#you have some of the weirdest dialogue in the game

[mumms-the-word]

Mini Veilguard update!! Under the cut as per usual because there are early game spoilers here (I have thoughts!)

Explored most of Treviso and Minrathous, as much as I can before going to get Davrin anyway. Treviso is gorgeous and Minrathous is interesting (idk what I expected out of Minrathous but we’re also only seeing Dock Town so…we’re not really seeing much of the actual magisterium sector). I know there’s a big choice coming up because I got spoiled by people who don’t tag their spoilers (still mad about it) and it’s making me think

I read an excellent post about how DATV has essentially sanitized a lot of the lore to make the game palatable and on the whole I do agree. I feel like I’m getting LaCroix spritzes of lore flavor rather than bold and confident lore flavor. Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of lore, plenty of callbacks to all three of the earlier games! It’s just…subtle? Or hidden in codexes

I think the thing that strikes me most is that for all the talk of slavery in Minrathous we don’t really see slavery at all. At least, I haven’t, this far in the game. Where are the magisters beating their slaves? Where are the merchants buying slaves because it’s Just How Things are Done? Obviously if slaves live in estates with their masters, then that explains why we don’t see a lot of them in Dock Town. But where are the conversations between Dock Town citizens where people are facing difficult choices to potentially sell themselves into slavery to feed their families? Both Dorian and Krem talk about these as realities in Minrathous and other cities in Tevinter.

As for Treviso, I think it’s beautiful and the fact that the Antaam has broken from the Qun and dissolved into war bands fascinates me. I think that’s cool! But the Crows baffle me. They’re too nice. It’s very odd. On the one hand, I LOVE Teia and Viago. On the other hand, they and Lucanis should be the exception, I think, for being Crows interested in freedom fighting and protecting Treviso. And maybe other Crow cells not in Treviso are still cutthroat brutal tormentors who buy children to train as assassins, as Zevran tells us, but we sure don’t get to see it in the game.

I can shrug and set most of it aside, lose myself in the beauty of the game and the charm of the companions (who I do like, a couple of weird conversations aside). But apparently I have to choose whether to save Treviso or Minrathous soon. I guess from the Blight? I don’t know details because I have tried my hardest to avoid spoilers lol so if you’re reading this DON’T tell me!

Buuuut

I don’t know. Right now that choice hinges on who I will disappoint (Neve or Lucanis) and who among the NPCs I may be willing to sacrifice (Hal the fishmaker, certain faction members, perhaps). I suspect, given how nice the game is being, that I won’t lose access to Teia, Viago, The Viper, Tarquin, Mae, or Dorian. I mean, I doubt I’ll see Dorian again but he’s a fandom darling. I’ll be very surprised if he dies. But I digress. The point is, I know it will feel like a sacrifice…just a smaller one than it could be.

Because the choice could be so much harder, so much more complex, if it was a choice between two obviously corrupt cities. Do I sacrifice Minrathous and call it a lost cause because slavery is so rife there, the magisters are corrupt, the Templars aid the magisters and not the people, and they keep sacrificing people for blood magic? Is full on destruction the only thing that will get the city to reset and recover in productive ways? Or do I sacrifice Treviso, which houses a bloodthirsty guild of assassins who buy and raise and train children to be killers, who is now under siege by reckless Antaam, who cannot be defeated by anything short of a major catastrophe? What if both cities were revealed to be more gritty and cruel than we actually got to see in the game? How do I choose which to save and which to allow destruction to come in?

Some of these elements are still present. But they’re buffed down. Maybe the game will surprise me! But for now I feel like I’m choosing between saving my favorite NPCs or my favorite aesthetic, rather than facing a complex choice over which city to save, knowing both the good and the bad and everything in between.

We shall see! I am off to the Anderfels (I think) to meet a couple of wardens and hopefully see Davrin soon. So I will update again soon!

Oh, PS: COMPLETELY baffled by the fact that Varric recognizes the lyrium dagger as being the red lyrium idol. Like, sure, fine, those two things are related, and its true that’s why Solas wanted the red lyrium idol (just see Tevinter Nights and the comics)

But bro they look nothing like each other!!

What do you meeeaaaaannnnn

“it has the same ring at the top” okay and?? One is blue and shiny and the other has twisted corpse figures and is red and crumbling and was also turned into a giant ass greatsword back in the day??

Super weird reveal, not a fan, but it was more funny than annoying so there’s that.

Anyway we press onwards lol

[box-dwelling]

Yeah because those cases were actually fun.

You don't get to mock turn about goodbyes and reclaimed if the case your giving me is dull as shit and drawn out to hell.

I literally stopped this case half way through to replay goodbyes because I needed to remember that this series isn't actually bad and boring and it's just this case. Keep her name out of your dirty fucking mouth

[artbyblastweave]

Still playing Skyrim. And I’m interested to report that the game is actually better than I remember, on balance. But I’m kind of fascinated by what’s going on with Lydia, mechanically and narratively.

Lydia is the first follower who gets shoved in your face just by virtue of following the main quest. There are others you can pick up earlier, but not without finishing errands (for Faendal and Sven), by forking up a pretty big chunk of change for the early game by hiring Janessa, or by going out of your way in some other manner. If you’re completely new to the game and you’re just powering through the main story as it’s presented, she’s the first option for a follower that the game highlights for you in giant blinking neon lights. And as a quest reward, she’s mechanically kind of a godsend at that point in the story; a doubling of carry capacity, an excellent meat shield and distraction, a way to extract utility from weapons and armor you don’t want to use yourself. More subjectively she provides the impression of a stalwart ally or companion in what can be a very lonely worldspace to exist in. There’s very little reason not to take her with you, and once you have her, the majority of companions being equal, there’s very little reason to get rid of her until she stops level scaling.

Despite the mechanical utility Lydia provides at a crucial point, and the resultant likelyhood that you’ll haul her along for the ride, she’s only a couple steps up from the companion cube. She has no specific, non-fungible impact on the narrative beyond demonstrating Jarl Balgruuf’s favor. Her deferral to you is automatic; if someone is actively paying her a salary to help you defile graves, cut deals with every deity on the continent and invade the afterlife, it sure as hell isn’t you. It isn’t clear what her gig under Balgruuf was before she was assigned to you. She has no personal narrative. She has no personal side quest. One of her biggest inklings of personality is when she expresses vague dissatisfaction with being treated as a pack mule, but then she does it anyway.  She’s party to world-shaking events and political upheavals, but she’s present purely in her capacity as your appendix, so reality simply treats her as your plus-one. 

She’ll block doors you’re trying to get through, and she’ll get mad at you if you push her out of the way. She’ll charge into battle or set off traps while you’re trying to sneak. She’ll microaggress you with stock Nord dialogue while pulverizing your enemies, a plurality of whom are also Nords. She’ll distract bosses long enough to buy you breathing room for a healing spell or a potion. You’ll kill her by accident with an ill-timed area-of-effect spell, roll your eyes, and, ultimately, probably reload your save. Because she might only be a couple steps up from a companion cube, but the whole gag with the companion cube is how ridiculously low the threshold is for the audience to get genuinely attached to something in a video game. A thin character invites apophenia. Behaviors that are purely downstream of dev thoughtlessness will still imply character traits if taken at Watsonian Face Value. In this case, inexplicable undying loyalty, reserved comments on impressive landmarks, and comical stoicism in the face of some of the weirdest events it’s conceptually possible to encounter.  So here’s to weird, underbaked companions in Bethesda Games, and everything we can project onto the void they provide. And Here’s to that related genus of character- units in squad-based tactics or management-sim games with permadeath mechanics who last long enough and accumulate enough equipment, skill points, etc. that they become your Special Little Guy despite otherwise lacking any deliberate character traits.

[mo-mode]

Back on my Screenwriter soap box while watching PJO: They should have bought a bunch of oil diffusers.

