#we did some worldbuilding talk to see what everyone was feeling and the vote was

[figofswords]

together (as they should be)

planning a zelda dnd game with some friends yknow how it is

[laughingpinecone]

Trick or Treat 2020 letter!

I am laughingpineapple on AO3  

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

All requests are art or fic - for art, the stuff I like is the kind that depicts the characters doing something. I’ll always be happier with a very simple drawing of two characters walking together or sharing a cup of coffee than with an ambitious composition that looks like an Avengers poster. I also enjoy seeing them wear different clothes, getting a feel of what their fashion sense is like beyond their canon outfit(s).

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic, hurt/comfort or just comfort from the ample canon hurt, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, canon-adjacent tropey plots, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploration of secondary bits of canon, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played straight, sensory details, sickfic, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, nerdy canon references, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Hurdy

I love the game’s world and all the little stories and legends that fill it. Great atmosphere, great lore, so if you feel like getting a little worldbuildy and indulging in the scenery and its story, please do! A focus on the sense of camaraderie in a caravan would also be great (like people could do on Gamecube.....). Hurdy’s a bit of an odd duck for that theme, but maybe he hitched a ride at some point? With whom? Amidatty or De Nam maybe, among the nominated characters? I love the whole cast so anyone goes. Do they travel together enough for them to cotton onto the weirdness of the whole Gurdy situation? Got any run-in with Lady Mio? Or what’s his status after the miasma is lifted, can he go back to Tipa, can he/they begin to heal? What does healing even look like for him and Gurdy?

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down... him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles... I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back. Dreaming Sissel but he’s strange... and wrong?

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right... I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being into it is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business)

Kentucky Route Zero: Carrington, Cate

Act after act, intermission after intermission, I somehow didn’t see the arts rising to such a dominant theme in KRZ and it’s stuck with me since the ending finally hit. It’s great and moving. So! Who better than good ol’ antler man to linger in those feels! Carrington’s playwright adventures or Carrington&anyone you fancy, either way I’d listen to him ramble for a week and I would like to know more about his big dramatic plans. Or maybe him helping someone, more or less accidentally, by offering his unique takes? Overriding my “no canon retellings” DNW for a hot second, did he ever figure out what was going down in the Death of the Hired Man (or Nap of the Hired Man as the case may be) interlude?

For Cate, I’m mostly interested in two things: life on the river and mushrooms. Maybe both! The Echo river ecosystem is intensely fascinating to me as opposed to life on the surface and life on the Zero, and yet all these environments are permeable. So what’s a moment in her daily life that encapsulates the river? Someone they picked up on the Mammoth, a strange island that popped up at some point? Cate&Will bonding extremely welcome, I’m love Will. And then there’s the mushroom hunting. I don’t know much about mushrooms, but I do know that they’re cool. Cate seems to agree, so if you’ve got a story or pic in you about her and them mushrooms, I’d love to see it.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. If &Manley or &Brighton, I am not interested in more lenient takes on their characters than canon’s. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?"/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue."? btw that ‘emphatically yes xeno’ from my general likes is only applicable here I guess so: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like...

Shenmue: Qiu Hsu, Xianzi Bei

Cormorants... kung fu... cormorant kung fu. They turned out to be my faves in a very likeable cast and I’d love to see either or both of them slice-of-life-ing it up in Niaowu, or anywhere up or down the river. The rest of the cast is welcome to join! Did Ren end up at Liu He Hall for whatever reason, or did Shenhua chat up a cormorant, as she does? Id love to see a spookier mood too! Ghost story time in Liu Jiao shrine maybe?

The Silver Case: Catherine, Kodai Sumio, Kuroyanagi Shinko, Kusabi Tetsugorou, Macalister Edo, Morishima Tokio

I‘m all for the surrealism, big things being introduced and never picked up again, Rashomon’ing it up with six explanations for the same thing where no single one can be true, people dying and then popping up again like nbd...  maybe the thing I like the most is characters transcending their humanity and looming over the dystopian world like ominous avatars. Correctness’ first ending had me swooning, that kind of mood is unparalleled. I have played TSC, FSR and 25W so far and have vague memories of K7. I’m aware of the “everything’s connected” readings but that’s not my main interest in these games. Mainly I see Lospass as a real island but also a metaphysical  place of transformation first and foremost, where strange things happen that don’t make sense elsewhere, but I’m good with anything that works for your story! There are a few & prompts for these fine folks in my Press Start letter [here].

For Catherine, I’d love to see something along the lines of her YAMI appearance, on Lospass on her own or hanging out with another character of your choice (or Tokio again). Sumio leaves me at a loss for words... if you’ve played 25W, maybe an expansion of his [intense ethereal whooshing] moment? He’s a gust away from vanishing from existence altogether... &Sakura and/or &/Tetsu if you want. Or his time in prison or a return to Lospass or whatever’s going on with that one, really. For Shinko I’m itching for different team-ups! Throw her at anyone you like and see what happens! FSR-era Tetsu could be cool, or off-the-grid Tetsu, or Tetsu&anyone... as for Edo, I’d be curious to see his pov on anyone and anything! WAS the Flower Sun and Rain the friends we met along the way? And Tokio... oh Tokio. Something about older Tokio and his gaggle of tulpas (Slash and whatshisface from YUKI who looks suspiciously like YAMI Tokio himself?)? Any...thing...about any part of his life from Lifecut onwards? Any portentous encounters?

