#changes the structure of it all but for modern settings I am always. I am thinking

[angevinyaoiz]

That being said, "King Henry has no sons" has incredible transgender potentials

[knight-a3]

Heavenbound AU

Masterpost

Angel Dust "Angie"

So I can avoid confusion between Angel and angels, his stage name is Angel Dust but he goes by Angie casually.

Side note: I'm too ace for this guy, yikes. Don't mind me clutching my pearls.

Spider family:

More notes under the cut to reduce clutter. There's info about the whole Spider family and some info about the Mafia as well.

Angie's redesign took me a while to nail down. I looked at other people's designs for inspiration, but nothing felt right. I wanted to give his head shape more structure, but it's too iconic to significantly change. Many people added spider fangs but I think they always look too cluttered and ugly. I also wanted the right balance of masculine and feminine for his outfit.

I am not a fan of heterochromia in character design, unless there is a reason or it's used sparingly. Angie's design is complicated enough with the gold tooth, extra eyes and arms, and body patterns that the heterochromia would just be too much.

Instead of giving him fangs that jut out like a real spider, I chose to just give him a main pair of fang-like teeth, while the rest are smaller.

It didn't make sense to me why he's able to retract his tertiary set of arms, beyond simplifying for animation, but I also do not want to manage all of them all the time, so I'm keeping that little ability. I'm justifying it with the idea that he was only ever somewhat interested in the family business, so he had less of a hand in it than his Pop or Arackniss(both of which cannot retract their extra limbs at all). I also wanted the sets of arms to have a hierarchy in how he uses them. Also didn't like the shoulders canon gives his secondary arms. They look weird to me.

The main set has 5 fingers on each hand and are relatively normal, because they're the equivalent of his human arms. The secondary set is a little smaller and a little more bug-like, with 4 fingers. The tertiary/retractable set are smaller and have 3 fingers.

I tried giving him a spider butt, but I couldn't wrap my head around how he would wear any type of pants. Not that he would be opposed to going around nude, but I just wasn't interested in that.

Casual:

I remember reading somewhere that Angel likes to dress more comfy rather than provocatively outside of work. So I decided his work outfits are the skimpy, sexy stuff. His main outfit is his typicall out-in-the-town fashionable stuff, which tends to cover him up more(gotta pay for those goods). And lounging clothes are just purely for comfort.

Main outfit-

I really wanted something that alluded to his mobster background. He may not really be involved of all that now, but it's still a part of him and that would linger. For as much as he modernizes, he's still a product of his time. Anyway, that's why I gave him pinstripe pants and a blazer.

I didn't want to lean too far into either masculine or feminine styles. He is undoubtedly feminine, but he was raised in an environment where suits and violence was the fashion. I actually searched for 40s gangster costumes for women, counting on the fact I'd find the silly sexy costumes so I could get ideas for a more feminine spin of the classic mobster.

I tried a boob window shirt for awhile, but it didn't let me show enough chest fluff. So I traded it for a V neck, which can work for both masculine and feminine styles.

Eventually I settled on a crop top blazer, since it gives a sort of suit jacket vibe while being feminine. I preferred the short gloves from the pilot, at least on his main arms, and used the longer style from the show for his secondary arms.

In canon, his "skin" color and the white of his clothes just don't have enough contrast. So I used more pink, and had the color of his fluff be a different hue than his shirt. I liked the stripes on his jacket before, but I didn't want to add any more complexity, especially when I already committed to the pinstriped pants.

Overall, I like this outfit for him. Maybe that has something to do with my personal tastes, but I think it suits him.

Body markings:

He wasn't a star until Val came around in the 70s, so he wouldn't have been quite so glam before that. He still had more mobster habits. I used his older, pre-pilot, Zoophobia design as inspiration, which used a low saturated purplish color. I thought it struck a nice balance between his mobster roots, and his later glam style.

I wanted to make the pattern something easy for me to remember. The heart design got pushed lower down because I needed more room for his chest fluff. His hands don't have anything because I didn't like how it looked with his lounge clothes. The stripes on his arms reference the stripes on his canon, pilot, and pre-pilot jackets. The stripes on his legs represent garters(suspenders that hold up socks or stockings).

Human- Anthony "Tony"

Many human versions of him that I've seen make him look too modern. I think they would absolutely work for a modern human au, but not for the 1940s. So this is my take on what he would have looked like while he was alive. The Mafia is almost exclusively Italian, and overwhelmingly Southern Italian/Sicilian. Sicily was settled by the Greeks during the antiquity period, so many people there have Greek ancestry. The vast majority had dark hair and a tanner complexion(less than 7% are blonde in modern day). Northern Italy has more variety, with up to 25% blondes in modern day. I find it unlikely that an Italian-American mobster would have such light blonde hair(darker blonde, maaaaybe). I found only a couple of a blonde mobsters, and the pictures still look pretty dark. I just believe he would have had a more typical Mediterranean appearance: naturally dark hair and olive-toned skin, rather than the fanon platinum blonde more typical of Scandinavian areas.

Hair coloring in the 40s was always done professionally, and primarily used by women, and they usually didn't want it to be obvious. Bleached hair on a man(especially with naturally dark hair) would be far too much to maintain discreetly. He hadn't publicly embraced his feminine side while he was alive. His family was Catholic, and being gay was a no-no. But murder was okay for some reason. Don't question the mobster logic.

His brother and sister knew he was gay, parents did not. Arackniss was too tired to care, and Molly was supportive. She would take him to be her "bodyguard" when she would go out and do fun things, but it was partly an excuse she provided for him to do gay things.

Angie had mixed feelings about his participation in the mob. Sometimes it was fun, other times he'd really rather be partying. But he was a made man and swore an oath of loyalty. He can't just back out.

He spent his free time with drugs, guns, and hot guys. Then died of drug overdose in his early-mid 30s in 1947.

He wasn't publicly out as gay until Hell. His parents hated it and basically disowned him when they found out. But why should Angie care at this point? He's already in Hell. So he just parted ways with them(technically the oath of loyalty ends at death. It's not like the Mafia can really kill him for leaving now, since they all just regenerate anyway) and has kept in sporadic contact with his siblings. They aren't close anymore.

Spider Family:

Ma and Pops were mostly because I wanted to play with character design. And since they have no official designs, I had more room to play with it.

The whole family became spiders because they were involved with the "web of crime" that is The Mafia. Family relation does not automatically mean sinners will look similar. They usually don't.

Pops (real name Enrico, the Italian version of Henry. Nickname "Big Cig". Almost every mobster listed on wikipedia had a nickname) inherited the position of mob boss from a relative. I'm not thinking hard about historically accurate crime families, so this is a fictional family that we will pretend had a significant presence. He died not long after Anthony, in the early 1950s in his mid 60s via gang violence. He never managed to get to the same level of power after his death. He's a minor Overlord at best, but does hold some influence.

In Zoophobia, Angel and Arackniss had a dad named Henroin. A play on "heroin". So when considering a real name for him, I searched for a variant of Henry that sounded more Italian. I designed him before I knew he had a design, but I wasn't exactly impressed by Henroin's design, so I totally ignored it anyway.

Design-wise, I wanted to go for a stereotypical mob boss vibe, and it lends itself well to the more bulky, crustacean look. The resemblance to Mr. Waternoose was unintentional. He cannot retract any extra limbs.

Spider traits- I wanted to give everyone varying degrees of spider traits, partially determined by their level of Mob involvement and how dangerous they are. Pa is venomous(through his clawed hands), has super strength(because spiders are proportionally strong compared to their size), can super jump(cuz jumping spiders is the theme), and can summon a couple of guns. He's too large to crawl on walls and can't spin webs.

Ma was always at Pop's side, helping with the less violent aspects like finances. She did her share of poison murders as well. Ma died alongside Pop and is still at his side. She's arguably the more dangerous of the two at this point. She looks easy to take advantage of, but it turns out she has potent venom.

I didn't have anything canon to go off of, so she's technically an OC. I haven't put a ton of thought into her name, but I think I'll just go with Maria. Molly is named after her, I guess.

Design- Had to go with a femme fetale mob wife. The hourglass motif is because of her venomous nature, and not for any husband-killing. She can retract her extra limbs, because she is more dangerous than she initially seems.

Spider traits- she's more venomous than Pa(through her extra limbs), can wall crawl and super jump with her extra limbs, and spin webs(to ensnare prey. I think it might come from her hair bun and/or mouth, but I don't want to think too hard about it.). She's actually the more dangerous of the two, partially because she appears less threatening, and partially because the way her extra limbs are set up gives her more reach and agility. She cannot summon guns, and she doesn't have super strength.

Arackniss (real name is Giovanni, Italian version of John. Goes by Jon. Nicknamed "Little Cig", "Don Jon") worked as the underboss until Pa died, then took over as mob boss, making sure Molly was taken care of. He died in a shootout with police in the 1960s. He was around 50ish. He is on speaking terms with their parents, and sometimes works with them. He's tired and very addicted to coffee and cigarettes.

Apparently an old QnA revealed his real name to be Jonathan. Not sure if it's still true, but I didn't find anything more reliable. I found no examples of any historical mobster named Jonathan, despite there being many many Johns/Giovannis.)

Design- I wanted him to be unable to retract limbs, unlike Angie, but also wanted to avoid drawing all of them. So I used his overcoat to cover them, and he habitually keeps his hands in his pockets. Again, he can't retract any limbs because he was heavily involved with the mob. I changed his eyes from red to yellow, because I felt the yellow suited him better and reduces the overuse of red in general.

Spider traits- He can wall crawl, has super strength(which most don't expect because he's pretty scrawny), has super jump, and can summon guns. He cannot spin webs, and his venom is non-lethal and inflicted via bite(which isn't super useful to him).

