#definitely some plot reworking

[travelingtothefarlands]

Was going to redraw more scenes, but motivation is AWFUL right now. Anyway, silly sketch of Harper as Ford in an amazing awful AU/crossover of mine. I have mostly everyone figured out, I just want to wait to share them once I have drawn renditions

(bonus: concept thing i made literal months ago. huge credit to mellon_soup on most socials for the base, their bases help me SO MUCH during art block)

[foxmulderautism]

at this point im just speeding through chapter one of lover boy like im trying to get through the perfume department

[arolesbianism]

I'm going to continue on focusing on my current focusses but I think I'm getting to a point where I want to take a new look at eternal gales and maybe rework some things I think. I feel like there's a lot of stuff that I kept around from the original that just doesn't rly have a reason to be a thing in the current version of the story, and I think it would be good to take an axe to especially a lot of outdated worldbuilding stuff and rebuild it from the ground up, which will likely involve at least a few characters being redesigned at some point. I'm definitely too fixated on nuggets and the toy guys rn to do it right now, but I'm excited to get around to that eventually, I feel like I understand what I want most of the cast to be like now and I wanna rebuild the story a bit with those visions more in mind

[mattiesoriginalworks]

another bit from one hit wonder or something

[hexhomos]

The 'Talis' hypothesis

So I think the S2 trailer confirms something central about Arcane I've wondered for a while. This has plot bearings to it, namely what nebulous purpose 'Magic' serves in the story -- how they're changing the role Hextech has in the game lore, incl. its power system & ruleset -- and what kind of hubris is associated with it historically. But it also answers something that has always nagged at me: why the fuck did they change Jayce's name?

So let's talk about this picture. And I'm going to give you the rosetta stone in 5 seconds:

This is Hextech now. Like that is just an incredibly concise and complete descriptor of Hextech-in-Arcane, right. It 'harms' Jinx, it 'protects' Jayce in the snowstorm, it 'heals' Viktor to a degree. It is installed permanently in architecture; the Hexgates ARE the brand.

First off, we have this fucker carrying around a talisman from back when he was 7, and the cinematography of the show agonizes over showing you this throughout all of ep2:

Jayce's bracelet is a bang-on definition of a historical talisman. The way hextech *functions* in the show is inextricable from the promises and rites associated with talismans, a word appropriated/popularized by the French - which I'm going to conservatively argue Fortiche would be familiar with;

Which brings me to the subject of what Hextech is, and how Hextech was changed for the tv show (and what its possibly being retconned to in the game)

Hex'tech' is not technology. The name is a carryover from a bygone era of leagueoflegends speak; Hextech in Arcane, and presumably in expanded lore going forward (given Skarner's rework and other things) - is the study, development, and the building of an industry around the craft of practical Talismans. If you want to understand how this shit works you need to promptly abandon the assumption that it is 'manufactured' magic -- its pure magic. It's raw magic. The tech part is a red herring misnomer.

The beliefs around this already cover links to 'the Arcane' as another, ethereal destination realm with Inhabitants that learn and change, ontop of rune-carving as magical instruction;

This also covers Viktor's impending transformation and the changes made to his character.

IN MY OPINION, via the content released so far and what we've already witnessed in S1, Viktor has been shifted away from becoming 'the machine herald' and re-positioned to become the Herald of Divine Rune Alchemy or whichever name they end up using.

I don't doubt that he'll get the armor at some point, because that's a recognizable visual and as much fanservice as they owe his decade-long fans, but... I would temper my expectations around the thought of machine evolution. It's not what this Viktor does, and it's not what he (or the narrative,) is interested in -- My guess is that the armor comes into play as a secondary way to AVOID overusing limited magical power, as we've seen runes can be depleted, and the hexcore tends to kill things in exchange.

Now that we've established all that, here is the bridge that I'm going to sell you.

Now, for today's homework, I expect you to run off to do something useful and homoerotic with this information.

[carawenfiction]

So...remember how I said in that update post how I might MAYBE do a TSS rewrite and post it for free?

"Maybe" quickly turned into "definitely happening". Instead of making it outside of COG, however, the finished product that's already published will be updated with the rewritten files. This means that if you've already purchased TSS through COG, you'll have the rewritten version available. That's how I originally intended to go about things with the old rewrite and is the better option here to avoid potential complications.

I've been in contact with COG and they've let me know that I'd be able to do what I have in mind even if this results in a different wordcount and very different scenes/plot points and a different kind of main story.

I realize that this announcement is probably pretty jarring since my last post stated that I wasn't sure about doing a rewrite but that I wanted to if I had enough time. After making that post, I started creating an outline for the rewrite mostly for fun...and one thing kind of led to another. I want you all to know that I wouldn't be making this post at all if I wasn't sure about this. It's because I've already begun the process and feel incredibly motivated and inspired that I can do this that I'm making this announcement.