[bitchynaruto]

can you just talk about naruto (the show) i wanna hear your thoughts on whatever

OOOO OKAY!!!!! IF YOU INSIST!!! 

my thoughts are kinda messy bc im just spouting it out as it comes to me, so sorry in advance for the disorganization and large bodies of text lol

naruto... as a concept is SO FUN! the worldbuilding is so depressing and sexy and i feel like theres so MUCH you can do with that. i love the concept of these monsters being sealed inside people, i love the clans, i love the ninjas, and the fights when they’re emotional and have weight behind them... I LOVE THAT LOVE IS A CENTRAL THEME TO THIS SHOW!!!!!!! i don’t really watch anime so i didnt expect to like it as much as i did, BUT I TOTALLY DID!!!! i finished that shit in like 3 months, granted i skipped a lot of filler and most of the war arc but STILL

part 1 is so fun. i think it’s super tight, like narratively, out of all of naruto. you can tell where kishi wanted to take the story. the characters are all introduced in fun and exciting ways. the chuunin exams arc is my favorite out of part 1, then land of waves, introduction arc, and of course vote 1 packs such a serious punch i was in tears when i first watched it. my major complaints is that there wasn’t enough team bonding for team 7 imo, not enough development for any of the girls obviously, the smaller countries who can’t afford ninjas being controlled by gangs, corrupt business men, etc. being dropped was a huge mistake imo because that would’ve led to some more interesting storylines/expansion of the worldbuilding that i think remains untapped. also the hyuga clan plotline i will always be bitter about... they owned slaves.... i think sasuke should’ve left the village knowing the village was behind what happened ot his family... maybe. i also think danzo should’ve been introduced in part 1 considering he’s supposed to be one of the big bads in part 2... 

shippuden is fun! i love the akatsuki, i think an organization striving for peace but getting murked up by people who have conflicting goals and morality, because i can see that happening irl. ( i wouldn’t trust kishi to write this given his nationalism problem tho) THE FIRST SASUKE SCENE WE GET IS SO GOOD IT WAS BUILDING AND BUILDING AND WHEN IT HAPPENED I WAS LIKE FUUUUCK YES SASUKE!!!!! part 2 definitely should’ve had more sasuke in it, like even if im remaining unbiased, we shouldve gotten more time with him under orochimaru’s eye to SEE the shit he goes through. i think sai was an interesting addition to the group. at first i found him fun bc i love mean bitches, and i think his backstory with root was interesting and depressing af. im kinda mad that just kinda got dropped? considering it was a big reveal? WHICH my main thing is danzo shouldve been a villain for MUCH LONGER THAN HE WAS!!! a major complaint i’ll have until the end of time

umm continuing on. the pein arc? perfect. love it. UNTIL THE VERY END WHERE PEIN REVIVED EVERYONE. my number one complaint with naruto as a show and as a character is that naruto wins every. damn. time. by talking the villains into the good side. pein is a person whos had his parents killed in front of him and his best friend killed in front of him.. and has been stewing in his hate for years and changes his mind bc.. what?? a kid asked him too? same goes for konan. she was so underutilized afterwards so kishi just killed her off bc he didnt know what to do with her lol. boring.

i love team taka. one of the best teams in the entire show and i wish they had more time together doing crazy shit and being rebels with a cause lol. i wish each individual member was developed more bc theyre such a fun contrast to team 7. 

the kage summit arc.... idr much tbh. i got kinda bored by all the talking but when sasuke showed up i was like OHHH SHIT!!!!!!! i think im gonna rewatch that soon

war arc was boring. wouldve preferred another world war with the hidden villages instead bc everything was brewing to that point. or a revolution. whatever

umm i think kishi making sasuke the ultimate big bad was a mistake and will forever be a mistake, because he literally had to turn sasuke into a crazy ninja devil in order to accomplish that. im not saying sasuke was perfect, but his idea of revolution was RIGHT. kishi didnt allow him to formulate a plan besides killing those responsible ( a good start) to killing everyone (eh) in order to make naruto look like the clearheaded one

my main issues with the series as a whole is the nationalism, misogyny, eugenics, classism, and issues of abuse/pedophilia being swept under the rug. if this was just a show about ninjas doing dumb ninja things then i wouldnt be so like.. crazy about it, but kishi chose to include those themes and not do anything to solve them. character wise i think naruto AND sasuke are both overpowered by the end. 

as a character naruto is like tied with sasuke as a favorite, i wont lie. im so endeared by him as soon as he came on screen and was being a little shit head, but the way kishi handles his character. UGH. naruto becoming friends with every bad guy ever, EVEN THE FOX DEMON HELL BENT ON DESTROYING HUMANITY AND KILLED HIS PARENTS, was too much for me. naruto’s flaws are never examined as flaws, his unhealthy coping mechanisms are treated fine, and it’s just... UGH. a big problem with naruto for me is he doesn’t change his goals, wants, etc. he wants to be hokage from his first appearance to his last! he wants to save the village and sasuke! but he never has to make hard choices because everything always works out for him! that’s the frustrating thing. also we’re told rather than shown his development. everyone says he’s so mature now, but we never really get to see that process which is a TOTAL BUMMER.  

umm... yeah. here are my thoughts. this is just word vomit at this point but these are the main issues and things i’ve loved about the series. a lot of the stuff i mentioned i disliked im fixing in one of my fics i havent posted yet so thats always fun lol

[loreweaver-universe]

Well.  That was a pair of fascinating episodes.  I’m gonna talk about them in reverse order, because Reasons.

Your Mother and Mine (and I’ve been listening to a lot of My Brother My Brother And Me lately so it is so difficult not to mangle that episode title) kinda seems like it never pays off the premise of the title, unless the implication is meant to be that Garnet views Rose as a mother instead of as a friend/colleague.  It was a pretty good episode all around--we learned some neat things about the rebellion, got some great animation and character interactions, and pretty much everyone but Fluorite had some fun moments!  And, man, I am just never gonna get tired of the Padparadscha joke if they keep executing it this well.