Anthony/Tony "Wild Tony" was a soldier in the Mafia. He could have been a Capo(caporegime) if he was more committed. But he had a tendency to party and goof off. Technically, membership of the mob ends through death. Being the first to die, he was separated from the mob and didn't care to recommit. Angie partied hard and enjoyed gun violence, until Valentino came along. Valentino swept him off his feet with promises of fame, fortune, and love, convincing Angie to sell his soul.

Design- already covered most notes, but for organization: he can retract one set of extra limbs because he was involved with the mafia, but he was lower level.

Spider traits- He has less than the previous three. So he can super jump, spin webs(via mouth...he can make it kinky), and summon guns. He technically can wall crawl, but not for very long, and he usually uses it for things like pole dancing. He is not venomous at all, and does not have super strength.

In canon, Molly is in heaven, but I don't find it likely because of how the Mafia works, so she's in Hell now. (Real name is Marietta, which is an Italian version of Mary, and Molly is a nickname)She was the spoiled daughter and knew about the family's criminal activity. She knew, profited, and didn't care. She's guilty by association. Anyway, I'm gonna say she died about 10 years after Anthony, approx 1957, around the age of 40. Haven't thought too hard about how she died. Then she probably went and found some powerful, hot guy to sell her soul to. Not sure.

Design- I was going to give her an extra set of legs, but I couldn't wrap my head around the anatomy of it and just decided to stick with extra arms. She can retract all her limbs because she was "hands off" with the mafia.

Spider traits- she has the fewest because she was the least involved with the mafia. Aside from the obvious physical traits, she can only spin webs(because it is symbolically more domestic. Also via ponytail and/or mouth, but I don't want to think hard about it). She cannot wall crawl, or super jump, has no venom or super strength.

The Mob:

The Mafia is very patriarchal, so all members are men, as women were never formally initiated. But women were still significantly involved in a variety of ways. Most often by instilling mafia culture to the kids, drug trafficking, finances, or economics. Some helped as launderers, couriers, shills(con artist), drug traffickers, informants, and other typically non-violent roles. Some acted as proxies for their husbands in prison(which is becoming increasingly common in modern times).

Quick chart for Mafia organization, via the FBI.

Simple rundown of terminology because I didn't know the difference between Mob and Mafia, and I've now done too much research to not write it down in a relevant place:

mob- a group of people, usually disorderly

gang- crime group, ranging from loosely organized street gangs to structured syndicates.

syndicate- group of individuals or organizations that unite for a common goal. Can be legal or illegal.

cartel- (type of syndicate) a group of individuals or organizations that collude to control a business market via supply and demand. Can be legal or illegal.

The Mafia- originated in Sicily. Ethnically Italian gangs, referred to as "families" that may or may not have actual familial relationships. Characterized by a distinct hierarchal structure.

The Mob- the American extension of The Mafia. (ie. it's the same thing)

The Commission- the alliance of the various Mafia/Mob families. Older generation members, called "Mustache Petes", only worked with fellow Italians, sometimes even only Sicilians.

The National Crime Syndicate- multi-ethnic alliance of various criminal organizations. Most prominent being The Mafia/The Commission and Jewish syndicates.

All somewhat organized crime groups are gangs. Crime syndicates have a higher level of organization, and cartels deal in specific businesses. Eventually the terms mafia and mob were applied to other ethnic gangs that operated similarly. Such as the "Jewish Mob" and "Russian Mafia". But THE Mafia and THE Mob refers to Italian gangs.

(Jan 28, 2025- fixed the tags) (Jan 31, 2025- added a couple more notes about his human design, particularly the hair color)

[k0mmari]

Got any writing tips?

Honestly I could go on forever about all the ways you can improve your own writing, but I'll try to keep it to the things that help me the most

Slight disclaimer: Everything I'll say is in the context of writing with the intent of having an audience read it. Writing for yourself with no intentions of showing it off to anyone is completely free game.

Slight disclaimer 2: I am in no way a professional writer and what works for me might not work for you. Writing is a skill and it comes with a whole lot of trial and error; don't be afraid of failure, or making something bad! We're in a constant journey of figuring things out, and everyone has their own time.

With that said, let's get started!

1- Starting a story

Sometimes the hardest part is the beginning, and as we all know, it can get overwhelming staring at a blank page. Let's say you have the beginning of an idea, but when you sit and think about it, you're not sure where you want to go with it; then let's start simple!

I like to start out with what type of themes I want to explore with the story; do I want to explore familial relationships? Romance? Trauma? How these characters react to external problems? Treat it like your own little research, and ask yourself what you would like your story to be in the vaguest sense possible.

Example: A story about how people deal with grief in different ways, and how that effects their relationships with others, with found family and a bit of dry humor sprinkled in.

If you're struggling in that front, prompts could help you a lot! There's a lot of free-to-claim story prompts floating around, so picking one or three, smash them together, and see what happens from there!

2- Steal like an Artist

When I first started out drawing (and eventually writing), I saw the phrase 'steal like an artist' thrown around a lot, but I never really made sense of it, but I'm here to make it simpler for you now!

Going back to the prompts idea, when struggling to form a story, you can always steal from other stories! Obviously, not literally steal the whole script from a movie and change the names, but pick and choose your favorite things from the media you like.

Grab a scene from your favorite movie. A bit of the character design from your 3 favorite game characters. Get the beginning of the backstory of your favorite book protagonist. Eventually, it'll be like second nature to look at a piece of media and go 'hey, I could do something with that!', and when you smush them all together, you now have your own story in your hands!

Don't worry about originality. It's true when people say that 'nothing is original anymore', but don't take that to mean that nothing can be unique anymore! Let's say, from when you were stealing like an artist, you decided to grab the structure of Alice In Wonderland! Great, but that idea's been sooooooo overused by now, what do I do to make it original?

Well, I don't know how to make it original, but what if I mixed it with Dracula and a bit of Interview With A Vampire, and made it in a modern setting with secret societies of vampires going around? I also think mafia stories are very fun, so why not make it that the vampire hunters are like mafia families, and the Queen of Hearts was one of the bosses? Oh, and to top it off, I really like found families, so why not make Alice the Queen of Hearts daughter that she's trying to protect from the world of vampires!

Boom! Is it original? Not one bit, but it's unique, it's your interpretation of a story, a genre and its characters, and that makes it worth telling too!

3- During the writing process

Great, you have your the idea of your story! You have ideas for the main characters and maybe even a shaky timeline of events in the beginning, middle and end.

You... You do have a timeline of events, don't you?

When writing a story, no matter how long or short I want it to be, I like to begin by making a timeline of all the important parts I NEED to have it in there. The story is guaranteed to change while you're writing it, so having a plan to fall back on can help you from not straying too far from the main idea.

Not to say that you aren't allowed to change anything after you wrote your timeline, but I can keep you grounded on those initial themes that you want to talk about. It's normal to get excited and loose yourself in the characters, but before you know it, your horror thriller suddenly changed into a cheesy romcom and you don't want to delete your 20 pages worth of progress.

Create as many timelines as you need! Make a timeline for your general story, your character arcs, your fighting scenes, everything! Keep it as simple as possible in the beginning to avoid focusing too much on the details– having a clearer idea of the whole narrative will also help you when you get stuck trying to figure out how to transition from Event 1 to Event 2.

Personal Suggestion- Dialogue

This is the most personal 'tip' here yet, and it genuinely depends on what type of story you're writing, but I find that learning how to write natural-ish sounding dialogue is one of the most important things a writer can learn.

It's a skill on its own! Dialogue can carry a lot of weight in your story. It can give the reader a more personal idea of the characters, their feelings and the atmosphere of any given scene, and making it feel natural while also having the characters expose information you need for a story can be quite the juggling act.

Copy from your favorite books, shows, and games! Games I think are the best way to get started in my opinion, as I find it to be in the perfect middle ground between 'book dialogue' and 'movie dialogue'; so pick a game where you really like how the characters speak and try to dissect what exactly makes you like their dialogue.

Another thing to be mindful of is punctuation! Punctuation signifies pauses for your reader, and dialogue can change its feel drastically depending on the punctuation you use in it. Let's take an example:

"I don't know."

"I... Don't know."

"I. Don't. Know!"

The dialogue is the same, but the way you imagine a character saying it drastically changes from one option to the other, so be mindful and take just a little bit more in figuring out how your character feels in any particular scene, and how their speech would be affected by that.

Just to compliment that last part, don't be afraid to break up your dialogue if needed! This is writing we're talking about, it's not everyday you have the luxury of visuals accompanying your story, so describe your characters' actions! Example:

(Person A walks into the room, smiling with their hands in their pockets.

" Hey guys! How are we doing?")

(Person A walks into the room, smiling with their hands in their pockets.

"Hey guys!" They walk to the sofa, sitting down with a huff as they put their legs on the coffee table. They take out a gum packet from their pocket and offer it to the rest of the group. "How are we doing?")

Again, it sets two wildly different scenes, and the second example gives a much clearer picture of the character's movements across the space. Of course, you can always take advantage of your readers not being sure of what the character is doing while talking for reveals and tense situations – it all comes down to what tone you want to set for the scene.

[hollow-lime-green]

hi folks so i'm a pretty fast writer/rough drafter, and on this sunday of sundays, while i am a little bit down about what i am writing, i figured i would share a little bit about how i write it (with pictures).

Outline View

use outline view on gdocs. if you take nothing else from this, use outline view on gdocs. you can trigger it using ctrl-alt-a, View->Expand Outline View, or just click the little squiggly icon in the top left (my preference).

what is outline view and why should you use it?

outline view is a list of all of the headings and subheadings in your document. this is helpful, because if you use headings strategically, it gives you a very nice, vertically-organized map of your entire document, and you can always see the structure without having to scroll through or reference a second doc. however, we do need to do a little groundwork to set this up: headings

headings are just formatted strings of text that gdocs recognizes as "oooh that looks important". you can completely customize what they look like, but you need to manually tell gdocs which lines are heading lines (and what heading level) so it will all go into outline view nicely. headings nest and can be collapsed, so use the first big headings for your big things, and then smaller chunks, like scenes, can drop down to the next heading size for nesting.