(Edit: This post was made before someone pointed out to me that I missed a key line of dialogue, but my points and theories still stand for the same reasons backing up my original post so I’m not changing anything. The dialogue I missed lets us know that Hermes told Percy the lotus was being pumped into the air off-screen. It’s also implies (? I’m still on the fence about this one?) that Hermes told him what day it is, but I missed these during my first three watches because of how quick and vague it was. Which actually kind of supports my point on why visual indicators are so important. Without these, it’s easy to miss key information. And remember, it’s a kid’s show. ANYWAY my conclusions haven’t changed, and I still believe these edits would work better than the quick line of dialogue so just keep this in mind. Thanks.)

(I’m not being nit-picky. I swear. Just hear me out.) So the weirdest thing to me in episode six was how Percy just…learned everything so quickly without any visual indicators? Like they know time passed because it’s dark outside, but how did he know it was Thursday? They know they were affected by the lotus flowers, but how does he know it was pumped into the air? This irked me because even if he’s smart enough to figure some of this out himself (which he is) we as the audience should still be able to follow his thought process instead of learning after the fact.

What if there were oil diffusers?

So imagine the trio walks into the Lotus, figures out this is like the Odyssey, and decides not to eat anything. They waltz in super confident that they cracked the code, but they were wrong. How do we know? Because the moment they enter the crowd, we get an establishing shot of a lotus-branded oil diffuser letting out steam.

Immediately, we as the audience realize their mistake, making it just that more tantalizing to watch. As the episode continues, we realize they’re everywhere. There’s a diffuser in the plants, on the counter, between the game tables, always right out of the corner of our eyes. They just keep churning out lotus-scented oil into the air, which we can infer because we’re smart. (Remember that.)

Now when Percy realizes what’s going on, we know HOW they’re doing it and HOW Percy knows without being told!! Because they were there the whole time.

Onto Thursday.

Consider: A watch.

What if Hermes has the only watch in the casino until the trio walks in with their own?

Let’s give Annabeth one of those cheap, funky watches that gives the time, day, month, year, etc. Something you get from a kids toy catalogue. It’s waterproof, glows in the dark, has an alarm or whatever. I feel like Annabeth would have one of those. (And honestly, she might already. I forgot.) The most important feature for us, though, is the day. It clearly tells us the day of the week.

It’s pretty easy to establish that Annabeth has the watch. Just do it the same way they establish the date: Percabeth arguing over it in the truck. Annabeth shows him the watch. Establishing shot of the watch’s face. That’s it. No bells or whistles necessary. Then when they get to the casino, Annabeth checks it one more time (without an establishing shot, she just does it casually) and they walk in.

(It’s so easy. I promise.)

While Grover is walking around alone, he tries to check the time and realizes there’s no clocks. (Which ngl is super common in casinos already, but it’s creepy nonetheless.) Yada yada, he gets sucked in by Augustus and that’s how he gets got.

Meanwhile, Percy and Annabeth keep meaning to check the time, but every time they do, someone tries to hand them an appetizer or a drink, which makes them forget OR Annabeth’s hubris keeps her from checking. (Percy: Time check? Annabeth: Its only been five minutes. We’re fine. We need to focus.)

And that brings us to Hermes. After their chat, yada yada, Annabeth “leaves” and Hermes gets all cryptic, then he makes a BIG show of checking his watch, and THAT’S when Percy realizes something’s wrong because oh no they haven’t checked the time. So he finds Annabeth, they see it’s dark outside, they check her watch, and it’s Thursday.

“But we didn’t eat anything!” Annabeth says. Percy looks at the diffusers by the entrance. It dawns on him. “They’re pumping it into the air.”

That’s how you VISUALLY SHOW US THINGS instead of Percy just figuring everything out off-camera and telling us!!!!

Now, you may be thinking “Oh but do they have the budget for that??” Do you know how cheap these props are? Just bulk buy like six oil diffusers, slap a homemade sticker of a lotus flower on them, and keep moving them into every shot. And they’re quiet!! They wouldn’t interfere with the sound, the steam is visible enough to be caught on camera without messing with the lighting, they actually look really cool in some lighting, and they fit the atmosphere of a hotel/casino!! Then the watch is like $15, fits with Annabeth’s character, and totally matches her outfit.

It’s CHEAP! It’s EASY! It DOESN’T CUT INTO THE RUN TIME! It’s AESTHETICALLY PLEASING! ANNABETH GETS A SICK WATCH!! NO DOWNSIDES!!!!

The biggest problem with this show isn’t how accurate it is to the book or how much money they have or that they’re “Disney-fying” it. The problem is they are TELLING US things instead of SHOWING us. And not to beat a dead horse because everyone’s heard of “Show Don’t Tell” but like??? This is exactly why everyone is taught this over and over again in school?? Because people still do it anyway all the time???

There’s also something else I learned (or really just picked up) when I got my B.A. in Creative Writing: Good shows are predictable.

Whether it’s a case of the audience learning what’s going to happen before it happens or them watching the show again and realizing how obvious the answer was the whole time, audiences always want to feel smart. They want to interact with the material. If you don’t give them the opportunity to pick apart the mystery themselves by setting down clues, they’ll give up on interacting with the show and lose interest. That’s why you SHOW them things. There are several moments where this show is completely unpredictable, not because it’s complex but because it doesn’t let you predict it. That doesn’t make it bad—the comedy and character development is doing a great job of carrying the show’s weight so far. But it definitely doesn’t make the show good.

It’s like Rube Goldberg machines. Or dominoes! We don’t watch those crazy 1000+ domino videos so we can watch the last one fall. We watch it to see HOW they fall. Take one domino out, and it’s unsatisfactory. It doesn’t work anymore.

But some oil diffusers and a watch??? Little clues that make the realization that more visually appealing??? THAT’S SATISFYING

Anyway, these are just two things that could have been done, but weren’t. Most of the show is stellar. I think it just needs a little bit of editing here and there. I studied this for like years, and I needed to get this off my chest. That’s it.

Rick Riordan, if you ever see this, I am available for hire :) I would love to be a script doctor please please please please

[disappointingcabbage]

TMAGP 21 thoughts, spoilers below the cut

“What if Alice is right about how fucked up the OIAR is?” I mean fuck, dude, she probably is

“It’s fine I can just quit if something tries to murder me” Sam that won’t help with the whole “monster trying to kill you thing” that’ll just make you unemployed in addition to being about to die

When Celia said she had a “complicated immigration status” I fucking cackled like girlie you are never beating the universe hopper allegations

Also yeah why did the OIAR not notice that she probably has next to no legal documentation of her existence? Like I get them being more lax than other government organizations but this is a whole other level

tbh it’s probably because Lena was like “eh fuck it this isn’t even in the top 70 weirdest things I’ve seen” and let it slide

“I wouldn’t be able to take Jack with me if I went back” Does this mean she knows how to go back?????

MAGNUS INSTITUTE CHESTER STATEMENT

ooh this is some alchemy shit

POLITICAL RESOURCES? did the institute have fucking plants in the government or did they just have, like, lobbyists?

love how this guy is like “we need stop being Christian centric when choosing the date to our fucked up eldritch ritual guys”

I’m sorry, a UNIVERSAL TRANSMUTATION? as in transforming the entire earth or even the whole universe???? Dude what???

The fucked up ritual in question is called the Dome Project, which judging only by the name sounds like they’re trying to make Flat Earth real, which is fucking hilarious

ok they were allegedly trying to create a utopia but every “utopia” is flawed so the question is how did they fuck this one up?

Oh damn they were trying to create a perfect“final state of society” that never changes. Even without the eldritch bullshit that’s a terrible idea just look at like every dystopian novel ever (and also the game slay the princess, which is built around the idea that change is a necessary component of life and has Jonny Sims voicing a lot of the dialogue)

I love how this guy’s best argument against bringing the world to a stagnant state is just “but we’re alchemists, guys, change is our whole thing :/”

Was I the only one who thought “et al” was pronounced like “et all” or is it just me? Or is it a regional thing?

