#well now im adding it retroactively

[gin-juice-tonic]

Well... vegetarians might find it a bit harder to stick to their diets, but it's a step up from feeling tempted to eat humans.

[blackbloodteeth]

just stumbled across your art for the first time & im very curious as to what exactly your starting point for creating soul variants was? by that i mean, what made you begin creating them in the first place, what served as the inspiration for all of this? id also like to add i scrolled your entire archive and i love how expressive your art is! apologies if youve already answered something like this as well. thank you, have a nice day!

Hey, thank you very much! I'm always so glad when people enjoy my varianting, and honestly that's really heartwarming that you went through my archive (especially since I still remember how long it took me to get all of my art up at the time onto here haha)

I've been asked similar questions to this before, but I don't mind it at all, it's always fun to answer even if the history on variants is actually a bit messy haha (to the point I had to kinda just pick a day for keeping track of the Variantverse's anniversary, which I actually use this drawing for reference since it's the first real time there were multiple AU Souls in one art haha).

I'm not joking about the history being messy by the way, you better strap in because this is not a question I'm usually able to answer in just a few neat sentences (for your time there will be art at the end though haha)

So basically, aside from the really old (I'm talking middle school old) AUs I had of Soul (which... don't really have updated art aside from being retroactively really important to Variantverse lore hah), variants initially started as me just finally joining the Soul Eater fandom and just doodling canon Soul in different ways. After that it basically went like I want to draw him in a different outfit, to I want to draw him as Pokemon (context like this involved Discord but that's another story hah), to okay, I want to draw him weird and no one can stop me, and then came one morning where I did a doodle session of drawing him in a lot of non-human designs for the fun of it.

This is the shortened version of it, because there were doodles in between including an entire comic saga and an entire AU that didn't end up on the Variant List (*until much later anyway) because the list hadn't been established yet. Have I mentioned the "List of Soul Variants," by the way? Some know way back when I used to keep a list of all the Soul variants I was making and even gave them all numbers (it was kind've a big deal to the point it was actual in-Variantverse lore), however shortly after it reached 1,000 variants the list went defunct (also a big deal) and I no longer keep track of how many there are. The numbers don't matter anymore, but it contextualizes some things haha.

Now to actually answer the question, where does "variants" start: #019. After the previously mentioned doodle session, I got a Thought™ after waking up to start a [secret project], however I needed a handful more variants for it, and ended up doodling some more. I honestly have no idea if I should still be calling it a secret considering it's been four years now and I never ended up drawing it up despite- Anyway, this is also exactly the point in time I started to call them all variants (theorized by me to be in reference to "regional variant" Pokemon, ones that take a new appearance when adapting to a new region).

So what inspired me? Simply because I just kept going. I started thinking of a reason the variants I'd made so far were all together during the events of [secret project??], I started thinking of a couple Souls watching over the event (that ended up becoming the main characters of the overarching story) and new unrelated variants that were goofing off in the background, I started thinking of an antagonist, not just tied to the events of this, but to the multiverse at large, and I started thinking up what happened afterwards. I ended up giving the first 25 variants lore when I wanted to flesh out their designs, I added new variants to interact with the overarching story, and I just kept doodling new variants for the hell of it, all because it was fun and even if I never really revealed what [secret project] was (at least to only more than a handful of people hah) people in the circles I was in really enjoyed seeing them. Need I remind you that I stopped keeping track of how many there were after about 1090 variants. So yeah, it just kept going.

I guess in a way this is more answering where does the Variantverse start, but it's such an integral core concept that I think is heavily responsible for this madness snowballing to begin with haha, and things like the "Soul Variant Emporium" (an entirely different inside joke) and different Souls interacting out in the multiverse still resurfaces from time-to-time in the little blurbs I give art. I'm just particularly fond of capturing variants from an angle as if writing Pokedex entries, which I think kinda loops back to that idea of where the word variant comes from.

Honestly I just really love character design, and Soul genuinely is my favourite character of all time, so it's very fun to combine the two (especially when integrating concepts I find I like, such as the mass amount of werewolves hah) and I couldn't be happier that people also get a kick out of it even if I feel just a little guilty I don't really draw non-Soul designs much anymore haha (and I will say the madness brought upon my ask box as been an absolute hoot). So yeah, to sum it up: It started because I just had doodle ideas, and I got inspired by never stopping having ideas and everyone unfortunate enough to be caught in my ramble radius happened to enjoy said ideas.

As promised (thank you for enduring, I hope this was at least interesting haha), here's the most notable early variants that got me rolling the snow around:

Awakened Soul is the one I mentioned starting off the later doodles with the idea of "variants" first in mind, but Trickster (giving Soul a new outfit), the Pokemon variants, and other Souls of other doodlings are also notable to the entire messy history as to where this all started. I'm still planning to continue trying to draw all of the 1000 variants of the old list eventually and I look forward to sharing all these silly Souls as always.

I swear I'll give the first AU Soul I'd ever drawn real art one day.

[morganmerylhodgepodge]

Sojiro Sakura

AKA Coffee Dad. Featuring guest appearance by Morgana.

While its still taking a bit, and ultimately I didnt get much done today I think these more informal character sheets really suit me.

Might still do some more formal bust up sheets of the mainest main characters to supplement, but this is probably the best of both worlds between doing rigid, formalized turnarounds and just winging it with no reference at all.

Ive decided to put each characters Tarot Arcana on the sheets as well, considering how big a part of the Persona games it is. Im honestly really not sure why I didnt do that already, but Im doing it now. I've retroactively added them to the last ones I made too.

Not sure how I feel about how his glasses look. I may need to see if I can do the shine on them another way, as I worry it obscures/distracts too much from the lines of the eyes beneath it, but we'll see.

[lloydfrontera]

obsessed with this (and many others) story being so dead-set on two main guys and their just absurdly close relationship and then having the balls so say NO HOMO and being so scared of having an open end so it just had to follow the heteronormativity norms. im so sick and tired of it. it just cheapens the whole things. it cheapens whatever respect there was for female characters involved, which was already not a lot because well. lets be honest yeah. i just wish these stories were self-aware enough to leave the characters alone. no relationship is better than what usually happens in these stories :( that's why im so hesitant to read the novel because im not always able to ignore such stupid literary device. im ranting to your inbox because i think you'll get it and my god i was so bitter when i was spoiled about the story's ending and the violent need to have everyone married it's hhghgghhhnng

i get it yeah. i've been deep in fandom spaces for about ten years now, this is not my first rodeo, won't be my last and i'm already used to it. doesn't mean i'm not tired of it too tho kjasdasd

and yeah i agree, at this point i'm not even really asking for a ship to be canon, i truly do believe sometimes the better option is to just have an open ending and leaving things to the imagination, but the amount of times authors feel the need to shove a last minute het romance just so they can beat the queer allegations,,, is too many to count

i think what gets me with tged is that,,, you can really take away the canon romance and nothing changes. it adds nothing to the plot, it really was something bk moon added in the last chapters purely to make it canon at the end. you could erase those bits and the general plot and characterization remains the same. it is... bad writing to be honest. like. from a purely technical standpoint that's a bad relationship, that's not how you add a romance to your plot!

but! on the other hand! the fact that it can be erased that easily does make it very easy to ignore it and focus on the good parts of the plot which are truly worth everything else aksdhskaj

it's like,, the gay equivalent of that thing marvel does where it includes their 'diversity' moments in such a way that you can cut them off and the film is still perfectly watchable. here you can cut the straight bits and you still get an awesome novel with great characters and deeply moving relationships lmao

it cheapens whatever respect there was for female characters involved, which was already not a lot because well. lets be honest yeah.

and this. yeah. Yeah. i did my fair bit of ranting when the webcomic decided to make silurian javier's love interest, retroactively fridging her for his manpain and also straight up ignoring and erasing her arc in the novel about her not needing to marry to be made heir for the city. like. they just didn't mention it. at all. what the fuck.

and then there's alicia who. the more i think about her and the way her relationship with lloyd is handled the more upset i get. she was such a cool character, with her own thing going on, her own motivations, her own worries, her own deal. and then she becomes lloyd's love interest because. well, she's literally the only important enough female character who isn't related to lloyd or already married who can do it. like. that's it.

silurian gets an entire arc about why she doesn't need to marry lloyd, sherazade marries lloyd's brother, marbella is his mom, moira basically disappears after her introduction... and that's... it, i think?? who else?? emily? the mermaid queen? i for the longest time thought raphael was a girl and was sorely disappointed to find out he was not so. yeah.