This rewrite is not going to be like my old attempt at a rewrite, though. It's an entirely new one that I feel much more confident about.

So far I've written the outline for the rewrite and started reworking already existing scenes from chapter 1 as well some new ones. I'm happy to say that the difference between how the rewrite process felt years ago compared to now is like night and day. It seems like those years I've taken away from TSS were very healthy and helpful in giving me some distance and letting me figure out what kind of story I really want to tell.

My plan is to rewrite book 1 and then make 1 full continuation after that. Instead of a trilogy, it looks like this version of TSS will be 2 volumes, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it'll be shorter than originally intended. I think it's more doable for me to rewrite the first book (starting from scratch while also using some already written scenes, since I've been assured I'm allowed to do so) and then make 1 complete continuation of it rather than trying to fill stuff out over 3 different entries, and I think it'll serve the plot and story as a whole to do it that way.

That being said, I fully understand that some - or most of you - might have trouble trusting my word after me failing to do the rewrite I wanted to years ago and not delivering a second book. That's completely fair. This time I'm not rushing things and I don't feel any pressure to do this. It's not something I do out of dislike for the original, but rather out of love for what it could be and what I could make it into, if that makes sense. I'm taking as much time as I need to and am not putting any pressure on myself to do this.

My other project takes priority right now so I can't dedicate all of my time to the rewrite, but I'm working on it when I have time over or get stuck. It's actually pretty nice to alternate between two different stories that have different settings and has helped a bit in avoiding writer's block.

Here are some differences between TSS and the TSS rewrite (most of the changes I made to the old rewrite no longer apply):

The rewrite will be told in second-person point of view ("you" instead of "I"). The reason for this is that when I first started TSS I was really unused to the second-person POV, but after having spent years in the IF space it's now the other way around. It'll make writing much easier for for me, and I hope it won't feel too jarring for people who are used to the first person POV.

The Shadowman and Jealene (now "J") will both be genderselectable just like the main cast. The Shadowman will be genderselectable later on, though - it might sound strange but I think it makes sense when you have more context. J plays a bigger role than they did in the original and their personality is a bit different in this version.

Some side characters (such as most of the hideout) will be cut. This is because they felt really underdeveloped to me in the full game and didn't serve much of a purpose. Instead I'm focusing more on the main cast + a few key characters to ensure the story plot stays focused and you get more time to develop bonds of various kinds with the main cast instead.

The relationship system will look a bit different. Instead of bars showing a percentage of approval, I'll write a description of each character and what they think of you. The descriptions will shift when the character starts viewing you differently, whether that's due to rivalry, romance or friendship. My hope is that this will allow for a more nuanced relationship system/descriptions. I'll also adjust the options a bit to try and make choices more nuanced and am thinking of including the option of having ex. a heart next to a romantic choice for those who want to know for sure what they're getting into. The different responses (such as shy, flirty etc.) will stay but some of it will probably be reworked. Essentially what I want to do is allow for a wider range of MCs and how the characters respond to the MC.

The MC is going to have more agency in certain ways. I've included something plot-relevant to the main character that can potentially change the dynamic between them and the group a bit, but it all depends on how you play it.

The tone might be somewhat different. Not entirely, of course, but there are some parts of the old TSS where the characters sound a bit younger than they are supposed to be, where tension and seriousness has been sacrificed in favor of humor and where some of the interactions aren't the way I would prefer for them to be. I've gotten older since writing TSS (gasp) and my tastes have changed, as has my writing to some degree. In order to do a rewrite I'd have to write in a way that's most enjoyable for me and that I feel best fits the story I want to tell. That's not to say that there isn't going to be silliness etc., but I'm adjusting the tone somewhat and putting more time and effort into descriptions and the writing overall.

The narrative will be different, even though the overall story itself will mostly stay the same. I'm keeping a lot of elements and also aim to introduce new ones that I believe will strengthen the story and make it a more enjoyable game overall.

I think those are the main differences I can give away right now without spoiling anything. I'll make sure to post updates when I've got more to share! Once the demo for the rewrite is finished, I'll post it on the forums and link it in an intro post on here.

Thank you all for sticking by me throughout the years. I hope you'll find some comfort in returning to this world, as well as new things to ponder and excite you in this new upcoming version of the story <3

The Azuridia and Quaiel chibis are done by the amazing madebysalfi

[cressidagrey]

Some Housekeeping:

I am gonna rework the "The mysterious Mrs. Piastri". No worries! Just the piece that is actually titled that! I am gonna upload an edited version of it. The old one is going nowhere, it will still be available.

