room floor for XIII. The standard plot of XIII is alright more or less. the main conflict of XIII is fairly explained well. a group of (mostly) strangers are branded enemies of their home and have to find a way to complete their "focus" or suffer either eternal sleep or a zombified existence. The main plot of the game is explained as the characters do take the time to explain specific concepts and terms so the player just watching the cutscenes and not reading the datalog can stay up to speed with the story. XIII however looses it's players with it's finer details or abstract details never being explained well or never explained at all but more on this later.

​

tldr: the OVERALL plot of the story isn't too hard to follow but the finer details of the story are muddled and incoherent

​

The cast of XIII however is easily one of the two best reasons to play the game. The main party of XIII is a bunch of mostly strangers who have been thrown together and have to cooperate with one another or die. while the main story of the game can be a bit of a head scratch it's characters make up for it with their interactions with one another. The main party has a lot of problems with each other but also problems with themselves and the fun of being with this party is seeing when one confronts another, how they react and what change this causes. it's satisfying when they finally accept one another as they've actually grown with one another so when they finally start throwing some banter in the second half it feels earned as you the player knows first hand knows what these characters have been through together.

​"the game has great character arc's"

\*ART DESIGN & MUSIC\*

​

XIII is a linear game and by this time you and your grandmother knows about it however just because the lvl design itself sucks doesn't automatically equate to "boring". Although linear XIII easily boasts some of the most impressive areas in backdrops in the series in terms of visually alone. every "hallway" you travel is visually polished to the T and always relevant to the main story at hand. aside from two particular areas most usually aren't very long and before you know it your on to the next location. While it's unfortunate you can't "explore" much you can totally get a sense for what type of world the game is trying to convey to you. From the SI-FI bridges and highways on cocoon to the wilderness of pulse below you feel like your in another world especially with the fantastic ost from Masashi Hamauzu.

"I'll take this any day over an empty open world"

all and all while I definitely understand why XIII's linearity can be disappointing especially with what I just wrote above I still don't see why it's art design and music can't make up for that and still take you to another world.

​

\*THE BATTLE SYSTEM\*

​"this is how a paradigm deck should look"

arguably the best the best thing to come out of XIII and the franchise in general. The paradigm system is a great combination of gambits from XII and standard ATB. XII while deep got a lot of flack for its lean towards set ups rather than active play. XIII takes from the system it built while overall streamlining it and merged it with standard turn based combat. XIII requires players to prepare for battle by setting up strategies (paradigms) outside combat and then executing them during. It's a system easily rewards your ability to plan beforehand and your speed and timing once in battle. players are *incentivized* to play ASAP for a star rating. the quicker you are the more stars you get which gets you better loot for upgrading or selling.

​

"press x to win huh?

one of the more controversial topics with XIII are it's level caps and while they certainly are a detriment in the long run they actually serve a good purpose during a first time playthrough. In a lot of rpg's in general when a player is faced with a boss or enemy they can't beat they simply grind to overpower the enemy through sheer stats and numbers rather than actually beating them with skills or techniques. XIII mitigates this issue by limiting how much grinding the player can do in one given chapter. This in turn forces the player to lean the battle system and use the tools at their disposal to overcome whatever challenge the player faces.

​

"It's so pretty tho..."

\*POST GAME CONTENT\*

​"The place where I spent 100hrs"

XIII's post game content is a hard thing to sell overall. It's a post game that definitely requires how much the player enjoys the battle system or the characters. XIII has 64 overall missions to complete and each one of them is an interesting battle to overcome. doing these missions eventually unlock you Chocoboes to ride across the map and discover other areas of grand pulse. there's a survival like mode called "titans trials" in which players can compete in multiple lvls of pre set battles in which the player can net goods and rewards. there's also a couple hidden bosses hidden in a few select locations. The biggest downside to all this is that it's all one type of side content so the game is really banking hard that you fully know and love combat at that point and if you do then you easily have an extra 60 or so hrs added to your playtime.