Document Settings

you'll figure out what works best for you, but generally:

good background color so your retinas aren't blasted with blue light (i also recommend f.lux or just use the settings most computers have these days)

center the document on your eye line. this is obvious but if you write with two monitors like I do, it is something you actually have to think about.

readability - font size, font style, zoom, color contrast, etc.

one tip i've picked up along the way is to change the font to subliminally influence your writing. it could be placebo, but it works on me. spectral is my standard, but i will change my colors and serif presence if I am trying to write something more atmospheric/fantasy vs something more comedy/modern.

i have also learned that writing in ugly ass fonts is a good way to draft dumb fanfic shit without psyching yourself out about it. rough drafts should be ugly and terrible and cringe - you're going to fix it in post. however, sometimes it is difficult when you are actively thinking about how ugly and terrible and cringe it is, and you get stuck trying to massage the rough draft before it's even time to edit. well, if you draft in neon green comic sans, it's going to look like shit no matter what words are on the page, so you can relax.

Writing the Words

now, how you actually go about writing the fanfic is all up to you - our brains all work differently, and rather than seeking an objective 'right' way to outline or draft, you just need to learn how your brain works and what kind of cues and tools it needs to get going.

outline your plot in chunks that are meaningful to you. i use bullets, and i try to make every bullet something I think i will need about 500 words to get across. this is just to say - there's generally a bullet for the exposition of a scene (where, who, when, maybe why), and then i chop the events of a scene down into manageable actions - (1) someone says something important and maybe someone feels some type of way about it, (2) that leads to action which is performed a certain way, (3) uh oh maybe there are consequences which are XYZ. etc.

my outlines are heavily based on choreography - what are they doing, where are they moving, what is the point (and sometimes, what are they thinking - mind choreography). this is not necessarily the best fit for everyone's writing style, but I do this because it lets me flip in between scenes very quickly and write the actions that I feel most compelled to at any point in time - the bullets act as easy, laid-out choices for what i want to rough draft whenever the mood strikes.

organizationally - two things that have been helpful to me:

use the headline view as a progress tracker.

here, one star indicates that my scene is in the rough draft phase (0 stars for outline, 2 stars for edited). this shows me where I'm at progress-wise on the sidebar.

2. write with your outline below you

i sort of just stumbled into this practice and it's kind of goated. often times, we keep our outlines at the top, or on a separate page, but that makes referring to it a huge pain in the ass tbh. if you keep the bullet point below you (as i've done above), then it will move with the text as you write, and you can always see your next immediate goal that you are writing towards.

ok hope this was helpful!

i've been peer pressuring my friend into writing fic recently, and part of that was anxiously screen sharing some messy under-the-hood stuff on discord. she said something along the lines of: "wow. i never would have thought of this (writing w/ outline below you) but it's crazy that this is not like writing 101" (she did a humanities degree, idfk what's in writing class i was too busy crying over matrices)

there is no singular correct way to write or outline, but this is a good way to start with organization to keep everything in sight as you write. you can start here, and then make modifications based on what feels best

the best way to write and draft is whatever works most intuitively with your own brain. <3

[psychewritesbs]

Chapter 236: Go South—JJK is generational

Gosh. Can we pleeeease just like... have a moment of silence for the one and only...THE Man, Gojo Satoru.

Ok, time's up.

Moving on.

Word vomit under the cut.

The process of reading this chapter was a very interesting one this week because the fandom got really noisy as soon as the leaks dropped.

Between allegations of bad writing and the utter sense of grief Gojo fans were expressing, it was quite the 💩 storm.

And then the actual scanlations started dropping, and little by little they replaced most of the noise with the utter sense of calm and peace and satisfaction that Gojo felt in his last moments in this plane of existence.

I gotta say that I just absolutely loved how Gege depicted those emotions (outside of Gojo's "dream") through shots of the devastated Shinjuku district.

The remnants of the battle of The Strongest, as if the landscape and the buildings themselves represented the end of an era, the devastation of the structure of Jujutsu society itself.

After all, as The Strongest sorcerer in the modern era, Gojo represented the very system he was trying to destroy.

Gege loves his irony.

Now, I would normally say that the words in the speech bubbles are superfluous because Gege creates such a beautiful atmosphere through the setting alone. But it is the words themselves that re-contextualize not just the battle, but also shed more light on Sukuna's interest in Megumi, which I feel we haven't seen the extent of what he had in mind.

Now I'm hoping this isn't a dream

Listen, I must admit I've never cared for Gojo.

I don't hate him, I don't love him, I simply never really cared for him.

That, of course, changed with this chapter.

And it is perhaps Gojo's death that really solidified in my mind the idea that one of the underlying themes in jjk is... dun dun dun... DEATH.

Yeah, I know. Sue me, I'm late to the party lmao.

But it's not just death itself that is a theme, but rather the face we put on when death comes knocking at the door.

There aren't many things that we can be certain of in this life, but death is one of them. So how we confront death and our mortality shapes the sense of self.

I know a lot of people were dissatisfied with the transition from 235 to 236 and Gege not showing how/when Gojo got slashed in half, but I find the abrupt transition makes sense, and I even dare say was... quite poetic.

For one, now knowing that Gojo knew Sukuna was holding back, a lot of incidents throughout the battle are given new meaning. Like that look of confidence on Gojo's face as he "thinks" he's finally managed to "get through" to Sukuna.

So I have to say that I loved that Gege starts the chapter with Gojo becoming aware that he has died or is dying.

In other words, Sukuna's attack was so sudden that Gojo's next moment of awareness as "Gojo Satoru" is in what we would normally think of as "the light at the end of the tunnel" where he is greeted by people who were of significance to him in his youth.

And can we please just talk about how Geto is the first person he sees when he becomes aware that he is dying?

Please. This is fucking poetry!

Insert keyboard smash.

Screaming in jjk.

Go South

I literally lack the words to explain why I love this whole chapter so much. Which is a lot to say because I am about to word vomit about it. But like...

Again, hindsight is 20/20.

I always thought of the panel above as Geto being jealous of Gojo surpassing him in strength but, in retrospect, I think Geto's disappointment had more to do with Gojo's sense of self over-identifying with the title "the strongest" and how that made him harder to relate to, which is one of the main themes in this chapter. I'll come back to this in a sec.

But first...

Quick depth psych segway. I think I've said this before, but it bears repeating again that an overwhelming sense of self is all ego. There's nothing wrong with ego per se.

The problem is that an over-identification with ego means inherent separateness because, as an organ of the psyche, the ego sense of self is what gives us a separate identity from the collective.

On the other hand, soul/heart (another organ in the psyche) is the principle of relatedness--love, the single energy that can bring us all together as a collective.

But as we already know, the stronger the sorcerer, the more overwhelming the sense of self.

Unfortunately, because an overwhelming sense of self = separateness, this also means the person in question can't relate to others.

And is this not thematically perfect for a sorcerer whose perfected cursed technique was meant to render others unable to "reach him"?

In other words, Gojo saw himself as separate (because he was "The Strongest") and that made it harder for him to relate to others, but only because he self-identified as "The Strongest".

Infinity ∞, in this sense, is also about the self-fulfilling prophecy Gojo was stuck playing out in his life in regards to seeing himself as "The Strongest".

But like a serpent eating its own tail, Gojo came back full circle, and in the moments before his death, learned that what really mattered to him was not strength for the sake of strength, but rather the connections he had fostered with others.

PLEASE. GEGE. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKING FUCK?!!!!!!!!!!!

To bring it back to "Satoru became 'The Strongest'"...

I just loved so much that seeing Geto as soon as he becomes aware he's died felt like an encounter that meant Gojo had returned to the person he was before he self-identified as "The Strongest".

But more importantly, Gojo's imagination of himself as back when he was young also speaks both to how much he cherished that period of his life, and to how he was emotionally frozen in time due to his encounter with Toji.

It makes me wonder whether Gojo was afraid of dying alone when Toji almost killed him. So it's almost like what he took away from that battle was that he was always alone, and so he sought to push others away.

The kicker is that he simultaneously feared his existential isolation and yet craved the very source of his fear--human relations.

But in choosing self-preservation, he was a selfish to the very end.

What an idiot (tragically affectionate).

Anyways. How much of this is hc? Someone tell me please 😂. I feel like I went off the deep end in the last few paragraphs.

Like everyone else in this fandom I've lost all objectivity when it comes to Gojo because his departure from the story was truly one of the most heartbreaking moments in jjk.

I understand people's complaints about the "execution," but I think the world-wide phenomena that Gojo's death has spurred speaks to Gege's ability to elicit deeply archetypal emotional responses as a story teller.

With Gojo's death, a part of our own psyche too has died. And what's most significant about this death is that it was, true to Gojo's character, "something that needed to die because it represented the very thing it sought to destroy."

And this would be why I love Gege's writing.

A fitting way for Gojo to go out

I know not everyone agrees, but I really appreciated that he was satisfied and at peace in the very end.

He got his cake (battle to death with Sukuna) and got to eat it too (reconnected with his loved ones).

Sukuna

But we can't talk about Gojo without talking about Sukuna as the one who liberated Gojo from the burden of his existential isolation.

Sukuna gave Gojo a fun battle, but if it weren't because Sukuna figured out how to cut through Gojo's metaphorical defenses by learning to cut through space-time itself--the very fabric of reality, Gojo might not have found his humanity once again.

The outcome of this battle spells out in no uncertain terms how dire the situation is as Sukuna has proven himself to be the uncontested "Strongest".

But in a sense, the end is a new beginning, and this time, there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

JJK is generational

I get the feeling that everyone will remember where they were when this panel dropped.