then there's the "magentano carry" title effect thing going on and,,, that's a whole mess on its own. i hate it. there's literally an otherwordly power making alicia trust lloyd. let me rephrase that. they had to force the canon love interest into giving her full trust to the main character. the very foundation of their relationship is built on her being literally unable to mistrust him because there's an external force forcing down her suspicions and doubts about him.

and we have canon confirmation that if lloyd pushes hard enough when she's already paranoid because of other factors, that effect can break and all her mistrust and wariness about the potential danger he is to the crown come back with full force and she'll declare him a traitor and go to war against him. like. that's the state of their trust and relationship when the novel is 89% done. i'm not even slightly exaggerating i literally did the math.

it's. it's just bad. it's so bad. i'm. i don't know what else to say. she didn't deserve that. lloyd didn't deserve that. we certainly didn't deserve that either.

so like. after all of this it'll sound really hypocrite of me to tell you to read the novel but. i do think it's still worth it. everything i'm talking about is. such a small part of the entire novel. which is kind of the problem but also the very reason i still think it's worth reading it.

everything else makes up for it i promise akjshdjka

[badsithnocookie]

secrets of the enclave (dantooine fp/story)

Oh Boy another field trip with annoying sith

altho krovos is probably just grumpy she can't be with her gf so i'll let her off. rivix is on thin fucking ice however

with all the saboteur options in this story bit it's actually more frustrating bc i Just Know that nothing willever go anywhere with it

one thing i will say for swtor tho is their environmental artists are top tier.

WHY IS THE RAKATA TEMPLE MUSIC PLAYING. this is the dantooine enclace YOU EVEN HAVE THE RIGHT TRACK IN GAME ffs

oh krovos is convinced malgus gives even a single blue fuck about the empire this is adorable. babygirl you are not very smart are you

leeha :D

oh. oh rivix refuses to listen to you if you tell him to play nice. rare elusive bioware character with a spine. god dammit bioware stop making me like your characters

oh okay i guess leeha's in schroedinger's morturary as well now huh.

it's funnier tho than it has any right to be that krovos and malgus have a Force Bond. even if, granted, everything that would be needed for it was retroactively added with this story chunk, but. quality bioware storytelling

im assuming the same is also true of someone who babysits the pc pub side as well. really considering it's the pc who keeps having to spank him it's them he should have that bond with but i guess you have to include for non force users so

(nah im not even commenting on the revan stuff like. yeah i knew it going in and yeah its shit but at this point i cant muster anything much beyond tired disapproval)

i kinda don't. entirely hate the little thing where you're sending companions off on missions across the galaxy? but like. i dont love that it's filler cutscene content. a more involved mechanic along the lines of xiv's squadrons or sto's duty officer system where you can send npc parties out on missions for rewards/alliance xp could have been an interesting addition (kotfetet era mostly) if only bc it would. 1. give the illusion that you're actually Commanding shit and 2. some purpose to these npcs you're otherwise just collecting to take up space in your base, but. that would require like. effort and i don't think bioware broadsword have had the resources to add such a system since before f2p. (then again they're adding this new companion unlock grind with the current patch so idk)

but apparently this was the last real Content before lots which i dont have unlocked and. honestly part of me just wants to just sub for a month so i can gripe about how terrible it will inevitably be

i know that the launch stuff at least is largely considered underwhelming but like. my expectations for this game are somewhere in the gutter so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

but. i will revisit that thought in the morning lol

[amarriageoftrueminds]

Ever since they put Sam as Cap both in 2014 comics & setting it up in phase 3 MCU to now Marvel's been pushing really hard to "correct" Steve's legacy in only being Cap in name & being more of an anti-government rebel. With Sam as Cap they push hard to make Sam's Captain America a blaring patriotic jingoism ad with neoliberal representation... You'd never have seen Steve be the bodyguard of the president of the USA as a premise of a story 🙄

It's annoying in its own right because along with the America patriot propaganda it logically follows ofc for characters like Sabra & her terrorist actor to easily appear in these stories with some Zionist propaganda.

But it's just really annoying to put it lightly how much Marvel - ever since first putting Sam Cap to page in 2014 - worked overtime to undermine Steve's character making CW a de facto IM movie & painting Steve as in the wrong  for being against the US gov authority & overall stripping back & removing Steve's righteous anger at the US State for what they did with Shieldra, or how FATWS compares its enthusiastically patriotic protagonist to make Steve look retroactively worse

& likewise precluded Bucky's post-WS character arc entirely & retroactively demonized his character as the insufficiently patriotic & therefore untrustworthy one. His whole backstory setup in CATWS painted the US gov in a bad light & culpable via Shieldra, so ofc Bucky gets villainized in phase 3 & likewise FATWS paints Buck at fault for being a target of continuous state violence & institutionalization while Sam- an agent of the state, part of the literal USAF -is presented as moral center while telling Buck he deserves to be at the whim of the US state and blamed for WS crimes the gov funded via Shieldra. Bucky gets surveilled & arrested & monitored by the same US State which funded the supersoldier mindcontrolled assassin program they blame him for while Correctly Patriotic Uncle Sam is shown as a Good US Soldier by contrast while Bucky's story gets retconned & swept under the rug for being to inconvenient to the Patriotic direction they went in.

The propaganda really ramped up with the ink and pages of Sam Cap drying off & becoming their new brand, but marvel's audience who tbh enjoy lapping at the Mouse 's propaganda pool refuse to see beyond the superficial aesthetics which is WHY US media frequently & purposefully chooses these aesthetics & act like neoliberal representation in oppressive structures is radical or progressive.

Which makes all the performative shock over Sabra in BNW fall flat since Sam Cap as a Marvel rebrand is defined by doubling down on Cap as a patriotic literal agent & defender of the US government. Sabra's inclusion is entirely ideologically consistent with what Sam Cap is about FFS, in FATWS the only other character besides Bucky who was exploited by the US gov is Isaiah who CORRECTLY outlines the relationship btwn America & Black ppl & Sam wholly dismisses him as crazy! THAT is was SamCap is about: telling Black ppl to STFU & be patriotic Obama style, but ppl are acting like Sabra is "ruining" Sam's otherwise totally not at all propagandistic stint as a now more patriotic 🇺🇸flag laden hero while America funds multiple genocides as the USA has always done since it's inception.

I haven't watched the trailer (and tbh don't intend to... too depressing) so I can't really comment on specifics of this.

But I will say that I was thinking the other day how MCU's complete refusal to do any Cap character properly, but especially Steve, had the knock-on effect of making it impossible to do a SamCap well too.

Steve was supposed to be impoverished / multiply disabled / ideologically Antifa / feminist / pro-union / New Deal Democrat / Irish-Catholic / urban underdog, etc. And it would make perfect sense for a modern black man to accept the legacy of all that, if Steve had been adapted properly.

In deleting all that and assigning to the mantel what America represents instead, they've turned the shield from an honour into an albatross.

But it's still contradicting their own canon to do so.

Because even the de-yassified MCU Steve never embodied America; he merely set an example to America.

Isaiah should not plausibly believe Steve's shield represents something bad -- as someone who knows nothing about Captain America would -- as if MCU canon!Steve never did any of the good things he did with it.

(This could've been a beat addressed in the main Cap movies; eg. someone assumes Steve is a Republican and his baffled response is 'huh??!')

Following canon, Sam's logical response to that should've been 'wtf it doesn't mean any of that where did you get that from??' not 'yeah but I want to represent that anyway.'

Isaiah correctly lampooned what America's legacy is... but no one bothered to point out that's not what Steve and his shield have represented. Not even the landlord-white version of him we have in the MCU.

That failure makes a nonsense of Sam's entire friendship with Steve.

Why would Sam be friends with the willing bearer of America's bad legacy?

Why would a decent Steve be friends with someone who wants to represent a bad legacy (maybe EG Steve would!) and so on and so on.

Though I guess it's no dumber than Steve not killing Peggy on sight for colluding with Nazis for decades, huh? 😕

I'm looking forward to all the jokes Sam is going to make about Isaiah being a brainless killing machine (y'know, to show what bros they are?)

And when he comes out at the end of it and tells Isaiah he needs to "do the work" to apologise properly for what he did while controlled.

Or perhaps he will suddenly magically understand the concept of innocence, now? 🤔

Sam siding with the authorities might be sadly consistent with the spirit they've taken him in (I've pointed it out before, but it is IC for him to be, eg. a dick to Bucky. Yer man's been doing that since day one).

But it at the very least it contradicts Sam's canon to willingly guard Ross, a man who threw him in enhanced-people-Gitmo like a "common criminal," to paraphrase Sam himself.