​

do you agree with what i wrote? please sound off below.

but yeah this is everything I think XIII does right. Thanks for reading all the way and I plan to also make a twin post about everything WRONG with the game. I actually really like this game but it has a lot of problems and I intend to break down all of them.

[world-of-fire-and-flight]

Content & Trigger Warnings on This Blog

(last updated 8/21/2022)

Originally, I put trigger and content warnings in both the body of my posts and in the tags using the "tw [warning]" format, however I haven't been as diligent about adding the hashtags since that whole iOS/App Store thing and my general fear of being shadowbanned for using them. While I know that's mostly been straightened out, I'm still hesitant about adding those tags, but I will absolutely continue to label my stories appropriately!

Moving Forward Warnings Will Be Used Like So:

Each and every story posted here will have a list of warnings at the beginning of each post under the author's note. I do my best to list all of the potential warnings and triggers, but if you find I missed one, please let me know so I can add it immediately :)

Sometimes, the warnings will be in red font or just the word "warning" and that's usually my way of indicating that there's some serious content warnings in there. For the most part I'd consider my writing to be pretty tame* and deals mostly with violence/physical fight scenes, manipulation, betrayal, medical scenarios, and death.

(*in this case I'm using "tame" not because the warnings aren't serious, but rather because they're generally not very graphic or hyper detailed. They can be, on occasion, but I usually try to note that too😊)

Example:

[Story Title]

A/N: [this is where I ramble and give credit to prompt creators if I'm using a writing prompt]

Warnings: [all relevant content and trigger warnings that I can think of before posting]

Example 2:

[Title]

A/N:

Warnings: [the list may also be in red font too, though I don't do that as often]

Example 3:

[Title]

A/N:

Warnings: [the list may also be in red font too, though I don't do that as often]

Please make sure to read the warnings because this one gets a little [graphic/heavy/a specific warning]!

Most Common Warnings I Give:

Betrayal

Manipulation

Violence

Physical assualt (usually in reference to the fact that there's a fight scene between the protagonist/antagonist)

Blood reference/mention of blood

Injury

Medical Scenario

Death (it's been brought to my attention recently that I've killed a lot of characters...)

Verbal Fight/Argument

Swearing (usually unlisted unless there's a lot. Generally, I try not to swear a lot in my writing as it's an old habit, but I'm loosening up and have added this warning when necessary lol)

How Graphic Is My Writing When It Comes To These Warnings?

I'd consider my writing to be fairly or very descriptive, but it really just depends on the warning and the overall concept of what I'm writing. Some days I focus more on the blood than the actual act what happened to that character. Some days I describe what happened to that character to varying degrees of detail and just mention the blood. I also tend to get a little carried away with descriptions of emotion/feelings too, so that's probably the most common way any warning would be considered "graphic," so it could be the reaction of what happened that's really graphic and not so much what actually happened. Unfortunately there's no way to forewarn everyone for their individual tolerance for these things, but I will say that if there's something in my writing that I feel like needs a stronger warning, I'll usually make a note of it in the Author's Note or the Warnings for that piece.

If you ever see the words "Please Heed Warnings!" or some variation of me telling to you see the warnings before reading, it's because I feel like that story gets pretty graphic in terms of one or more warnings and probably got to me while I was writing it.

In closing:

Please feel free to reach out to me with questions or if I ever miss a label! It's super important to me that my stories are properly labeled with the right warnings so that y'all can enjoy them safely :)

[ugrush-the-merciful]

Clichés aren't crutches, they're on-ramps.

The written history of Voltaire is as complete as I need it to be, now. The process has been clarifying - I have a better understanding now of what parts of the world I need to prepare in detail, and which I can improvise. Tempting as it would be to write detailed dialogue for every important NPC, it's neither necessary nor especially convenient to have more than an outline of a character's potential conversation with players. After all, how are you going to know what your players will say? Too much pre-written dialogue, I feel, risks setting me on a path to railroading the conversation, and turning it into a play where only one of us knows the lines.