Wait was their plan to actually just build a big ass dome to house a “perfect society”?

Oh shit they had actually already started construction.

Of course they were exploiting workers to build this “perfect dome”

THE DOME IS REAL????? (It’s called the millennium dome, don’t just google “dome project” you’ll just find a bunch of unrelated shit about business models and stuff)

WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW HOW LONG THE DOME WILL BE THERE? Isn’t that a major safety issue?

bro thinks the place is supernaturally contaminated and he’s probably right

Oh boy it’s also contaminated with heavy metals the real danger here is lead poisoning

I’m sorry what the fuck??? Construction guy got cloned by some dirt in the site and then his clone just fucking yanked him into the dirt? Clone didn’t even bother to replace him

lol statement writer just went “tldr we shouldn’t do our ritual here it’s fucked up enough as it is and incorporating a stagnant utopia into our eldritch ritual is dumb and we shouldn’t do it”

Alice has realized that Freddy is purposefully giving Sam Magnus statements

GIRLIE DID YOU JUST DELETE IT FROM HIS CASELOAD???

oooh shit she got caught by Lena

“haha Sam’s computer keeps malfunctioning so I tried to fix it and he definitely gave me permission hahaha ANYWAYS when are we getting a new IT guy?” smooth, Alice. Smooth.

Oh shit where’s Gwen? She’s late coming back? Lena doesn’t know where she is????

Ink5oul probably got her

Was that a .jmj error noise I just heard?

Oh fuck we actually get answers to the Gwen question and she is in fact running from ink5oul

Jesus this chase scene is actually scary, I’m impressed. It’s kind of hard to unsettle me this much without involving one of my actual phobias. Nice.

Also I had to google what trash polka is, turns out it’s a really cool tattoo style that’s simultaneously photorealistic and trippy, usually done in black, white, and red.

Oh shit Ink5oul can mess with tattoos they didn’t do

oh fuck they caught Gwen

Hey why is Gwen monologuing like those corpses?

[ERROR]? Where have you been, loca?

WHY IS THE MAGNUS ARCHIVES THEME PLAYING UNDER GWEN’S STATEMENT MONOLOGUE?

The transcript describes [ERROR] as “a nightmarish specter of an older world” and I’m not sure what to make of that yet but they sure are possessive of their victims, apparently. Judging by the fact that they said “there is more” I think they’re targeting either anyone with institute ties or anyone in the OIAR. Maybe both.

Love that Gwen just fucked booked it instead of sticking around to witness whatever that whole [ERROR]/ ink5oul interaction was

I’m glad that [ERROR] didn’t kill ink5oul tbh I like them

THE TAPE RECORDER FUCKING BIT THEM IM CACKLING

The Magnus Protocol sure is a podcast

[angel-gidget]

Gidge's Guide to Amethyst

I did one of these a while back, but with reeaallly low-quality images. These days, there’s more Amethyst stuff out there, and that’s worth an update in its own right.

Amy’s first appearance was technically in Legion of Super-Heroes #298 which featured a “pull-out preview comic” to entice people into picking up the maxi-series. I’ve yet to get my mitts on it to confirm if it’s just sample art from the maxi-series, or has dialogue/art never seen anywhere else. Regardless, your best starting point is probably gonna be…

I. 1980’s 12-issue Maxi-Series (+ follow-up Annual)

High jump-through-portal fantasy. Fantastic creatures, creepy villains, magical royalty, intricate world building that explains some things and lets your brain fill in the gaps for others, and consistently gorgeous art. Can’t recommend enough.

The annual shown takes place after the maxi-series and sets the stage for the ongoing series that follows.

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page DC’s Showcase via Amazon or Abe Books (Note: no color art for showcase, only black & white)

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. 💎

II. 1980’s 16-issue Ongoing Series (+ follow-up Annual)

While there is a lot of fantastic stuff going on with the ongoing series, it is more of a mixed bag.

While I am forever in love with cover of issue #11, I remember turning to page 1 and wondering what the heck happened to the inside art. It’s not bad, really. It just doesn’t meet the high bar of the covers (or earlier interiors). Looking back, I realized the art was getting less detailed well before that, but my reading was all over the place as a kid bc I’d just read whatever issues I could find.

This here, at issue #12, is actually a good place to stop. By which I mean, the next 4 issues + special reek of grimdark edge-lord bs that doesn’t even make sense without reading Crisis on Infinite Earths. However, if you wish to proceed…

The final issue of the ongoing is technically a cliffhanger, and the Special grants the writers the extra pages they need to finish wrapping up their whole Lords of Order & Chaos/Dr. Fate tie-in.

After this, someone in DC editorial raised their pencil and went “Hey! What if we made the Gemworld the origin for one of our Legion of Super-Heroes villains?” And thus…

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page DC’s Showcase via Amazon or Abe Books (Note: no color art for showcase, only black & white) (Also note: Showcase contains both Maxi and Ongoing series)

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. ⚔️

III. 1980’s 4-issue Mini-Series

This thing is all kinds of whack, but it is gorgeous. I get the impression that when Kieth Giffen and Mindy Newell were assigned this sucker, they just read a summary of the OG series and winged it.

Probably not, since they technically wrote those final issues of the ongoing, but that’s how it feels. Despite this, it’s grown on me like a fungus, and the mind-blowing art by Esteban Moroto is, like, 98% of the reason why.

Amethyst is always at her weirdest when Dc is trying to tie her in with the rest of the DCU. In this case, the mini is supposed to explain how a Legion of Super-Heroes villain has origins that go back to the Gemworld. Why? Idk. But if I remember correctly, it was even part of the advertising for this series.

Get it by Patron methods: … you can’t. There are no re-prints of any kind and it’s tough to track down. If ye crave this treasure, best ye look to piracy, matey.

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. 🔮

IV. 2012’s DC Nation Amethyst Cartoon Shorts

In hindsight, these may have been made as the advent of the Sword of Sorcery series, but they really were a charming sip of water after two decades of nothin’. A cute lil’ standalone series that turns the Gemworld into a video game. Amy is then, of course, sucked into it.

Fun fact: the producer, @briannedrouhard is on tumblr, and often posts art and further ideas she had for the series.

Watch it: Full Series is officially free on Youtube. 👸🏼

IV. 2013’s Sword of Sorcery: Amethyst

This New 52 eight-issue (9 included the ‘0’ issue, oy) series got my hopes up after all those years, but I gotta admit I was a bit disappointed by the completely new supporting cast. Apart from Amy herself, none of the original characters made it into the series.

It feels likely a completely different fantasy series with an “Amethyst” label slapped on it. That said, Aaron Lopresti’s art is beautiful, and this version of Amy—Amaya—eventually joined the New 52’s Justice League Dark and picked up a bit of a cult appreciation over there.

That said, I’ve had some spoilers for her time on JLDark, and the storyline is just a bit… too… dark for my tastes. So I’m quite content to see her nu52 series retconed, even though I did nearly collect all 9 issues.

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page TPB via Amazon or B&N

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. 💜

V. 2019’s Wonder Comics - Young Justice: Gemworld

Remember how I said Amethyst always gets weird when she collides with the greater DCU? Yeah, forget I said that. Never mind. Most brilliant combo idea since peanut butter and jelly.

No, I’m not biased not at all bc I’m a big Young Justice fan. Nope. Ok. Maybe a lil’ bit. While the continuity here is it’s own thing, there are a lot of nods to the original Gemworld in the world-building.

Does this series fully explore the potential of all the ideas in it? Frankly, no. YJ fans complained a lot about the lack of breathing space in this series for a reason. But I’m still happy with it and happily re-reading it for the fun ideas it slaps together.