The problem is, that I wrote that piece originally as a stand alone.

There was never supposed to be Bee. There was never even supposed to be Felicity, because it was originally simply supposed to be a reader insert.

There was never supposed to be a sequel, which is why there is a lot of social media stuff happening that's very out of character for Felicity.

The plot is roughly gonna be the same, my writing definitely will be. It's just gonna be slightly changed to incorporate everything else I have now added to the world.

(In the same vein, I'll also go clean up, "Wait, What?" because I have now realised that my timeline makes no sense. Like I have Charles winning Monaco months ago, but Lando doesn't even have 1 career win. Which makes no sense. So I need to take out like one or two lines so that it lines up properly.)

[circle--of--confusion]

Wip Wednesday!

Cardinal Copia X fem!Reader

Plot: You work for the marketing team and have proposed a new merch idea. Unfortunately, Copia isnt too keen right away. (Its a sex toy and he is very confused) later on he catches you using it and, well, things get a bit more heated.

Tags for the snippet: language, sexual themes

~~~~~~~~~

And he thought the plushia was the weirdest thing.

You fake cough into your fist before defending the proposed item.

“Cardinal. We’ve done some research after noticing a handful of spirited comments regarding, ah, you, and we think this could be a market to tap into.” You gesture to the offending thing.

Quinn, the head of marketing chimes in, “There was a lot of success during Papa Secondo’s time with the band when we sold the Phallos Mortuus.”

Copia leans back into his chair. It squeaks too loud into the unbearably quiet room. His eyes flick from the end of the table to the two back down to the table.

He shakes his head. “This isn’t another Phallos Mortuus. This is a grinding mat with a fake nose sticking up from it.”

“If it makes you feel better, it’d modeled after your nose,” you say.

“Sathanas!” Copia leans back exasperated

“Are you not happy fans like you? That they might be attracted to you?” Quinn asks.

Copia straightens up in his chair. “Of course I like it! I try to make sure I bring the, eh, sex appeal for the American audience.” He seductively raises his eyebrows twice. “They seem to enjoy it, those repressed fucks.”

You cross your arms. “And you’ve definitely received an impressive welcome from the fans everywhere. They chant and scream for you!”

He wonders in that moment if you were one of those fans chanting his name. Copia picked up on a feeling from you during the explanation of the sex toy. Your finger stroked down the bridge of the nose a bit too delicately.

He tsks and waves his hands. “A dildo is one thing. This is different. How would we know it would be enjoyable? Does the nose even feel good? It looks uncanny.”

“It's just supposed to act as a nose. But maybe we could modify it to be a bit less… realistic.” Quinn nods her head.

That appears to satisfy the Cardinal and he nods back. The meeting ends shortly after you jot down the notes from Copia and Quinn. She’d given you the task of reworking the mat to be less nosy as she put it.

The toy sat in your office on the desk. You stared at it, thinking of ways to improve it. The idea had been completely your own, sparked from a stray ember in your brain when scrolling through comment after comment from fans lusting over Copia. The constant mention of his strong nose, how it might feel across their skin – how it might feel in more intimate places – made your thoughts run wild.

[sywritesstuff]

If you're like me, you bounce around a bunch of different platforms and applications in the writing process. My hot take is that this is totally fine. No one ever said the writing process is perfectly streamlined! That being said, I've shared some tools I use for different parts of my process. For the most part, I use them consistently for the purposes mentioned below:

→ Miro

I use Miro for my first pass of plot and character arc outlines. Miro is a free software that acts like a digital board, where you can arrange sticky notes and all sorts of features. I prefer using an online board as opposed to a physical one, because I’m constantly reworking my beats and moving things around, and it’s more efficient to do both digitally (in my opinion). I keep my plot outline separate from my character arc outline at the very early stages, because I’m essentially ideating how the two can be married. At the end of the day, I believe the most compelling stories always fall back on character emotions and motivations propelling the plot. Tools like Miro help me map the journey towards that end goal.

→ Notebook

My notebook contains my brain dump. I dedicate a single notebook to a project, and it basically becomes a collection of unfiltered thoughts. I’ll dump character tidbits, sequences for each chapter, feedback from my writing accountability buddy, and questions I want to address in the next iterations of my WIP. This is helpful for me, because I tend to struggle with rapid thoughts, so the notebook helps me focus on the idea itself. Later, I’ll always have the opportunity to categorize them in another platform as I’m writing.

→ Google Docs