(Hey, why would the man who threw Sam in prison later trust Sam to guard him? Is it just a set up to screw Sam over again? Okay, but why would Sam fall for something so openly implausible? Are they giving him the idiot ball?)

The MCU are masters of 'we don't understand what this action we've assigned the character actually shows about them.' Or when they are assigning character actions that contradict past actions.

And they sure as fuck don't know what made CATWS a good movie.

[lulu-nightbon]

@alienembers THIS MAY ALSO HELP WITH PLAYING SUBNAUTICA. mainly because in the second video one of the reapers glitched out and was stuck facing away from the player swimming into a wall. that shit's always funny, even in the poopy water. also its. it kinda hits you in the feels if you're not prepared, so props to the guy that made this, im impressed, it hits harder than the game on its own, and that's counting every time i lost a sub or saw (endgame and actual plot spoiler) also- idk if it'll help but i know for me part of what initially made subnautica terrifying was the thought of walking in blind, so i researched EVERYTHING not knowing what was/could be out there was absolutely terrifying, and yeah. i will admit that, in some cases, learning what actually was out there was worse. but there's another solution for that! aside from knowing your do's and don'ts and what they will/won't respond to and the behavior quirks coded in (you can check out the trivia section on each creature page), there's no shame in having your first save file be one in creative so you can explore and get used to the environment, and get used to telling the fish to SHUT THE FUCK UP IM TRYING TO GROW A GODDAMN TREE YOU SON OF A BITCH, that way slipping into a survival/freedom (or even hardcore, if you really wanna test your skills) is easier. there's also console commands, where you can make yourself invisible to the creatures, make it so you can ohko them, what have you. i can get you the full list if you like- plus they just made an update (which shows real dedication considering the game is 9 YEARS OLD NOW THIS THING IS ALMOST AS OLD AS MY LITTLE SISTER) that fixed a fuckton of frustrating bugs and retroactively added a few things that were in below zero, like the large room and the glass domes for the multipurpose room and large room. idk if this was part of the (i think it was called living large?) patch or a smaller one they did before, but they fixed a behavior glitch for a fauna that had been bugged out this entire time. the shuttlebug is called the jumper in the files because they were supposed to walk around on land for a little bit when they got tired of swimming and do a little jump to go back to swimming when they didn't want to walk anymore. iirc it was one line of code that fixed other issues as well, so! that's a thing too. there's also a mod that lets you just have leviathans pop into your pocket when they run into you- The Last Bacon has done a series of videos on subnautica mods, so check those out too. if you want ANY info on subnautica you need clarification on, cant find, or just dont wanna look up- don't hesitate to ask. im MORE than willing to brainrot over it, i love this game and definitely haven't been wanting to make a crossover au between it and lmk, nosiree

[rosepetalwings]

so me and my partner (@pcletteswcp; they dont rly have a main blog) have been Theorizing and they suddenly had the most genius revelation about spamton that they'd like me to share with you all and what his calls really are…

but first, let me back up for a moment.

so… the library dark world is… strange, right?? can we all agree on that? it only existed for a few hours and yet every library world darkner seemed to pop out of nothingness with set personalities and backstories and just the whole nine yards. the school dark world was just as strange to be entirely fair but with chapter 2, it set a(n at least, more obvious) precedent in that darkners just… suddenly exist in a sapient form with the creation of a dark fountain. 

now, what does this mean within the scope of this theory? darkners with these histories among them either have entirely fabricated backstories when they form as new beings OR they remember things from their lives as objects and that is translated into histories for their new form as living people. i personally think the latter is much more likely when we consider swatch and their dialogue

swatch was likely a paint program akin to MS Paint before the advent of a dark fountain bringing them and their surroundings into a sapient state of being and with that in mind, remember this dialogue?

with how closely the NEO body resembles mettaton NEO's form and how spamton NEO's theme "BIG SHOT" samples "Another Medium", "Power of NEO", and "Ghost Fight"/"Dummy!", we can pretty safely assume this was pre-perfect body mettaton that swatch "helped" in creating his most perfect body. (mettaton im care and lov u 🥺🥺🥺) swatch, being a personified paint program, likely helped mettaton in creating a mockup of his perfect body by mettaton literally drawing the body in the paint program swatch was.

putting obvious connections everyones made by now aside, this all supports the idea that darkners remember their lives as everyday objects… now. what does this have to do with spamton?

well, spamton is a darkner, just as everyone else in his world minus our lightner heroes. so… how was he getting phone calls? how can a spam email/ad get a literal phone call? that doesnt make much sense, right?

so okay, what if this is an abstraction? like how swatch helped create mettaton's dream? what else could these "phone calls" stand for?

shall we take a trip back to 1997? the year spamton, the self-proclaimed email guy, himself states was "a good year". 

presumably this was the spammy salesman's peak. his prime. at least a good enough year that he remembers and looks back on so fondly. now, what was the internet like in 1997?

oh yeah! we had… dial-up modems to access the internet. which used a phone line to do so. and… spam emails that commonly read like 'forward this to 10 of your friends!' interesting. very… very interesting.

so. what if we assume the "phone calls" were this: the mysterious contact (who we'll name X in this post for brevity) spamton was getting help from connected to the dialup internet and boosted a particular spam email for whatever reason and retroactively gave an e-manlet deep religious trauma when the emails started declining in popularity bc no one likes spam and

by the 2000s, dialup was on a major decline as broadband reigned champion in popularity. now, the phone in spamton's shop is still ringing. that's what stumped me for the longest time. if the calls stopped, why's the phone still ringing? and why is there "garbage noise" on the other end? the same garbage noise we can presume is like the sound that escapes kris's phone when we attempt to use it in the dark worlds.

what if spamton's decline AND the end of the phone calls coincided with the advent of the dialup internet in the library being disconnected in favor of broadband? what if X is still attempting to contact spamton but all that comes out is garbage noise as the way they were connected is gone? and what if that's the most tragic part of all; what if spamton was never purposefully abandoned? what if X never meant to leave him, things just… happened and X couldn't help him anymore. X was unable to help further. X's hands were tied, even.

and so came spamton's fall from popularity… and grace.

but thaTS JUST A GAME THIEORUIY

[quicksandblock]

speaking of c!techno and losses, cus I thought about it a bit in the shower, you know what I would've liked for techno to lean into? the loss of his allyship and friendship with c!tommy.

even though the relationship between them was completely dysfunctional and doomed to fail due to conflicting goals, they still CLEARLY cared for each other while working together. and c!techno was clearly very hurt and felt betrayed when c!tommy switched sides. that could've been a major loss for him, or prompt him to question his ideals and whether it was worth the people he hurt and lost.

that's really why c!technos response to c!tommys death later was disappointing. sure, you could argue that 1. c!techno isn't the type to grieve publicly and maybe he grieved privately "off-camera" 2. cc!techno obviously prefers a lighthearted tone and isn't gonna lean into angst.

but his lack of response obviously gives the audience the impression that he doesn't care. and im not sure if that was the intent, but if it is, that's disappointing.

there could've been subtle ways to show grief and regret (he's good at the subtle stuff anyway). he couldve subtly implied that he was covering up grief with humor. techno is not a bad actor or writer, he excels at subtle storytelling. but that whole thing really made me just. dislike and distrust his character, lol

-cube-cumb3r (thank u for reblogging my crit post earlier btw)

it was a good post lol, like I said you put it all very well

and yes!! all of this!!! like it would have been weird if he’d grieved too obviously, but we wanted something, and we didn’t get it, and now Techno’s character is starting to feel kind of flat. he’s losing a lot of depth he had at the start. like it’s still an interesting character, but more and more we’re having to read that in from possibly-unintentional clues rather than being able to analyze obviously deliberate character choices.

unfortunately I think the root of the problem is that Techno isn’t having as much fun on the dsmp anymore. he came in to play a cartoon villain and promote his channel, and suddenly everyone’s storylines are fucking dark and everyone has 15 different kinds of ptsd and his funny anarchist pig doesn’t really have a place there anymore. not to say his character hasn’t always had its serious moments - but like the dream smp itself, they used to be the spice that added significance to a mostly lighthearted story, not the norm. nowadays it feels like you have to be able to cry on command to even participate.

there’s also the fact that he doesn’t really like collaborative storytelling. he’s said this on stream before - I can’t remember exactly when, but it was when half the fandom decided that Ranboo was his son (?? why????) and he had to come in and clear that up. he doesn’t like other people being able to decide things about his character, and he doesn’t really like “yes and”-ing as far as I can tell. he prefers to have tighter control over his own story. which is valid - but creates some problems in a story built entirely out of collaborative roleplay.

unfortunately both of these lead him to clash with Tommy’s storytelling style pretty severely - Tommy loves the dark stuff, and he’s also more than willing to play off of people and let improv and chance have a strong influence on his character’s path. and Tommy does a lot of highly emotional improv acting, which Technoblade just Doesn’t (unless the emotion is anger).

