#( i mean i have a couple of great things saved up in my drafts and inbox

[multifandomfanficss]

Stuck With You

Adrian Chase/Vigilante x Reader

Adrian Chase Masterlist

Prompt: When the team sticks their newest member with Vigilante, everyone feels bad for you, but you’re grateful to have him around when you run into something from your past and lose your cool.

Warnings: panic attacks, human experimentation, referenced child abuse

A/N: I found a couple lines of dialogue in my drafts that I never did anything with and I had the writing bug today so I decided to finally make something with it! I’ll crosspost it on my AO3 adriansglasses as well. Hope you enjoy!

“(L/N), you’re with Vigilante.” Harcourt says, at the beginning of the meeting.

“You’re really gonna stick the newest person with that psycho?” John asks.

“You don’t need to be mean to Adrian just because he’s not here.” Leota starts.

“I would say it to his face too. He’d probably just laugh and call me his 4th best friend.” John retorts.

You hadn’t been with the team for long. This was your first mission with them. After a mission gone too out of control, Waller sent you to the middle of nowhere Evergreen, Washington. You thought she’d sent you here because the environment would be less hectic, but the longer you’re there, the more you realize she probably sent you here because everyone on this team is either highly traumatized or in need of more experience. She was trying to put the training wheels back on. From what you’d been told by the team’s top conspiracy theorist, Christopher Smith, this team was originally supposed to be an expendable scapegoat, but they ended up saving the world. You had no idea what to believe at this point.

“What’s up with Vigilante?” You ask, wondering why this was all such a hot topic. You hadn’t known him for long. He seemed a little odd, but overall fine. If you were being honest you actually kind of liked him. He was sweet and funny, often without trying. There was this comforting air about him and you didn’t really know why. He was a good fighter and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t think he was at least a little bit cute.

“He’s a little…” Chris started moving his finger in a circular motion, trying to insinuate that Adrian was crazy.

“He can’t be that bad.” You smile.

Suddenly Adrian comes running into the old video store tripping over one of his shin guards that wasn’t on properly. He sits down and fastens it.

“Sorry I’m late, guys. They kept me late at the restaurant and then when I was trying to put on my suit in the car I accidentally ran a red light and usually I would kill somebody for that, but I mean I think the more important thing is that I didn’t run over the old lady crossing the street! She was totally fine and I know she’s alive because she screamed at me…I’ve never seen an old lady use to many swear words. It was kind of awesome! Anyway what did I miss?”

“You put on your suit while driving?” Leota asks.

“Yup.” He gives a straight face nod. Adrian often had a way about him, as if what he was thinking should be obvious to other people, when in fact, it was not obvious to most people most of the time.

“You amaze me.” Harcourt says, sarcastically.

“Thank you.” Adrian smiles, not catching her sarcasm.

She rolls her eyes, sighing.

———————————————————————

Later on that night you and Adrian found yourselves walking through a series of tunnels.

“John, I think we might be lost.” You spoke into your coms, hoping he can help you from the van.

“I can’t even hear you in my earpiece and I’m right next to you. I think we lost the signal.” Adrian walks in silence for a few seconds before adding, “I’m sorry you got stuck with me.” He looks at the ground, sad.

“What are you talking about?”

“I know they stuck you with me. Nobody ever really chooses to be my partner.” He lightly kicks a rock, pretending not to be bothered.

“They did pair us up, but that doesn’t mean I was disappointed.” You smile.

“Really? Why would you want me?”

“Well first of all, you’re a great fighter. You were also the first person to attempt to be my friend. I’d trust you in the field over anyone.”

“Really?” You can hear the surprise in his voice.

“Yeah.” You let out a soft giggle. “Why are you so surprised that I like you?”

“Usually everyone just tells me to shut up or fuck off.”

“Well I’m not everyone.” You nudge him playfully as you walk.

Soon you come upon a door. It’s a little rusted, but Adrian shoots the lock off and you’re able to break in.

“What is this place?” He asks.

As soon as you walk inside you see the tubes, the files, the devices, the tables, the symbols. You know exactly what this is. This is an old facility for the for the group that made you leave your old job, the mission that ruined your life. You see files on the table, files no doubt full of details on the children they were experimenting on. The group would take orphaned children or children who were abandoned and unwanted, kids who had no one to protect them, and they would experiment on them. They were human trials to try to find new ways of making superheroes. This must have been one of their old abandoned facilities. Despite the lab being inactive, just the sight of it was still enough to send you into a spiral.

Your heart starts beating rapidly as you grow dizzy. You look down at your shaking hands. You’re starting to lose control of your breathing.

“I- I can’t-“ You walk backwards out of the room, starting to hyperventilate.

“Woah. Hey, what’s going on? Are you having a panic attack?” Adrian slowly puts his hands out towards you. He’s a little unsure of what to do.

“I’ve seen this before!” Your entire world is spinning as your start to cry. You can’t stop thinking about the awful things you saw when you snuck into their active facility earlier this year. Those poor children. Part of you was starting to wonder if Waller put you on this team for a reason. You should have known better than to think she was giving you a break. Waller always had some sort of fucked up motive that only worked for herself hidden up her sleeve. “I can’t fucking breathe!” You sob, sucking in air.

“Tender nice touching.” Adrian slowly approached you, patting your shoulder. You needed pressure on your body. You felt like you were slipping away from earth and you needed to be held down.

“Can I have a hug?” You asked, quietly.

“You want a hug?” He asked, his voice just as quiet. He was speaking softly to not startle you further.

“Yeah…”

“I think I can do that.“ He smiles, slowly bringing you into his arms. A little loose at first, he tightened the hug as you melted into him.

“I’m sorry- I- I just…I know what the did here and- and-“ Adrian shushes you as you begin to stutter, your mind moving much faster than your mouth is able to.

“You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you. Just breathe with me. Don’t focus on anything else, but your breathing okay? Can you feel me breathing?” He rubs your back as you cry into his arms. You nod. “Okay, good. Just…just follow that.” He sighs and then focuses on making his own breathing something you can follow.

“Sometimes it’s hard for me to know what people on the team want because I know Chris doesn’t wanna look weak and Harcourt would kill me if I touched her, so I try to be careful. I just don’t wanna upset you guys more, but if you want me hold you I can keep doing that. Just let me know what you need and I’ll do it.” He says, softly.

“Can you just keep talking?” You ask. The sound of his voice is soothing and grounding.

“You want me to keep talking?” He smiles. “You’re in luck. I’m actually really good at talking. So good, in fact, that people are constantly asking me to shut up. So uh… What can I talk about? Oh! I know. So I have this friend at work. His name is Taylor. Well, he says we’re not friends, but he texts me all time time asking me to help cover his shifts and I would only trust a friend enough to ask them for that, so I think we’re friends. Anyway, so Taylor walked in this morning and…”

The longer Adrian rambles on the better you feel. The pressure of his body on yours and his voice slowly bring you back to earth. Eventually you find yourselves walking back through the tunnels, hand in hand, retracing your steps as he guides you back to the van to regroup. He keeps you distracted with silly stories the entire walk back.