Jungle Moon was...man I wish more episodes were like this one.  A kickass sci-fi setting, subtle worldbuilding, interesting bits of Stevonnie’s physiology, and some overt worldbuilding and a history lesson in one of the most fascinatingly unnerving and surreal sequences the show’s ever had?  I love it!  My only real complaint is that Stevonnie’s never really come into their own as a person.  If you think about it a certain way, Garnet is Ruby multiplied by Sapphire, with her own character traits and views and abilities, but Stevonnie has only ever been Steven plus Connie.  There’s nothing truly their own about Stevonnie, and that really needs to be addressed.

Jungle Moon comes in at my new #1 for Season Five (knocking Off Colors off its pedestal) and my new #10 overall (just short of Mr. Greg, and finally edging Jailbreak out of the top ten).

Your Mother and Mine comes in at my new #6 for Season 5, between Raising the Barn and The Trial, and my new #52 for the show overall, between Three Gems and a Baby and Steven the Sword Fighter.

Up next iiiiiiissssss...The Big Show!  Are we going back to Sadie?

WHAT’S ELSE IS UP WITH ME?

I’m not yet fully healed–my last round of antibiotics didn’t fully clear me out, and I’m going back shortly to see if they think I need more.  I’m mostly feeling better, though, and my face isn’t trying to turn itself inside-out, so just having to take a tylenol before bed once in a while is a huge improvement.  I’m gonna try to start streaming again–my s/o has actually shown me a very helpful reminder app that’s helped me start getting my habits in order, so I’m gonna hopefully start maintaining some kind of schedule!  In the meantime, if you’d like more of me:

My Discord server, where you can come hang out with other fans!

My Twitch channel, where I stream Minecraft and miscellaneous games!

My Youtube channel, where you can check out past streams!

Our community also has guilds in Path of Exile and Clicker Heroes (yes, really) that you can inquire about in the Discord chat.  We’re also running a weekly online Magic the Gathering league in the Discord server, so come check that out if you’re a player!

If you’d like to help support me financially (yes please) you can use my direct donation link to put some food on my shelf, or pledge to my Patreon if you want to support me per episode completed, which not only allows you to vote on what shows I do next now that I’ve begun my Madoka Magica liveblog, but also grants access to the Minecraft server I stream from to $5 patrons or higher!

It’s your kindness and support that lets me do this stuff, and I wouldn’t be where I am without all of you to do it for.  Thank you all so much for your support, and for tuning in every episode!

OTHER PEOPLE YOU MAY ENJOY:

I may have been one of the earlier Steven Universe liveblogs, but a whole community of livebloggers has sprung up over the last two years!   Here’s a few people you might want to check out:

Minda Reads started out liveblogging Order of the Stick because I recommended it so much, and has expanded his liveblog repertoire to include Paranatural and Homestuck, as well as show liveblogs for Steven Universe and RWBY!

Krixwell has been liveblogging the superhero web novel Worm for quite some time now.  Even for us, that’s an odd choice, but go check him out!

Zephyr is a complete lunatic who liveblogs at approximately mach twelve.  I’ve never seen anybody in our community match him for speed or volume of content produced, and he’s got the largest set of shows by far–everything from Steven Universe to Madoka Magica to Samurai Champloo to Steins;Gate to Neon Genesis Evangelion.  If you’re tired of the slow pace I liveblog at, or just want a ton of variety, go check out Zephyr.

Wyblogging has a list that varies a bit more widely from what Zephyr and I do, including not just new episodes of Steven Universe, but Camp Camp, Gravity Falls, and a couple other things.  Go take a look!

Time Machine is hard to pin down–a variety liveblogger with titles varying from Hunter x Hunter to Magic Mike to The Peanuts Movie to Wynonna Earp.   Yeah, I did kind of a double take when I saw “Magic Mike” on her liveblog list too.

KatDiscovers is a newer liveblogger on the list, who started liveblogging Steven Universe at The New Crystal Gems and is in the process of doing SU eps to keep up with me, as well as Over the Garden Wall!

[spiralatlas]

GCAP (Game Connect Asia Pacific) 2017 Day 1

I’m in Melbourne for GCAP and PAX Australia, and GCAP started today.

Sadly things were cut short by me BREAKING MY WHEELCHAIR in a DOOMED QUEST FOR A SMOOTHIE. I got a replacement, but it was a hassle and I needed to go rest afterwards. But what I saw of GCAP was good!

Below: descriptions of talks by Steve Gaynor and Karla Zimonya (creators of Gone Home and Tacoma) and by David Gaider (narrative designer on Dragon Age), plus misc other conference things.

There were three introductions, all about How Great The Melbourne Games Scene Is and how Everyone Is Friends And Awesome.

Keynote: Steve Gaynor and Karla Zimonya from Fullbright Games: The names didn't mean much to me but then I realised THEY'RE THE PEOPLE WHO MADE GONE HOME AND TACOMA :D

The theme of GCAP this year is The Ripple Effect, and the theme of this talk was how people connect and affect each other.

Steve and Karla met as part of the team for Bioshock 2. Karla was a researcher, and Steve a level designer, and when they were in those roles they didn't interact. But they both finished their assigned tasks and asked around for other things that needed doing, which led them both to the massive task of writing all the little bits of extra dialogue around things like what enemies say when they attack, flavour text on objects, optional little stories told through random audio diaries etc. They made a great team (Steve as writer and Karla as editor) and got really into it. I think you can totally see how this grew into their later approach to games.

The company 2KMoran being willing to let them develop like this was part of them being a good company, with many ex-employees who have gone on to make interesting games.

Steve then got to design his own DLC, and went I MUST BRING IN KARLA. And after they did that, and Bioshock 2 was done, they created Fullbright and started working on Gone Home.

At some point Steve encountered some cool Bioshock fanart and became mutuals with the artist on twitter. Since she was a lesbian, he asked her if she'd be up for discussing things to help with the game. She brought along her wife for an extra point of view. The wife turned out to be a 3D artist, and both of them ended up hired to work on the game.