I was in bed. It was 6 am and Tasokare, my miniature panther, was demanding attention.

A moot was on the way to the gym. They never made it out of the house after seeing the panel.

Another moot was completely avoiding Twitter to avoid leaks, but her brother, who does not even read jjk, saw the panel on Facebook and showed it to her.

Yet another moot was on vacation at the beach.

JJK is generational like that and there's just so much more I can say about this chapter and its implications (like the idea that Sukuna can now cut through space-time, why?! what does he want to get out of this ability?), but I just don't even know what more I can say right now.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I'm looking forward to any thoughts you might have. Just a heads up, I'm very, very slow at replying.

[shredsandpatches]

One of my colleagues in the English department, who was here for the tail end of my years as a student and whose classes I've worked with a lot, is retiring in the not-too-distant future and came by the other day to give me a copy of a book she'd found while cleaning her office, a pocket-sized copy of Doctor Faustus (the edition dates to 1897, but this is a 1949 reprint). I love it. We need to bring back pocket-sized Renaissance drama.

I'm very amused by the choice of frontispiece: rather than using the classic one we all know and love, they went with the skeevy Faustus Georg vibes.

The next bit is me wittering on about editing so I'm gonna stick it behind a cut, but I actually find editing endlessly fascinating.

I'm also fascinated that this edition is a composite of the A and B texts, something you would absolutely never see today, at least not for this specific play (I don't think it would have been typical in 1897 either). Shakespeare plays traditionally published as composite (e.g. Hamlet and Lear) are still printed that way (usually, but not always), but Faustus editions either have to pick one version or the other (which one gets the nod depends on how old the edition is), or go dual-text. This one, however, prints text common to both or unique to A in roman type, while text unique to B is italicized. For example:

This page, like a lot of the middle section of the play, is mostly B, but you can see tiny bits of overlap even here. In the end notes there are detailed explanations of where the editor has had to make choices between one version or the other when the two versions are in conflict.

The reason you wouldn't see this today, though, is because there's really no textual evidence to support it. Neither version has really ever been deemed satisfactory as "the original," and we know that there's evidence for expansions to the text; it's also been argued that Marlowe had a collaborator who contributed the slapstick comedy bits. (The suggested collaborator discussed in the link is obscure enough that I didn't recognize his name, although I did recognize his best-known play.) The A-text (printed in 1604) is more bare-bones and has more powerful versions of the dramatic bits; the B-text (printed in 1616) has more action, more comedy, and more spectacle. I think this is why scholarly favor rests more on A these days, but it's also been argued that, rather than B reflecting the later additions to the play, A is a cut-down version designed for a touring production. Which also makes sense! The sections unique to B make pretty intensive special effects demands that would be much more difficult for a touring company to pull off. But the more visibly Calvinist influence of A is more theatrically powerful, as well. Some of the hardest hitting lines -- "See, see where Christ's blood streams i' the firmament" -- are omitted from B, undoubtedly as a consequence of the 1606 Act to Restrain Abuses of Players, which tightened up censorship when it came to irreverent religious language. (This is what's meant by "abuses" in the title of the act; it's not a labor rights bill by any means and in modern English the preposition "of" would certainly be replaced with "by.")

I do, of course, have a Theory about all this which is that A and B are probably derived from an earlier version (not necessarily identical, even, to whatever Marlowe and whoever originally set down) which we can speculatively call Urfaustus, as a nod to both Goethe and Hamlet scholarship. Supposing that such a version existed, we could then conjecture that A represents a touring script cut down from that version. B, on the other hand, might be structurally closer to Urfaustus but reflect textual changes imposed by censorship (and perhaps other performance needs). This, I think, would make the most sense (I doubt I am the first person ever to think of it), but there's no actual evidence to support it; any composite text would be a purely speculative reconstruction, which isn't in line with modern scholarly editorial practices.

THAT SAID. Obviously in performance you can do whatever you want. (The 2016 production with Kit Harington completely rewrote the middle section to feature contemporary celebrities, to which all I can say is "ugh.") Conflations of A and B are pretty standard--the 2011 Globe version will be familiar to most of my readers who are still reading this post, and that one is a composite based mostly on B. It actually is the thing that made me re-evaluate the B-text; I used to be a much more hardcore A-text loyalist. Of course, the Globe has the resources to do the special effects in a compelling yet period-appropriate way; the production is a really strong argument for retaining the spectacle in Faustus.

I also mention this because the edition given to me by my colleague was once used as a performance text at some point, with cuts and alterations to the text marked:

I'm not sure how old these markings are--the ink appears to be hot pink but might just be red that's faded over time--which I mention because, while this version isn't really aimed at actors (few editions of renaissance plays are) a composite-text edition might have been really useful for staging at a time before word processing and digital editions from which you can cut and paste. Based on the cuts marked, this performance was clearly based mostly on A but they kept enough of B in there that having both versions in one was certainly very useful!

[thelampisaflashlight]

You Are A Haunted House

[Don't you just hate it when your boss places a curse upon you post mortem? Or, what happens when Bea gets promoted Sister Imperator. Feat. Mountain and Rain.] Below the cut.

There is a notion that all old buildings are haunted; That the creaks and groans are not that of the ancient wood settling, nails squeaking as it expands and contracts with the seasons, but rather the forlorn groans of those long since passed.

Whether these ghosts are real or the conjuration of of an excitable mind is left up in the air, no one has indisputable proof of life after death, and yet, so many hold to superstition, even if they are not wholly aware of it.

Those who hold onto traditions passed down through the generations, despite their original purpose being lost in the relative comforts of modern living.

Few have to worry about wayward spirits leading them astray in the forest, nor need to fear that the creature they are viewing prancing about the meadow is not really a deer, but we as human beings know almost instinctually when something is not as it seems.

And in those moments, even the faithless turn to God.

Beatrix Milne, however, turns to Mountain.

"It's fuckin' creepy is what it is."

Before the pair stands the ruins of the former "Little Chapel" -it never had a proper name before, always referred to as either the small or little chapel- that sits a ways into the forest surrounding the abbey's grounds.

Despite only amounting to a singular room with no roof or even a door to speak of, Bea finds the structure... ominous and dark, though not the sort of darkness she's grown accustomed to working around the abbey.

The forest is still here, and while Bea may not know much about the natural world beyond what is necessary to do her job, she knows this stillness, this deep, unsettling quiet, is not normal.

Mountain, too, is silent as he takes in the wreckage.

"...You think it's haunted?" Bea laughs nervously, trying to bring a little light to the situation, but the ghoul gives her a look that has her stepping just a smidge closer into the safety of his towering form.

"For such a brash young woman, you certainly frighten easily, Miss. Milne." Mountain chuckles, offering her his hand as he walks towards the burnt out building, dry leaves crunching under his cloven hooves, "Not all places touched by man are left with an impression of them."

"There are no ill memories in this place, save for that of its end."

Bea follows the ghoul through the narrow threshold, her boots finding stone where she thought she might hear the soft squeak of weathered boards or damp soil.

The interior of the building is not in much better shape than the exterior; Though, Bea supposes, this may still count as being outside, given the lack of protection from the elements.

A cold drop of rain water manages to make its way down through the dense canopy and lands directly in the space made by the hood of her jacket and her bare neck, causing her to yelp, and the earth giant to snort.

"Fuckin' cold!" she hisses, shaking her shoulders as she feels the water trickle down her back, "Remind me why we're out here again??"

"A bit of water isn't the end of the world." Mountain smirks, earning a harrumph from the small woman, "In order to properly care of the grounds in my absence-"

Bea narrows her eyes at him.

"-Which I know you're already doing just fine-" he adds quickly to avoid starting an argument, "You need to be more acquainted with the parts of the property that you weren't allowed to visit before."

"Now that Sister Imperator has..." he inhales deeply, "...gone to see the father... It has fallen to Papa... Frater Imperator to decide how the staff will manage things in her absence."

"...I don't know whether I'm being promoted or being set up right now, Mountain." Bea says after a moment of quiet contemplation, "Sister Imperator forbade me from coming out this way for the sake of my personal safety, I don't think Copia changing his title means I am any safer here now than I was before..."

"It's true that parts of the grounds are more dangerous than others, and that this place is no exception, but if you want to stay-"

"-I do." she interrupts, then frets, "I-Is that old man thinking of kicking me out??"

Mountain stiffens, "I, well... He..."

"Does he think I'm not capable of doing my job??"

"No, but-"

"Mountain, I can't lose this fucking job." Bea pleads, grabbing hold of the front of Mountain's shirt, "I can't fucking go back to-"

"Bea." Mountain grabs her shoulders, "I am doing this so you don't have to worry about that."

"...What... What are you going to do?" she asks, feeling the air around her grow cold, "Mountain, what is this? Mountain, I'm scared-"

"Just close your eyes and it will all be over soon..." he whispers, moving his hand up to cup her face, "...Just..."

"-Wake up already!"

Bea bolts upright in bed, her eyes searching the dark expanse of her bedroom, coughing a little as she groans and falls back down onto the mattress, cringing when she's met by the pool of sweat that had gathered beneath her in her sleep.

"Fuck..." she wheezes out, "That was a fucking stupid nightmare..."

She coughs again, pulling herself upright and kicking her feet over the side of the bed, "Water..."

Wandering over to the sink, Bea turns on the tap and runs it for a short while until the water turns cold, rinsing out the mug she used for her tea earlier before filling it up.

She stares out the window as she drinks, eyes trained on the lake beyond her garden gate.

Slightly obscured by the waves rolling over the water from, Bea can see the shine of Rain's scales growing beneath the surface, and stares quietly as the ghoul slithers about in his beastly form.

It's an oddly soothing sight for what it is; A monster, impossibly large and frightening making its presence known to her, because he somehow always knows when she's awake... but Bea will take comfort where she can find it.