You don’t know what the rest of your team was talking about. Adrian was the best partner you could have had.

[fakehelper]

✦ Okay, I give in. Let's upload our gifs on the beta editor to prepare for a gif pack page. Resources are available at the bottom, so lets get started !!

So first things first, you can only upload 30 gifs at a time. Now for me, I will always upload as I gif, around every 20 gifs, then upload to the page (this also ensures I don't skip any or have doubles) and keep gifing. That used to mean that I don't have to wait for tumblr to load 300 gifs and die from impatience. For the rest of y'all that means you're going to have to batch upload. I know, I'm sorry.

Note: With the help of @nataliealynlind we discovered that the daily limit is 250 gifs! So if you have more than that, prepare to upload your gifs over the course of a couple days or use a second blog. (imo this is another great reason to upload as you gif! that way you don't have to get stuck at 250!)

So after you upload your gifs (in this case I only did 10)*, you're going to go to the gear at the top of your post and click it. Then scroll all the way to the bottom where it says Text Editor. This looks familiar, right?

*Note: If you don't save it as a draft first, your gifs will be in .gif format, not .gifv. This means you can skip removing this tag later on, but I'm not sure if gifs that are uploaded but never saved/drafted will later disappear at some point. To be safe, I would save it as a draft. I just forgot at this part tbh

Well the good news is, you only have to change this once! The bad news is, we don't do Markdown then HTML anymore bc Markdown doesn't strip any of the code anymore 🙃 So just change it to HTML

Now it should look like this! Fun!

Okay, now we're going to copy that text and take it on over to our new best friend, the HTML Cleaner! So you're going to want to paste it on the right side of the screen. Your gifs should appear on the left side. If both sides have text, that's how you know you pasted it on the left.

So in order to get ride of all this extra code, it's going to take a couple extra steps. First, you're going to check these boxes on the left hand side.

Now, on the right hand side, you're going to enter these under Find and Replace (copy/paste section below!!). I know you're like, uh what? Where the hell did you get those numbers? Well, I got them from our gif post code!

For easy copy pasting:

Find: <figure> Replace: (leave blank)

Find: </figure> Replace: (leave blank)

So after you add the specific widths for your gifs, you're also going to want to add the following:

Find: .gifv Replace: .gif

Find: alt="" Replace: (leave blank)

Find: /> < Replace: /><

NOTE: If your gifs are usually the same size, I would recommend saving these snippits above on your computer's sticky notes or a draft to copy/paste for future uploads! While I do appreciate the viewer traffic, I'm sure coming to this tutorial every time is gonna get old real fast.

After all that, click Clean HTML

And now, your code should look like this! If there's still a space between your image links, just click Clean HTML again and it should get rid of it!

Now your code is nice and clean to put into your gif pages! Not quite sure how to do that? Read the Setting Up Your Sidepage section in this older tutorial!!

Resources

HTML Cleaner

My Gif Pack Page Codes

Recommended Gif Pack Page Codes (tag)

Previous Tutorial (How to upload to a Standard Sidepage)

Barebones Code (for previous tutorial)

[coltrainbat]

Can you something about our boy, chris evans being wanting to get married and have kids but he feels uncommitted. He dates a few women in the past and has done fake relationships. One day, Chris met reader at a party, he asked her out but reader straight out says no

Yes, No, Maybe...

A/N: I had this in my drafts! Like this exact thing! Omg did you hack my computer? I fixed it up and made it all good but thank you great request. 💕

Disclaimer: All characters and events written, even those based on real people are entirely fictional and are no representation or comment of said characters in real life.

You readjusted your dress in the mirror, fiddling with the fabric stretched over your boobs. There was no way to make your cleavage less prominent, so you decided to embrace it, avoiding any nip slips in the process. Turning to the side you were able to appreciate the curve of your body, your natural hourglass extenuated by the bodycon dress. You weren’t skinny by any means, but you loved how your curves filled out dresses. 

Your friend had given you a VIP access ticket to the Premiere afterparty for the new Barbie movie – it was the perfect event to bring out the pink bodycon midi dress that lived in the back of your closet. 

  Doing a final swipe of gloss over your lips, you exited the washroom and made your way to the bar hoping to find a familiar face. 

  “Hey stranger” you whistled at the bartender. Danny was one of your friends’ older brothers and before he was making you cocktails on nights out; he was buying you 6 packs of white claws when you were 15. 

  “Y/N! Where have you been girl?”

  “Working. How’s the fam?” 

  “Good, mom asks about you all the time... I’ll tell her you’re staying out of trouble.”

  “Please do, it’s been years since she had to pick me up from a house party gone wrong.”

  “Hope you haven’t gone boring on us… do you want your special drink to loosen you up?” 

  Your special drink. Danny had a talent of making you a drink that was sweet enough you couldn’t taste the alcohol but strong enough to make you pass out on the road after 5. And right now, seemed like the perfect time for your special drink.

  As Danny made your drink, you finally got a chance to look at your surroundings; music played in the background of the dimly lit room. Extravagant flower arrangements towered over tables; you made a note to steal one before you left for the night. Groups of influencers, movie stars and A-Listers hung around their respective friend groups. You felt a little uncomfortable, not a single person here looked like you. 

  “One special drink for one special girl.” 

  “Too good to me.” You leaned over the bar to kiss your old friend on the cheek as he placed the pink concoction on the table. 

  “More where that came from just ask.” He smiled and went back to cleaning glasses as you sipped the familiar drink and tried to get comfortable on the bar stool that had the area of cheese slice. Your thighs sat half on, half off the stool and you’d stand if your feet weren’t hurting from the heels you had on. 

  The bar was conveniently empty of patrons meaning you had time to play your sudoku and figure out how long you had until you could go home and put on your PJs. Uninterrupted. Until…

    CHRIS’S POV

  Another afterparty. It’s not like I hated them or anything but after the 5th or 6th they all seemed the same. Sure, they’d be in different cities, different venues but all the people were the same. 

  Same old brown nosing from people who think that because your whole life is on Wikipedia, they can act chummy with you after 5 minutes. 

  Same old C-List actress and their terrible attempt at flirting. God if I had a dollar for every girl who said they needed saving by Captain America I’d have the same amount of money I got from the whole series. They all looked the same as well – blonde, skinny, flat ass. First couple of times, sure, I’d try to get to know them, but they had the same amount of substance as white bread, and my acting skills only stretch so far in trying to seem interested. 