David Gaider: Creating a World and Making it Stick

So this was like 50% general advice and 50% morality tale about the Hubris Of The Writer Who Thinks His Worldbuilding Stands Alone.

Basically he created all the basic Thedas worldbuilding by himself, then told the rest of the team, and worked with his writers, and never checked in to make sure the game worked as a whole until it was Far Too Late.

He was trying to create a relatively grounded, dark, realistic story...and the art team was making orcs and bikini armour. He had lore about the mages being too oppressed to learn offensive spells or do anything flashy in public, while the gameplay team was implementing fireballs, and specialisations like Reaver which were not connected to the worldbuilding at all. And by the time these incompatibilities became apparent everyone was committed and refused to budge. So the final game is a hodge podge of inconsistent parts that all make sense individually but don't fit together.

Now my general notes:

He scrawled out the original Thedas map on paper the same way he would for a D&D game (his original draft looked very Middle Earth-ish in style), expecting someone who knew geography would go through and fix the rivers at some point. They did not.

One lesson he learned is that you can't just throw pages of worldbuilding at people and expect them to both read and be engaged with it. You have to have a "razor", a short description of the core of the game, and make sure everyone understands what it is. Anything that doesn't fit the razor gets cut. For example, DA2 had themes of The Price of Freedom, Family, and All Things Change. And you have to sell them on why your worldbuilding elements are interesting, and what makes them cool. Once the art team understood what darkspawn were they got invested and redesigned them to not just be orcs.

Remember to feel: Don't just come up with the history of your city: what is it like to visit, is it loud and friendly and sunny or oppressively silent?

Pick your battles: choose the parts of your worldbuilding you really value and emphasise those, be willing to let the others go, especially if it’s to follow changes that make the game more fun. The game being fun is the final aim, your worldbuilding is just a tool to get there.

He got confused by his cursor a lot :)

One good thing about the DAO worldbuilding is that he didn't know where it would be set at first, so worked out all the history for everywhere, and that added lots of depth.

Names are the devil, totally subjective so everyone argues about them and hates any new suggestion. Many names for DAO were bandied about, like "Chronicle". He has a rule to never put Shadow, Dark or Blood in a list of possible names or the publishers will go THAT ONE.

His two rules: 1) People aren't allowed to complain about a name unless they have a better suggestion. 2) Wait six months. Chances are people will be used to it and not mind any more.

When the Grey Wardens were first suggested they were supposed to be pretty minor, based off the rangers in Tolkein. So they got named the White Rangers, but that was too similar, so White Wardens, but that wasn't morally grey enough, so: Grey Wardens! Which was fine until they turned out to be important, people suggested "cooler" names like Blood Knight Brotherhood/Lords of War/Disciples of Pain (not sure if he was joking) but he waited six months and took a vote and lo, the old name stuck.

Track your changes.

Have an elevator pitch (not the same as the razor) If you can't come up with one your concept needs work.

Question your biases. He was originally inspired by Middle Earth and D&D, and his own ideas of Medieval Europe...all of which are way too white. Some of this could be fixed in later games, but the world he created closed off a lot of possibilities (he didn't say any examples but I guess he meant, like, Africa and Asia equivalents)

When he took inspiration from Jews and Romani for the elves he thought he was being very clever, and only later realised that this created all sorts of unfortunate implications, since now anything that happens to elves seems like a statement about those cultures.

He was happily surprised to be able to include bi characters in DAO.

The writers were all pretty happy with how they'd handled gender in DAI, then the Voice Over person was like "why are the vast majority of our lines for men?" and they realised they'd all made most of their background characters men for no reason.

At the start it's hard to walk the line between a long, boring, exposition heavy intro, and players getting confused by lack of explanation. (It felt like he wished players would just be smarter lol) He said "If DAO had started at Ostagar then the PC's backstory would have felt irrelevant" which made me think "So like DAI?".

Players have to know why to care about an event before it happens, or the emotional reaction will fall flat.

When you introduce the first member of a group, they should be fairly typical so the player gets a feel for the default. For example, Sten is a pretty typical Qunari. Only after that can you introduce outliers like The Iron Bull.

Every main character the player interacts with (for a RPG, the party members) should represent a different interesting facet of the worldbuilding.

They didn't think DAO would get sequels, and thus had those wildly differing epilogues. He isn't sure he'd change letting the player died, since it was a cool moment. But it was certainly inconvenient to deal with later.

They had a rough idea of how the history of Thedas would continue after DAO "but no plan survives contact with the enemy, in this case I guess that's EA" loll

Having player decisions affect so much has been a bit of a nightmare.

Card tricks in the dark: if you do something clever and the player doesn't notice, it doesn't matter.

If the enemies drink potions and it's not obvious they're doing it, it just looks like the AI is cheating. If a choice affects the plot but this fact isn't made clear, players will just think that's how the plot always goes. Need to heavily lampshade that this is the consequence of that choice. And keeping track of all the possibilities gets ridiculous with characters like Alistair, who can be any one of dead/king/a drunk etc.

The players who DO pay attention to these changes tend to want way more reactivity than is practical. So nobody is impressed. And most new players found the save game editors confusing and off putting. He thinks perhaps it would be better to have a smaller number of major choices.

He's not going to judge other writers but the HUGE changes at the end of the Mass Effect trilogy mean they can now no longer set anything in that galaxy again.

Question time!

Something about the process leading to Krem being written. He talked about the bad stuff previously, and them realising they'd screwed up. A trans fan on the forums said "Could we have a trans character who isn't a sex worker or the butt of a joke?". They got jumped on, but the team read it and went "Oh."

Gaider wrote Maevaris in the comics, talked to a trans woman friend about it. One of the other writers was working on Kress...*audience shouts KREM* and he seemed a bit boring so he got made trans, since it added some interest and fitted in well with the worldbuilding about the Qun etc.It would have been better with a trans voice actor but they couldn’t find one.