Lately -at least since Sister Imperator's passing- Bea's been feeling... out of sorts.

She has to wonder if the spell the older woman had cast upon her were beginning to fade now that she was gone.

Bea thinks of her nightmare, and the many more that came before it.

Oddly specific, always featuring Mountain, always ending in... not quite death but something akin to it.

She's not sure how to describe the sensation.

With a spluttering cough, she is brought back to the present, having inhaled a bit of her water trying not to spit out the contents in her mouth, but unable to swallow.

She stands over the sink hacking and wheezing for a solid minute before she manages to get her lungs to cooperate with her, again.

She swallows and goes to pour the rest of her drink down the drain, when she notices a splattering of dark liquid standing out against the metal; Acrid and watery, so dark it almost seems black until she pushes herself away from the counter and her shadow moves, revealing the rosy red hue of it.

Blood.

She brings a hand to her lips, feeling it stick to her thumb as she tries to wipe her mouth clean.

It's not... She's not...

What is this?

Why is this...

Why is this happening?

And then suddenly...

"Mountain?" she calls out weakly, looking towards the door, and she can almost see him in her head, hand poised to knock, now frozen in confusion.

"...How did you...?"

And then she can see him.

As if she's standing on the porch beside him, like she's outside, she can even feel the night air on her overwarm skin, and-

"...Mount, I think I'm gonna throw up..."

[secretmellowblog]

Okay, here are some random panels I’m personally looking forward to at the online Les mis convention Barricadescon starting tomorrow!! (note that this off the top of my head, and they’re in no particular order, and that I am excited for all of em.)

(Also note that it’s the last day to register, which you can do on their site here. You can also see the full program of all the panels/their descriptions here.)

1. I’ll say any of the Guests of Honor (Jean Baptiste Hugo, the descendant of Hugo will be talking about his project photographing his ancestor’s house; Christina Soontornvat, author of the award-winning Les Mis retelling “A Wish in the Dark;” and Luciano Muriel, playwright of a 2018 play about Grantaire.)

2. @psalm22-6 ‘s panel “Early Transformative Works,” which is about the earliest Les Mis retellings, parodies, and “fanfics” from the 1800s/early 20th century. They’ve shared deeply cursed sneak peeks with me. Apparently in 1863 a man wrote a “proper Christian” retelling of Les Mis where Javert is reimagined as a proper Christian woman following poor criminals around giving them charity while they keep rejecting her kindness. Powerful. Javert as Mary Sue. (Note that I may be explaining poorly because I haven’t seen the panel yet.

3. History podcaster David Montgomery’s panel “The Yellow Passport: Surveillance and Control in 19th Century France,” which dives into the role of the police and strategies of government surveillance at the time Les Mis is set!

4. My own panel “Why Is There a Roller Coaster in Les Mis,” which I shared the first five minutes of here. There’s an actual scene in Les Mis where Fantine rides a roller coaster so I made a full defunctland video on how that roller coaster got to Paris in 1817, the fascinating historical context behind early roller coasters, and why it became defunct.

5. @thecandlesticksfromlesmis ‘s panel “Beat for Beat,” analyzing the script of Les Mis 2012 and contrasting it with the book and musical. Discussion of 2012 is almost overwhelmingly always about its music or cinematography, and I’m fascinated to hear someone finally analyzing the screenplay/ structural changes.

6. Morbidly curious for “Lee’s Miserables,” the academic panel discussing the paradoxical popularity of a censored version Les Mis in the Confederate South (with all the references to the evils of slavery carefully removed of course)

7. “Barricades as a Tactic,” a panel discussing how barricades actually functioned as a tool of warfare historically and the echoes of them in the modern day.

8. All the little social meetups, including the Preliminary Gaieties drinking game!

9. I’m biased because I’m also helping present this one, but the @lesmisletters panel (on the Dracula-daily inspired Les Mis readalong happening now.)

10. “The Fallibility of History in Les Miserables,” by @syrupsyche. It’s a panel analyzing the way Hugo often treats Les mis as a story that he learned about through research/gossip, rather than a fictional narrative— analyzing where Hugo does that in the text and what it means thematically.

11. The Unknown Light Examined, by Madeleine— a panel analyzing the chapter where the Bishop confronts the elderly revolutionary, and is forced to re examine his political beliefs! An iconic chapter, and the abstract is very compelling.

But also a lot more, check out the exhaustive list here XD. And also register at this link!

[mask131]

(Random, confused, blurry train of thoughts here - so don't except a well-worked structured essay)

I have made a few posts about what I call "Tolkienesque fantasy". You know "Tolkien homages", "Lord of the Rings rip-off", "Middle-Earth copies", however you want to call it. Formulaic, "stereotyped", "generic" high/epic fantasy that many call cliche or stale. Shannara, Belgariad, Wheel of Time, Memory Sorrow & Thorn, Fionavar, Thomas Covenant, The First Law, series of the sort.

And I am actually lured into Tolkienesque fantasy and "Lord of the Rings rip-off", and they will always be a type of fantasy I will be interested in reading. Sometimes the books are garbage and they made some of my personal hated fantasy stories ; other times they become my all time favorite fantasy worlds. But the thing with these specific fantasies, and the reason they are one of my go-to fantasy setting, is because of how easily I can see the effort of the author in there (the same way I can easily decide if I like it or not).

You see, everybody complains and comments or enjoy how it is a "formulaic" fantasy. And that's precisely what makes it good for me. Not good as in "that's a good book" but good as in "That's a stuff I am ready to try out". Because The Lord of the Rings is basically a modern literary myth. And thus "Tolkienesque fantasies" are, for me, on the same rank as other myth-retellings, from novels about Greek legends to Shakespeare rewrites. You know what setting it will be in, you know the goals of the story, you know the character-types and the literal "common places" that will be used, you basically know all of the story beforehand... And this is where Tolkienesque fantasy gets interesting, at least for me: because what is important here is what the author has to bring to the table, and given the story is formulaic, whetever is brought up is what will be the jarring, important, influent part.

I enjoy Tolkienesque fantasy because I enjoy variations and twists and - some might not enjoy it but that's how I do it - I don't read these books at first so much so for themselves, for as how clever or funny or twisted of a Lord of the Rings "fanfic" they are. A common criticism for people who enjoy Tolkienesque fantasy is that they stay in a "comfort zone" and just want copy-pastes of the same story over and over again without anything new or any big change (that's how The Sword of Shannara became such a best-seller back in the days). I understand this criticism and people like that do exist - but for me, it is about looking at this "comfort zone" and this "pre-mache setting" precisely so that you can more easily analyze and dissecate the character and worldbuilding, and thus can dig into what the author is subtly (or not) saying right as you are reading.

The First Law's decision to turn everything upside down in term of morality, gathering traditional fantasy villains as protagonists, subverting or inverting the traditional fantasy heroes, switching gods/angels for demons. The Belgariad's decision to make all the "orcs and dwarves and elves" just human ethnicities treated the way traditional fantasy handles non-human species - which is a decision that definitively sparked a LOT of debate over whether it is racist or not. The Wheel of Time's decision of making magic about women first. Memory, Sorrow and Thorn's replacement of orcs by evil elves. Fionavar's play on what happens to the Elves when they go West Beyond the Sea. Shannara's decision to make Middle-Earth an explicitely post-apocalyptic setting.

For good or bad, I find those interesting and worthy of discussion. Of course people will criticize a "lack of effort" in going for a "traditional", "seen before", "cliche" route instead of building a crazy new separate fantasy world (and myself I do regret how a lot of the early days impulse of creating absolutely bonkers fantasy worls has died out a bit - though it does come back today...). But I see this rather as a very easy way to prove if you are good at fantasy or not - because doing a Tolkienesque fantasy is a double-edged sword. You can either do something really bad that will fall into "garbage literature" in a second, or you can do a beloved classic remembered by generations. Because your personal touch, style, approach and additions will be far more jarring and obvious. And it is the paradox: because when an author doesn't have a lot of personal additions, or bring nothing new to the table, it will just show like a big hole in the cake. For a long time they expected fantasy fans to be dumb and thirsty enough to just focus on "Oh, look at the return of our favorite tropes and archetypes" instead of on the "We're just copying this and not even adding sprinkles". But we are here for the sprinkles that weren't here yesterday. We are here for the different shapes of the slices. We are here for the different flavors of the cake. We are here for when the chocolate-chip cookies suddenly have white or pink chocolate instead of black or milk.

[bunni-v1]

Oh, I would LOVE to hear more about your college au!!

I feel like a lot of folks just age them up and call it a day, but I love when I run into people really detail their own au out. One thing I loved that I ran into once was the idea that each dorm was divided into majors - and that's part of your sorting. Pomefiore being Theater Arts (Epel, farm boy going to college to improve and modernize his town agriculture, is just extra horrified lol) though I figure they could probably pick their own minor.

Anyway, I adore hearing details!

TWST College AU (First Years!!!)

🍓Hiiiiii! Thank you for asking! I figured I'd just answer this informally since it shouldn't take too long! (And, to be honest, I don't feel like writing a bunch of headcannons for the entire cast :/)

I really like the idea of the dorms being sorted by major, but uhm... I see Ace as a Film major and Riddle as a Med School student so... that wouldn't really work for me?

The basic idea IS to age them up because I am a college student and I want to write about college students -- plus, the twst campus is set up A LOT like a college already, so I always felt weird that it was a high school? Even when I was still a high schooler playing the game, it never felt like a high school, so obviously I decided to just... change it because that's what fanfic is for.

I also didn't want to just... make them all 18. Like... consistency is important people! Leona is 24 now, sorry girlies <3

So I've talked about the age differences and explained Ortho and all that in my rules (read them please :3). I also mentioned that they act differently! The first years won't change too much, because they are still NEW college students, but they respond to things with more maturity than they would if they were just 15/16 year olds. Because... of course, they would. (I would hope 18-year-olds would be a little more mature.)