  I did a silent prayer that I didn’t have to bring along a date. I couldn’t go another night having to be paired with some questionable wannabe actress/model/influencer hybrid who couldn’t hold a conversation that wasn’t about how much free shit she got or her willingness to do absolutely anything for a role with a wink. Shuddering at the thought. 

  A good thing about afterparties was the booze. Free, unlimited, delicious booze. 

  “Maybe you’ll find her tonight ya never know.” I was pulled out of my train of thought by a harsh slap on the back from my buddy, Zach.

  “I can promise you bro the love of my life is not here, drunk as a skunk in a push up bra begging for a minor role to some sleezy director but thanks for thinking of me.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers my man, but if you’re going to be ungrateful about the number of women who would trip over themselves to breathe the same air as you the least you could do is play wingman.”

  “Whatever you say, I’m getting a beer.”

  As I tried to slip through the crowd of people and avoid getting stopped for photos. Throwing in a couple of “Heyyyy’s” “How are ya’s” and “Good to see you’s” “Yeah of course we’ll chat just need a drink” I finally arrived at the bar which was conveniently off in a semi quiet corner.

  Waiters were walking around with champagne glasses and bottle service which was great for three reasons; it occupied the masses, meant the bar was empty and more beer for me.

  I waved down the bartender and settled myself on the all too small barstool. 

  “Can I please get a corona?” 

  “Of course, sir. Y/N you need another?” The bartender looked towards the girl next to me. 

  Holy shit. Y/N. 

  There she sat in all her glory; she looked out of place in the best way possible. The pink drink in front of her barely full. Her ass could barely fit on the child size barstool. The light casted a soft shadow on her cleavage. She was gorgeous. 

  “Gosh, yes please Danny.” She knew his name. Was he, her boyfriend? God, I hope not cause if so he just caught me blatantly staring at her. 

  He placed the cold beer in front of me with a wink. Gesturing for me to lean in close.

  “Good luck trying she doesn’t crack easily.” Ok great not her boyfriend. But also shit, he definitely saw me checking her out. 

  “I’ll do my best.” 

  I slide in the seat closest to her. She didn’t even look up from her phone. Sudoku. She was playing fucking Suduko in a club. Way to send a statement that you don’t give a fuck about the event at you’re at. 

  He placed a brand-new drink in front of her. 

  “What is that?” I gestured towards her drink.

  She locked her phone and looked up slightly dazed as she ran a hand through her volumed hair. 

  Y/N POV

  “It’s a secret.” Holy shit. I know who this is. I know. What’s his name… Brad? Sebastian? Holy shit how could I forget the sexiest man alive’s name. Why is he talking to me? Does he think I’m easy or something? 

  “May I?” Does he want to taste my drink? Like drink from the same glass as me? What the fuck?

  “Be my guest.”

  “Omg that’s delicious.”

  “That’s why it’s a secret.”

  “Chris.” He held out his hand. 

  Chris. Chris Evans. That’s it! 

  “Y/N.” You shook his hand to be nice. The man had a reputation though. You had read all the gossip forums; knew he was a serial dater. Surely, there’s a reason if you’re that good looking and successful you hadn’t settled down yet. 

  You studied his face, he was far from young, but he had aged well, he clearly wasn’t trying to hide the grey specks in his beard or the soft wrinkles of his forehead. He wasn’t as intimidatingly big as you expected but broad and solid none the less. He smelt clean and expensive, and you hoped to God your hand wasn’t sweaty. 

  “So, what brings you here to play Sudoku?” Omg did he look at my phone? Shit that’s embarrassing.

  You chuckled lightly, “Just came for a friend… and the drinks of course.” You took a long sip of the yummy cocktail. 

  CHRIS’S POV

  “So, what do you do?” Please don’t say actress. Please don’t say actress. Please don’t say actress. Please don’t say actress. Please don’t say actress.

  “I manage a (dream workplace).”

“Wow that’s awesome for a second there I thought you were going to say-”

  “Actress. Yeah no.”

  “God you’re quick” He chuckled nervously, unsure of how he was going to crack her. He didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was the fact that at this fancy schmancy event she was playing Sudoku at bar or that regardless of whether she could properly fit in the seat she sat so gracefully and confidently. How her dress hugged her curves, how she got a special drink at the bar because she was just so goddamn special. How every movement was sexy and smooth like she knew exactly who she is and didn’t question herself it for a moment. All he knew is that he wanted to know everything about her and to study ever curve on her body. 

  Y/N POV

  Feeling confident after your 2nd incredibly potent drink, you thought you’d take the opportunity to have some fun with him

   “How often do you do this?” You quizzed.

  Do what? Go to after parties?” Chris replied puzzled.

   “No, go up to random women at a bar”

   “Not often”

   “Bullshit”

   “Why bullshit?”

  You gave him a knowing look

   “Oh so someone likes to read gossip magazines.” he smirked and leaned closer 

  You held your hand to your chest “It’s my god given right as a woman to read trashy magazines”

  “No fair enough but that doesn’t mean they’re true...”

  “Hard to believe you‘d complain about getting pictured with models.” You scoffed, taking a long sip. 

   “Could I prove you wrong?”

  “Doubt it I’m always right” you took another sip, smirking into your straw

   “Then let me take you out”

  You laughed at the suggestion 

  “Chris, I can call you Chris right?”

   “Sure”

  “You’re handsome, successful, clearly there is something going on up there and as much as I’d love to have you sweep me off my feet one night, I also love the fact that me doing the walk of shame has never been put on the front cover of TMZ. So thanks but no thanks.”

  You got up to leave until he grabbed your wrist firmly but softly pulling you to face him. 

  You stood over him, him never letting go of your wrist. 

  “You think I’m handsome?” He crocked his head to the side in a knowing smirk.

  “This is ridiculous.” you rolled your eyes dramatically 

  “How about no walk of shame instead…dinner, privately, no cameras, no photographers… your favourite restaurant brought to you… whatever you want”

  “Whatever I want?”

  “Whatever you want. If I don’t manage to sweep you off your feet, you can go to all the rag mags and tell them Chris Evans is a douchebag.”

  You went to answer until a man came up behind you

  “Brooo there you are where the hell have you been?”

  Chris’s hand fell from your wrist and went to pinch his eyebrow.

  “Hey Zach, this is Y/N” gesturing towards you 

  “Hi nice to meet you sorry I was just leaving.” You scooted past his friend.

  “Wait... Y/N… I..” you disappeared into the crowd before he could finish. No way were you going to embarrass him and in turn yourself in front of his friend.

  “Bro she was… wow… don’t tell me you dropped the ball on that one.”

  “I didn’t… until you showed up.” Chris rubbed his face in angst

  “Shit dude I’m sorry… hey go get her she’s probably still here.”