What program is best for explaining stuff to the art team etc early on: Biowre had a sort of Grey Box level for playing through choices, but something like twine is good, just to test pacing. (not sure this actually answers the question asked)

Are there any genres you would like to work on but haven't: Yes :D :D But he can't tell us about it yet :D :D

He got sick of high fantasy after ten years. Would look longingly at Mass Effect sometimes just for a change but then they would implode and he'd think"Actually I'm fine".

Off the top of his head: Victorian London, finding husbands for your girlfriends while fighting zombies and also it's a Western?

Misc other things: I didn't make it to any more talks because Wheelchair, but met some cool people, and played some of the student games on display. My favourite was a time travel murder mystery called Lacuna where you have to connect clues. Apparently I was way better at it than most people :D I also actually enjoyed one of the puzzle platformers (I forget the name but it's about a little grumpy blue hexagon), which is a pretty big achievement.

GCAP has a "food intolerances station" with special food options and knowledgeable staff which was pretty great. Morning tea was just various gluten free biscuits, but for lunch there was poached chicken and salmon and various plain chopped vegetables, as well as dressed salads and gluten free bread and dessert. I could eat about 1/3 of it which is pretty good odds, I ended up happier than my partner who doesn’t have as many intolerances but just didn't like any of the food options.

[tamberlanecomic]

Support Tamberlane on Patreon!

Hey guys! Did you know that there are some AMAZING behind-the-scenes rewards you can get for supporting Tamberlane on Patreon? It's a great deal at any value, if I do say so myself!

What is Patreon? Patreon, like Kickstarter, is a way to fund your favorite creator! Unlike Kickstarter, though, it's not limited to a single project but instead a (in my case) monthly commitment to support them with donations. In return, depending on the amount you donate, you get rewards!

And, if that wasn't cool enough, no matter what tier you donate at, you get all the perks of the tiers below yours as well!

For example, let me show you what you can get donating to the Tamberlane Patreon:

For only $1 a month, you get access to comic updates over a week early! All $1 patrons are already three (3!) pages ahead of the public. When the comic goes on planning breaks, $1 patrons get to come back sooner! Plus, you get thanked publicly on my Twitter and your name is put on the Tamberlane website and any book you helped fund!

For only $5 a month, you get 5% off of all of my merch, including rad Tamberlane goods, from MyDreamyStar.com! You also get to see time-lapse videos before the public (when they're done in time to be released before the public), and you get to vote in polls!

For only $10 a month, you get 10% off of all of my merch from MyDreamyStar.com! You also get to see EVERY SINGLE COMIC PAGE the same day it's made. There's no buffer for you! Just pure, unadulterated TAMBERLANE, injected straight into your brain-veins. The $10 patrons are currently 10 pages ahead of the public. It's like they're a secret club or something!!

In addition, $10 patrons get access to the behind-the-scenes WIP twitter! I post drawings, scripts, musings about the worldbuilding and characters, and all sorts of other things here that may not filter out to the public!

For only $25 a month, the price of a single dinner at Red Robin's for 2, you get to have your character (or you!) immortalized in the comic FOREVER! You get to become a resident of Treehollow and hang out in the town in the comic! Whenever I need a background cameo, I'll pull from the $25 list. The longer you support the Patreon, the more likely you are to come up again and again!

Not only that, but every month you get a beautiful postcard in the mail with a truly awful specimen of a joke. I am told it's the highlight of my patrons' months!

For only $50 a month, your cameo gets to SPEAK in the comic! They may be around for a few panels or even a few pages depending on what situation I put them in! And just like with the $25 tier, the longer you pledge, the more likely your character is to show up again!

PLUS, you get a single-character sketch commission every single month!

And finally, for $100 a month, your cameo now gets to play a CRUCIAL ROLE in the comic! Everyone will know their name! People will have feelings about them! They will help to move the story along! Terra, for example, is a $100 Patreon cameo!

In addition, your 1-character sketch commission is actually a 2-character sketch commission every single month!

And finally, grab the popcorn: you get to come to the monthly MOVIE NIGHT where we watch fun animated movies together through Rabb.it and chat it up and hang out!

So sign up today to support Tamberlane and get awesome rewards while helping out an independent creator!

If that's not enough to sway you, I'm LESS THAN $50 AWAY from reaching my Ask Blog goal, where once a month I'll sketch some answers to questions my Patrons ask the characters of Treehollow and upload them to this Tumblr! I'm really excited about that goal, and we're SO CLOSE!

If you can't donate through Patreon, or you just don't want to, that is totally fine! You know what the next best method of support is? Sharing! Share this post with your friends, reblog, talk up the comic, get more people to read it! Leave a nice comment! Draw some fanart(!!)!Hug an imaginary fluffbat! It all helps!

And if you're looking for other ways to support me monetarily, check out:

My Dreamy Star - get fun Tamberlane merch and other great things

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Ko-Fi - buy me a cup of coffee

YouTube - watch my time-lapse videos

I think that's all the marketing I've got in me for today; thank you sincerely for reading this comic! I hope you all are enjoying it so far -- and I appreciate your support!

[julystorms]

It seems to me that SNK went from being a character-based story (at least in the early volumes) to plot-based, judging by the development of each arc and the complaints I see from fans of secondary characters as to how little screen time they've been getting lately. What would you have done to change this (and I apologize for potentially asking an open-ended question)?

I think you’re right. Worth noting, too, is that most people in fandom who stick around for a long period of time do it for the characters; SnK is a little different, since the series is still ongoing (and therefore you’ll find a split where part of the fandom is here more for the plot while the rest  sticks around primarily for the characters), but the majority would probably vote for characters over plot. After all, good characters can carry a shitty plot. (The reverse is rarely true; readers need to feel involved and invested in the plot through the characters, so a nice plot doesn’t fly if the characters are legitimately terrible.)