In the past, I was writing chapters on Google Docs. This was helpful at the time, because it’s free, it tracks key metrics I care about (mainly word count), and it’s easy to share your work with anyone. But there are some drawbacks. The biggest one for me is having to format everything for a manuscript. This’ll be more relevant later down the line, but sometimes I get really bogged down by little things like spacing and indentation. It really distracts me from focusing on the sentences themselves. After seeing it pop up on Instagram a couple of times, I decided to purchase Scrivener for desktop. It is super functional, and I probably only use like 2% of its max capability right now. But it’s been super helpful for organizing my chapters and scenes, writing out little summary cards, color-coding progress status and POV, bullet pointing margin notes, and most importantly, pre-formatting my WIP as a manuscript. I definitely think Scrivener is worth the long-term investment if you find yourself writing and publishing multiple projects.

→ Scrivener

Even though I’ve transitioned to Scrivener for the actual manuscript, Google Docs still comes in handy for me. Right now, I mainly use it to 1) track feedback and revisions on a chapter-by-chapter basis, and 2) maintain a treatment of my novel. A treatment is essentially a full-length document that details everything that happens in your story from start to finish. They can be as short as 3 pages or as long as 50 pages. I could keep and maintain these documents in Scrivener, but I already had these written out on Docs, so I’m sticking to them. Later down the line, I’ll likely shift over to Google Sheets to track revisions.

What tools do y'all like using? Please feel free to recommend any! Tips on Scrivener are also welcomed!

[ironteeth-fury]

i adored your previous ghost/soap fic rec list, and have read completely through it

perchance do you know any ghoap whump or hurt/comfort fics where either one is really protective of the other?? Or even any gen/less shippy whump with protective 141??

thank you for your service O7

I'm glad you liked it!!! And i do hope that you already read a lot of those because otherwise, wow you read fast!!

Whump or hurt/comfort with protectiveness, not on the original list, let's goooo I haven't scoured through my entire bookmarks yet because i didn't want this to get too much because it takes ages to put together ahha so i'll probably have more once you've worked through this <3 firstly one that doesn't really fit the others but I wanted to recc anyway:

Show me how you drive, I'll show you who you are - SharkNoises. It's a long fic, Street Racing and Found Family Au. Both Johnny and Simon go through it emotionally and there's a lot of comfort and stuff.

Now here have a wump fic that's a WIP

Into The Abyss -MildLimerence. so firstly this is almost finished, 21/22 chapters! Limerence is always good for some wump and hurt/comfort. ABO universe. Fated mates. Ghost rejects Soap as his fated mate very meanly years before the 141 gets formed. Obviously, Shit Hits The Fan when Soap comes onto the 141 and Ghost recognises him.

Now for the acutal wump:

Scar's SoapGhostFics - amongthebooks. a whole series of alone standing fics focussing on physically hurt ghost and emotionally hurt soap! Enjoy <3

A couple fics where they both get hurt:

Talk - Bluejay 141519. A short fic for Febuwhump '25 wherein the whole 141 gets hit with the hurt/comfort stick. Check out the series it's in, not all the works are Call of Duty, but the ones that are, are definitely good fuckin' whump!! All very good stuff

Knock Out - enter_fandom_reference00. Ghost and Soap both get captured and are very protective over each other .

Remember Me (Please) - Darkflamej. Rework of the Alone mission, but surprise, Johnny has amnesia and has no idea who he is or where. Ghost's job just got a whole lot more complicated

Shadows in a Gilded Cage -Angelwingsl3. OOF soo much wump for both the boys. Featuring Roba, Johnny who got human trafficed very young and ended up in mexico, protectiveness, definitely a lot of hurt/comfort. Watch the archive warnings and the tags!

Fics that focus on hurt ghost!

Wanna Go Home, Johnny - orphan account. Ghost gets taken captive and he's prepared for the torture that's coming to keep his team safe. (of course, his team is working on keeping him safe too)

Weaned on Bitter Honey - HigherMagic. ABO fic, alpha ghost, omega soap. Kidnapping, torture, brainwashing, missions, Plot, pining and definitely overprotectiveness on both sides. Ghost gets taken captive on a mission. Soap is not coping well.

Of Blankets, Tea and Grilled Cheese -Fluorezopone. Simon gets migranes. Johnny finds out and decides that, if Simon isn't gonna take care of himself, he will have to take care of Simon instead.

can I get a rain check on this heart of mine? -amongthebooks. GOD this one hurts a lot. Ghost gets taken captive when Soap is on leave. Established relationships, Soap not realising Ghost has dissapeared, a LOT of hurt/comfort. this one has been posted in the Scar's SoapGhost fics I recc'd earlier, but like, this one is so good I needed to put it in here another time specifically.

Hurt Soap!

whispers of the damned - eggtimelads. we get soap getting trapped under a collapsed building and not telling his team. Nobody is happy about this.

notre dame - merikai. More Soap stuck under a building!!! (actually inspired by the former fic)

Pain and Darkness -Fan109. Buried alive trope for soap. What do they say, torture your favorites?

Alone, Together -Randomfandombloggs09. Mission gone wrong, Soap almost dies, Ghost copes just /fine/ thank you