So instead I've got very clear setting and character histories, but only general notes for what they may bring up in conversation - motivations, opinions, secrets. I'm trying to give myself the TOOLS to make for interesting interactions, rather than pre-planning them.

It's actually a super satisfying thing to do, compared to traditional writing!

I was worried last post about player engagement, and having some idea of what they might do. The thing is, players WANT to move forward. Since the process is collaborative, I have to count on them to pick up signals, just as they are depending on me to give them those signals. We all want to be immersed, and have a way to embody characters in this fiction intuitively.

So sometimes, you need to do the obvious.

Clichés arent always bad. If EVERY interaction with the players is some rug-pull of surprise, they'll stop trusting the interactive process (or the narrator) and start treating every opportunity like the Chalice Test in The Last Crusade. Sometimes having a good time means recognizing that the players have expectations, and you should consider whether a given moment is better served undermining them, or meeting them.

So I've got plenty of surprises in store for my players - mysteries to solve, characters with secrets, exotic situations - but connecting these things together is an environment that won't punish the player for leaning in to the fiction in a fun and obvious way.

In other news, the city is complete! I'm not sure I can adequately describe how deep the rabbit hole is when it comes to fantasy mapmaking - I was mere seconds away from hand-placing a dozen roads and hundreds of buildings, a complete 180 from the intuitiveness of the region map.

Well, it turns out that even among map nerds, that is not the ideal process. One of the most popular ways to get a head-start on city creation is a generator like this:

Again, it's another tool for taking the city-planning experience requirement out of the city-creating process. For those planning to use this route, you aren't stuck with whatever design it gives you either - there are squash-and-strech tools to enlarge areas or condense sections, lengthen walls or roads, etc. You can use the final results un-altered, or you can bring it into wonderdrafts as a transparency and use it as a grid for your own buildings.

...and after my third or so reset - and well into the morning - I elected to split the difference. I have a lot of admiration for the people that spend 100s of hours on a map, but it's not for me!

All the same, I'm proud of the results.

We have districts relevant to the plot, bespoke locations where anything interesting is likely to happen, and a road network that makes some amount of sense. It's not nearly so aesthetically pleasing or consistent as the region map, but it will serve our purposes nicely.

I'm also happy to reveal a little party favor that the players will receive at the start of the game. The whole idea of a short story set entirely within a city came out of pondering what a D&D 'Worlds Fair' would be like: what kind of stories that could generate? One of the earliest ideas was to gently nudge players in the direction of those attractions, and each tent would be an opportunity to tell a story or meet someone new.

To that end, the only introduction I gave players as motivation for their characters was "you've received this invitation, and have just arrived in Voltaire." From there, around 2/3rds of the story hooks are dangling right here:

[Credit where it's due, this was a commission filled by Teras_one on Fiverr, and it was pretty painless.]

As I mentioned before, I'm sticking to generic tactical maps for fights - there just wasn't time! Even so, it's mega-crunch time. The work remaining might be the most challenging...

NERD MATH!

Building encounters with stat blocks and learning the rules for special situations is going to consume all the rest of my time. I'm building a comprehensive campaign Bible, but the most critical portion for Friday (AHHHHHHHH) is having a few encounters ready to go. Triaging these encounters is almost impossible - players can go anywhere - but I think I can separate some late-arrival quests at least. This will likely be my final pre-game post... I lost a lot of valuable writing time by getting sick over Easter weekend, and the work remaining is mechanical compared to world-building.

Not that it matters. In the spirit of "if its worth doing, its worth overdoing", I'm committed to two more nights of caffeine, research, and furious typing. I only hope it's enough!

[lets-get-fictional]

Hi! I have a few questions haha so I ll put them separately! 1. When you have characters that more quiet/reserved, but they aren't shy, how would you portray this? How would you portray a confident person who speaks little? How would they instead show their anger/resentments/amusement/love? Alternatively, how would this change if a character was quiet and not very comfortable in themselves?