Anyway, like I said, I think SnK started off more character-centric with a basic do-it-yourself kind of a plot:

humanity is on the brink of ruin/extinction (the population we see is all that’s left of the human race)

keeping humanity trapped are magical anatomy textbook escapees

main character is going to fight for honor for freedom FOR GLORY

lmao too bad he sucks?

and also too bad that this is actually Really Dangerous and a lot of people die

good thing our main character can, uh, shift into a titan. For some reason.

There were hints as to Something Bigger going on (Eren’s father promising to show him what was in the basement right before all hell broke loose; the fact that Eren can turn into a titan in the first place), but the series, particularly the anime in some regards, really tried to play up the character-centricism of the story. There’s a plot, definitely, but this is first and foremost Eren’s story, Mikasa’s story, Armin’s story, Jean’s story (et cetera and so on). To showcase this they focus pretty hard on, say, Marco’s death because even though Mina and Franz and others died at the same time, Marco wasn’t seen dying or dead until several days later; he’s a different kind of tragedy. Like, Marco is important for several reasons. These kids are already traumatized from being flung face-first into fighting titans. And then they have to clean up the mess, too? Scrape their comrades off the cobblestones? All right. Marco is one of these classmates. Nobody saw him die. They were probably hoping they might find him injured or something--idealism at its finest maybe. But his bloated corpse is right there; one of their Top 10 died. Why was he alone? What happened? How much did he suffer? And like, was it all for nothing--all this training? Is this going to be everyone’s fate?

I think it’s unfair to give Marco the credit for inspiring everyone to join the Survey Corps (yawn; people are sheep but come on), but he deserves partial credit. The other kids who died, and the adults, too, deserve credit also.

And I mean, look: it doesn’t matter what you think of Marco as a character, the aftermath of his death was a turning point for a lot of characters, especially Jean.

People died, but we saw the immediate impact, if nothing else. Ian and Mitabi dying so that Eren could do his job? We see how this affected Rico, but the story was still largely from Eren’s perspective, so in a manner of speaking how it affected Rico probably had an impact on Eren almost as much as these near-strangers dying for the greater goal did. 

The story started drifting, becoming more plot-centric, after this, with the Female Titan Arc, but we still saw humanity in the writing, in the domesticity of Levi’s special ops squad just being regular people, Petra being a li’l gossip and Eld being a piece of shit and Auruo trying in his own way to make a point about the life Eren has chosen for himself. We see that, too, in Eren’s struggle to understand his shifting, in his desire to be useful while feeling useless, while being treated like an object instead of a person. The series at this point was leaning more plotcentric slowly but surely, while at the same time forcing the reader to ask a lot of human questions about Eren’s situation: is him being a shifter actually even worth anything? Will it ever be? Or are these characters just hoping really hard and making some (perhaps!) fatal choices about using Eren for these purposes?

We see the characters come to terms with Eren. Levi’s special ops squad recognizes Eren as a human being, as a well-meaning child soldier, as a hard, dedicated worker who truly wants to do some good in this world. And they show it in making a show to demonstrate that they understand the troubles he is facing even just a little.

And when they die, we see the impact. Eren feels guilty. Levi tells him to move on because that’s just how life is. Accept the loss as a loss, personal or not, and keep going. 

Eren hasn’t forgotten them; they’ve popped up a few times, chapters and chapters later. Their sacrifices weren’t for nothing, though IMO they died too quickly and without leaving a big enough impact on the audience. Still, at least Eren hasn’t forgotten them.

But after this the plot shifts into Plot Mode and a lot of people die, the impact of which isn’t seen until it feels forced in to account for so many fans bitching about how Isayama probably forgot to include it. The truth of the matter is that I feel 100% that the series shifted to tell a plot instead of a story, and other (fairly) recent events support that, like...Plot Vehicle Flocke who... I mean, I can get behind this kid as a character...or could, if he read as ANYTHING but a body to spew things to move the plot. I feel the same way about most of the new kids; they’re just there to fill space and I can’t imagine we’ll ever have time to get to know them and wrap up the actual plot of the series.

Of course, this is something that tends to happen in long serial works--the author drops tidbits about stuff, changes their mind about those tidbits, abandons plot threads (sometimes intentionally and other times not, oops), adds new plot threads, decides X or Y won’t work as well as originally anticipated and that Z, while a cool concept, has to go because it doesn’t fit with the story anymore/because there isn’t room for it/because now the audience is asking about A, B, C, D, E, and F, and those need to be addressed instead of, you know, why M wanted to be a soldier or how N feels about what’s just happened in the story.

And at this point I think that Isayama has this story to tell and his options are to tell the plot of the story at the expense of his characters’ depth, or...to dig into the characters at the expense of his plot, and he is NOT going to pick his characters over his plot. Tying up the plot comes first; it’s gotten so convoluted by now that if he doesn’t, the series automatically flops. 

And let’s face it--people are invested. Because of the characters that he initially set up. Because Isayama is REALLY good at writing compelling characters if he doesn’t try to force a dull plot on them! Truly, he is. This is the Real Reason why people like his side characters; he paints fascinating possibilities and then (usually) kills them off before we know them, leaving the readers either happy that we got any hints of interesting-ness at all or bitter that that depth was never explored. (I fall into the latter category but I’m honestly a bit torn; if he was going to force a dull plot on Gelgar I wouldn’t really want any part of it, anyway...)

As far as what I would have done, it’s honestly pretty hard to say. I am a character person; I’d have taken a mediocre (or at least less complex) plot over the one we got any day if it meant the characters would have gotten more attention. So I probably would go back, simplify the plot a helluva lot (if not change it entirely: no more memory wipe bullshit, no ackermagic), alter the timeline itself (500 or 1000 years behind the walls instead of 100), and split my attention between the characters and the plot to the best of my ability. I’d no doubt lean toward characters but if the plot isn’t too complex, it won’t feel as if it’s being neglected for the sake of the characters because your readers aren’t busy trying to make sense of a plot that they can’t possibly solve without more information. A lot. More. Information. Instead, your readers are taking this journey with the characters!