In A Hole In The Earth - Louffox. Soap gets told to Shut Up. Soap gets hurt and trapped. Soap doesn't speak up because of said being told to shut up. Self sacrificing soap, and the team not realising that they hurt him until it's almost too late.

The Wind Will Howl Your Name - Minimelo. AU fic where Soap almost dies trying to hunt for food for his village in the middle of winter, gets saved by a stranger and taken to said stranger's home, who nurses him back to health. hurt/comfort, pining, getting to know each other, getting together, angst, happy endings.

Something I Can Draw Into My Skin -Louffox. I don't know if this is fully hurt soap because ghost definitely does some self-flaggelation in here. STill. Soap is hurt. Ghost realises soap is acting strange. Ghost confronts Soap. Trigger warning for selfharm!!

(note to self, for future reference, the last fic in the bookmarks i went through is Show me how you drive. the first one is Into the Abyss.

[solstices-dreams]

— 𝐦𝐲 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐝𝐫𝐬.

#𓅓 - 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐞𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐨𝐥𝐲𝐦𝐩𝐮𝐬.

This is focused on book accurate character looks and characterization. This was a dr I had before the show came out and it’s another dr that focuses more on healing my inner child. I always wanted to meet Percy and Annabeth and go on the fun adventures with the 7. So I made it a dr :)

This book also brings in people from the different series, I can meet Sadie, Walt, Carter, Alex, and Magnus, people who aren’t present in the show, including all of Camp Jupiter. My friend group is the seven and Nico, whereas in my pjo dr it’s the camp counselors group

In this dr I don’t have a scripted s/o but I feel like it’ll probably be poly percabeth or any mix from the seven. (definitely annabeth) I also am apart of the prophecy and get to be on the Argo, following a timeline in the heroes of Olympus series rather than the first one.

#⚚ - 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧.

This dr is completely show based off the show’s character looks. The personalities of some of the characters will also be mixed more with their actors, mostly the main trio. It’s set in camp half blood only, without camp Jupiter existing and I’m reworking the canon of the 1st series to make it more fun but also with a little bit of plot. (And scripting out obvious deaths and Luke turning.)

I will rework some ages of people and let it be more of a summer camp experience with a few quests, with obvious safety scripted in. Also, a lot of the people from the 1st series will be there, specifically Lee Fletcher (my bestie !!) castor, Pollux, silena, and beckendorf. In my heroes of Olympus dr I won’t get the chance to be with them so I want to in this one. My s/o is Luke :))). I love his actor so much and I was excited when they cast him!! So ofc he’s my baby <3. He’s genuinely so important to me.

Also, if I’m doing the prophecy and all this other stuff I won’t get to experience camp halfblood as much. I want to do capture the flag, chariot racing, all this stuff the little fun stuff I’ll be to busy to do in HoO, which is my reason for the two drs.

[thewadapan]

Spent today checking out The Amazing Digital Circus and Murder Drones, and god, the kids today have it so good when it comes to this sort of content. When I was a teen, I was obsessed with Red vs. Blue and RWBY, which I think it's fair to say are the equivalents of the time, and the sheer gulf in terms of writing quality and production value is stunning. I hear there were some rumblings of unprofessional conduct from the production company, which would hardly be surprising considering this is yet another guys-working-from-their-basement success story, but much bigger companies with much shittier business practises consistently put out much worse content than this.

The Amazing Digital Circus is definitely the better show of the two, thanks to its slam-dunk premise and some great writing from Gooseworx. The producers have talked about aiming to fill a perceived gap in the market between kids' cartoons (The Boss Baby) and adult animation (Bojack Horseman), and I think they have successfully threaded the needle to create a very unique tone. There's a sense of these works existing totally outside the mainstream media machine; they're not getting BBFC rated, but you just know millions of kids are watching them. It's on YouTube and the fact that it looks like some Frozen Spider-Man kids' slop just means da parents won't question what their kids are watching.

But truth be told, there's nothing objectionable about the content of The Amazing Digital Circus whatsoever. It's unusually metatextual and loosely apes the aesthetics of much darker media, touching on slightly more existential themes than your typical kids' cartoon, but it still has a lot in common with those same cartoons. The zany characters are all fairly one-note, and the emotional arcs of the episodes are honestly quite straightforward. The second episode in particular has an absolutely textbook plot structure to it. It's a far more self-assured and traditional style of writing than you ever see in this kind of independent work—certainly far more so than Murder Drones, which is written by an insane person.