2. What are good ways to hint at past abuse (physical/sexual/mental) without explicitly saying it? How would you imply that a particular person was responsible? How would show the way it has affected the individual/s? 3. How would you reveal/lead up to your character/s secrets? With the big secrets, how could you effectively foreshadow it without giving it away until you want to, but it still makes sense? Sorry this is super long! But thank you for your help!

Thank you for your questions!! I promise it wasn’t too long, this ask was a lot of fun to answer, and you posed some really great questions. I hope this helps!!

BIG POST OF CHARACTERIZATION

Quiet Characters - Shyness vs. Introversion

Something to note about introversion and its portrayal: it depends on whether or not you’re writing a viewpoint character. A lot of times, other characters will VIEW them as shy, until there’s a defining moment where everyone realizes they’re not shy, they just keep to themselves. Perhaps they provide commentary on things every so often, not afraid to show their opinion when it counts. However, this isn’t always the case. There are other instances where a character is quiet/speaks very little, but is also clearly not shy

A confident person who speaks little strikes me as the kind of person who only speaks when they feel they have something important to say/contribute. Which means that everything they do say holds greater weight than someone who talks constantly. There is a certain bluntness to this - therefore they are not insecure, or nervous about what they’re saying, they’re just a person of few words - they choose their words carefully. 

Ex. Luna Lovegood of Harry Potter

It’s made rather explicit that Luna is not shy. She is not ashamed of who she is, even though we know she’s often made fun of by other students. She speaks rather little - when she is featured with the other characters, I would say that Luna is more often than not a listener. However, Luna does not hesitate to provide her opinion/knowledge when she deems it necessary. Example, in The Deathly Hallows (focusing on the films, so Part 2), she is not at all shy or skittish about telling Harry what information she knows to help him defeat Voldemort, even though Harry is distracted and at first unwilling to listen. 

Ex. Aizawa Shouta (aka him who i love) of My Hero Academia

Aizawa is a classic example of being a “man of few words.” He is not a talkative person in the slightest, and he can seem even gloomy in comparison to more animated people. But one of the best examples of his confidence comes through when he’s shown speaking to other Pro Heroes about the problems they’re beginning to face. He does not hesitate to give his opinion, is not shy about it, and when he does state his stance, he stands firm, caring very little what anybody else might think. So while he clearly keeps to himself, he still makes his opinions known when necessary, making it clear that he’s not keeping to himself out of insecurity. He just prefers it that way.

Zero from Holes

I didn’t need this many examples, but I love Holes, it’s fine. So, Zero…is not shy. Did he or did he not punch somebody in the crotch? Ya’ll. He is teased relentlessly by the other boys in the camp - and he responds with pure silence. We may interpret this to be shyness early on, but as the story progresses it is clear that he’s not shy. He just doesn’t have time to mess around with people who want to call him names anyway. He’s got bigger fish to fry. So he ignores them. He is quiet not because he’s afraid to talk - but because he doesn’t want to. 

What to take from all of this? If you have a character who is quiet, but confident as well, then have them make their opinions known when they feel it is necessary. They won’t be talkative, but they also won’t shy away when they feel that something important needs to be said. 

Shyness in Characters

First off, I want to direct you to a great post that we have here that talks about insecurity in characters and how that can be portrayed, which I feel would be relevant. But, I do want to add on to what that post says here. 

A shy character is totally different from the confident-but-quiet characters discussed above. Shyness is sprung from insecurity, the fear of saying something wrong, or being judged, etc. A shy character is going to actively avoid conversations with new people, and with people who make them uncomfortable. And when forced into said situations, they will not speak as openly as they do with friends, and will often come off as awkward or stilted, speaking very little, and often not about themselves.

Ex. Gus from Recess. Out of the five heroes of this story, Gus was probably the least down with social interaction (even though Spinelli was always ready to throw down with somebody). Whenever things get tough on the playground, he always lets his more bold friends take the reins to steer the situation, preferring to stay in the background. 

Characters as Victims of Abuse

First off, I think it would depend on the type of abuse. Sometimes when people have such a traumatic experience, they don’t deal with/process the subsequent emotions, thus when they experience something later on that reminds them of the abuse, they can be triggered back into the emotions of the time.