  “Yeah.. yeah fuck you’re right.” He jumped from his seat and gave his friend a quick tap on the shoulder as he ventured into the crowd towards the exit pushing past bodies.

    You had made it downstairs and walked down the road a little, resting your head against the cold tile wall outside the club. 

  Taking in a deep breathe. Great. You blew it. Maybe you misjudged him. God he was so good looking as well! And smart and funny and charming. You got caught up in his façade, why would he ever want to be with someone like you? He was drunk and clearly out of his mind so he wanted to mess with you. Lucky you got out before you well and tru-“

  “Why so quick to run off?” there he was, hands in his pant pockets leaning towards the wall. 

  You gave a defeated laugh “I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  “What’s so embarrassing about you?” He said, his face not flinching, seriousness laid in his voice. He seemed genuinely confused at the suggestion. 

  “I don’t know maybe because I wasn’t like every other skinny blonde in there.”

  “You’re right you weren’t…” He took a step closer

  “You’re better. Zach was pretty impressed with you; I just came down to avoid the teasing I’d get for the rest of my life if I managed to let you go without at least one date.”

  You tried to hide you’re smile as you looked away from his intense gaze.

  “There’s nothing embarrassing about you and if you would let me, I would like to take you on that date. And before you ask, no, I don’t do this often.”

  You looked up at the night sky, considering whether you’re about to make the worst or the best choice of your life.

  “Yes”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes, I’ll go on a date with you.”

  “Good.” He passed you his phone and you entered your number, giving it back to him he immediately dialled it and put it towards his ear.

  “Just to be sure” he smirked at you.

  Your phone rang and you held it up to him “I got it.”

  “Good. I’ll see you tomorrow then” He stepped close to you, you thought he was about to kiss you, so you stretched your neck out a little in anticipation towards his chin. 

  Bypassing your lips, he moved to your ear.

  “See you tomorrow” he kissed the skin between your ear and your cheekbone. Your body went hot at his touch.

  He walked backwards as you took a gulp at the sudden intimacy, trying to catch your breathe. 

  “Tomorrow”

  “Tomorrow”

  He fist pumped the air in a celebratory motion.

  You laughed at his gesture and gave him a little wave goodbye as you walked down the street to get a cab.

  “Tomorrow!” He screamed out at, drawing attention from loiters on the street. 

  God what have you gotten yourself into? 

[gendercriticalthinking]

hi, agender non-binary person here interested in gender critical feminism! i was wondering what your take was on people being uncomfortable with certain pronouns (he/him, she/her).

how do you feel about they/them pronouns, or neopronouns?

Hello there! I apologize so much for not answering your ask in a timely manner!! Responding to people on social media still makes me a bit anxious and stressed so I usually ignore my notifs even though I really shouldn't haha

Thank you for your question, and for being open to listening to gender critical people!!! It's an important and admirable quality to have, and especially worth praising when you and others have outright been told to not interact with gc people/radfems at any cost! So yes, thank you for that! :)

As for your question (which is a good one!) I originally wrote this very long rambly reply and saved it to my drafts hoping to make it coherent one day. But then recently something happened that made me realize something about human nature in general that directly ties into how gender identities and discomfort/enjoyment of certain pronouns came about:

My brother has always loved nature, especially animals. The reason his favorite color is green is because it's the color of plants: trees, jungles, the places animals live and eat and get to be free in. He's so obsessed with green that seeing something green, anything green, compels him to go " :O !!!! Green!!!"

Because he loves nature and animals so much, he's also a vegetarian. And not just in a "eating animals is bad for the environment" way, but a "it disturbs me on a visceral level to see, smell, or be near meat" way. I have to clean up my bowls and plates that I eat meals that have meat on (I mean, I'd do it anyway because you should pick up after yourself but you get what I mean) because the thought of touching a utensil that once came into contact with meat, even if I ate that meat and it's gone now, carnally disgusts him.

He loves animals, and he wants pets. He'd never ever malnourish a pet just because he has a problem with meat, but it'd be a real emotional challenge for him to feed a carnivore wet meaty food and/or live prey every day. (The token family dog was always fed by our parents or me; he'd be okay if our dog liked dry food but he doesn't lol.)

So I researched the options out there for herbivorous pets, and I found a couple species of lizards (he loves lizards in particular, partially because they're often... green) that eat an exclusively plant-based diet! I showed them to him and he was definitely on board... but alongside the herbivores we found a species of lizard that's a bright, vibrant green and makes a great pet, but they need to eat (preferably live) insects.

He's over the moon about the green insectivore lizards. Once he learned they existed it was over for him. They're all he wants, he's 100% sure. And it's for a lot of other reasons besides the fact that they're green, but... they're green. There are no herbivorous green lizards that make good/easy-to-care-for pets. On some level, he cares more about the green-ness than the vegetarianism.

Why is that?

It's because humans are obsessed with creating symbols to represent ideas. So much so that they often get more attached to the symbol itself than the thing it's supposed to be a reminder of. It's like a self-made Cloth Mother that's built to look like the Wire Mother, but comes with none of the substance or nourishment.

Green represents nature and animals coexisting peacefully to my brother. The emotion the color green instills in him as it reminds him of the things he loves is so powerful it surpasses his enjoyment of the literal thing that the color represents to him.

I'm just using him as an example, but everyone does this. Your favorite childhood shows make you happy because they're nostalgic and reminds you of being a kid first and foremost. They can be well-written and artistic and enjoyable underneath that feeling, but the simpler time they mentally take you back to is what you love about them. Your favorite characters, the "he's just like me fr" ones you read fanfic of, are ones that remind you of yourself and/or ones that you're attracted to. They can also be fun to analyze and have interesting personalities and be great meme fodder, but at the end of the day they represent something to you beyond their objective qualities.

.

So. If we live in a world where women are treated as lesser to men, not fully human, accessories to the actual thinkers, and we use "she/her" to refer to women, is it possible your hatred of hearing those pronouns is because they represent the idea that the person saying them to you sees you as inferior, vapid, incomplex?

If you're in a community where being a female who goes by "they/them" or "it/its" or "he/they" means you get to be who you want to be, who you truly are, enjoying everything life has to offer instead of being restricted to a role someone else made up for you, why wouldn't you like to be called something other than "she"?

When the majority of people who go by "she/her" in your spaces are amab people who constantly, vocally fetishize and dehumanize people with your biological body type (with a few afab people who don't seem to act like you or share your interests sprinkled in) why would anyone as smart and complex and kind to yourself as you ever like being called "she"?

Do you have an innate discomfort with certain pronouns because of dysphoria, or do you hate what the sound of them represents, reminds you of, that they're telling you what other people think of you? Do you enjoy being called certain pronouns because of euphoria, or do you like what the sound of them represents, reminds you of, that they're telling you the people who use them must listen to you and care what you think and support you being who you are?