More than anything, I'm reminded of how I felt watching Puella Magi Madoka Magica: that it's a very solid work of fiction, but that the people who'd get the most out of the work are isolated teens struggling to make the transition into adulthood. Certainly if nothing else, the fandoms of these shows must be bringing a lot of kids together around the world. I adore this soundbite from Goose: "Above anything else, I just wanted it to feel kind of lonely." You see Pomni's worldview shatter, she suddenly finds herself in a body that feels completely wrong, and she has to construct a new kind of belonging for herself.

As for Murder Drones, that show's absolutely fucking nuts, yo. The writing is at once painfully basic and utterly incomprehensible. If someone just sat down and explained the plot straightforwardly, it would be fantastically boring. But man, the presentation, the sheer delight the animators seem to approach every scene with...! I'd say it's clearly trying to use "the characters are robots" as an excuse to expose da kids to some absolutely shocking levels of gore, much like the Transformers movies, but midway through the series it starts straightup swapping the oil and wires for blood and bones and you've got to respect that.

The writing itself is so excruciatingly irony-poisoned that it goes beyond cringe and somehow wraps back around again to being sincerely funny. The show kind of wants to have its cake and eat it in terms of constantly lampshading how flat and cliché the emotional plotting is, but also clearly aiming to genuinely tug at the heartstrings and whip fans into a frenzy. And it kind of succeeds, I think! The way it veers between bizarrely high-effort implementations of memes, seriously cool fight scenes and horror visuals, and big emotional moments is very disarming. If The Amazing Digital Circus is an attempt to faithfully rework the American-cartoon formula for a slightly older audience, Murder Drones aims to crib the aesthetics of high-school cartoons while actively rejecting every traditional narrative technique used in those stories. Which means it's kind of bad, which means it's also kind of great.

If it's not already, then within a couple of years it will be deeply cringe to have ever been into Murder Drones in particular or (to a slightly lesser extent) The Amazing Digital Circus, in much the same way that everyone seems embarrassed to admit they were ever a Homestuck fan. But like with Homestuck, I feel like these series are genuinely pushing at the frontiers of storytelling in a way that's commendable and might inspire new kinds of writing once the fans grow up.

ENA is also pretty good, for the record.

[hey-august]

Stowaway

One year ago (on October 8) I started writing my first Buggy x Reader fic and shared it on Ao3.

I was overly ambitious by starting with a multi-chapter smut story when I hadn't written anything in years. Definitely no fanfiction since high school, which I graduated from in the early aughts.

I started because I had too many words in my head and needed to get some space back. (Jokes on me, there are still too many words in my head and all of them are for the clown.)

Anyways, cheers to Stowaway for letting me indulge in the fantasies, come back to a hobby that I enjoy more than ever, and for bringing me to this world and all of the wonderful people I've met! 🩷🩷🩷

Have some blabber director's commentary about that story (with spoilers obv):

This story was completely indulgent. Born out of an overactive imagination that kept reworking different scenes in my head and I was getting tired of playing with the same moments and had to write them down.

Specifically, the first spicy scene in the cell is one that drove me to all this.

I'm not sure I actually wrote any smut before this. Like a smutty filthy story... I read A LOT though. Lots of studying. So much.

Chapter 4 is one of my favorite things I've written. I think I have a thing for dry-humping. And masturbation in the shower. 🥰

Chapter 6 also has some personal faves. Sad clown + using knives as absentminded fidgets.

Also the conversation at the end of the Chapter 6 - it was more emotional than I expected.

You know what, as I'm skimming through the story right now, I'm really feeling like "who wrote this? it wasn't ME" lmao

I originally planned to have the story end with Chapter 7, but I was having so much fun and had a few more ideas I figured could fit. (Like the mango scene in a later chapter...)

BUT because I continued the story without much of an idea for a flimsy plot to push things forward, I was floundering.

The fight that Buggy and Reader have about what they want/how they see the future was what I came up with for plot, but, honestly, I still don't love how it came around.

Then again, I do love that it opened the door for a bit of angst and a cute date.

I remember feeling a bit bummed with how Chapter 8 was, but Chapter 9 made me feel like I was getting back in the grove. I was having fun putting Buggy in all sorts of situations.

Throughout the whole story that I wrote JUST FOR THE SMUT, I worried so hard about the plot lol, that's still something I struggle with.

I JUST FOUND A TYPO IN THE LAST CHAPTER, THAT'S MORTIFYING. GUESS THAT'S THE END OF THE DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY. 😭

[blasphemousclaw]

For send a character ask: Radahn!

ahh, Radahn… forever an enigma

• favorite thing about them