Ranboo and Tubbo have been talking about the older “semi-lore” style of the smp recently, and I think that a return to that style would allow Techno to come back to participate more in the story. but overall I think the conflict here is going to remain until the current arcs, especially the Tommy and Dream thing, have been wrapped up. which is unfortunate because Techno is kind of an integral part of some of those arcs.

coming back to specifically his response to Tommy’s death... I kind of feel like cc!Techno is trying to retroactively make that relationship less important to his character in an attempt to separate himself from the grimdark stuff. but I honestly can’t tell. it could just be a manifestation of his tsundere-ness. I hope it is, because while I get not being interested in a darker story, it would be kind of disappointing if he just noped out of any story that didn’t fall in his comfort zone. I just wish he would fucking stream so we could have anything at all to go off of lmao

[newtedison]

my thoughts on the crank palace

i touched about this a bit on twitter (@newtedison_) but i figured i would Try and touch on my points more here (spoilers obv) again, its sort of lengthy

1. im gonna start with talking about the ending because i need to get it out of the way. either i havent read the books in a while and i forgot some canon (which could very well be true, i literally forgot that Bliss was a thing) or this ending makes no sense and is (somehow) setting up for a tdc sequel? so first off, newt was shot in the Head with a Bullet and somehow didnt immediately die? i know that that can happen in real life but it just seems so unlikely that not only would he not die, but he would survive long enough for someone from WCKD to transport him back to their labs and try to revive him. and who the fuck was he talking to? did thomas get newt’s journal at some point and i just dont remember? like i said, either im forgetting stuff or this ending doesnt make sense and is setting up a sequel which...i’ll get to later

2. why was this written? like, what was the point? i understand that this wasnt going to be all sunshine and rainbows but i feel like i was reading torture porn. like, literally all that happens is newt gets tortured (which is described in detail) by WCKD soldiers, has bouts of insane-fueled rage where he KILLS MULTIPLE PEOPLE, and then he dies. ??? what did this contribute to the canon? what was this trying to accomplish? truthfully, i never really wanted a newt-POV...well, anything except for maybe those little nuggets he wrote some time ago. but even if i HAD wanted a newt-POV novella, this is not what i would have wanted. he KNOWS that newt is almost universally the most loved character in this franchise. you can tell because he constantly uses him as a way to get fans in his good graces again. so why on earth would he take that character that so many people love and write a novella where its torture porn and a descent into madness before death? i am not interested in that At All. i’ve read fics (and even written a drabble) where newt is a Crank, and those were more respectful and easier to read than tcp. the parts where newt is having bouts of the Flare were literally exhausting to read; it was described in such vivid and torturous detail that it made me sick reading it. and it didnt help that newt is a character i care a lot about. i didn’t need to know what becoming a Crank felt like. the way it was described in the other books (and even the movies) told me everything i needed to know. the way thomas and everyone found newt at the crank palace in tdc and hes described as obviously not well, but not knowing what exactly happened to him...thats good enough on its own. the mystery of what exactly newt had to endure is part of what gives his journey more emotional depth. not everything needs to be written out and explained. not every gap needs to be filled in. 

3. me saying “the characterization felt off” is going to make some people roll their eyes because ‘duh, sami, the characterization will be off because he’s going insane’ to which i say...exactly. we weren’t really reading a newt-POV novella, were we? even if he isn’t past the Gone in the beginning, hes clearly not the same person we knew him as. the whole novella felt like an uncanny valley situation; i knew i was supposed to be reading about newt, but it felt like i was reading about someone else who looked like him. and that is part of what made this such a disconnect and made me lose interest at parts. not only that, but the world building and lore is inconsistent. newt makes a comment about how it used to rain in the glade, and apparently (as ive been told) that is simply not true. keisha having somehow working cell phone that magically connects her to her family also doesnt make sense. how would they have each others’ numbers? what are the odds that they BOTH found working cell phones in an apocalypse? i get that its a novella but you cant just throw something that crazy in there as a plot convenience. actually work on your plot and world building in a cohesive way, please. and another thing that doesnt make sense...

4. ...is newt finding out that sonya is his sister. if there was anything i would have wanted from a newt-pov novella, it would have been this. him finding out that not only is sonya his sister, but he already knows her post-WCKD. something that would have made this novella actually captivating, contributing something worthwhile to the canon that i would actually want to read, is if newt found out while in the crank palace that sonya was his sister; the Flare would remove that part of the Slice in his brain, and he would realize it was her. then, knowing that he couldnt go past the Gone before seeing her, he would try to find a way to get back to her. he could learn this after thomas and everyone originally see him, so it could match up with the canon. and then, by the time 250 comes along, hes lost all hope of that actually happening, and lashes out to thomas in a fit of rage. the journey of him trying to find his ACTUAL sister would have meant more to me than the story of keisha and dante. trust me, i love a found family trope as much as the next girl. but this series is FULL of the found family trope. it pretty much is the backbone of the franchise. so to see a blood family dynamic would have been a refreshing change of pace that i actually would have been interested in reading. also, the way that newt DOES find out about sonya is...underwhelming. he just randomly says “you remind me of my sister, sonya” to keisha in the WCKD truck. first of all, sonya is not the name you would actually know her by. you would know her by her birth name (which is lizzy? elizabeth?). second, why does he act like he didnt already meet her in the series? when the WCKD doctor tells him sonya is his sister and is alive, hes so surprised. wouldn’t he have known that already? why is there not more emphasis on the fact he already met her? that would have been a really interesting dynamic to explore, and im sad they didnt

5. the pacing and dialogue of tcp is so dragged out. i remember specifically there was a section where newt goes to talk to keisha after she starts abandoning dante, and i swear to god there was a page and a half of text before anything ACTUALLY happened or anyone ACTUALLY said anything. dashner described a launcher at one point as “the energy dependent electric firing projectile device.” that’s SIX words to describe a stun gun. a fucking stun gun! we know what it is! why did you have to use six words??? it just felt like everything was dragged and stretched to the longest it could possibly be and it added to the exhaustion i felt while reading it

6. okay i cant end it without talking about newtmas. its very obvious by now that newtmas is a VERY large part of this fanbase. its clearly the most popular ship and what keeps a lot of people interested in this series. even the marketing team for the MOVIES used newtmas as a advertising tactic (i.e.; using thomas and newt standing face to face as a thumbnail for the trailer, emphasizing newtmas based questions in interviews, even making a fucking facebook memories video for them. yes that last one is real). not only does dashner use newt as a way to lure fans in; he also uses newtmas. the parts that were sprinkled into this were so obvious that it didnt feel authentic. i cant speak for the original trilogy; i dont know the culture around ships back then, and i dont know how much it influenced his writing at the time. but the scenes in those books felt more genuine than tcp. by genuine i mean; he wrote scenes without a relationship in mind, but the chemistry had noticeable subtext that, while unintentional, was largely agreed upon by the larger audience. the parts of newtmas he added into tcp felt artificial and forced, likely as a way for people to take snippets of and use as a free marketing tool for him. one example you might have already seen; “he had already gotten used to his post-thomas, post-WCKD life.” the fact that dashner SPECIFICALLY used the phrase “post-thomas” rather than “post-his friends” or something similar shows that he is using newtmas as a hook on purpose. not only that, but to make newt’s last thoughts as he died “tommy. tommy will understand...” is...wow. first of all, i never wanted to know what newt’s dying thoughts were, but thanks, i guess? and second, when we all initially thought newt died underneath thomas with a gun to his head, i was pretty much inferred that newts last thoughts would probably be about thomas; they would sort of have to be, given the circumstances. so adding that in gives me the same feeling that “i’m coming for you, newt” at the end of the fever code gave me. not as offensive, but written very much on purpose. and the ending is implying that there will somehow be a sequel where thomas gets newt’s journal from...someone. at this point, i can only think that this sequel will retroactively make newtmas canon somehow. now that newt has been confirmed as gay, it could happen. which brings me to my last point...