But I didn't talk about the structures that I changed, mostly based on my own schedule. I'm only gonna use the first years as examples so please forgive me for ignoring your faves <3

So, the first thing I changed is there is no homeroom teacher because we don't have homeroom teachers in college! So, students have multiple different classes throughout the day.

Let's take our little film major Ace, shall we? Ace's first class of the day is a 'core' class, which is the class he has with Yuu and Deuce. It's a basic magic history course that's required for everyone to take, and it's mostly filled with other first-years. Jack, Epel, and Sebek are all in the class too! This class happens three times a week, MWF. He has three other classes, two of which are major-related and one of which is another core magic class.

Each student has their own specific schedule, and they sometimes overlap with each other. This includes first, second, and third years. To give you a little example: Epel and Ruggie take a course on magic plants together!

Many of the courses at NRC have magic at their core -- because it's a magic school -- but their students are free to study whatever they please! That's why Ace is a film major because he wants to be. He cannot, however, pick what kind of magic he gets to study.

Because, of course, the kind of magic you study is based on the dorm you are sorted into. Students have to take at least four classes to do with their dorm's magic type to graduate. It's harder for some students and easier for others.

Epel, of course, hates Pomefiore because he HATES potion-making. He is also surrounded by many theatre majors because... well... just because your dorm doesn't decide your major doesn't stop the same types of people from gathering in one place.

Each dorm has a stereotypical major type associated with it. Many students in Octinivelle are business majors, Pomefiore is performing arts, Savanahclaw is the fitness kids, etc.

So, with all that out of the way, I want to go through the core cast of first years. Namely, their majors and the way I've tweaked their personalities.

Ace: As I mentioned, he's a film major! He loves movies, and he's such a geek about them, so he thought 'Why not!' To be specific, he wants to go into film writing, but he's not dedicated himself to it yet. He's still got four years ahead of him, so he doesn't have to worry about it too hard. Ace is a LOT more chill as a college student. He still teases his friends and he's STILL a huge dickhead, but he knows when he fucked up and needs to apologize. He's more willing to just back off when he needs to and accept his faults as his own, unlike highschool Ace in game. He's still got a firey personality and will stand up to authority, so at his core, he's still the same Ace, just a bit more chilled out.

Deuce: Is a first-generation college student, so he feels like he's got a lot riding on his back. He went into business, mostly because he felt like he HAD to if he wanted a good life for himself. However, he dabbles in a lot of stuff. He constantly does a ton of extracurriculars and is curious about all the courses at NRC. This Deuce is more self-assured than he usually is. He's confident in what he feels he wants/needs, even if it ISN'T what he wants/needs. He, however, still is not great at managing his anger. He still has really big outbursts when he's been upset by something, but he tries his best to keep a cool head and ALWAYS apologizes afterward to his friends.

Jack: You guys are just gonna have to trust me on this one. Jack is majoring in kinesiology with a minor in physical education. He wants to be a personal trainer/occupational therapist! In my opinion, Jack stays the MOST consistent among the first years. He's still pretty strong in his sense of justice, and he's reliable and generally pretty nice. The only thing I could really see changing is that he's a bit more approachable and he's more willing to talk to his fellow students.

Epel: POOR EPEL LMAO. He's an agricultural major, specifically in Agribusiness so he can help his family farm grow more, because he loves his granny so much. He also minors in Agricultural magic -- so, learning about how magic can be used to cultivate plants and the like. Imagine his surprise when he's shoved into the "performing arts" dorm. Epel has more come into his own as a college student. He'd be less pissy about his more feminine looks, though he still tries his best to appear more masculine. He's more willing to bite back at Vil than normal as well because he's an adult now and he doesn't wanna be pushed around.

Ortho: Kid genius! He's a robot, so of course he's a kid genius. Ortho is the only member of the cast who is still under 18 (he's 16 years old and in college!) He majors in computer science, specifically robotics -- he likes to understand how he works lol. BUT, he's an anthropology minor! He likes learning about humans too! He's still very much adoring of his brother, but he has a personality outside of that lol. He's sassy and witty, and really sociable! I'd go so far as to say he's popular around campus, especially since he involves himself in a bunch of different activities.

Sebek: Sebek majors in Magical Studies! It's a general major that can be filtered down into multiple different specific majors, but as for now, he's just Magic Studies generally. Sebek is... an oddball... even still in college. His love for Malleus has never gone away, nor has his dedication. He's like the kid you meet who never really grew up past their freshman year -- mostly because they were never really exposed to ideas outside of what they know. College would have him on edge because A LOT of it is just questioning what he knows, and he's not handling it well. I would say he's probably more awkward than anything. Not as in him making others uncomfortable with his weird behaviors, but him making HIMSELF uncomfortable because of it lol. (He still needs to grow a lot!)

That's all I can think of though! Thank you for asking, I loveeeeeeee questions!!

[pantsaretherealheroes]

this buck mix has been gestating in my keep notes for probably the last few years but i've finally actually created the playlist (and this graphic i spent TOO LONG on but it was very fun) for @try-set-me-on-fire's bshiftmixtapes event!

introducing: am i good? is all i could enough for you? an evan buckley mix

(a note: some of these are Buck Songs, and some of them are songs i think buck would listen to, and some are just vibes, i hope it comes across. there's a rough chronological structure here from pre s1 buck to now but it's notional)

Dirty Imbecile - The Happy Fits Count my little scars, I've got dozens down inside//I come complete and invincible behind my dirty imbecile//All these things I've tried, boy, be cute, be dumb, be wise, be young//So don't tell me what to fear in the darkness of this atmosphere Love my mum and love my daddy//Sure they messed me up but that is//Voices that they left inside of my head (Am I good is all/Is all I could enough for you?)

Lethargy - Bastille Lethargy got a hold of me//And I don't know how to shake it Got these itchy feet for a change of scene//Do anything to escape it//Get up, get up, pressure, pressure//Run away as fast as you can go You checked out years ago//Oh what I'd do to not to worry like you

Re-do - Modern Baseball I wanna start from the top, maybe like a do-over//replace the voices in my head with blind innocence//I wanna complete re-do, maybe change my name//We’re pissing away our time cause we’re pissing away these beers//No monumental moment ever came from saying “Come on dude, just take one more shot”

Matilda - Harry Styles You were riding your bike to the sound of "It's No Big Deal"//And you're trying to lift off the ground on those old two wheels//Nothing about the way that you were treated ever seemed especially alarming 'til now//So you tie up your hair and you smile like it's no big deal//You can let it go//You can throw a party full of everyone you know//And not invite your family, 'cause they never showed you love//You don't have to be sorry for leaving and growing up, mmh//You can start a family who will always show you love//You don't have to be sorry for doing it on your own

DANG! - Mac Miller ft Anderson Paak (i both think of this as a song Buck would def love and a buck-relevant song) I can't keep on losing you//Over complications//Gone too soon//Wait, we was just hangin'//I can't seem to hold onto, dang//the people that know me best//Don't run away so fast//Know my heart like gold, but it break like glass//Know my shit get old and I act so young// (there's another lyric here i think he would love but you'll just have to figure that out on your own)

I WANT YOU - Carter Vail But you're living in my head//I am trying not to think about//All the stupid shit I said//i want you, i want, i want you//yes i think we've got potential//yes i think i think too much//

New Person, Same Old Mistakes - Tame Impala All the signs I don't read//Two sides of me can't agree//When I breathe in too deep//Going with what I always longed for//Feel like a brand new person//(But you make the same old mistakes)//I don’t care I’m in love//(Stop before it’s too late)//I finally know what is love//(You don’t have what it takes)//I know you don't think it's right//I know that you think it's fake//Maybe fake's what I like//Point is I have the right//

Do I Ever - Kensington Can't figure out how to play my part//Where do I go?//How do I go around go in and make it inhabitable//I let it throw me off my feet/I let it put me on my knees//What do I know//I ought to grow But do I ever?//Can't sit around hiding all my scars//Let them all show//Let them all know about go in and embrace the inevitable//

Anti-Hero - Taylor Swift I have this thing where I get older but just never wiser//I should not be left to my own devices//They come with prices and vices//I end up in crisis//It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me//One day I'll watch as you're leaving//And life will lose all its meaning//(For the last time)//

I Miss You - Blink 182 (a buck song he absolutely listened to a lot when maddie left for boston. and later times in his life too) don't waste your time on me you're already the voice inside my head (i miss you, i miss you)//where are you, and i'm so sorry//

New Body Rhumba - LCD Soundsystem (this one is so full of buck lyrics, shout out to whoever did that fantastic edit to this song i will link if someone knows) Yeah, I need a new body, I need a new body//I need a bit of shape and a tone//Yeah, I need a new body, I need a new body//I can't shake sleeping alone//You see, I have been misplaced//I have been mislaid//Like a covetous dog that you can't just leave in your home//Yeah, I need a new lover, I need a new body//No, there's never a warning, I needed a warning//I try to be content//But I'm tight in the chest//Let's close the eyes of a beautiful friend//So, I need a new love and I need a new body//To push away the end//To the water we send you//When it gets too much//Otherwise, too much noise//

Hoops - The Rubens Are you lonely?//Are you there when I'm not in the room?//Are you only//Only a part of this when you choose//Is it real//Is it something that you can not touch//Do you feel//Do you feel that you feel too much?//Blood stains won't make it matter//Got good things, got you//

Achilles Come Down - Gang of Youths (we've reached the one that hurts me personally. why did gang of youths do this to me personally) Achilles, Achilles, Achilles, jump now//You are absent of cause or excuse//So self-indulgent and self-referential//No audience could ever want you//You crave the applause yet hate the attention//Then miss it, your act is a ruse//It is empty, Achilles, so end it all now//It's a pointless resistance for you//Throw yourself into the unknown//With pace and a fury defiant//Clothe yourself in beauty untold//And see life as a means to a triumph//Today, of all days, see//How the most dangerous thing is to love//

(bonus buddie as well) The self is not so weightless, nor whole and unbroken//Remember the pact of our youth//Where you go, I'm going, so jump and I'm jumping//Since there is no me without you//Soldier on, Achilles, Achilles, come down//Won't you get up off, get up off the roof?

i love that i ended this with two aussie songs accidentally. nice. i don't know that buck would know any aussie music but i think there's a lot he'd like (powderfinger! hilltop hoods! the cat empire! baker boy!)

thanks for the push to put this all together! hope this is enjoyable to listen to <3

[agent-of-sam]

My Big Rambling List of Perrin Thoughts

@toastandjamie asked for thoughts on Perrin's arc and the subsequent essay felt too big to be a comment so I made my own post.