If you are reading this for the Amethyst, however, there isn’t much point in reading past issue 6, aka volume 1 of the trade. After that point, Amy stops getting much spotlight, though she remains on the team’s roster until the series’ end.

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page TPB via Amazon or B&N

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. ✨

VI. 2020’s Wonder Comics - Amethyst Miniseries

The fact that both this series and the YJ one appear under the “Wonder Comics” label is a bit misleading. They do not share any continuity at all. However, the opening splash page of the first issue references multiple events from original Amethyst continuity!

Later world-building details make it clear that this is a different version of Amy and the Gemworld, but Amy Reeder’s affection for the original series remains apparent.

Get it by Patron methods: Dc Universe Series Page TPB via Amazon or B&N

Get it by Peasant methods: Over here. 👑

VII. 2021’s Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld by Shannon & Dean Hale

This one is actually a kid-oriented graphic novel. Again, with its own continuity and world-building. I think the thing that stands out to me the most about this take is that the Hales give Amy a kid brother and make him quite relevant to the plot.

It’s pretty stand-alone and not really marketed as a comic book per se, but it is charming and the art is quite cute.

Get it by Patron methods: Graphic novel via Amazon or B&N Get it by Peasant methods: Over here.

🏰

In Summary:

“Original” Amethyst Continuity (by Dan Mishkin & Gary Cohn and later Kieth Giffen & Mindy Newell ) is contained in Volumes 1-3. This is made of up the Maxi-series, Ongoing, and Mini-series from the 80's.

New52 Sword of Sorcery Continuity (by Christy Marx) is completely separate and self-contained.

Wonder Comics: Young Justice continuity (by Brian Michael-Bendis) is separate and self-contained, but has many nods to original continuity in it.

Wonder Comics: Amethyst mini-series continuity (by Amy Reeder) is mostly separate and self-contained, but implies that it shares events with the Volume 1 maxi-series.

Kid-friendly properties like Brianne Drouhard’s DC Nation shorts or Shannon and Dean Hale’s graphic novel make for fun additions, though they were not marketed as though they might tie in with any comics.

[womaninwinter]

Thank you for tagging me @paranorahjones I am terminally online today and delighted to be playing tag games :)

1. How did you get into writing fanfiction? Depends on how you define fic I guess. When I was very little, I would "tell myself stories" (literally I would just sit on the floor in my room and pronounce the story aloud) which were essentially self-insert fics about my favourite characters. I guess expansion has always been my automatic response to a story I like. My older sister was active in fandoms first, so I learned about fic from her, and when I ended up in a teeny tiny fandom with practically no content in my teens, writing fic was a very natural next step.

2. How many fandoms have you written in? *counts on my fingers* well, there was [REDACTED], [REDACTED], BTVS, Designated Survivor, and now L&Co. So actually not that many. When I fixate about something, I fixate long and hard and I don't have room for other obsessions.

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

As above, really depends on how you define fic and how you define writing lol. If you're being exacting, uhhh about 15 years or so, but with long gaps in there. Years of actual productivity, probably more like 3 or 4.

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction? Very definitely read lol, I'm a slow writer and a fast reader. Trying to shift the balance however.

5. What is one way you've improved as a writer? I think my ability to plan and execute a large-scale project is increasing, as is my ability to actually dramatise a setting properly.

6. What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project? Abdominal trauma recovery (for Gutted, my specialest little guy fic)

7. What's your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I love a comment from someone who Gets what I was going for. It doesn't have to be a long one, just something that shows me that yes, I communicated successfully here! (or just when people tell me unhinged things like "I'm chewing on this nomnomnomnom". I love that too)

8. What's the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

Easily the Catholic Lockwood stuff LOL.

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write? It's not quite a story type, but I hate when you're trying to bring a character to the point of a certain realisation or decision and you have to describe their thought process and it's soooo hard to do cleanly and really I should have made this damn thing a conversation but it's TOO LATE NOW.

10. What is the easiest type? A conversation lol. Again, now specific type of story, but I love writing dialogue.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? Usually at my desk, on my computer. G Docs is my medium of choice - accessible anywhere, easily shared, easy to retrieve if you go somewhat crazy and delete everything...

12. What is something that you've been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

The big "Lockwood reverts to his faith and Lucy converts" fic. Will I ever do it?? Who knows. I like thinking about it though.

13. What made you choose your username?

This is a great question, and the answer is I have NO clue. I didn't want it to be something that was easily identified as me (for anyone who knows me IRL, womaninwinter is quite a giveaway lol). I picked a phrase that came to mind and sounded moderately cool, and for some reason, the phrase was "Savoirfaire". (some unconscious snobbery about my writing abilities going on?? Perhaps!)

tagging: @itripandfallalot, @polithicc, @menina89, @lilaccatholic and @insidethekaleidoscope (I forget who has and hasn't done this already)

[descendant-of-truth]

Heads up, I'm gonna be discussing Sonic x Shadow Generations leaks below the cut, so if you don't want extra-early spoilers then just feel free to skip this one for now.

That being said: it's come to my attention that the Sonic Generations portion of the game is, in fact, being rewritten... but not reanimated. Meaning that it's just new dialogue on top of the pre-existing animations.

This is. quite possibly the worst route they could have taken. not to mention the weirdest??

I can see what the train of thought most likely was, to be fair. Shadow Generations is being written by Ian Flynn, while the original game was written by Ken Pontac and Warren Graff, and their versions of the characters are very different from Flynn's. Clearly, they wanted some sense of internal consistency between the writing of the re-release. That part is normal.

But then, I guess they just... didn't have the budget, or interest, or whatever it was they needed to reanimate everything from scratch. So they just added some lipsyncing when necessary and called it a day.

The problem is that doing it this way fundamentally kneecaps what you can actually do with a rewrite. The revised dialogue I saw in a video doesn't feel any less stilted or awkward, and the only thing it really changes is giving the characters slightly more reasonable priorities, or filling in gaps in their knowledge that were there before.

And those aren't bad things to do, but it's... kind of the ONLY thing they can do. It doesn't fix the game's story. It's barely putting a band-aid over it. All it does is read like an amateur fan project, especially with the addition of Modern Sonic responding to his friends after he saves them where he didn't before; I'm convinced I've seen videos of fans doing that exact thing in the past.

Yes, everyone knows that the few seconds of silence while he gestures felt unnatural, but so does trying to fit a relevant sentence over such a short animation. The official attempt isn't going much better, adding this really out-of-place and forced "alright!" when Sonic gives Knuckles a thumbs-up, and it doesn't flow naturally with the rest of what he was saying at all. It's there seemingly just to fill the space, so that there's no moment where Sonic is animating and not talking. It's bad.

Not to mention, I kind of assumed that the reason Modern Sonic was silent during those segments was because Classic Sonic was. You can play either Act of each stage in whatever order you want, so you could rescue the others as either Sonic. It would give people an unfair incentive to always play Act 2 second if it meant they would get more dialogue that way, and they would miss out on Classic's interactions as a result. Sure, neither of their interactions are anything to write home about, but... that's not really the point, here.

Trying to insert new personalities and character dynamics into animations that were meant for something different only works if you're doing a fanmade parody. Doing it in an official capacity feels... weirdly insulting to both the original writers and animators, honestly?

Like, no, that's not the script they spent hours animating for. That's not the tone they were trying to convey with those character movements. No, Sonic isn't face-palming in exasperation because Amy's too focused on "saving Sonic next time," he's doing that because she's joking about how scared she was that she'd never get to flirt with him again. Those are not comparable interactions.

I understand why they wanted to change the script, I really do, I don't even like the original version but for crying out loud, swapping out the dialogue does not make the game more interesting. There's a reason the story felt utterly bland and lifeless and an extremely large part of that was the animation and cinematography. The white space that most of the cutscenes took place in was literally just the side-scrolling hub world, they had maybe five square inches that each character could move around in and it was really, really boring.