7. hearing dashner confirm newt is gay was already mind-boggling before. now that i’ve read the crank palace...im angry. im very angry. i think its safe to say that newt is the character that suffers the most in this series. you can argue with me but hes definitely high on the list, if not #1. so; you take this character. you give him a horribly sad arc in the original trilogy, then decide to expand upon it and tell us, your largely QUEER fanbase, exactly how painful and torturous his last days were, in detail. and then you tell us he’s gay. something that is never mentioned in the canon, only in an offhanded reply to a tweet of someone calling you out. on a base level, i can understand why people would be happy. representation (i guess), seeing themselves in the character, having their headcanons be confirmed. great. but what i see is you telling your largely queer fanbase “hey, you see the only confirmed gay character? im going to literally write torture porn about him before killing him off and offer it to you like im providing a service to your community.” how fucked up is that? “hey, kids, if youre gay, you WILL be violently tortured and become violent and a danger to the ones you love. then you will die and your love will never be reciprocated.” what a message! and if he DOES end up retroactively making newtmas “canon” in some weird sequel...i will start foaming at the mouth. THIS is an example of how not all queer representation is good or genuine.

i’ve definitely forgotten some points but this is long enough already. let me know if you agree or if theres anything else you want to add! im interested in what you guys think

(8. I JUST REMEMBERED!!! if WCKD needed to study newt so bad bc sonya is his sister and is immune while he isnt, why did they let him run around the crank palace in the first place??? you cant test his vitals or anything you’re literally just watching him. what is the point????)

[luobingmeis]

i have a genuine arcana question! I really want to play it and actually did part of it a while back, but i really felt like it was a bit of a money sink... it seemed really cool so i guess im wondering if its worth it?

i'm putting this under the cut just bc it got long!!! :D

okay so!!! i have honestly been thinking abt this a lot and, like, i will admit that i was kinda retroactively shocked by how uhhh quickly i spent like Real Money on the arcana? i think that's kinda like the kicker of having a lot of like $1/$5 options? to be fair as much as i am living in the arcana rn, it's whole play model Does seem to be based in, ah, microtransactions!

and like for a hot minute, i was quick to drop like small amounts on coins bc i do work, so i had the mantra of "well i'm getting paid in a week so-" but still i'd be careful with that!! like i've been playing for almost a month and it was really in that first week where i was like "well $1/$5... it's not that much" which like! tbh i don't wanna be like "no never spend money on a game ever" bc that'd make me. a hypocrite! and also to a degree, like, ik people talk abt microtransactions a lot in video games, but i don't think any in-game purchase at all is a bad thing, and i think it's fine to treat yourself once in a while! but also i am purposely replaying julian's route (and replaying it slowly) so that i can start racking up coins to carry over into the replay/the next arc i want to play (because you get free coins every day from the tarot daily section, and 40 coins per day by watching ads)

but also!! i think it's also good to just kinda think abt the kind of person you are when it comes to spending? like to put myself on blast, i have become Very Prone to impulse purchasing, especially when i'm in a rough patch, bc apparently retail therapy is a very real thing akjdsjksdkj so after i finished julian's route, i metaphorically sat myself down and was like "nope, no, this cannot become a habit!!! the coined options will still be there later, you can take your time and replay the game, which you want to do anyway"

but that is also bc i Know that i have... the type of personality that really latches onto stuff like that? like, little things that, on it's own, don't cost a lot of money, and it makes me feel happy, so i'm like "well, it's only X amount!" and then. yeah.

but also i have to be transparent here and say that i am also coming from a place of like. privilege, where i'm working full-time and i still live at home, so there is a degree of financial security that allows for me to have spending money. which is also why i don't want to uncritically be like "go ahead! treat yourself!" bc like, it might also be dependent on your current situation!!

and also my more harsher critique of the arcana Asides from the paywall is that like....... tbh the better scenes in the game Are behind the in-game coin paywall (and also tbh only 3 of the 6 arcs are enticing enough to me to consider grinding for coins to parry that paywall). and that tbh is def part of the business model bc, like, a lot of the free options cut off the chapters so quickly and that to me isn't worth it, like being very frank if i only chose the options that didn't use the coins, idk if i would have liked it nearly as much

so tldr (i'm sorry i ramble), the arcana has become what i have latched onto right now, and i love the story! however, i will be honest, most of that "worth" factor comes from the content behind the in-game paywall, which is then behind an actual real paywall. so if you're in a place where you have some spending money and won't blow a shit-ton of money on a game, then the choice is up to you! i don't want any of this to feel like i am Telling you what to do with your money, and at least how i see it, what helped me was essentially telling myself "you are forming a habit that will dig you into such a deep hole, just take your time, save up the in-game currency, and replay." so like!! i think the arcana as a game is very fun and i am fixating so hard on it rn, however whether it's Worth the paywall is dependent on your situation, i think

(and also just bc i'm Anxious, i would consider this less advice and more so "hey, i'm someone with an impulse spending habit and here is how i see/navigate the arcana paywall")

(edit: okay i'm rewording my take on the free arcana content, bc it's not that it's not good! closer to the end of julian's route, i started being a lot more picky with What coined options i used, and i still had a very fun time!! and tbh that gave me incentive to want to replay bc now i have new stuff to still look forward to!! it's more so that the scenes unlocked with the coined options are very fun, and i think they're a good incentive to save up for!!! :D)

[bisluthq]

I’ve been really down over grammygate for all the reasons you’ve mentioned. I was trying to think of how people would react to other artists doing what she did and could you imagine if Kanye credited Kim on 33% of songs after it won a AOTY Grammy? Because I KNOW THAT would generate outrage. And people would say things like:

• Kanye is crazy (which is commonly said and unfair given we know he has mental health conditions, but in the colloquial way, he’d be said to be crazy) or dumb or whipped - because why else would Kim get a Grammy? /// and people should be asking why Joe got a Grammy

• people would question their relationship status and because they were known to have some messy moments , people would gossip that Kanye added Kim later on as a grand gesture of love OR he left her out in the beginning because they were fighting at the time of release but are back on good terms now

• heaps of people and media outlets would be questioning Kim directly with technical questions about producing and try to force her to say something that was musically smart, sit her in front of a board and ask her to prove she can do it, or try to trap her in her lie that she can do any of it

• people for sure would be more outraged that Kim had a Grammy for AOTY before Beyoncé. And that would show the sexism side more because we’d be comparing the talent of 2 women, Kim and Bey, compared to just going ‘oh yeah, Joe has a Grammy now’ - like no one is trashing Joe’s character when raising the issue that it sucks he has an AOTY before Beyoncé, but when women win over men, all the sexism (especially slut shaming variety) comes out

• neither Kim or Kanye would be “cancelled” because they seem invincible to that tbh, and eventually people would laugh over it being another part of the Kimye story...

I know what I said is all hypothetical and ok Kimye have split now, so it probably won’t ever happen. But I think the issues people would make over Kim getting a vanity credit/AOTY/ retroactive credit should still be discussed by joe getting one.... and instead people are making it more about “be a *good* taylor swift fan” or “it doesn’t effect you directly so why care?”

IM going in roundabouts and don’t mean to, but it feels like some people are missing the point or choosing not to listen to why some of us are disappointed - as you say - as a fan - in Taylor, and the RA but we already knew they were difficult. And as a fan of taylor, I think she’s compromised her entire musical legacy with this because it allows for debate to resurface if she had ghost writers since the beginning (which was based entirely on the idea that teenage girls couldn’t write that well) because according to this Retroactive Grammy, she DID work with a GHOST PRODUCER!

Ive LwYs Cared about her as a creator and that’s why this to me as a fan of her is all so disappointing now. And I’d have been disappointed tbh if he was credited as a producer from the beginning, but only in a way where it’s like “wow you really do think he IS EVERYTHING?!? You really believe you couldn’t work without him?!!!!” Now it’s like I partially think that, but I mostly think “you lied and probably cheated on the most prestigious award in music for him when you thought it was safe and sneaky???” She was canceled the first time in part “for lying” and it’s like the two biggest things that have plagued her career - is she really the one doing the work and is she a liar - she just did them in one go... I can’t express it clearly and I’m sorry this was so long. It’s just sad. But yeah, I agree with you about a lot of what you’ve said on this and it’s weird to think how differently the narrative would be if it were other people getting the award.

Sending love to you if you want it 💜

Good thoughts yeah I agree.