What's my take on pronouns? They're symbols that represent the type of person you are and want to be. They mean something important. They tell a lot about a person. They're not something to play around with and try out for fun like they're clothes. They're not something you can make up out of thin air and pretend they have no connotations attached to them other than an Aesthetic TM you like.

Nor are they an escape from the problems of the world: the baggage comes with them, I'm afraid. It's a lot easier to change your bio and Discord server role than to change people's minds, especially ones belonging to those who hate you. That doesn't mean it's better or it works, just because it's feasible for you to do.

Whenever you feel a certain way about hearing "she," know that countless other women feel the same way as you. And know that leaving "she/her" behind doesn't mean you've found a cheat code out of being victimized and belittled, you've only left women like you behind instead.

[space-writes]

I have a couple more obsidian templates I wanted to share! They’re fairly simple, but they’re what I use for writing fic and for scene tracking.

Also: I post these kinds of thing to show examples of what you can do with obsidian. I came to these setups through trial and error and reworking of processes, borrowing other people's ideas and tweaking them to what made sense for my workflow. I encourage you always to do the same: don't force my templates into your mould, use them as a jumping off point instead

Under the cut you'll find a fic template and a scene metadata template, with screenshot examples, pastebin links, and explanations. Enjoy!

Fic Template

pastebin link

This is the base template I use for all my fanfiction, but it can easily be modified for original fic by removing the fandom-specific terms. The callouts are custom callouts, so to get them looking like mine, here’s a json you can use in the ‘Admonitions’ plugin.

(download it, save it as a .json file, then in the Admonitions plugin settings, use the ‘import’ option)

As with my other templates I’ve shared, I’ve left the CSS class field blank so you can add your own if you want.

This example has the template, plus what it looks like filled out with a fic. (fonts/colours/etc come from my theme which is a franken-css mess built on top of the typomagical theme. source mode font is spectral, preview mode is ia writer quattro s)

The ‘datecreated’ field being filled out as {{date}} means that when you apply the template, it will automatically fill in with today’s date. I use the ‘date’ field then to log the date I finish a fic. That’s the one I use to sort my auto-tables of ‘fic what i have finished’.

‘pwa’ stands for ‘prowritingaid’, and is there so I can mark if I’ve done a grammar check or not. feel free to stubstitute with your own grammar checker of choice.

‘readaloud’ is what it sounds like - I read all my writing out loud as an edit pass, then mark when I’ve done it.

Scene metadata

pastebin link

This is a very simple way you can set up metadata for scenes in a longer work. A few notes:

number is for which number scene it is, so you can sort them in queries. this can get finicky if you’re moving scenes around because you have to do it manually, so I usually don’t number scenes until I’ve planned things out a lot in other ways

wordcount is also a thing to fill out manually, but again, it’s useful for queries - it allows me to see if my scene lengths are balanced nicely

The example dataview I have is for my fic-novel, since that’s the main thing I’ve been working on, so there are a few things that are different but the theory is the same (mostly it’s that instead of ‘subplot’ i have ‘pornplot’ because. it’s an erotic romance. so.)

this example shows it pulling wordcount and scene summary. I do find pulling everything in one query can make things way too cramped, so I tend to make seperate tables to look at different things. For example, whilst I was editing this fic, I had one sorting by status, so I could see which scenes were still a first draft and needing more work, and which were second or third drafts, and needed less.

To break down the query a little:

table without id produces a table without the file-link being auto added

the ‘link’ section is to have the file linked with the title of the note as the link, but under a heading of scene instead of file. it just looks nicer

everything in ‘from’ is just pulling notes from the right section because my folder structure is A Very Special Mess

sort number - this is where that number field comes in, for sorting the scenes in the right order

the other great thing you can do with this metadata setup is pull out specific plot threads by scene, like so:

the important part is the ‘where contains’ field (which I have a template for that query structure because I need it all the time and I can never remember the format.) What that does is pull all notes where the field ‘plot’ has the thread listed in the quotation marks (so in this example, that’s rizeths research). Then you get a nice little list! I find this great for tracking threads, especially subplotty ones.

To do it you do have to remember to list all your plot threads in the metadata but that’s on you /shrug

[thestudentfarmer]

Smallish post for the moment, to reply to some questions and comments made on prior posts :)

I've been asked a few times over the last couple of months about where I live as well as the grow seasons in my area.

I'm in a fairly populated area of the US, largely in usda grow zone 9-10.

Where I'm at in particular doesn't get snow, but further upstate does. (Those areas can't grow yr round, not without some adjustment such as greenhouses.)

Technically, I can grow almost all yr round. But once the Temps start hitting 100*f regularly it's too hot for us and most plants stop flowering or fruiting (pollen starts getting damaged at 95*f, but multiple 100*f days is bad for both plants and most pollinators) so we end up just letting what can struggle along till its cooler or we take everything up and solarise (Personally i Iet the plants that'll grow grow, keeps the soils covered, where it belongs and gives a fresh food source for my chickens that isnt trucked in everytime.)

In winter, we do get cold, but not too many frost days. When we do have frost days, often I can toss a few thin blankets over most crops at night and be good till the next day. If I only plant winter crops, I don't even need to do that.

I also do not follow a lot of the planting guides available. I often use them as a rough draft (like starting tomatoes in pots/grow cells in November around Thanksgiving. So their ready to be planted around valentines day).

Side note, 🌱🌱🌱🌱🌻🌻🌻 If your looking into starting gardening or farming and are in the USA, I 1000% would say check with your local county extension office or county extension ag office. Some of the larger state collages as well have offices dedicated to answering plant questions. You don't even have to be in the same state

I've asked for help with potatoes through 3 different counties (including the state I live in) each one has given valuable info, advice and several different answers. They are amazing resources if you don't have someone to buddy up with!

Sadly, I cannot give much info for such programs outside the states as im unknowledged in the possible resource shares. I believe most countries do have a similar equivalent though. 🌻🌻🌻🌱🌱🌱

Because I'm in an urban area (surrounded by neighbors and city), it does mess with the microclimate a bit. This means some crops do way better at different times than expected.

For examples, armenian cucumbers do great yr round.

Regular cucumbers? Only winter/fall. I don't grow them much, though cause they've tasted terrible.

Carrots are more a fall crop here and are much tastier and sweeter. Spring/summer carrots are hit or miss. Edible but less enjoyable.

Spinich? Haven't had any luck in either season yet. Either in ground or in raised bed or pots.

Regular potatoes? Soils too hard in the ground and the raised beds I've tried so far get too dry or too wet. :'( next try i intend to try a raised row/straw method.