A rewrite of Sonic Generations, especially with the goal of making it an equivalent experience to Shadow Generations, desperately needs more than this. Shadow's story is going all-out with the animations and camera angles and the severity of the situation and the deep-dive into Shadow's character and Sonic gets. this. a slap in the face to the original writers with no attempt to meaningfully improve upon their story.

It doesn't solve the problem of Sonic's story being jarringly lackluster in comparison to Shadow's. If anything, it's just going to stand out as being even weirder, because if this was all they were going to do, then... why did they even bother? What was the point? Does Tails recognizing the Chemical Plant from Sonic 2 mean anything when there's no new scenes that actually take place in it? Are we really making "Sonic References: the Game" into nothing more than a vehicle for Slightly More Accurate Sonic References and Nothing Else??

And what really gets me about this is that I would've gone nuts for an official Generations rewrite as a kid. My Sonic Generations Phase(TM) was both extremely long-lasting and filled to the brim with others' fan projects, because I couldn't get enough of this idea of Sonic and Tails meeting their past selves while trying to save the very fabric of reality. It's such an inherently cool and fun idea!

But what I was invested in as a kid was just that: an idea of a story. The reason I was obsessively reading and watching fanfic about it was because the actual game gave me nothing to work with. Now, it seems we're still getting nothing, just in a different flavor. Like, plain oats, but this time they're gluten free so that means they're totally what I wanted, right?

No. I didn't want a Sonic Generations fandub that happened to be paid for. I wanted a story. It should not be this difficult to give me one.

(To clarify, this is not a diss on Ian Flynn himself or his ability to write. I think he was given a task that was impossible to do well and I'm mad at whoever made this decision)

[notenoughdragons]

i just got to the big backstory dump (aka the ~dread wolf's~ regrets/memories) in veilguard and. uh.

obvious caveat, i'm not done yet with the game, but anyways

h o w is this so neat (solas Was a spirit! origin of first elves! reason for the war with the titans! concrete blight origin!) and yet ALSO THE MESSIEST FUCKING SHIT

i canNOT imagine they had this whole blighted-gods-will-break-the-prison thing planned during trespasser/da:i like. the disconnect??? yes, solas obvs knows SOMETHING about the blight in da:i, but EVERYTHING he says is about the veil, about the mistake he made and what it cost the elves/spirits

LIKE CAN WE BE CLEAR HERE!!! "the blighted evanuris are going to break out of their prison so i need to put them in a different one" is an UTTERLY different argument to "i (ACCIDENTALLY, APPARENTLY) made the veil Too Big and it fucked up everything so i need to fix it"

like even ignoring all the ways this doesn't gel with trespasser/tevinter nights/etc, and how apparently nothing the inq did wrt solas mattered EVEN A LITTLE BIT it's fine i'm fine i just have to play cognitive dissonance any time either of them opens their fucking mouth

this is fucking messy as hell in veilguard alone??

how does this not come up in ANY of the arguments prior to this. like solas Tells Rook that he wanted to transfer the evanuris bc more secure prison and 'YOU COULD'VE SAID THAT' is? not? one of the dialogue options??

but also varric keeps harping how solas wants someone to sell him a better option, solas himself sounds bitter as fuck that no one actually managed that during the ritual convo

it's like 2 separate arguments trying to happen in tandem and NEITHER OF THEM actually works

like i legit don't know anymore what they're trying to do here? 1st they completely sidestep the core (emotional) conflict set up by da:i and trespasser (can you convince solas otherwise, and if not, How on earth do you stop him? => lol nevermind you can't, and stopping him is super easy actually), then they… bring it back in? kind of?? (varric, lace, inq, and now morrigan all making points re: maybe you can talk him around somehow/influence his fate) With A Character Who Has 0 Emotional Connection To Him, it's fiiiine but then also the whole blighted-evanuris-will-break-free angle is. There. and it's just, what are we actually arguing about now???

also i'm just gonna say it. absolutely not a fan of the implication that the veil in its current form was Fully an accident. like can we stop absolving this man of responsibility (the veil was an accident! mythal made him do all of it!) and at the same time heaping more blame on him in the weirdest fucking ways (still the veil! the blight! dwarves not dreaming!)

i Liked that the veil was smth he created knowingly, bc it was the least horrible, but still Horrible option, and he still underestimated how bad it would be. that's good drama! good tragedy! you thought you could live with the consequences but you can't! and bc you Knowingly and Deliberately made that choice, now you are convinced to the nonexistent marrow of your bones that you specifically HAVE to undo it!

instead it's like. welp the evanuris are gonna break out soon so i gotta put them in a different, Better prison (which is somehow real easy this time around????), and i Might As Well pull down the veil too and get that mistake sorted out

fucking christ.

AND WE'RE STILL NOT TALKING ABOUT THE FACT THAT SOLAS CAN CLEANSE THE GODDAMN BLIGHT

also they nerfed mythal. both in the backstory character-wise, and narratively in the present, bc welp! she's just here to drop some vague lore and info! and then they fucking pulled a mystra on the fragment of her that you Do actually get to meet. where is my horrific dragon all-mother goddess

(not even joking, they should've just gotten flemeth's va for her, this one has like. 0 presence in comparison.)

like. stay with me here. yes i know the point is that the evanuris weren't Actually gods. but also they're 1. literally a diff type of being than modern people. 2. for someone to be seen AS A GOD, even falsely, in a world that is as infused with magic and buckwild shit that we know ancient arlathan to be? i'm expecting more than the most milquetoast glowing elf lady you've ever seen

dumping the sentinel designs from da:i was a Mistake, and okay Now i can climb off my soapbox, tyvm everyone

[ranshoku]

after finding out that there wasn't just one, but (at least) two scraped Lopmon evolution scenes in chapter 5, I decided to check if there was a scraped Dracumon evolution scene in chapter 3...

...and found nothing 😭

On the other hand, found some other changes + interesting stuff that isn't included:

Kaito was supposed to meet the others at the school--he and Dracumon found the school, told everyone about what happened to him and Miu (also about Arukenimon), and everything else played out the same (i.e., the whole Minoru vs. Shuuji debate)

You know the scene where Takuma accidentally caught Saki changing clothes? It was initially going to be Minoru insinuating Ryo to go peek the girls changing to get him back to normal (and he did get Ryo to act normal... only for a bit. Ryo: "Are you nuts!? How is that supposed to make me feel better!?") Takuma happened to come across them at the wrong time, and when he was about to intervene Ryo and Minoru (I think?), Saki and Aoi came out, finding out the whole thing. Aoi tried to calm Saki down by saying that they must have not planned anything weird, but Saki was already mad and calling them perverted and stuff.

The affinity dialogue with Shuuji picking fruits has a reference to Shuuji's penchant for studying.

There's another affinity dialogue with Shuuji where Takuma caught Shuuji only eating half the portion, prompting him to ask if Shuuji was really done with his food. Shuuji said yes, and he only ate half the food because he wanted to save up food as much as he could. Takuma told him that he didn't need to do that because it'd take a toll on his health, to which Shuuji said that it was fine because he was the oldest here. The entire thing made Takuma wonder how Shuuji tends to get caught up in the weirdest thoughts. He also thought about how he looks up to Shuuji as an adult, but now that he thought about it again Shuuji was only a high school student and high school student was still a kid. Shuuji then dismissed Takuma to go check on Minoru and Ryo, but Takuma thought that he was as worried about Shuuji as he was about Minoru and Ryo.

When they're on the way to search Miu, Aoi noticed that there were spider webs and thought about how it might be something the enemy left to mark them.