Note it's not really an essay and more just a jumbled list of impressions from someone who tried and failed to complete a re read of the series.

The Gentle Giant thing is technically true but I think it's a misleading place to start with Perrin. The term feels more accurate for Loial who is both physically larger and less inclined to violence. And I do think there's some deliberate paralleling between the two as Loial spends a fair amount of time in Perrin's storyline. As an Ogier Loial is Pure Nature and Pure Creation, while Perrin's Wolfbrother connection is…something something, Primal Man, domestication of wolves as the man's first step towards civilization, something something idk.

In terms of personality, Perrin is deliberate and pragmatic. He's a good problem-solver, able to break things down into logical steps and can often surprise people by seeing to the core of an issue or by approaching it from an unexpected direction. But like all the Emond's Fielders this comes with a unique set of blind spots, biases, and hypocrisies. Perrin, in particular, feels like a very linear thinker who thus struggles with problems that don't have clear answers. (waves vaguely at his entire relationship with Faile). Thematically, as other people have said, I think Perrin's "arc" isn't a distinct line. It's a journey towards acceptance both about himself and about how the world works. Am I a Wolf or Man? Both. Am I Peaceful or Violent? Both. Is it Wrong to Kill? Yes but sometimes you have to do it anyway. How will I know when it's Right? You won't but you'll have to make a decision and follow through. How will I know when to Stop? When it feels right.

He's a character who fundamentally wants clear rules and structured morality and demonstrable cause and effect and the world won't line up the way he wants.

I think he's the character who holds on longest to his old life and his old identity, at least among the guys. Like, Rand is never "happy" about being the Dragon Reborn but once it's proven he commits to it, hell or high water. Mat is famous for loudly proclaiming he's something other than what he clearly is. Perrin choosing to leave Rand in Tear and go back to the Two Rivers is described as a physical tearing as he resists the pull of Ta'veren. He insists he's a simple blacksmith even as people are calling him Lord Goldeneyes and waving his banner and the Two Rivers is literally changing and modernizing around him. -I think there's something about acceptance as a theme in all the characters. Pushing against Fate and the Pattern and the world telling them who they are, trying to change them. Except, the Pattern didn't change them. They were always who they were, they just didn't know it until the journey revealed it to them. Whether they like the revelation or not is irrelevant. Rand was always going to channel eventually. So were Egwene and Nynaeve, probably. The Wolves were always going to find Perrin. Most of them eventually come to a sort of subconscious realization that they, ironically, have the most agency when they choose to go with the flow instead of trying to swim upstream. I think Perrin, with his specific brand of quit stubbornness, takes the longest to actually reach that turning point.

This next part might all be projection but In terms of writing style, I think there's something to the idea the Perrin operates with a certain separation from his own emotions. Rand angsts, he pushes down his feelings but he stills feels them. Mat's got his whole comedic irony thing going on. I think Perrin straight-up doesn't register his emotions 90% of the time. Which doesn't mean they aren't there, he's just kind of blind to them until something big happens and then suddenly it's a tidal wave. It tracks for someone who's like, "To figure out this situation I must be direct and logical. First step is to put my personal feeling into a box because they aren't relevant right now." And it works so you do that for every problem. And over a lifetime you kind of just…lose the ability to regulate. Your emotional responses become Nothing or Way Too Much. Everything in the box gets mushed together into a big soup.

I think he's got anger issues, but in that specific way where he's an exploder. "I'm fine. Everything's fine. No big deal. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. It's fine. Oh, look an Aiel Man in a cage. I don't like that." Then things get a bit blurry and suddenly he's got a bloody axe and there's a bunch of dead White Cloaks all around.

And for that kind of person the sort of primal, instinctual sensations he gets from the wolves is euphoric and terrifying.

For Perrin emotions literally become sensations at some point? The wolves communicate by psychically bombarding each other with images and scents and emotions. Then he gets his scent powers and Faile's jealousy is a hot spiky feeling that stabs at his nose and Aram's growing resentment and fanaticism is this itchy, alien smell that Perrin finds literally repulsive. But he can't smell himself so it's always this intrusive, upsetting sensory overload?

Anyway, it's a writing approach that I think fundamentally doesn't appeal to some people because there's less to grab onto and also what's there is simultaneously very big but also very direct and kind of "exactly what it says on the tin". Because Jordan can be a very subtle writer when he wants to be but, conversely, he can also be incredibly blunt sometimes. And I think he's at his most blunt when writing Perrin. Probably because that's just who Perrin is. Perrin's not a metaphor guy and he's not a philosophy guy. For Perrin a thing is a thing or it's not and if it's not then it's not worth thinking about. Or so he tells himself.

It also falls into Jordan's gender stuff where it's leans into a very Plain-Spoken Salt-of-the-Earth Man Does not Understand Complicated Thing Like Women or Human Emotions. I think, like a lot of Jordan's Gender and specifically Masculinity stuff, if you look at the series as a whole it's a functional critique showing the pitfalls and drawbacks of those kinds of mentalities both on a societal level and on a personal level. But it also takes 12 books to get there and, while it's hard to say exactly how various character arcs would have ended if Jordan had lived to finish the series himself, I think as a writer he favored slowly sliding people into place rather than big epiphany moments. And there is a large modern audience that either doesn't have the patience or just fundamentally isn't interested in that kind of story. Which is fair, I guess.

But I love Perrin. He's my guy. That's it, that's my essay.

[saurons-pr-department]

Hey anon, I have screen-shotted your ask because I am going to try stay out of tag/term searches here, which in an of itself probably answers your question XD

So! Thoughts as they occur to me!

I did give the whole first season a watch. Partly out of giving it a chance, partly out of morbid curiosity, like when you can't look away from something awful happening in front of you even when you really want to close your eyes.

What I think is interesting actually, is that my main issues with the show have somewhat changed since I initially watched it. While watching it my only thoughts were "wrong, wrong, that never happened, wrong, wrong, wrong, look how they massacred my boy (gn), wrong!" And while those thoughts themselves haven't changed my main issues have changed to focus more on how it's such a badly structured story (the timelines feel both stretched and compressed in a way that doesn't add anything to the stories being told) and how I don't think it knows yet what it wants to be (it's Tolkien, but it's its own thing, but it's a 'prequel' in the very modern franchise sense of the word to the PJ films, but it's also not those films).

For the structure, I personally wouldn't have put two major stories into one show. I don't think there's the time for that. Both the Akallabêth and the creation of the rings exist as very sketchy narratives that cover extremely long timeframes. Original content was always going to be needed to fill the gaps. But by putting both tales into the one show, I feel they've doubled the amount of gap filling needed while halving the amount of screentime they have for it because there's now twice the amount of canon to cover (tbf, they don't seem to want canon so maybe that's not an issue for them...). To force them to run simultanously and then add original content that isn't just filling the gaps but appears to be completely original, you end up with a story that is both too empty and too full. Nothing is getting the time it deserves. Big moments feel undeserved or rushed. It takes the wind out of its own sails. (and that's without mentioning that these stories running alongside eachother just throws timelines and motivations out of whack, but I refuse to get us all bogged down in the minutiae of my grumblings!)

It's a pity, the story of the fall of Númenor and the creation of the rings have such good parallels, but that would require them to focus on things like religion and politics etc and they seem to be more interested in mystery boxes, so... oh well?

In regards the show's identity crisis, to be fair to them, that's really not that unusual in first seasons. They're not special XD Let's face it, how often have we all been recommended something that came with the caveat 'you need to get through the first few episodes/first season before it gets good and finds its feet'? Especially fantasy and sci-fi that has to establish facts about the world as well as characters in a way a drama set in the real world doesn't. I wouldn't be shocked to learn that the show hits its stride a bit better in later seasons.

However, my current biggest gripe with the show is what I'm seeing in the writers' attitude to storytelling. I can't stand it. The actor for a certain someone whose name begins with H didn't know who his character really was until after shooting the first few episodes. There's the back and forth of is it H or the guy who fell from the sky who'll turn out to be the villain. Sky man even gets some stalkers whose only purpose was to add confusion to this situation and then be immediately killed, no further context. One of the writers (I don't remember who) when asked about deviations from canon said something to the effect of 'we don't want book fans to be episodes ahead'. It's the modern Marvel school of story-telling. It's mystery boxes and twists and fears of spoilers and people knowing what's coming next. That's not how you tell a story. You need more substance than that. Big moments are only interesting if you've earned them with a well crafted lead up. And what's the point of a big moment if it adds nothing to the story in the first place. They had one of fantasy's most iconic villains, why was there a secret? The Second Age is where he's cracking out his most rediculous long cons. The man's twirling his mustache while kicking up his feet and writing 'evil' into every date in his diary for at least a millenium, what does a secret identity add to this story really?

Don't worry, I will move swiftly on from the topic of my boy who is not really my boy before we get in too deep... No one needs to hear that... But do you get my point? Big reveal. No substance.

To add a note of positivity, I actually really like Sky man's music. It's genuinely a really nice piece of music. I also liked that they wanted to add one of the 'original' orcs, that's a cool concept!