Sweet potatoes? Vines grew and flourished well throughout the whole summer! I've yet to see what the spud harvest will look like yet, but I've gotten around 10 lbs of greens, plus a few pounds of vines that the chickens demolish quite eagerly. To me, that's a win, plus the vines trellis easily and can double as a nice shade structure when trained on trellis.

@oh-he-grows carrot seeds do smell fantastic! I was quite suprised how nice they smelled! Tbh I've been a little interested in collecting some umbells before they open next time and seeing if I might infuse some olive oil for a soap batch.

@tinyshe Thank you for your encouraging words! I hope as well to encourage more people to look into growing gardens, saving seeds, doing more small scale things to eventually make a positive difference for future and current generations :)

And to wrap up today a lil appearance from two of our lovely gals :)

🌻🌻🌻 Happy Homesteading🌱🌱🌱

10 8 2023

[sabrinahawthorne]

JUMP! Devlog, February 26, 2024 - Relationships & Modes of Play

1. Relationships

Something crucial is missing from JUMP!: relationships. What is shonen without devotion, friendship, and rivalry, all simmering with homoerotic tension? Absolutely nowhere, that's where.

Loyalties and Rivalries are simple markers of a Fighter's relationships with other Fighters. Each Playbook features a section on relationships that looks something like this:

Like Conditions, relationships can be gained & lost over the course of play - but that's about where the similarities end.

When you have a relationship with another Fighter, the two of you gain access to a couple of additional Beats and Bursts:

2. Modes of Play

JUMP! is a game about fighting. Which means that I've spent a lot of time thinking about out-of-combat play.

My first thought was to essentially ignore it. Let non-combat scenes happen as a conversation between players and not address it. I hate that idea. Even if it's simple and gets out of the way, I think there should be something to do mechanically when you're not fighting. I want to frame and facilitate the entire space of shonen battle storytelling, not just build a bloated standalone combat engine. I've already built a standalone combat engine - it's called DUEL, you should check it out.

My second thought was to do what I've been doing already: model play after the Apocalypse Engine. This idea feels better, but I still don't like it. I like the Apocalypse Engine a lot, and cheating off its homework when making a game that models genre fiction is generally a good idea, I think. But in my opinion, adding PbtA-style Moves to JUMP! would cross the line, and I'd just be fully Powering my game by the Apocalypse.

Idea number 3 is to follow the advice of itch.io user DeReel:

This is a great idea. Wanderhome is a great game, undoubtedly one of my all-time favorites. This comment actually got me on the train of thought that developed into Beats and Bursts. As for out-of-combat play, though, I don't know. It feels so good on paper, but... something isn't right about it. I can't really put my finger on it, but my gut tells me that this isn't the way.

Here's the current idea: eliminate the distinction between Combat and Not Combat. It involves a couple of very technical and pretty boring-to-read tweaks to the Bidding system, but essentially, this is how it works.

During a scene, whenever a fighter triggers the conditions of a Beat, that beat activates - no matter what. This means that during a scene, a person's Pools will be fluctuating regardless of if a fight is going on. Then, if a fighter for any reason goes head to head against another character, whether it be an argument over food prices or an intense tactical debate, a Contest is initiated. This doesn't trigger a full fight - it's equivalent to a contested roll in another game.

This all works exactly how a proper Combat works, and that's he idea. This will hopefully give out-of-combat fight a bit more texture, and saves me the trouble of having to pile on another new set of systems atop what I currently have. The only thing that changes when a proper fight starts is the introduction of an arcade-fighter style "first to three" system, replacing the Conflict meter from the prototype.

I've got more brewing down the line alongside all this - I've almost got Powers cracked, and I'm chugging away at the nitty-gritty details of the playbooks. Once I've got a draft of all that ironed out, I have a couple of ideas for measuring game time and creating Arcs.

Right now, I'm hunting for an illustrator! I need somebody with an anime/manga style (think Naruto or Fullmetal Alchemist), who has space for 10-20 illustrations, paid upfront per piece. If that's work that sounds up your alley, or if you know someone who fits the bill, please reach out to me at sabrinahawthorne@proton.me.

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

43 for the fanfic asks, is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet? 💙

In the interests of narrowing down the answer to this one, I'm going to answer it as though "haven't yet" means "haven't even made any notes on or started to write at all" because there's many I've got snippets, or starts, or notes, or partial drafts of, and to detail them all would be more than one post anyway. But yes, the answer to your question is yes. And the reason it doesn't have anything concrete started yet is that it's a very nebulous idea and requires a bit of a mindset shift and I am wanting to complete other things first.

Beyond Light happened during the pandemic, and I've been told by people who claim to know people at Bungie that there was supposed to be more Drifter & Eris content in it but that this was impacted by the lockdowns. I was told this when I was engaging in my frequent whining about how at one point in the questline you go to the camp and both Eris and the Drifter are just gone and no longer snarking back and forth over the fire. And we never find out what happens to them. And we never find out where they went or why.

External to the narrative, I now know why, but of course the whole thing with the Dark Vanguard was built up deliciously, and the interactions between them were clearly going somewhere and it just… never happened in-game for out-of-game reasons. Which feels so unfair. I love the shit out of Beyond Light and Europa, but I do mourn the Beyond Light that could have been.

So I do want to write oodles of "Eris & the Drifter have adventures on Europa" but that requires me getting into a mindset of them not-yet-together (which is not clearly stated in canon but in my head they weren't as close, emotionally, when they were on Europa as they are now) and my brain is still overflowing with all the other ideas and stories so I just haven't gotten around to that yet.

There's a couple of ways I might do it (or all of them - writing says I am god when I write and I can rewrite plot points I've already taken one way and send them in another and there's nothing anyone can do to stop me). One is to have the writing set in Beyond Light and do that "straight" (as if anything about those two is "straight" - heh). Another is to have them go there in a more current context and either experience memories or talk about what each one of them was thinking at different spots on Europa (this one is especially appealing to me since then they're the ones telling their own stories to each other, and I love having narratives come from their mouths and perspectives). It's also possible to have more found-object style delivery (recordings from Aunor, letters, log notes, voicemails, etc.) which is something else I really like to do.

Yet another thing I would really like to write and haven't yet, which could be combined with the Beyond Light bits or be its own thing is that in all the Moonrat Radio tagged stories I've written, they're largely recorded by Aunor who, if I start including Ikora in my Drifteris (another one I haven't gotten to yet - I want her to fight along side them and go on adventures with them - I think that'd be great - she's the Skinner to their Mulder & Scully and I want them to go be heroes together) will definitely no longer be wanting Aunor to be recording them on behalf of the Hidden. But Aunor is still likely doing so in spite of being told not to because she has some issues with obsession.