Midway, Shuuji and Saki started angsting about Professor again, and Takuma would get to choose to scold them and blame them for Professor's death (not in a... mean way, Takuma just thought that maybe he should stop with the weak consolation, but it kinda backfired and he regretted how he went too far kahsdjdkhd)

Instead of Saki feeling exhausted, we got her spraining her foot on the way, so they had to stop for a while because of that.

They met Arukenimon (her human disguise) along the way. Kaito lost his patience midway and rushed off on his own to chase after her, and there was an entire scene of the other kids badmouthing him relentlessly kahdsjkhd

You got to pick whether to agree with Minoru+Saki (save Miu) or Aoi+Shuuji (head to the top of mountain to gather info first). Ryo was just off on his own.

During the scene at the radio tower, Ryo pulled out to see that his phone now had connection and started mumbling to himself about some stuff. Minoru was delighted to see it and was about to jokingly tease Ryo about it, but Ryo reacted very strongly and told Minoru and the other kids to not go near him. Everyone froze because they weren't expecting him to react that way. Ryo started suspecting the others of being monsters, and so Shuuji tried to calm him down saying that they weren't, but Ryo didn't believe it and ran away. Everyone panicked and chased after him.

We would have met Cyclomon first before we fought Arukenimon (we saw that Cyclomon and Arukenimon had Ryo hostage), not much changed except that Ryo's death scene didn't happen here if you managed to save him. If not, Arukenimon would have dropped Ryo and the scene in the final game played out more or less the same.

After beating Cyclomon, the kids saved Ryo and went after Arukenimon where we'd have also fought her near the cable car. If we hadn't used the alcohol lamp thing from the first chapter, we'd have the option to use it here to burn the webs--doing that would result in lesser Dokugumon to appear. Ryo, in a frenzy, went to the cable car because he saw his mom over there (the others panicked because Arukenimon kept talking about how it was the altar she prepared for the sacrifice). Haru followed him, and they panicked even more because "Are you expecting us to believe a kid like him can stop a middle schooler???"

Haru was actually trying to save Ryo. Ryo: "My mom is right there! Let go of me you brattttt" Haru: "That's not your mom... honestly, I would let you go here, but if I did that, it'd be the same as abandoning my sister…" After Haru said that, the others noticed how Ryo now looked a bit reluctant, giving them some time to catch up with Ryo and Haru. The other kids then started bodying him like in the final version and everyone talked him out of it but slightly longer, until they finally snapped Ryo out of it ("you're heavy, you idiots!")

Ryo, if you managed to save him: "Because... Ma-- my mom... when she last spoke to me, she said, 'Ryo is a strong kid, so he'll be okay.' That was… her last words…"

Ryo whispered something to Haru after the whole thing. Takuma was curious what he said Haru. Haru: "Nothing special. He just said 'I'm sorry.'" Takuma: "Really...? He really did that? Wow haha" Haru: "Maybe I should have kept it a secret." Takuma: "Ah well, maybe I'll keep that a secret too."

[badbatchposts]

🎱 🍓 🌵🔪🪲. I reblogged the ask game from you, so I wanted to be courteous and send you an ask! I'm honestly curious about these.

Thanks for the ask, friend! It's really nice to be able to reflect on some of these things!! Sorry in advance for the super long responses lol.

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats:

Works: 2

User Subscriptions: 6

Kudos: 204

Comment Threads: 84

Bookmarks: 67

Subscriptions: 51

Word Count: 67,351

Hits: 4,652

I honestly have no sense of how these stats compare for the usual fanfic writer, but it makes me happy to see how many people have subscribed to my longfic, especially since I don't always get a ton of comments on new chapters. But it seems people are reading! And definitely more people than read my dissertation, lol.

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

I used to write a lot of original work in high school and early college, but then as things got busy--and as I convinced myself my writing wasn't good enough to be worth it--I largely stopped. I always felt guilty about it. I really enjoyed writing, but didn't think I was creative enough or had the right amount of stamina that it took to complete a long work, and I had this perfectionist idea where it felt like it wasn't worth doing if I couldn't be the best at it.

Then right as the new Bad Batch season came out this year I was struggling a lot with burnout and found that I was spending a lot of time thinking about the show, and decided that I might as well start reading some fanfiction--for the first time ever--and felt like writing it would be a nice creative outlet that might help me recover from my burnout. It really has been great, and some of what's made it so good is actually exactly the sort of things that used to make me think writing fanfiction wasn't worth it. Namely: it's not professionally publishable.

That is, legally, I will never be able to professionally publish and profit from any of what I write--it can only be posted and enjoyed. This actually just took so much of the pressure off. It doesn't have to be perfect--it doesn't even have to be very good, because that's not what it's for.

I started thinking of it more as an exercise for working on my writing skills (things like, okay, in this chapter I'm going to practice writing dialogue, or in this next one I'm going to work more on establishing an interesting setting). As a result, I'm now thinking more about the writing process and improving my storytelling, rather than worrying about trying to make it perfect or good enough to publish or feeling competitive or down on myself when I encounter writing that I feel is much better than my own. It's been really freeing.

All of this happened over ten years since I stopped writing in college, and the other great thing has been seeing that my writing skills didn't disappear. In fact, they've gotten better and grown as a result of the learning I did in the meantime. I'm now much better at envisioning narrative arcs, outlining, getting myself to write consistently instead of just waiting for inspiration to strike me, and a whole load of other skills. It's really helped soothe a part of me that worried that I had abandoned writing, that it was too late for me to "do" anything with it, or that I only would have gotten worse.

🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

Parasailing in Rio de Janeiro with a Caipirinha in Your Hand

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I've been spending a lot of time researching historical kitchens on sailing ships and historical brothels for the Pirate AU that I'm working on. Once for an academic paper I was working on a novel that depicts a (non-sexual) human-animal relationship but through very intimate and erotic terms, and I accidentally googled a combination of terms that came back with information on bestiality while on my university's wi-fi.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

The most recent thing I wrote for my Pirate AU (I'm skipping ahead SEVERAL chapters to inspire myself with the steamy bits haha)

“I hardly think I can get into much trouble here. Your crew have been perfect gentlemen.”

Hunter’s eyes glinted in the half-light of the lamps. Though he didn’t move, all of a sudden she was all-too-aware of how close he was, how easy it would be for him to reach out and touch her. “And what about me?” he murmured. “Haven’t you heard from the ladies in port? I’m a scoundrel. A very dangerous man. Maybe you ought to be afraid of me.”

Thanks again, this was a lot of fun!!

[lusthurts]

writing meme about me!

no official tag but thought maybe time to share more about myself! mostly because I want to know more about you all as well, and @sperrywink extended an invite to seblaine mutuals so I will do the same!

How did you get into writing fanfiction?

I discovered it on accident as most of us do - I was on the Glee wiki I think? There was a link to select fanfics on the ship pages at the time, and I started reading one of the Finchel ones, and it was game over for me lol - I started writing my own a while after that, and I participated in a variety of Glee RPGs that inspired me to write other characters. I was in one of those massive Glee RPGs in like 2011 on fanfiction.net, and it was very formative for me in terms of connecting with the rest of the fandom and wanting to do more of that. RPGs are also so great for exposing you to ships you never would've liked or even thought of before, although all my current ships came from elsewhere lol

oh, and there was the whole escapism from family shit that was going down at the time thing - that was a huge factor for sure

2. How many fandoms have you written in?

I've almost exclusively been writing for the Glee fandom since the beginning, although the ships I've written for have changed drastically throughout that time. I've dabbled in some other things as well depending on my special interest at the moment, but I always come back to Glee. Other fandoms I've written for include The Outsiders, Degrassi, How I Met Your Mother, 13 Reasons Why, Girl Meets World, and Skam ! none of these are published anywhere anymore though as far as I know, it's all far too embarrassing (and yes I'm aware that's the most bizarre mix of fandoms ever)

3. How many years have you been writing fanfiction?

at least 12, I wanna say I started around 2012ish?