Oh! And whoever okayed those American 'stage-Irish' accents needs to be fired into the sun :D

[seldnei]

Taking stock of the writing: 2024

For any new followers: this is my annual post about my writing in the past year.  This is purely for my own mental health–the tag says “seldnei is tired of feeling like a slacker” for a reason.  Please feel free to skip.

2024 was an interesting year that feels like it lasted 2 months, and those 2 months were October and November. We had goal-changing for the kids (Z no longer wants to do theatre for a living, is considering library science, and is planning a gap year while he reassesses; Q has found that school just isn’t their thing right now and is job-hunting); the entire family has decided, between politics and hurricanes, that we’re moving out of Florida; we’re making major procedure changes at work; The Fucking Election … yeah.

But through it all, I wrote.

So, reflection and goals, here we go.

Stories/poems, etc.

“It’s Dangerous to Go Alone,” a short story monologue type deal about the contents of a shop that sells fantasy sidekicks, for FUCKIT. I am very pleased with the miniature boy band.

“The Innumerable Trunks and Thick Boughs O’erhead,” a weird little poem set in the same place as ‘The Forest Speaks of Secrets and the Dead,’ for FUCKIT. Not entirely sure how I feel about this one, but the framing poem about Mr. Brown was just going around and around in my head until I got it out on paper, so.

“The Modern Eurydice: Hecate’s Children,” also for FUCKIT. I love this one. Everything in it should be taken literally. I immortalized all our dogs, up to and including Miss Snoots.

Also wrote some TMA fanfic and had a ball doing so—I got to play a lot with structure and narrative and all that good stuff. Wrote some poetry in my notebook—I’m thinking about maybe doing a chapbook of poetry for the husband at some point.

I blogged about once a month, on average.

I did not get the podcast scripts done, nor did I write any other short fiction (see below for more on that).

Books!

I started self-publishing!

So I’m using Draft2Digital to make the files and handle distribution; so far they’ve been good! I have a hard time understanding the royalty statements? Not sure if that’s me or them, but I’ll be pulling all the reports together for taxes so we’ll see if it makes sense then.

I published a short story collection, The Stars; the Silence, and the first Teachout novel, Cobbler’s Hill.

Cool stuff: my book is in the local library, and not-local libraries have it in their e-collections! It’s in Hoopla! Someone on Goodreads gave the collection 4 stars!

I did not break triple digit sales, but I did sell more than just 3 copies to some friends, so for the first 9 months? I think that’s okay. I learned a lot.

I’m working on the sniper witch book—I think I’m going to break it into 3 novellas instead of one book with 3 wildly different tones. I made a plan to have this all done by June so that I could publish them over 6 months with an omnibus at the end of the year, but the more I consider that, the more I go Price, why are you trying to kill yourself? So that will likely be re-vamped. I would like to have the bulk of the writing and revising done by June, and have the first one, at least, out this year, but we’ll see.

In 2025, I want to do more promo for CH, possibly hire an editor for sniper witch, and enjoy this thing I’ve started doing rather than pushing myself to produce like the oligarchs want. And keep writing for FUCKIT so my short writing skills don't disappear.

Thoughts on 2024

It took me a while to really settle into the idea that the short things I’m writing are really going to be only for FUCKIT because novels take a lot of time and effort. It felt strange to realize that, even though novels have always been my goal.

I definitely had my moments this year of “Oh god, I’m a failure!” But just about every time I would get like that, there would be a story about trad publishing: AI, lack of promotion, lack of money, general crappy behavior. I am too old and too tired for that. For the first time ever I’m writing while knowing those words are going to be published, and it’s lovely. I am not too scattered to make it happen, even if my plans have changed three times since I first made them and will probably change three more as I go.

I am still not sure what it will do to my taxes, though. (Probably nothing, but a girl can hope.)

Goals for 2025

Promo for previous books

Finish sniper witch

Start outlining Teachout 2

Editor for SW?

Revise/publish vol 1 of SW?

(Some of this depends on how the whole "moving across the country" thing goes, as well.)

[sofiesm]

Discord 1x1 Roleplay partner

Hi, I’m Sof and I am 22 years young (or old if you prefer lol)!

I used to roleplay a while back, but I fell off as my roleplay partners got busy with life, and now I am interested in getting back into it! I roleplayed for around 4-5 years before my hiatus in 2020 (which later was picked up again through D&D). I’m Norwegian (GMT +1/+2 depending on daylight saving time) and a full-time student with side jobs, despite being busy, roleplaying is something I have missed deeply.

I’m looking for a long-term partner for a multi-paragraph/novel roleplay. My reply length depends on the scene, but I always aim for two paragraphs or more, I‘m not interested in one-liners, but if you are unsure and don’t know if you can deliver a paragraph at times because you are stuck– no worries! We can figure out something. I am not looking for a specific story, but I need an idea that catches my attention to feel like it’s worth a try, that’s something someone can approach me with, or we can come up with something together!

I am quite flexible when it comes to theme, SFW/NSFW, and any combination of genders and settings. I don’t enjoy roleplaying characters, so I prefer OCs that you have premade but also those made specifically for a plot. The most important for me is building the story and sometimes also the world. I do have a love for adventure, fantasy and even settings in shows/series. Stories filled with rich world-building and complex characters are always fun. Let’s not forget some good angst!

Some of the things I am willing to roleplay within are things like:

Undertale, Attack on Titan, Dungeons & Dragons, Elden Ring, pokemon, Delicious in Dungeon, ect (I can’t remember all of it atm lol)

But I do prefer making plots with my partner:

Fantasy, modern-day, heaven and hell, cyberpunk, high-magic and low-magic, old west, isekai, scenarios, short/long roleplays, etc.

For me, the plot is what catches my eye and matters to me.

While I aim to reply daily, my pace can vary due to my busy schedule, from once a day to several times a day. I love discussing plots, character dynamics, make jokes/memes and headcanons out of character, so don’t hesitate to brainstorm with me!

To ensure we both enjoy the experience, here are a few boundaries and expectations:

Age: Only partners 20+—younger roleplayers, this isn’t for you.

Writing: No one-liners; at least a paragraph per reply. Clear and readable grammar is appreciated, I am not the most fluent in English but I want the effort to be there at least.

Respect: Please respect my character(s) and boundaries. No god-modding.

Communication: Let me know if your schedule changes or if you need a break.

Romance: I’m open to it if it develops naturally, but it’s not a requirement—don’t force it without prior discussion. (Unless the plot is romance based)

Preferred POV: Third person :)

Please to add a trigger list so we know what to avoid and can work around it, worst case we can also discuss it later before we start

If this resonates with you, feel free to reach out! I’m available on Discord as br0w0ken, or you can message me here to brainstorm an idea together. I’ll make a Discord server for us to have different chats and some structure (channels like OOC, Roleplay channel, memes, ideas, etc.).

I am looking for a partner who can also be a friend, so getting to know each other would be nice <3 I am an awkward introvert, but once I open up I get super excited and ramble off about character ideas. One warning is that I might be very rusty, so I expect to have a good time where I can grow alongside my partner. <3 The password to show you have read everything is Borealis.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to me! I’m available on Discord as br0w0ken, message me if you want to get to know each other and come up with an idea together!

[ugrush-the-merciful]

Velcro, Not Superglue

Friends, fiends, and everyone in-between!  This campaign has bestowed many lessons, but foremost among them is this: the further ahead you write the story, the further afield you will drift from the players’ course.

Ugrush does not begrudge this facet of tabletop roleplay – the impulses of the players are as essential to the emergent story as the dice are to unexpected gameplay outcomes.  If you constrain them, you risk confirming what Schrödinger could only could only imply: the cat was always going to kick the bucket. Although I am new to the pastime, my understanding is that early DnD embraced this chaos by keeping the plot simple, and letting the player’s own action and imagination do the bulk of the work creating small stories of labyrinthine dungeon dives and perilous combat. 

Ugrush Senior has described the game thus, and was surprised to hear how the game has evolved to have so much *plot* in the modern era.  I’m sure many players still enjoy this ‘get on with it’ approach, and you can find them over there in the pathfinder corner.

But who are we kidding – we all want to be Matt Mercer or Brennan Lee Mulligan now.  Not only has the bar been set high; we have already had several cycles of hype, backlash, counter-culture, and homecoming for the more involved narrative-driven campaign.  Ugrush will not lie, the young theater kid in me simply could not resist.  And yet, these stories we revere can seem *so* plot-driven that it can be a concern whether players have much agency at all. So then, the challenge is clear:  Compose a driving story with interesting characters, but not force the players to simply improvise lines inside your little one-room stage play.  Ugrush can only speak for himself:  Voltaire has a Bad Guy, several really, and several mysteries to solve.  It has characters with motivations and intentions (and also silly voices.)  It has consequences that echo across the various plot threads.  What it doesn’t have is a singular path to completion.

If it sounds like Ugrush is boasting, it is important to clarify:  Ugrush really tried to keep the players on the trail of Voltaire’s most fleshed-out stories, often with enticement rather than hardened walls…but it made no difference.  Player characters are not soldiers with orders to follow, nor are they  heroes with unshakeable moral drives.  They are cats, and you attempt to herd them at your peril.

Once this became obvious, the clear, straight outlines of individual plots had to change.  It had to become flexible.  It had to reconfigure at the whims of the real chaos agents of Voltaire – the dreaded player party known, after a time, as Team Backdoor. Many metaphors are available for the kind of writing philosophy required to square this authorial circle.  ‘Laying tracks ahead of the moving train’ certainly conveys the sense of peril.  Ugrush thinks you should not panic.  The story needs structure, and flexibility.  A puzzle piece can only fit one way, but a collage has no defined shape until it is done.  The story should be held together with Velcro, not superglue. Ugrush will return with news of Voltaire’s final day!