Was this physical abuse? Perhaps they have both a physical and emotional reaction if someone attempts to come at them/hit them/etc, even if it’s supposedly a playful situation.  

Emotional abuse? Someone talking down to them, name calling, being controlling etc. would probably provoke some strong emotional backlash. But also, it’s highly likely that victims of emotional abuse may retain a sense of low self-esteem/self-worth. They may talk down to themselves a lot, whether out loud or just in their internal monologue. Also, in some cases, it is possible that those who are victims of abuse can later become abusers, often as a way of trying to regain the power that was lost during the time of abuse. 

HOWEVER, when dealing with all of this, it is very important that you research in depth the true effects of these experiences, even going so far as to try to talk to people who have experienced this personally. It is often a delicate subject, and should be handled with care and respect. 

Now, implying that a certain person was responsible would depend on that character’s current role in the story. If they aren’t present in the current storyline, perhaps you can hint to a person from their past that they either refuse to talk about, or only speak of very negatively. Or maybe, they still harbor feelings for this person - it is possible to still care for your abuser, whether this is healthy or not. It is even further possible that the experience was traumatic enough for them to block out those more awful moments, or even attempted to explain this abuse away to themselves as their abusers way of showing love, thus they still hold affection for them, even if they are not a part of their life anymore. 

If the abuser character is still in the picture, you would have a lot on your hands. Do the characters interact at all? This is dependent upon how your character feels about their abuser at this time, and what happened. Are they able to be in the same room with them without breaking down, or lashing out? Are they able to defend themselves from this person now, or are they still vulnerable to their abuse? Or do they refuse to associate with this person at all? Is this a revenge story - are they seeking revenge on their abuser? What do they want from their abuser? To be left alone, or to find some sort of closure? 

So I’m going to handle this in two ways. The abuser being a present character in the narrative, and the abuser existing primarily as a figure in your characters’ past. 

If your character still interacts with the abuser in the narrative, they should act in such a way that would hint at this past relationship. There will most likely be a sense of tension, but a lot of it is very dependent upon the individual personalities of your characters. 

If the abuser exists as a distant figure in your character’s past, and you’re trying to keep it a secret, then your character would most likely avoid talking about this person, would skimp on the details about them in conversation. And the way they talk about them will probably have some tension to it, as well as leftover emotions, whether that be anger, sadness, etc.

Secrets, Scandals, and Hidden Things

Character’s secrets, alright, this is FUN. This is gonna be fun. So, when you’re dealing with characters secrets, there’s a lot of playing around with foreshadowing. The big thing about having secrets and revealing secrets is that you have to balance the information and the clues to the reader, so that when the big secret is revealed, the reader feels like they should have known the answer all along. You have to lay enough clues for it to make sense, but also direct attention away from what the real clues are to keep the tension and the secrecy, so that your big reveal is a Big Reveal. Thus, the power of misdirection. Capisce?

I’m gonna use the example of Wreck it Ralph and hope that nobody gets mad at me. [But I think it’s been enough time since the movie came out that anybody who would get genuinely pissed about Wreck it Ralph spoilers would have already seen the movie]. 

Alright - so the big ordeal in Wreck It Ralph, the big Oh Shit moment is that King Candy is actually Turbo. I’m gonna go through Wreck it Ralph, highlighting the more important scenes that lead up with this, to deconstruct the foreshadowing, and show you why it works. But here’s the big thing I want you to take away from this - secrets are all about the buildup.

“Goin’ Turbo”

So, in the Wreck It Ralph verse, it is made clear to the audience early on that a colloquial term commonly used to describe a game character trying to join another game is “going Turbo,” yes? Because it’s used so naturally, and it fits the atmosphere of the show, the arcade slang sort of feel, the audience is able to accept it without too much question, except maybe to wonder where the phrase originated. The phrase is explicitly used when Ralph himself goes off to find a metal, and the figures of his own game start freaking out because Ralph was “going Turbo.” This is the first big clue that is repeatedly laid for the audience. 