4. Do you read or write more fanfiction?

I genuinely think it's about equal, but it comes in waves. Sometimes I'm reading more, sometimes I'm writing more. I'm almost always working on something and I'm also almost always in the middle of reading a long fic.

5. What is one way you've improved as a writer?

I think I've gotten a lot better at writing comedy and ensemble dialogue. I like writing the silly goofy scenes with large friend groups a lot, especially when I feel like I've nailed the character's voices enough that I don't even need dialogue tags to know who said each line.

6. What's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Ohio geography lmao - I like always have Google Maps pulled up trying to map out different locations and how far drives would be, etc. I also have researched a ton about various colleges (especially for my current WIP since these characters are actively applying for college rn) and France (never been there, constantly have to write stuff that takes place there).

7. What's your favorite type of comment to receive on your work?

I genuinely do love all comments! I especially loves one that are specific/mention parts of the chapter or the fic that they enjoyed or thoughts that they had while reading. I also like chatting about the characters and canon and their predictions/hopes for the rest of the fic. The length doesn't really matter so much - I love long comments and short comments, and I try my best to respond to all of them.

8. What's the most fringe trope/topic you write about?

Idk I kinda write a lot of infidelity and toxic relationship stuff. Seblaine is the main ship I write for nowadays, and the nature of their relationship lends itself to a lot of infidelity in their process of getting together. I also just love writing angst, so even when I'm writing established relationships, they end up being sort of toxic throughout especially given the traits of both characters. I just find it more fun and probable to write a slightly toxic relationship than a 100% healthy one.

9. What is the hardest type of story for you to write?

PWP - I struggle so much with writing smut, although I like to think I've gotten a bit better at it recently. I'm also trying to get better at writing ensemble fics, but it's definitely a struggle for me to give each ship/character enough attention. And I'm pretty awful at world building, so anything remotely fantasy, sci fi, etc. is a huge struggle for me.

10. What is the easiest type?

slow burns! I've gotten so much better at delaying the characters from getting together for a really long time in fics and it's soooo fun. I prefer a character centric slow burn with lots of sexual tension and an arc that involves characters moving from enemies/friends/strangers to lovers over the course of many months or years.

11. Where do you do your writing? What platform? When?

I like to write outside of my own home - something about physically relocating makes me way more productive. I write a ton on planes (I travel a lot for work). I also love a good coffee shop, Panera, park, library, etc.

I write in Word and publish to AO3 - used to write in Google Docs but it's so slow and laggy so I much prefer Word. Used to publish on fanfiction.net but I will never go anywhere else now that I've transitioned to AO3, the far superior fanfic site lol

I am most productive with writing either during the day if I'm somewhere other than at home or in the middle of the night in bed - my most productive hours at home are between like midnight and 3 am

12. What is something you've been too nervous/intimidated to write, but would love to write one day?

I recently got over my fear of PWP and published a one shot that I'm very proud of. I have many ideas for things similar that I'd like to work through in the future!!

Most of this is fandom specific though - I'm super intimidated to write for big fandoms because I've gotten so comfortable in the Glee fandom, especially writing Seblaine which has a relatively small audience in comparison. I'd love to write Marauders, but that fandom is HUGE and very intimidating because there is so much lore and fanon to mess up. I hope to give it a shot one day though!

13. What made you choose your username?

it's a song lyric! lust hurts comes from the song "Barcelona Boots" by Arlie - the lyric goes "Lust hurts, could you bear it for me?" and I thought that was very fitting for someone like me who's obsessed with romance in fiction but can't be bothered with it in my real life

any of my mutuals are welcome to participate! I'll specifically throw in a tag for @daisyishedwig @calsvoid @xonceinadream @andyandersmythe bc these are the ones that come up first when I go to tag haha

[nogenderbee]

♡˗ˏ✎*ೃ˚ 𝔼𝕟𝕔𝕠𝕦𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣 𝕎𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕌𝕟𝕜𝕟𝕠𝕨𝕟 ₊˚ˑ༄

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ TW: sentient

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ @bleachtheidiot @akitosheart @hayillaaaaaaa @miguelito-maruti-blog

ᵀᴼᴰᴬʸ'ˢ ᴬᴿᵀ : An Encounter With the Unknown!? Cosmic Opera - Emu Otori

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Recently, you found a single player VR game that you absolutely fell in love with!! It had great storyline, fun minigames, managable and enjoyable exploration... it almost had no flaws! And even if you wouldn't like something, you could usually jsut skip it, thanks to not everything being forced!

Few days ago, you got on higher level~ Being 30! It wasn't much compared to the max. level, but you were still pretty proud of achieving this in such a short time~

"(Now I just have to craft some stuff and I can... Who's that?)"

You wondered as you noticed weirdly dressed for a village, short pink haired girl that was standing nearby the crafting table. She was... hitting it with minerals? As if trying to figure out how to start the process... as if she was the player...

But you just took it as fun NPC and side quest ocassion so you came up and crafted something out of minerals you took from her and handed her finished product, which she seemed to appreciate!

"This is so cool!! I was waiting so long for a player to come by finally!"

"(Is this part of some late April Fool's joke?)"

You couldn't help but question... though overthinking won't do much good, so for now... you might as well go on with it and see where it goes! It's just a game after all! It's not like anything can actually happen, right?

What concerned you more was that this NPC was staring right at you and you had no dialogue options available.

"Why's there no dialogue options..."

"Oh! That's because you can just talk to me! I'm not like other NPC's!"

"What-"

"I'm Emu!! And looking at your profile... you must be Y/N!"

"Yeah... you got it..."

"Hehe~ I'm so glad! Hey, how about this! I'll show you super duper cool place!!"

"(I meet weirdly sentient NPC, praying it's some kidn of joke... do I seriously want to go with them just to calm down my curiosity?)"

You took a moment to think a little bit about this offer, not wanting to jump into this too quickly...

"(Yeah, I do. I'm curious.) Sure."

"Yay!! No one ever agreed before! But I promise you won't regret that! You'll LOVE it!"

Not even getting a chance to react, you got teleported into some... weird space location... You never saw it on any spoilers, trailers or anything!

Not to mention the fact this felt so.. real... you lietrally couldn't feel ground under your feet... this must be a very cool and detailed design! Right?

"What the hell is this..."

"This is space of the game! Kinda like the backstage~ Even players become part of the game here!"

"Coo- Wait. What do you mean 'become part of the game'?"

She just shrugged and took your hand, jumping over invisible stones as you tried matching her peace. During your little tour, she pointed out many places... but what you found the weirdest was that through all of this, you couldn't see your stats anymore and she always brushed off your question about it...

You were honestly pretty creeped out by now, so you wanted to log out while she wasn't looking... but the menu wasn't working... Classic movement that you'd make to open the menu, didn't work... And when you raised your hands to take off the helmet, you felt just cold air...

"Emu... Why can't I get out...?"

"Oh! I told you! It's backstage of the game!"

"That's... this is very cool place but uh... I need to go now."

"Awh... are you busy? Will you come back tomorrow?"

"I'll... try...?"

That was straigh up lie. You weren't about to just come back as if nothing happened, but you needed to play a little play pretend to make it easier on yourself...

"Alright! I'll help you get back to the game world!"

"(Well that was easy...)"

You thought as she took you back to the village where you met her, as if nothing ever happened... You just dropped quick "bye" before quickly taking off the helmet, not even bothering to save and quit the game.

This was... too weird to be happening... She was literally sentient! You considered reporting this to game developers... but could you really do that after seeing she just wanted to make friends, despite being a bit too hyper about everything?

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

[yawnderu]

hiiii queen

🍬🔪🌸

MOOSCH MY BELOVED

From this game!