I imagine Aunor as driven, angry, upset, and unable to stop stalking them (and playing recordings of them over and over for 'reasearch' reasons), hating them for using Darkness and for getting to be so damn in love with each other because how it is fair that Darkness wielders should find love, never mind genuinely healthy and healing love? There's a scene in my mind that's only partially formed where both Eris and the Drifter are about to die quite permanently and Aunor shows up and saves them, screams at them how much she hates them, and then leaves sobbing. In my mind, Aunor, despite her extreme obession, is still a good person, just super bigoted and filled with cognitive dissonance as she tries to justify the existence of their love (something she is experiencing vicariously due to spying on them all the time) with her Praxic zealotry that condems anyone for using the Darkness. Something's gotta give and I think, when it comes down to it, Aunor will make the right choice, but it'll be super painful for her.

Ok I'm going to stop now. I could, of course, keep going but I should just write that and post it on Ao3 instead. :)

[belargu]

brat charli xcx album review track by track

360: it's alright it's cute it's catchy. high tempo = good

club classics: its ok, reminds me of peaches, good to bike to

sympathy is a knife: sounds like classic charli, hints of pop 2 with the heavy soaring beats, melody reminded me of a couple true romance songs. its good

imsss: its alright, i like the chord progression, atypical charli song, i like to hear her branching out... the melancholy/self loathing reminds me of early/mid 2000s post-post punk/garage rock

talk talk: fun, awesome bridge, makes me feel things. i think the best charli songs have a bit of sentimentality to them, bittersweet & honest (forever from hifn is top 5 charli imo)

von dutch: only awesome bc of the music video attached to it. otherwise its ok

everything is romantic: probably goes crazy live. good lyrics. i can see how it's other people's favorite but it's not mine. it's one of the better songs on this album tho

rewind: feels like a rehash of 1999 with the themes of nostalgia. eh

so i: :(..... i'm glad she made this song. means a lot to her & to everyone listening

girl so confusing: my favorite on the album! captures the messiness she was going for perfectly. love love love the hook. i feel this a lot. full of insecurity yet also maturity & understanding

apple: idk why this track is here. sounds alright but very out of place. idc about this song. too ag coded

b2b: its ok

mean girls: i fucking hate this song!!!!!!!!!!! lyrics are trying way too hard & way too little at the same time. as if she was just reading off tweets from people with 500 followers; not biting enough to be cunt, not casual enough to sound sincere. not that i believe she actually believes what she's saying, but she doesn't even SELL it with the vocals. sounds so phoned in. the piano break sounds out of place & shoehorned like "ok this album is supposed to be messy what can we put here that sounds messy"! this song is a parody of itself. sounds like a first draft that was the impetus for this entire album, undeveloped & shallow. melody & production arent even memorable enough to save it. i wrote this entire post just for an opportunity to shit on this song. I HATE THIS SONG!!!

itaatt: ONE OF HER BEST SONGS EVER... i don't think my words can do it justice. i just feel it very very much. maybe juxtaposed to that shite song beforehand makes it sound even better

365: makes sense for the album. as a standalone song i don't care for it that much. if u like it im happy for you

hello goodbye: i can see why this is a bonus track. goes in 1 ear & out the other

guess: GODDDD WHY WAS THIS LEFT OUT OF THE ALBUM?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!??!?!?!?!?! AGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CRAZY ASS SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BODIES EVERYRHING ELSE ON THIS TRACKLIST!!!!!!!

spring breakers: good. great even. sad that this was a movie soundtrack track so that she couldn't slip it into the main album somehow

-

um overall i think she nailed the themes she was going for pretty well. love the vague callbacks to mid 2000s indie sleaze. however i've listened over & over & i simply cannot relate to the it girl bs. feels shallow... not much to explore in that form of femininity beyond ohhh im fucked up but im hot!!!! this trope has been played out over & over throughout art & history. this trope peaked at lana del rey born to die & everything else after is just a poor imitation/a puppet of its corpse. the next step for this archetype would be to deconstruct it even further & connect it to its origins - patriarchy, white supremacy, etc etc. fucking tear it all down. electra heart was a step in the right direction but didn't go far enough. ethel cain preachers daughter went further! (i feel the need to bring up these alt pop albums because in my mind i see these overarching themes in the culture). but i dont expect charli to be capable of doing that critique. nor do i want her to. nor does she want to. probably. which is why i think this it girl shit feels tacked on/pointless.

but maybe that theme plays into/complements the vulnerability & honesty of the other tracks. showing the world you are more than just an it girl & how that's a shield to some extent. maybe the best critique is to share one's perspective, warts and all. maybe i'm being too generous with that interpretation. maybe i'm being too harsh. maybe i'm missing the point altogether. either way i simply Don't like it.

the better songs on this are when she drops that veneer & she just sings about her feelings. or when shes full party mode & like "this song is great dance to it bitches!!!" that's charlis biggest strength!!! being a party girl!!! & even then the beats are.... good. but not mindblowing. or ecstatic. she will never top vroom vroom or the mixtapes & that's ok!

7/10

[silvermoon822]

Comic practice-Rough Drafts 1/3!

I spent my last week of 2022 and first month of 2023 starting my resolution of improving my comic art. I knew I wanted to finish it within January after Henson Co put out their cute “January is for Jareth” thing, and I was like “oh heck yes it is!”

One of the biggest areas I feel I am lacking in is composition/layout, dynamic poses, and pacing. I know the best way to improve on these areas is to keep working on them, and that is best achieved by drawing comics! In order to save myself from burnout, I decided to use a script I could recite from start to finish (songs included!), and therefore Labyrinth was the best choice. This scene in particular was fun to choose because of the fun variance in lighting, creating a great way to practice my values and contrast too!

What really interested me at the end of this was that you can see where I really get into the groove around pg 6 or so. Lines are more confident and the art cleans up a lot. It all still has a way to go before I would count it “print ready” though. The next step would be to go back over these pages and clean the lines up even further, fix anatomy or pose issues (plenty of those in the first couple of pages) and start setting up tones to make more cohesive scenes. By the end of the next step, it’ll be more or less “print ready” in black and white.Critique is more than welcome for these! I’m trying to improve!! One major thing that I can already see bugging me is jareth’s hair changing volume from page to page and definitely work needed on Sarah’s face…like…everywhere. I’m also looking to improve my speech bubbles here. I feel like I’m close, and I like what I did with the different styles for Hoggle, Jareth, and Sarah, but I feel like it’s still not totally “there”. That all being said, I’m pretty proud of myself for cranking out 21~ pages in around a month and around working 40-60 hours a week. I look forward to cleaning these up and making them look even better for my portfolio. I mean, the dream is to do this for a living, and even better if it’s working for Henson Co. I have my work cut out for me! 😄

[astriiformes]

18, 22, and 29 for the fic asks, please!

18 - Do you title your fics before, during, or after the writing process? How do you come up with titles?