[thezeekrecord]

hi im waiting for pain meds to kick in before i continue sleeping so im gonna sit here and talk about the intents behind character arcs in good afternoon good evening and goodnight ok i try not to talk about it like this Too much but hey it's fanfiction why not

so like. essentially the big overarching theme was obv supposed to be the subjectivity of reality and what it meant for themselves and their relationships

for gordon especially the game meant a lot about who he is/who he gets to be or wants to be, the idea of being a player character and second guessing your own intent was something i was excited to write as i was first starting to plan this fic out. i wanted him to struggle a Lot retroactively with reality when it felt like everyone else had long since accepted it had been a game, and ultimately that was supposed to play into his relationship with benry a lot. also obviously a huge thing for him was Trauma, we all love a good gordon freeman trauma hurt/comfort moment right? i wanted to write sort of a backwards progression for him when they were in hl2, like i tried to reverse the script a little between gordon and benry where he just. he was doing his best contrary to what happened with benry and was Worried because that's very gordon, but him just laughing thru a lot of shit and not taking it entirely seriously like he should, not even paying attention to how bad he needed a break because Well It’s Not Real Right? meanwhile benry.....well i gotta back up for him for a bit

benry i feel like i struggled a bit with, i wish id written him Slightly different in the beginning at least but ehh. idk there's a lot of content out there for benry that i feel like skips over the idea that he hurt everyone (im Not getting into disc horse over this even though i have a lot of thoughts about it) but it was important to me to write an arc of him really trying to reach out? i think ppl fall into the trap of putting "gordon has to understand benry" before "benry has to make an effort to be understood". i think it's easier to project and say you want the others to put in that effort on his behalf, but the truth is i think that effort has to be very mutual! i liked writing an arc for him where he doesn't even understand himself very well and had to give his relationships time. i wish id had more time for it, but trying to juggle so many character arcs was Really tough lol. but regarding my choice w/the hl2 part, i do wish id had the opportunity to have him there More, i entertained the idea of him being powerless but with gordon the whole time or smth, but plotwise it just wasn't working out And it felt relevant for him to have that whole experience with the nihilanth. i wanted him to have the reverse experience to gordon was having, suddenly realizing there were actual consequences and he could die, essentially living out what gordon felt was his experience in hl1 fighting benry even if ultimately things would have been ok, bc he didn’t Know or register that at the time?

Whoa 2 Paragraphs For Benry anyway after that, even tho i took his powers away temporarily for adding context to the others' perceived experience and fpr worldbuilding/adding stakes to the situation, i don't really like story arcs for redeeming characters where their arc is represented by having powers taken away Permanently. like "its ok guys i just literally can't do it anymore so i won't" u know?? it doesn't feel like Enough. i wanted to show something where he took back his powers and what made him who he was and used it for Good. i think that rounds things out a little better? it was important that everyone, especially gordon, got to see him taking back the powers he used to attack them in the game and using them to protect them instead. it was a part of his identity, being like Not Human, and played v importantly into his relationship with tommy

with tommy i feel like. ok with everyone in gagegn i feel like i was deliberately mischaracterizing a bit for the sake of the story because My City Now, but i think tommy got hit pretty hard ajchdjshg i just wanted a very particular arc from him....so he was Very serious and i wish id worked in more moments where he got to be like, comedically just super wrong about something or just generally silly but Oh Well. anyway tommy's experience with knowing it's not real was very much implied to be a lifelong struggle and i was Heavily projecting, like, i love the unreality elements in hlvrai because [dissociates and gets delusions about nothing being real] and i just wanted to leave it implied he's always had a hard time with feeling like he Knows it's not real, and still just. Keeps Chugging Along bc what else can u do? also this is a very particular thing but i feel like with psychotic characters in media there's always a question of "but what if....the whole thing isn't real....." but i wanted to write an arc for a character where delusions Prepared them for something in a sense? i could go on for a whole other post about the dsm and psychosis representation etc etc but he was just. Prepared for knowing it wasn't real. my experience i projected heavily onto the story was acceptance of such a weird, abstract concept, and just trying to have a fulfilling life/relationships anyway because what would trying to unravel it all just for the sake of it do?

and that plays into how i wrote gman as essentially a foil to tommy, but im almost done with a ""post-canon"" fic about him so i won't say much on that (i think the fic caters to only me specifically maybe but i'll still post it ajfjsfh) but regarding tommy's whole thing with g-man, it was Very intentional for things to feel sort of unresolved and for him to still second guess himself. it was important to me that way idk, i feel like that's more true to life?

i WISH i had more time and ideas for darnold though.... he's another case of my projecting definitely, and i actually almost had Him go into nova prospekt with alyx instead of gordon and reappear at exactly the right moment for dramatic effect, but i wanted an arc for him where he discovered he wanted more than anything else to be with the science team and to have him disappear kinda contradicted that :/

im running out of steam to keep typing this. well with dr coomer i feel like that was another wild thing that was me projecting again ajdjajfjd i just love a good fantasy DID/OSDD situation (NEVER SEES THIS FOR REAL) and i wanted a little extra flavor with the clones to sort of mirror bubby's struggles

and with bubby. like ok with the prototypes and vortigaunt friend, i had the idea maybe a prototype survived the resonance cascade and had been hiding that whole time and bubby actually finds and rescues him? but that felt too weird and complicated for everything else going on so i threw in a vortigaunt as an emotional standin for him. the reason i wrote bubby resentful to his prototypes at first is one of those things i only introduced to represent part of his story arc and not necessarily a headcanon, i love the idea he considers them family and likes them for the most part! it was just something to slowly represent him growing past black mesa without just Saying it

it's like 5am. lastly.....the player......just like gman was to tommy, i did my best to write the player as almost an opposite to gordon even if i tried to make them as similar as possible. something i rarely see is exploring how complicated i feel like it would Actually make things to have a player, outside your game, trying to be your friend? i understand why ppl don't go this route and i didn't go too hard on it, but i mean, he's this guy who has control over your world and is living outside of it, and views all your life hardships as trivial in comparison to his own? i wanted to represent this in only small ways, because i thought it made sense to show him genuinely making an effort, but in moments like when he was talking to benry and when he talked to gordon, i wanted to show him just. Trying but still not taking it as seriously as he should, he gets Mad but he's treating it like a video game still! it's a power imbalance, and if nobody else was going to explore that then i would afhjchkg

my choice getting back to tommy and benry at the end.... maybe i wrote it a little angstier than i should have but that's something I'm glad i ran with, i was nervous ppl wouldn't like it but. having that flash forward was important for tommy especially after he fought with gman about like, the significance of short lives. he still had benry who i think i could have tried to show being a lot happier to be there to drive the point home, he's just kinda deadpan and maintained him that way but genuinely i wanted him to be happy to explore space with tommy! they had a weird beginning to their friendship, and solidarity of being partly aliens in their own regards, and they were out there finally exploring those aspects of themselves, PLUS

they were very literally just. freely exploring their reality. they got to do Anything without it having to be established by the player! that was supposed to be something Good, they were happy to have that freedom and liked seeing new things with each other that even the player probably never dreamed of. it's Their World, they can do and see anything, even their goal of finding an equivalent of where gman could have come from was kinda just something to slowly work towards to keep them going in some vague direction. the primary goal was to just have a good time

anyway this story was the longest thing ive ever written in my life idk what came over me lol

[lesbeet]

not to be a nerd but i accidentally just wrote a whole impromptu essay about editing ndjsdksksk im throwing it under a cut bc it's fucking inane and really long but honestly... i just want other people to become as passionate about editing as i am lmaooooo

i also recommend 2 books in the post so if anything at least check those out!

quality books about editing... *chef's kiss* a lot of the basic ones (including blog posts online n such) are geared towards beginners and end up repeating the same info/advice, much of it either oversimplified or misrepresented tbh. but i read one yesterday and i'm reading another one right now that really convey this passion for editing + consideration for it as its own sort of art and i just!!

it's such a weird thing to be passionate about lmao but i AM and i've spent a lot of time the past year or so consciously honing my craft (ik i mention this like 4 times a week i'm just really proud of how much i've learned and improved) and kind of like. solidifying my instincts into conscious choices i guess?

and these GOOD editing books have both a) taught me new information and/or presented familiar information through a new perspective that helped me understand something differently or in more depth, and b) validated or even just put into words certain preferences or techniques that i've developed on my own, that i don't normally see on those more basic lists i mentioned

btw the book i finished yesterday is self-editing for fiction writers: how to edit yourself into print by renni brown and dave king, and the one i'm reading currently is the artful edit: on the practice of editing yourself by susan bell.

the former was pretty sharp and straightforward. the authors demonstrated some of their points directly in the text, which was usually funny enough that i would show certain quotes to my sister without context

("Just think about how much power a single obscenity can have if it’s the only one in the whole fucking book." <- (it was)

"Frequent italics have come to signal weak writing. So you should never resort to them unless they are the only practical choice, as with the kind of self-conscious internal dialogue shown above or an occasional emphasis."