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

teehee any of my COD opinions are usually unpopular, but I feel like Ghost has been extremely butchered by the part of the fandom who has never played the games or watched any gameplay. The amount of mischaracterization I see online of him such as him needing a childhood blanket to sleep, being unable to look at himself in the mirror, being insecure, being abusive, and being into CNC is wild, because... that's really not like him, at all. Also him not showing his face to his S/O... the point of the mask is to hide his identity from the enemy and be able to separate his personal life from work, a balaclava in public would make his enemies recognize him easily. Not to mention he removed his balaclava in front of Los Vaqueros, men he knew for literally like 2 days.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

SEX POSITIONS LMFAOOO or certain specific kinks such as when I wrote Monster, I watched a few amateur CNC pornos to guide myself with the dialogue and dirty talk💀BHJEFHJBFEJHBKEF

🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them

YES!! I have my sweet boy, Juno. The gentlest cat I've ever seen<3

[deusexlachina]

Cheesage Exocolonist Age 11: Ruin Valentine's Day as soon as it is invented by blorboing so hard that it becomes existentially horrifying

In which Sol tells Tangent about her other lives for free candy and uses fashion to save people's lives before they are in danger.

Age 11 is kicked off by Marz inventing Valentine's day for free candy - you have to pick your Best Friend. Normally, I would do something sensible, like weigh all the different options to see how to maximize Friendship points and choose the Best Friend most optimal for my run. Unfortunately, Tangent is my blorbo and my shameless favouritism cannot be suppressed.

This is the first time I've picked Tangent after completing a run, so I only just now discovered this rather unsettling wormhole dialogue: when she asks for a reason you should be friends (Tangent being one of the harder characters to befriend, you do need a reason!), Sol can tell Tangent about the timeline where they were married.

Obviously this ruins your friendship completely, and...wait, she thinks it's cool? She gives friendship points?

"Grow old together" is a bit of a stretch - in the timeline Sol is referring to, my first playthrough, the marriage dissolved quickly because Tangent can never keep a relationship going with anyone, and also because Tangent lost her brother, had a supervillain phase and burnt out in like her twenties. (God forbid trans women do anything). Canonically, future memories aren't 100% reliable, but this still feels like burying the lede.

Despite this being one of the weirdest dialogues in the game, which is a very high bar, this is one of very few options where you can be completely honest about your other lives without being diagnosed as Delusional. (The twins are both very open-minded).

I really like the wormhole dialogues, because they start out awesome but the more of them you pick, the more you realize just how horrifying this whole situation is. This poor kid just trying to deal with having numerous other lives and no idea what to do with them with PTSD from stuff that hasn't even happened yet. They just get more and more detached from the world around them the more they loop. And they keep looping forever.

Marzipan gives me -2 Friendship for picking Tangent instead of her. But I like to think the penalty is really for ruining Valentine's Day by being 11 and reminiscing about married life/the only life Sol ever lived organically. I mean, she doesn't mention that. But would you? Really, this was a suboptimal choice, but I want to share some neat Easter eggs along the way.

Most of the year proceeds as usual, by which I mean neglecting my studies in favour of deckbuilding. I get Marz's friendship high enough for her to give me her jacket. Unfortunately, because she's my coworker, she knows how much money I have and, seeing I have more than 50 kudos in the bank, she will instead sell me the jacket. I take the L; it's fair for ruining Valentine's Day.

Besides that, the jacket is crucial. Tammy's dad Tonin is living on borrowed time - late this year, he will be killed in a manticore attack. I could go out and save him just in the nick of time. But that would be traumatic for him and poor Tammy. More importantly, it would give me more cards [bad]. Another route is persuading him to stay home, but, having neglected my education, my persuasion is at 0. Fortunately, I have Marz's jacket, which makes me cool enough to persuade him to babysit instead. Tonin joins his daughter in being saved without any idea of the danger they were in.

A couple months later, I save Hal. This is the first time I've saved someone and gotten recognition for it. This is a sign that these mortals will eventually bow to me as their ruler.

[quordleona03]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

I was tagged by @marley-manson and @ofmdmash - so I will tag:

@topshelf2112-blog @remyfire @allcanonisrelative @jaelijn @amrv-5 @mycenaae @muirmarie @thebreakfastgenie @uncomfyfriendly @rescue-ram @blistersonmefingehs @fieryphrazes

(but don't feel obliged unless you want to play, and if you'd like to play, consider yourself tagged!)

How many works do you have on Ao3?

253.

2. What's your total Ao3 word count?

1,393,465.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Primarily (and in more or less chronological order): Blake's 7, Star Trek: TOS, The Professionals, Highlander, Star Trek: tng. MASH, House, and The Fugitive (the film with Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones). I have also written fanfic for MacGyver (the 1985 TV series), the West Wing, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Quantum Leap, , and various literary fandoms as an exercise in pastiche.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

The top three are MASHfics: Tuttle, All We Know, Go, tell them in Sparta - and four and five are both Star Trek fics (both Spock/McCoy): A Man of Integrity, and Through A Glass, Darkly.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Oh, that's a difficult question. Possibly it's ""I would not be you for a kingdom" " - my Villette slash story: though in that case I was just using the angst Charlotte Bronte handed me in the novel. Likewise with the Blake's 7 story Cruelty Has A Human Heart, and the Good Omens story Let this cup pass from me, and the Highlander story Day and Night But, even what with stories where the angst is built into the source material, I think the angstiest ending is that of the long series The Games. (I considered MASH in Drabbles and concluded that as I wrote the 80 or so drabbles in the sequence individually and out of order, it doesn't really count.)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

That is an extremely difficult question to answer. I like writing in universes full of angst. Many of my stories have hopeful endings, which make me happy, but I think the unequivocably happy ending is the MASH story Responsible Indefinitely For Each Other’s Welfare. Because there they are, together, at the end of a long life: and Hawkeye is still the same delightfully annoying trickster as ever.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Sometimes. Usually for ridiculous reasons. "I hate that pairing!" Well, don't read it then. "So-and-so isn't gay, he's too masculine!" - Oh, honey, let me introduce you to some big strong bears, you'll love them.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I would say mostly no, but occasionally yes. I believe sex scenes should be essential to the plot and full of character development, so I rarely write just pure smut. But I did write a Stargate Atlantis story, What I Tell You Three Times Is True, which was purely written as a sex scene, after a giggled conversation with a friend who was into Stargate Atlantis.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I love crossovers, both the reading and the writing of them, and have written dozens. I would say the weirdest one I ever wrote was a West Wing / Star Trek:tng / Drop The Dead Donkey crossover, No More Overtime.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not as far as I know.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes, sometimes. It's a fun thing to do with friends. I co-wrote the More Deadly MacGyver/Highlander crossover with Jakrar, sparked out of a paragraph she sent me in an email.

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

"All time" - I don't think I have one. I've loved and still love Avon/Vila, Spock/McCoy, Bodie/Cowley, House/Wilson, Holmes/Watson - but right now my favourite ship is definitely Hawkeye/Mulcahy.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

The Buffy/MASH crossover. I just don't see where I'd find the time.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue, perseverance, imagination, angst.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Heterosexuality. Certain words which I always misspell unless I look them up, each time. Not understanding what is going on in people's minds, see 'heterosexuality' - also racism, sexism, and classism.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

Mais c'est impossible. I prefer to write in English but signal that this is a different language being spoken. Bene, plerumque. I had to think about this a lot when writing ASL dialogue for All We Know.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Blake's 7.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

Usually the one I am writing at the moment, which is to say All We Know - and the one I want to finish: A Hawk Through the Mirror. But I think technically one of my best is Friend and Stranger - a story set three years after the events of the 1993 movie The Fugitive, written in form as much like the movie as I could make it, full of sudden POV changes between Gerard and Kimble and attempting to get the emotional intensity and chemistry between the two of them that we saw on screen, down to a satisfying conclusion.