(I’d also do hella worldbuilding because SnK’s is terrible and it makes suspension of disbelief very difficult. Like bitch you can’t breed specialized horses in less than 100 years are you high? And let’s be real here: you get speed OR stamina OR mediocrity: NO EXCEPTIONS.)

I was talking with @goodguyjean yesterday about how Eren/Mikasa/Armin don’t really live up to their hype as the main trio because I’m just not very invested in any of them, but Eren and Armin barely even pique a fraction of my curiosity by this point. Considering they are the main characters...that’s bad. I should love at least one of them. As it is, I get frustrated when the story bothers to focus on them. Which I think says something about the plot more than the characters: forcing a twisted complex (but so far very) mediocre plot onto characters that could have flourished if they weren’t bogged down by trauma that hasn’t even been addressed by the series itself--not enough, anyway.

I liked that Eren has had moments of, say, compassion for the titans after learning the truth about them, but...I hate that it wasn’t dealt with more thoroughly, or at least discussed with a more relevant character. Levi showed compassion in turn which was really nice ngl, but I really thought Eren and Connie should have had some screentime together instead. Or better yet: additionally. 

Which brings me to another related issue: character relationships have gotten pretty stale and boring and they were once strong but aren’t being really addressed as falling apart or being “less than” they were before, so... They’re starting to remind me of the Fire Emblem: Awakening relationships we were meant to believe in because we were told to believe in them, but we were never shown those relationships in action and that made it difficult to buy into (I’m specifically talking about the Shepherds and their relationships to one another; the game tells us they’re close but what’s shown is...not that). I hope this is given some attention soon, even if it’s like “lmao yeah none of us feel close anymore” because just ignoring it doesn’t feel right.

(But really this series just tries very hard to do too many things at once and...it’s not working as well as it would if the author focused more heavily on characters or plot instead of balancing between both and inserting THEME in there as well.)

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog - spotlights edition

yeah imma be real w/you chief i don't remember these at all so a reread is definitely in order. so: spotlights trailcutter and hoist

so first ill do trailcutter cause i think that one comes first? maybe? 

so this one takes place between 5 and 6....whoops

so here we have: shield man 

the introduction of the rodimus star! very crucial worldbuilding 

hvbhjskhdfjkd rodimus is so self-congratulatory lmaoooooo

also brainstorm looks rlly cute standing up there holding his briefcase aww

‘wear it with pride, chromedome’ hbsjkdhfghskdf rodimus is so funny 

tailgate. did u know ily 

is. is that a headmasters joke 

whirl hvbdusfbjasjdf that's so fucking funny 

im so bad at elaborating on things in these lmaooo I'm sorry I'm lazy af 

of COURSE whirl drew a mustache on his rod star lmaooo

whirl is such a dick hvhfsdjbsdkf i love him

actually, rodimus is kind of a dick too. i love him also

ok I'm sad abt trailbreaker. especially knowing what happens to him later. oof 

whirl is so goddamn entertaining

is that KILLMASTER??? it must be, i see a wand LMAO

i just want to quote half the lines from any given mtmte/mtmte-adjacent issue but alas that's not really how liveblogs are supposed to work

whirl and brainstorm is an underrated dynamic tbh

oh, tb, never make wishes like that before bed

can’t believe there's really a tf named huffer

oh no! everyone's had a blue filter placed over them!

ohhh and there's rodimus laying into rewind for having those snuff films

so this definitely takes place at the same time as spotlight hoist, then

magnawheels is dope af. he should be magnawheels guy instead of forcefield guy

so whatever froze everyone WASNT the cons doing...interesting

brainstorm being frozen cowering in fear is a nice touch. i love all the early-mtmte stuff that subtly paints him as a big coward, especially considering everything we later learn abt him 

ayy its lockdown! i remember him from tfa as a kid

and then tb - tc? - gives whirls Epic Beatdown Speech. love it 

some classic ‘bad guy explains his business’ stuff 

was metroplex the titan in the annual? or is he the one back on cybertron? the name is familiar but my memory for continuity is horrible 

very nice persuasive deception there, tb

‘how come we don't all have [magnawheels]?’ yknow that's a very good question rodimus

HBFSKJDGDSKJF the really big rodimus...medal...plate...thing lmao 

did this come out right before mtmte 16??? why did it come out so late if its set so early lmao

anyways, that was fun! i never have much to say abt spotlights hvbdahkjfbs sorry. i like tb and this was a cool kinda ‘greatest story never told’ tale!! 

next up: spotlight hoist!

is that tarn??? bro i totally forget what happens in this spotlight augh

i do like seeing tarn get trees thrown at him, tho. even tho iirc that isn't actually tarn, or something. ok we’ll see 

oh yeah swerves in this one! and sunstreaker, who is a character that exists and is on the lost light, but is also someone we basically never see. same with hoist, actually, i feel like we don't see him at all after this, unlike TB

no offense but sunstreaker looks mildly horrifying in this art style. why is his mouth Like That?