who he is as a person — his family background, his beliefs, and who he ultimately chooses to be — is so endlessly interesting to me. being a child of both the Erdtree and the Moon, growing up idolizing the Erdtree’s champions like his father and Godfrey, but being a talented sorcerer in his own right like his mother, was he conflicted when Radagon betrayed Rennala? did he ever come to resent his father, both for breaking his mother’s heart and for replacing his greatest idol, Godfrey? there’s something so significant to me about Radagon despising his red hair, and Radahn embracing that same hair he inherited as the mark of a champion. did this affect his relationship with Radagon? on the other hand, did he know that challenging the stars was also halting his Carian family’s fate? did he care? there’s such a fascinating back-and-forth between Radahn and both sides of his family!

• least favorite thing about them

his writing in the dlc… will never get over how botched it feels. and I’m not talking about the actual plot points, I’m talking about how those plot points were revealed to us in the story! the reason why everyone felt like him showing up was an asspull plot twist was because there’s no hint whatsoever in the base game that Miquella and Radahn ever had a relationship at all. as a result, I think the writers had to speedrun a Radahn-Miquella reveal plotline with Freyja and Ansbach, while cramming references to Radahn into the dlc (like the Red Bear npc, and his relationship to Gaius and Messmer) to make him seem less out of nowhere… but to me it just comes across as a rushed plotline with extremely clumsy foreshadowing. I guess they didn’t know they would get to make a dlc when they made the game so they didn’t include anything about him and Miquella in the base game so there wouldn’t be random plot threads that go nowhere, or they originally planned something slightly different that didn’t pan out so they had to rework it but were only able to do so in the dlc. either way extremely disappointing. also his promised consort remembrance weapons are the laziest excuse for a remembrance of all time they’re just the starscourge greatswords again but different. is this some kind of sick joke

• favorite line

[footage not found]

just kidding he does have a few quotes: I’ve always liked “I was born a champion’s cub. Now I am the Lord of the Battlefield’s lion.” because of what it says about how he sees Radagon and Godfrey!

• brOTP

Rykard :33 his painting of Radahn means so much to me, it’s such a fond gesture… and the abductor virgins in Caelid seem like Rykard was really looking out for him! it makes me sad to think that they might’ve once been really close but drifted apart because of the war and their own priorities, but also still cared about each other

• ОТР

I don’t actively ship him with anyone tbh nothing has especially caught my interest

• nОТР

I resent Radahn/Miquella ONLY because their relationship has no buildup whatsoever and completely breaks the “show don’t tell” rule of storytelling. we’re told Miquella admired Radahn, but we never see this until he shows up as the final boss! I definitely wouldn’t dislike this ship if they had handled this storyline better but unfortunately with how things went it’s just embarrassing to me

• random headcanon

loves the outdoors… camping, hiking, riding, hunting, any physical activity where he gets to be outside. Rykard is the opposite. Radahn used to bring him on trips and he’d complain the whole way through

• unpopular opinion

I wrote a post about this already, but I think people are too quick to assume that he’s a Golden Order loyalist who wants to preserve the world in its current state. you could go on and on listing reasons why he would actually oppose the current Order… and in fact I did go on and on about it here. I think the most crucial thing to note is that Radahn has always made idolizing Godfrey his entire personality, and Godfrey was literally banished… the Order is very different now from what it once was!

• song i associate with them

again I only listen to instrumental music so I don’t really have thoughts on this sorry 🥹

• favorite picture of them

the Rykard painting <3

I really like how he’s depicted here… he’s got like a mature, lined face, and the way the painting is displayed (in a nicely furnished drawing room above the fireplace) feels like a very public declaration of respect and admiration? I think it says something about Radahn’s character that his brother who despises the Golden Order still seems to look up to him and care for him!

[call-me-casual]

@thunderversary-rewatch-party

I know we’re onto a new week but I’ve still got some comments on Brink of Disaster I’ve been meaning to write down.

-First it may be my favourite TOS episode. Or one of them (attack of the alligators anyone?) at least. The comedic interludes with Lady P and Parker were great, although I still want to know why those two blokes were chasing her at the start!

-We also get rare footage of Gront beyond the confines of Tracy Island! His handlers must have sedated him enough. It’s an all around good episode for him, and his calmness about everything borders on funny to me. Like damn old man, do you feel anything these days? You can tell he met Grafton and immediately disliked him but is trying to be so polite about it.

-Speaking of, I googled it and one of the definitions of ‘Graft’ is apparently “combine or integrate (an idea, system, etc.) with another, typically in a way considered inappropriate” (copied straight from Google there). I think that fits pretty well!