or, my favorite: "There are a few stylistic devices that are so “tacky” they should be used very sparingly, if at all. First on the list is emphasis quotes, as in the quotes around the word “tacky” in the preceding sentence. The only time you need to use them is to show you are referring to the word itself, as in the quotes around the word “tacky” in the preceding sentence. Read it again; it all makes sense.")

and like i said, i also learned some new ideas or techniques (or they articulated vague ideas i already had but struggled to put into practice), AND they mentioned some suggestions that ive literally never seen anyone else bring up (not to say no one has! just that ive never seen it, and ive seen a lot in terms of writing tips, advice, best practices, etc) that ive already sort of established in my own writing

for example they went into pretty fine detail about dialogue mechanics, more than i usually see, and in talking about the pacing and proportion of "beats" and dialogue in a given scene, they explicitly suggested that, if a character speaks more than a sentence or two and you plan on giving them some sort of dialogue tag or an action to perform as a beat, the tag or action should be placed at one of the earliest (if not the first) natural pauses in the dialogue, so as not to distance the character too far from the dialogue -- bc otherwise the reader ends up getting all of the dialogue information first, and then has to go back and retroactively insert the character, or what they're doing, or the way they look/sound while they're giving their little speech

and like this was something ive figured out on my own, mostly bc it jarred me out of something i was reading enough times (probably in fic tbh) that i started noticing it, and realized that it's something i do naturally, kind of to anchor the character to the dialogue mechanic to make sure it makes sense with the actual dialogue

so like. ok here's an example i just randomly pulled from the song of achilles (it was available on scribd so i just looked for a spot that worked to illustrate my point djsmsks)

the actual quote is written effectively, but here's a less effective version first:

“Perhaps I would, but I see no reason to kill him. He’s done nothing to me," Achilles answered coolly.

see and even with such a short snippet it's so much smoother and more vivid just by moving the dialogue tag, not adding or cutting a word:

“Perhaps I would, but I see no reason to kill him.” Achilles answered coolly. “He’s done nothing to me.”

the rhythm of it is better, and the beat that the dialogue tag creates functions as a natural dramatic pause before achilles delivers an incredibly poignant line, both within the immediate context of the scene and because we as the readers can recognize it as foreshadowing. plus, it flows smoothly because that beat was inserted where the dialogue already contained a natural pause, just bc that's how people speak. if you read both versions aloud, they both make sense, but the second version (the original used in the novel) accounts for the rhythm of dialogue, the way people tend to process information as they read, AND the greater context of the story, and as a result packs significantly more purpose, information, and effect into the same exact set of words

and THAT, folks, is the kind of editing minutia i can literally sit and hyperfocus on for hours without noticing. anyway it's a good book lmao

the one i'm reading now is a lot more about the cognitive process/es of editing, so there's less concrete and specific advice (so far, anyway) and more discussion about different mental approaches to editing, as well as tips and tools for making a firm distinction between your writer brain and your editor brain, which is something i struggle with

but there have been so many good quotes that ive highlighted! a lot of just like. reminders and things to think about, and also just lovely articulations of things id thought of or come to understand in much more vague ways.

scribd won't let me copy/paste this one bc it's a document copy and not an actual ebook, but this passage is talking about how the simple act of showing a piece of writing to someone else for the very first time can spark a sudden shift in perspective on the work, bc you'll (or at least i) frantically try to re-read it through their eyes and end up noticing a bunch of new errors -

or she talked about the perils of constant re-reading in the middle of writing a draft, which is something i struggle with a LOT, both bc i'm a perfectionist and bc i prefer editing to writing so i sit and edit when i'm procrastinating doing the actual hard work of writing lmao

it's just this side of fake deep tbh but i so rarely see editing discussed like this--as a mixture of art and science, a collaboration between instinct and technique, that really requires "both sides of the brain" to be done well.

and because of the way my own brain works, activities that require such a balanced concentration of creativity and logic really appeal to me. even though ive seen a lot of people (even professional writers) who frame it as the creative art of writing vs the logical discipline of editing. but i think that's such a misleading way of thinking about it, because writing and editing both require creativity and logic -- just different kinds! (not to mention that the line between writing and editing, while mostly clear, can get a little blurry from up close)

but like...all stories have an inner logic to them, even if the writer hasn't explicitly or consciously planned it, and even if the logic is faulty in places in the first couple of drafts. when you're sitting and daydreaming about your story, especially if you're trying to figure out how to bridge the gap between two points or scenes (or, how to write a sequence of events that presents as a logical, inevitable progression of cause and effect), the voice in your head that evaluates an idea and decides to 1) go with it, 2) scrap it, 3) tweak it until it works, or 4) hold onto it in case you want it later? that's your logic! if an idea feels wrong, or like it just doesn't work, it's probably because some part of you is detecting a conflict between some part of the idea and the overall logic of your story. every decision you make as you write is formed by and checked against your own experiential logic, and also by the internal logic of your story, which is far less developed (or at least, one would hope), and therefore more prone to the occasional laspe

but while ive seen a number of articles that discuss the logic of writing, i don't see people gushing as much about the art of editing and it's such a shame

the inner editor is so often characterized as the responsible parent to the writer's carefree child, or a relentless critic of the writer's unselfconscious, unpolished drivel

and it's like... maybe you just hate thinking critically about your work! maybe you view it that way because you're imposing external standards too fiercely onto your writing, and it's sucked the joy out of shaping and sculpting your words until they sing. maybe you prefer to conceive of your writing as divine communication, the process of which must remain unencumbered by lessons learned through experience or the vulnerability of self-reflection, until the buzzkill inner editor shows up with all those "rules" and "conventions" that only matter if you're trying to get published

and like obviously the market doesn't dictate which conventions are worth following, but the majority of widely-agreed-upon writing standards, especially those aimed at beginners, (and most especially those regarding style, as opposed to story structure) have to do with the effectiveness and efficiency of prose, and, in addition to often serving as a shorthand for distinguishing an amateur from a pro, overall help to increase poignancy and clarity, which is crucial no matter the genre or type of writing. and even if you personally believe otherwise, it's better to understand the conventions so you can break them with real purpose.

so editing shouldn't be about trying to shove your pristine artistic masterpiece into a conventional mold, it should be about using the creative instincts of your ear and your logic and experience-based understanding of writing as a craft to hone your words until you've told your story as effectively as possible

thank u for coming to my ted talk ✌️

[ask-the-party-god]

SIEG! His name was sieg, I just remembered. -HNK Anon

hi hnk anon! im using this second ask of yours because its shorter, and putting your other one under the readmore to answer more extensively! X)

Okay. So I just got through the prologue, and I have a few things to say.

1. I’ve only had mash kyrielight for a day and a half, but if anything happened to her I would kill everyone in this and then myself!

youre absolutely RIGHT shes such a good girl! i love her and she only gets better and better as the same goes on! speaking of ‘better’ as it goes on, the game starts kind of slow? okay, so- the company that started fgo unsupervised, and they were making a cash-grabby game with less effort than it deserved... around the fourth singularity, though, nasu, the owner of the ip, saw the state of the game, stepped in and went like “nope, youre making this good, or youre not making it, period”, so... yeah he stepped in, put quality standards, lowered the saint quartz cost, added third skills to a lot of lower-star servants that didnt have them, reworked some other servants... also every milestone they include a quality of life change! earlier this year they increased the saint quartz you got from daily missions, then a retroactive change to interludes that gave me like, 100 pieces of it all of sudden... its good, i actually really appreciate them for that X)