HGBSHJKFHSHGSUDJKF PERCEPTOR IS HERE TOO AND HES MASHED INTO THE CEILING. OR THE FLOOR BUT UPSIDE DOWN. LMAOOOOO POOR DUDE

so hoist must’ve been hailing them just as shit started going down in spotlight tb

also why does percy not have his microscope scope or his eye thingy. he looks weirdly symmetrical 

bob..................

i love the implications of an offscreen superlatives award ceremony, what with swerve apparently being voted ‘ships coward,’ and whirls profile saying he was voted ‘autobot most likely to defect’

oh, you're scared of overlord, swerve? well you're not gonna be too thrilled to hear about a certain upcoming plot, 

poor hoist, being sidelined then roasted in his own spotlight 

hoist really said ‘I'm just a normie, unlike all you psychologically damaged main characters’ and yknow what? he wasn't wrong 

ok so hoist was rlly like ‘I'm normal, i don't have any trauma unlike you fools. anyways [talks abt the time he was the sole survivor of a plane crash and almost died]’ like oh honey

oof swerve, being hilariously, concerningly flippant about dying, especially for an apparent coward 

so perceptor is still lodged in the ceiling I'm assuming...im sorry that's just really funny hvbhfsjdkufbsjk

and there's all of swerves fears...and they even combine into a giant scary decepticon lmao

‘phobia shield’ is so in line with that particular Brand(tm) of mtmte sci-fi technology, i fuckgin love it

WHERE THE HELL IS PERCEPTORS LOWER BODY. THATS FUCKED UP I THOT HIS LEGS WERE JUST STUCK IN THE CEILING WTF 

oh damn it latched onto bob 

OH GOD WHATS THIS ENDING WTF. that's fucking depressing, jesus. i mean ik they get rescued and everything's fine but what the hell

anyways, i liked this one a lot too! nice episodic feel, with a coolly poetic ending. i do feel bad for hoist bc this felt like half his spotlight, half swerves lmao AND hoist doesn't really show up in the story much after this, from what i remember. either way this was still a fun read!

[fic-dreamin]

5.0 out of 5 stars Solid Sci-Fi

3.0 out of 5 stars Story vs narrative 2.4 of 5.This book presents a quandary in reviewing: Do the story & idea positives outweigh the difficulties of the narrative style & details of the writing?On balance, I say about 51% in the negative. (Challenges slightly outweigh positives.)As other reviewers have described, the first 40+% of the book will be a hard slog, because the author simply drops you into an in-process story, with lots of new words & ideas, none of which are explained in a traditional narrative way. You simply must endure them, not understanding, until you either a) go find a Goodreads review that explains it all (which I did, which kept me from abandoning the book), or b) be patient enough to slog through until you pick it all up be dint of long-term familiarity.Once you endure this first 40%, the story becomes a fairly fast paced future political / whodunit story that can be consumed with ease.Despite the newfound ease, though, the ending sputtered a bit for me. Lots of ideas & possibilities about motivations of many antagonists come out in the last 5%, and the book ends *basically* telling you which one was the bad actor - but also left me wondering if there were threads / machinations I missed in the end. I had to re-read that last 5% to make sure I knew who the ultimate culprits were, yet I'm still slightly wondering about the other ideas introduced, and left hanging, at the end.Broadly across the book, concepts & tech were nicely new & novel, but came with roughness that I don't think was necessary.It feels like the author was using this difficult narrative style in a "You must earn the right to like my book" stance that I found self-indulgent and irritating.So, ideas & story slightly outweighed by the author's vainglorious style. Go to Amazon

5.0 out of 5 stars Malka Older's Infomocracy is the book you will one day tell everyone you read in 2016 When writing appears such as that of Malka Older's, it's only a matter of time before the world changes around us to keep up. This is the precise effect William Gibson's writing has had on the world. This is the effect Kurt Vonnegut's had. This is the effect Octavia Butler's had. This is the effect Margaret Atwood's writing has had. And Malka Older's work is only like all those reverberatingly influential authors in that her book Infomocracy radiates prescience with such grace that it is overlooked for the fine wordsmithing: Above all else, Malka Older can spin a yarn. What makes Older's contemporary socio-technocratic yarn so moving and memorable is, as terrifically written as it is, Infomocracy seems written as from some newly discovered perspective. What I mean is just as we see as far as our eyes allow, imagine if the parallel of that limit held true for the dimension of time and the present moment? What if we perceived time as we do distance (ie with perspective, ratio, scale). Somehow, it seems Malka Older looks outward from the moment ahead of us in the same way you or I can see just up the road or down the way. At least that's how she writes.Thankfully, whether or not Malka Older's tale is prescient remains to be seen. Yet the way in which a fantastically-paced narrative is propelled with description of a world just ahead of our own by a mere matter of degrees serves to make the story more fun and more thrilling. "Is this us? Oh for heaven's sake, this might be us!" one cannot help but give these thoughts more than a little consideration while moving swimmingly through Infomocracy's story of Big Data politics from an imaginably worrisome angle.Read more › Go to Amazon

4.0 out of 5 stars Infomocracy is the perfect book to talk about post-Election 2016 Cyberpunk with a distinctly political twist, Infomocracy is the perfect book to talk about post-Election 2016, although Infomocracy left me wanting more (in both a good and a bad way).I’ll start with the worldbuilding, because that is almost certainly why you are here. It’s that sort of book. It’s the sort of book that aspires to be hard social science fiction, taking the extrapolation seriously, but not so much of science but of social science. In this case that means political systems. Set roughly half a century in the future, most political institutions have been jettisoned in favor of worldwide “microdemocracy.” What the hell is microdemocracy? The participating parties (holdouts from Saudi Arabia to Switzerland refuse to join) have been divided into “centenals,” or districts of 100,000 people. Each centenal votes on a government. The government that (presumably) gets the most centenals wins the “Supermajority” (which presumably only requires a plurality of centenals). The Supermajority brings with it certain powers, but most governance is über-local, at the centenal level. Walking through a city, then, means constantly crossing political lines that can bring vastly different laws (and cultures). Elections are held every ten years, suffrage is universal, and voting is online. Which brings me to Information. Information is a Google/utility/government/bureaucracy all rolled into one. It both supplies the ubiquitous information at everyone’s fingertips and eyeball, er, tips for everyone and everything and runs the election and oversees and polices the whole system.Read more › Go to Amazon