-I feel like the portrait beeping was particularly frantic this episode, like John’s slamming whatever button there is to connect to the living room like “SHIIIIIIIITTTT!!!!”

-Pretty interesting that Scott doesn’t take up position at Jeff’s desk. Obviously that idea was likely just for Atlantic Inferno, and they didn’t expect him to be gone that long, but did they seriously not have any contingency plan for when their dad is off the island and there’s an emergency? Maybe it came around because of this incident?

-Not even a launch sequence. Damn, the boys really are rushing. This is probably the closest they get to becoming TAG-ifed in the og series

-Please correct me if I’m wrong, but if the signals are cut off, shouldn’t that make the train stop? Because there’s nothing tell it what to do?

-The music for the monorail is absolutely perfect (I believe the track is “monorail drama”), it feels stressful in just the right way and I am definitely inspired by it whenever I work on my own TOS scripts

-Can you imagine how it must have felt for the brothers on this rescue? They could have lost two people who are practically family and their dad, the last parent they have. And then they don’t even get to go down and check on them after all’s said and done, they have to go home and wait. That must have been agonising. Maybe I should write something about that one day-

-If I could only choose a few episodes to be done in the TAG universe, this would definitely be one of them. I could see it in a hypothetical series 4, although it would probably need some reworking here or there to give a new cause to the monorail not stopping. We have already had two runaway vehicle episodes in TAG… fuck it, maybe it’s fischler’s fault again. He is known to skip out safety.

-Thinking about it now I’m honestly surprised no one got nervous about going for Jeff Tracy for investment. Like yeah no one knows who runs IR and these crooks only care about money, but surely someone would have gone “Jeff Tracy? As in Colonel Jeff Tracy? Famous astronaut Jeff Tracy? Could sue us into the ground with the wave of a hand Jeff Tracy? THAT GUY?!” This would also be pretty interesting if there was a TAG version, because people KNOW who are IR are, so would some crooks even have the balls to go near him if that plot point was retained?

[ghostoffuturespast]

Saturday Snippets + WIP Whenever

Tagged by @slayerdurge and @wanderingaldecaldo! Thank you both 🧡!

VP

I've been very leisurely doing my 2.2 CP2077 VP run, and have been having a lot of fun experimenting with the spotlights and being able to turn off the collision physics. My portrait photography game has definitely stepped up having access to spotlights.

With the ability to spawn some of the NPCs in vanilla photomode now too, my current photo project has been taking chapter fics for So It Goes, which had been something of a pipe dream until the 2.2 update. Been having fun getting creative with my staging and what's feasible given the tools I have on console. I haven't posted most of those pics on tumblr yet but they're very slowly getting added to ao3. (Also, why can we spawn Us Cracks in but not Misty?! Who made that decision?!?)

Writing

I have very little to show in actual writing at the moment largely because I've been working on final polish edits and fixes for So It Goes as well as outlining for Part 2 Electric Boogaloo (the follow up to So It Goes). Neither of which is going particularly fast due to IRL, but I'm mega excited about the outlining I've gotten done so far. It is going swimmingly. (Especially after I got rid of the thing that I kept trying to include but didn't actually fit. I should have known. My subconscious knows even if it doesn't always fill me in on things...)

Without diving too deep into spoilers, I'm incredibly pleased that I got the whole Mr. Blue Eyes conspiracy theories, Phantom Liberty, and the Biotechnica/Project Nightingale side gigs to all work together. Like seamlessly. Fucking love it when the A, B, and C plots just gel and are able to play off of each other. This is the puzzling that I live for! Going slightly off the rails reworking some of the main plot beats from the game, but the spirit of everything is still there. River's got a much larger presence in the story this time around, Grandpa's pulling no punches, I have lots of strange off the cuff surprises planned, and, bonus, no one has to wait 30 chapters for the smut.

This little snippet from an undisclosed side project is all I've got right now:

The curtains fluttered in the breeze, soft white filtering in through the windows and cutting panels across the floor. Dust motes waltzed a lazy dance in the afternoon light. The scent of fresh greenery mingled with the antique of old crafted wood, a perfume of verdant secco filling the room. Insects sang outside the walls, a trillion different symphonies distilling into a single chorus. In the era marked by disaster after climatic disaster, for once, it was the perfect spring day, the mercury hovering at sheer pleasant.

Art

And a snake doodle that I've been procrastinating on transferring to better paper to paint. Lycodon rufozonatus coiled up in the shape of a maedeup (매듭) - Korean decorative knot.

Tagging, with no pressure, to share any creative projects you've been working on! Fandom related or not. @shimmer-like-agirl @baublekute @streetkid-named-desire @techrotting @elmknight @iamtheoutsideworld @mynonsenseistingling