2. The leveling up is a bit confusing for me.

yeah, the levelling up is, gacha levelling up, it was a bit weird at first, buuuut:

there are a few different things with exp in the game! you have your mystic code (your clothes, which have special skills), and your master level, both of which increase by just, doing any quest at all! master level determines your ap point limit, how many friends you can have, how many servants and ces you can have in your team at a time, etc... the mystic code level increases the effectivity of your mystic codes skills

theres bond level! this is how ‘close’ you are with your servant, and you raise it by fighting with those servants in your team! levels 1 through 5 unlock new information about them and new flavor text while theyre in your room! levels 6 through 9 give you rewards, like extra saint quartz, apples, etc... and if you get to level 10, you get a specific craft essence! some are like, “as long as the servant has it equipped, everyone in the team gets a buster buff”, but theres specific effects like, heracles gets a stack of 3 guts- which is insaaaaane

theres craft essences! theyre basically ‘buffs’, and levelling them up gives you some extra hp or attack, but ultimately theyre proooobably the least like, necessary thing to level up? still, you get spare craft essences out the wazoo so you probably want to feed the ones with effects you use a lot... anything with default np charge is GREAT for example, as it lets you charge up nukes all that much easier

and finally we get to servants! so you have the normal servant level up, THIS is what youd consider the classic ‘rpg level up’, but instead of levelling them up by fighting, you need items! specially, embers... feeding a servant embers and other spare servants you dont want (low rarity, pls dont feed people gold servants-), you level them up! this is a basic increase of all stats, but theres a level LIMIT! once they reach the level limit, you can ‘ascend them’ to their next stage, usually accompanied with unlocking new skills, and new cool outfits! you can ascend them up to four times, and once theyre at max ascension and max level, you CAN technically feed them holy grails (palingenesis), to break that max level limit to eventually reach 100... this is mostly unnecessary? but if theres a lower-rarity servant you REALLY like, that can put them on par with 4-stars, for example, or giving them a well needed extra boost to hp and attack

finally you have np and skills! skills are just that, servant-specific abilities! evades, healing, debuffs, buffs... levelling up skills reduces their cooldown at level 6 and 10, and generally increases their effect! np level up needs you to have multiple copies of the same servant, you can boost their np to be more damaging or to give you stronger buffs, depending on what it is

so basically, fighting will increase your master and mystic code exp, and your bond level! to actually level up servants, you have to feed them embers (you can farm them in the chaldea gate quests, or simply get them from story missions and free rolls)! to ascend them or level up their skills, you need special materials, which can drop in some free quests in singularities, be sold/drop during events, or drop from other chaldea gate free quests! not all materials are available from the beginning, so i suggest just, going through the story and upgrading your characters as you can, rather than obsessively farming to get them super high up before continuing with it

3. What’s the deal with the unregistered spirit origin currency? Because they are blocking me from getting the servants I want. That leads me to—

oh yeah no, dont worry about that, you are never, ever EVER going to use that X) basically, if you get 5 copies of the SAME 5-star, that is, if you get them to np level 5, and you get a SIXTH copy, which, again... insane odds? you will be given an unregistered spirit origin currency! basically its the way the game has of saying “sorry you keep getting this same servant so much, here, you can CHOOSE which one you want instead”

basically, insurance so you can never get a useless extra 5-star after fully upgrading a previous version of them

you gotta roll the gacha to get servants! its random! there is NO ensuring which one you will get, you just gotta try! well- there ARE occasionally events, like, twice a year, where you get to PICK a free 4-star actually

4. There are currently six servants that I want, everyone else doesn’t matter at the moment. The first is mash (so that’s one down) the second is artotia, third is Jeanne d'ark. Fourth is Jeanne alter, and firth Lancelot! And sixth- I SAW A MAID ALTER WITH A SNIPER RIFLE- WHAT? THATS COOL/FUNNY AS SHIT! I WANT THAT! (Maybe astolfo and uhhh... what was his name with the gray hair, he’s a caster- but that’s for later, the ones I listed are top priority,

lets see, six servants you want! believe me, you WILL get attached to more, but...

mash is obviously in your possession!

artoria is always, by default, in the summoning pool! theres occasionally ‘rate up’ banners, which give certain characters more weight, but ultimately, every saint quartz roll you do always has a chance of summoning her... specially right now, the more of the game you complete, the more servants you will unlock in the summoning pool, so technically shes at her highest drop rate right now

same with jeanne, shes part of the default summoning pool

jeanne ALTER is limited though! she does not appear normally, she can only be summoned when shes on a rate-up banner! i am not sure if she will be on rate-up before this, but the next banner i know she will for SURE be in is in may! oh! but- if you dont get her, there IS a 4-star, summer version that will be FREE this next summer, if you complete the summer event!

i think lancelot is also in the default summon pool!

maid alter is the summer outfit version of artoria X) i am unsure when she is available again honestly :o we had her event rerun not that long ago, so she may not be available for a while...

astolfo is in the default summoning pool AND theyre going to get a 5-star version this next year i believe! so, double stolfo!

sieg is, the free servant you get for the apocrypha event! it happened earlier this year, so i think that means theres a rerun of it still pending! eventually though, they will add a thing where you can replay events you missed and get the free servants from them, so while ideally youd wanna be playing while the event is up, theres a contingency in case you missed someone you REALLY want!

5. Please tell me how the start system works- I’m very new to this and I wanna be invested. Please help-

-HNK Anon

i think thats pretty much all there is! you get saint quartz through the story, by doing interludes, bond-levelling servants, through rewards, etc, as well as summon tickets, and you use those to roll the gacha! free friend currency only gives 3-star and under servants, while saint quartz can give you pretty much anything

theres almost always a ‘banner’ up, which offers ‘rate-up’ servants! the normal summoning pool has all the default servants and the story-locked ones you have unlocked, but the rate-ups can bypass the locks entirely! some servants are limited, so if they seem cool in a banner, you may wanna try to roll!

even if you dont get the servants you want- and believe me... it WILL happen... you WILL get more and more and more cool servants so, dont worry about that X) also a lot of lower-rarity servants are actually really good and can be used for a lot of things, so if you have a favorite, do not be afraid to level them up!

but yeah thats kind of the loop? you do stuff, get sq... roll the gacha for characters you like, level them up, do events... i honestly play mostly for the story, the main story gets really good, and the events are all charming and nice, but id be lying if i said i didnt want some specific servants... most of which are alter egos-

yeah sorry im rambling X) just... ask me anything else you may need! :D

[famedroleplayarchive]

Today, there are some new additions to the points shop as well as two slight points shop rule changes! More information can be found below, as well as a survey on wanted model groups I’d like any members who’d like to give their input to fill out.

First things first, the modeling claim rules in the points shop have been slightly altered as follows:

- CFs and brand ambassador claims now cannot be made more than one month in advance of the release/beginning date to prevent brands being unavailable for other muses for significantly longer than the contract period.

- Claimed photo shoots for brand ambassador claims now follow the same rules as magazine cover claims.

Please note this only applies to future claims and will not retroactively have an effect any claims already made.

On to the additions to the points shop! You may remember that I put up a survey about a month ago asking what people might want to see in the points shop and I took those suggestions into consideration as well as other points claims members have mentioned being interested in to me and a few of these ideas have been added. The claims that have been added are as follows, with a few details:

- Solo festival stages: These will be a pretty seasonal claim as festivals are not common at all times of year. Now felt like the perfect time to bring this claim in due to it being university festival season and summer also normally being filled with festivals, but please be aware that this means there will be times there are no festivals available to claim at all and the open spots at this moment are probably the most abundant they’ll be all year. These will also normally be based on actual festivals happening on their real dates, but because of the pandemic in real life that is not canon to the Famed universe, any festivals listed for a while will be based on normal yearly festivals or cancelled festivals for this year that are happening in-’verse, but not in real life.

- Non-profit organization or charity ambassador: Unlike brand ambassadors, these claims last for a year and are not exclusive, meaning more than one muse can be working as an ambassador for the same NPO or charity at the same time. This claim is much more based on earning a positive reputation for your muse.

- Established radio show host: Original radio shows have been available for a while, as have temporary hosts of established radio shows, but your muse may now become the fixed host of one of a curated list of mainstay radio shows for six months. These shows have a set theme, airing time, and format that a muse has to stick to, leaving less room for individuality or an individual focus on the host and muns cannot choose the guests on the show like they can with an original (with admin approval), so this claim costs slightly less than an original radio show, but they also offer a built-in audience and groups and canon groups and soloists may be scheduled for canon guestings on said shows.

One more thing I will be adding soon is a checklist to complete to help guide you on your journey to a nation’s title claim if that’s something you’re interested in. I want to be very confident in the checklist and have it be something I’m unlikely to need to change very often, so I’m not ready to reveal it quite yet, but if that’s something you’re working toward and don’t want to wait for it to go up to know exactly what claims to focus on (although nation’s title claims won’t be able to be made until the checklist is officially up for everyone), you’re free to do so and I’ll give you all the insight into what the checklist will consist of that I can. It will be in line with everything I tell anyone who comes to me with interest in the claim, but with more specific claim requirements. That said, I do plan to nail down the checklist sooner rather than later, so it shouldn’t be too long a wait!

Lastly, the wanted model group survey, as promised! The next update you get from me may be on some added groups to model discographies. Before this happens, though, I wanted to get member (and potential member!) opinions on any groups you guys might want to see in particular to see if the groups I’m adding are ones people are interested in having around, and if anyone has model group suggestions I had perhaps not considered that would work well for either an existing group or a future new group. That survey can be found here if you’re interested in helping out! It’s only one question, so it shouldn’t take too much time out of anyone’s day, I hope!

Any questions should be directed to the ask box and IMs and thank you for once again reading through a lengthy admin post!