The Introduction of King Candy

It is clear to us very early on that King Candy is, well…very particular about how things run in his game. And well, we kind of expect this - he is the King, after all. But his storyline and motivations are clearly tied to the heroine Vanellope’s as well, which is made clear very soon after we’re introduced to him. He refers to her as “The Glitch,” rather than calling her by name, and is adamant that she should not be allowed to race in the game. Now at this point, it is clear to the viewer that Vanellope is one of the characters we are supposed to be rooting for, and the fact that King Candy is clearly opposed to her achieving her goals as a main protagonist, he is now an antagonist - no surprise.

The Turbo Story

It isn’t until after we meet King Candy that we hear the origin of the phrase “Going Turbo” and what it means. Essentially, the phrase originated when the protagonist of a racing game that was at one time very popular got pushed to the side in favor of a new, high-tech game. Not to be defeated, Turbo abandoned his game and tried to take over the new one, thus coining the phrase. We as the audience are told that in consequence, both Turbo’s original game and the game he tried to take over got put out of commission, including himself. HERE IS THE KICKER: we as the audience are given a considerable amount of information necessary to put together that Turbo just might equal King Candy, BUT we are led to believe that this isn’t a possibility because Turbo “got himself put out of order for good.” 

King Candy and his Dark Side

Now, this is a big scene in terms of King Candy’s storyline/backstory/relationship to Vanellope: the scene in which he ventures “into the code,” and adds the gold medal to his own personal cache of codes, so that he can take ownership of it. It’s a subtle play, because we as the audience are shown that King Candy’s code “box” (if you will) is at the biggest, and is at the center of everything. Because he’s the king, right? And at the end of the scene, we have a wide shot of the scene to reveal Vanellope’s code box, and it’s floating off the side, not connected to any of the boxes. Because she’s not supposed to be in the game, right? Because she’s a glitch, right? Huh. 

The second half of this section deals with the scene in which King Candy goes to Ralph personally, and pleads with him to convince Vanellope not to race. He tells Ralph that if she does race, and if she wins, then she’ll be accessible by the actual human players of the game. In such case, if they see her “glitching”, they’ll thing the game is broken, and get it put out of order. Right? Once again, we have misdirection. I’m sure at this point, the audience doesn’t fully trust what King Candy is saying, but at the same time there is an emotional reaction to his words. Because we care about Vanellope and want her to succeed, it forces the audience to feel that emotional push-and-pull, distracting further from the fact that King Candy (spoiler alert) lied clean to everyone’s faces. 

THE REVEAL

In a moment of high intensity, when we’ve reached the big climactic moment that is The Race, which is what Vanellope has been trying to get to for the entire film, it is revealed that King Candy is Turbo, done so because he gets caught up in Vanellope’s glitching, causing him to revert back to his originally coded form. We then learn of his true motivation - he wants to remain the top racer, as he was in his previous game, and he wants to maintain the power and thrill of that popularity. So he usurped Vanellope and changed the code so that everyone believed that she wasn’t supposed to exist, and that he was the rightful ruler of the game.

Why does it work?

It works because of the build up. All of the hints were laid out; Turbo’s backstory was set up early enough that it felt natural for the audience, and it gave us enough time to get comfortable with the information; when the scene did finally unfold, it felt so obvious that you could look back and see all the pieces click. And in the reveal, all of King Candy’s previously creepy behavior makes sense. There is emotional payoff.

What to take from this? 

One of the most powerful ways to hide your hints and foreshadowing throughout your story is misdirection. Lay those hints, plant the seeds, but also do the work to direct the audience’s attention elsewhere, leading them to believe one thing, whilst building towards another. 

Phew!! That was a doozy of a post, but it was a lot of fun to write, and I hope this was super helpful to you!!

If you have any further questions, don’t hesitate to shoot us an ask. In the meantime, happy writing!

- Mod Daenerys

If you need advice on general writing or fanfiction, you should maybe ask us!