Oh this so, so depends on the fic, in part because every once and a while an excellent title descends upon me early in the process and also if I'm working on a fic for a while I have more time to think.

Usually my fics start out with placeholder titles that are whatever came to mind when I first saved the document; I'm yet to have one of those graduate to being a final title but that's partially because they're all things like this:

...and are often tonally different than what I'm actually going for.

As far as where my titles end up actually coming from, poems are a common culprit; I've got one or two song lyric ones, and some inspired by various other cultural references (ranging from like... pop cultural to Biblical). I tend to try to work in some wordplay, irony, or symbolism where I can, and love a title with layers.

Breaking down a couple recent ones:

Beharren ist eine Kunst -- German for "Persistence is an art," stemming from the longer proverb "Anfangen ist leicht, Beharren eine Kunst" (Beginning is easy, persistence an art), works particularly well for a story about an artist where "Kunst" doubles as a bit of a play on words.

Stemma Codicum -- A textual criticism term referring to the chart that can be drawn of different manuscripts relationship to each other (what was copied from what, where changes entered into the manuscript transmission process, and etc). Worked really well for a Pentiment fic about three "alternate timelines" all branching from a single change at a specific point in canon -- manuscript transmission as a metaphor for those critical points in people's lives that manage to change everything!

Long Upon the Land -- A tongue-in-cheek reference to Exodus 20:12, which reads ""Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee"," as a title for a fic in which a character with an overbearing abusive father contemplates art and things that can outlast us across generations. Really loved the irony with this one, it's one of my favorites I've come up with in a while.

Needless to say they draw from all over the places, but I feel like between them it's pretty easy to get a feel for what I like in titles.

22 - Are there certain types of writing you won’t do? (style, pov, genre, tropes, etc)

I don't want to say there's for sure something I won't do, just because it seems like there's exceptions to everything (Pentiment wrung a "Major Character Death" warning tag out of me which is a new one!), but in general I am pretty allergic to most romance tropes. I'll write romantic relationships -- although my fics rarely center on them, but that's one of those things I'd be willing to assume might have an exception one day -- but when I do, they tend not to be particularly trope-y. There's just a lot of amatonormativity steeped into ideas like soulmates, fake dating, etc, and I'm not interested enough in them to consider ways to rehabilitate them in my own writing. I am but a tired aro and while it means I'll never write the most popular fic in any fandom I'm in, I get by perfectly fine in my little gen niche.

I'm also not a big fan of writing in first person (reading can go either way! I'm less into it in fic unless the canon itself is in first person, but fine with it in original fiction), but even that one has an exception on the horizon! If and when I finally write my TOH Sherlock Holmes pastiche, it'll probably be in first person, to mimic the original source material. So really that's a great example of why I have a pretty solidly "never say never" stance on most non-romantic tropes and devices.

29 - What’s your revision or editing process like?

I have a horrible confession to make. I edit as I go. My terrible perfectionist brain struggles to make peace with messy first drafts, and while I'll often give things a final, editor's eye read-through once I've finished writing, the bulk of my editing happens on repeated re-readings of the material throughout the writing process.

This is not a good way of doing things and I would love to break the habit, particularly since I think it would result in me writing more and faster. Do as I say, not as I do, everyone.

[petorahs]

☀️ its fascinating that you say P3 has shaped your worldview because... Well not to trauma dump here but back then when I discovered the game (it was back then when p4 was already out) i was... In a REALLY bad place and wondering about unaliving myself. I wont go into much detail but kids are trash man and teens are even worse. and then this game came around. With an aesthetic I really liked. i am not a native english speaker so it was hard for me at first but somehow this game just... /spoke to me/. A game about life and death and what it means to be alive and what it means to have a REASON to live, somehow... Convinced me to go a bit longer. I mean it when I say this: Persona 3 saved my life. And no other game can ever come close to such an experience. (Even tho from a quality standpoint P5 certainly is up there)

oh dude that is so valid thank you for sharing this. seriously though, im happy that youre here! and im sure many others are too! the ☀️ brightening lives and all that :]

yea i can see why p3 just clicked with so many people since it first came out. i was always curious on why it's so beloved by fans, when p5 and even p4 are literally right there with their overall better gameplay experiences. p5 literally got the franchise mainstream to insane heights lol. im... so glad i got into persona the way i did. of course, everyone's experiences w these games are different and special to them in their own way.

i got into persona 3 as an adult and as a result the lens in which i viewed the story's themes were heightened, in a way. as a teen i just know i would have reacted more volatilely i struggle to think about it LOL but both experiences would still be pretty intense. it's just that, as an adult there's more room to digest it when im not troubled by algebra hw. i was just more equipped for it (also i played omori two summers ago LMAOO). ofc i only turned 20 a few weeks ago LOL but i get why p3 means so much to people.

because it's like... 2000s nostalgia coupled with a game that figuratively holds your hand through the uncertainty of death yknow? p3 is a friend, basically. its entire thesis is based upon companionship (exactly what i highlight in an analysis i have drafted somewhere but HHH i dont want this to get too long lmao)

in the shaping my worldviews thing... its really more like it cemented my 'philosophies' :] like i said, equipped with the stuff i learned before, p3 having the message that it did just... hit super close to home! like yeah! that's what i've been saying dude!! kindness really is enough!!

"You don't have to save the world to find meaning in life... Sometimes all you need is something simple, like someone to take care of."

LIKE YEA GIRL THATS EXACTLY IT!! its so cool! i actually admire people who grew up with p3 because man if i heard this line ages ago... well, again, idk if i would be able to grasp it fully at the time... but still! this is so good, poetry in motion. and like u said its aesthetics are gorgeous and aim to capture the essence of its themes - and it did.

im a p5 baby like bro i love p5. soft spot for it. thats the closest persona game i "grew up" with and it came at such an opportune time for me, being a teen stuck between a rock and a hard place. typical. and p5 validated my teenage angst bs so much. its so refreshing to see a game's theme being rebellion. that was me i thought. those characters are going through something that similarly happened to me. teenage rebellion is such a fun thing to explore!

so p5 validated my struggles while p3 did something deeper than that, somehow. i think it just made me .. stronger? like it made me move on from struggles. "by remembering death you learn how to live" so... i guess p3 taught me how to live as crazy as that sounds. but you get me

persona 5 overall is great -- everyone agrees, like its objectively just a better game. but persona 3 ends up more beloved because of its subjective value as a piece of art. there's a lot of heart and soul to put into it.

it's more simple when compared to p5 at first glance, but simple doesn't mean less. which is why more people experiencing it will be nice to see

[starberry-fag]

Hello! Sorry to bother you, but you are the only blog I know who makes IDs outside of their own stuff so I figured you were the best person to ask. Do you have by any chance ressources to learn how to make and practice them? I want to start using them but I'm not a native speaker and I'm kinda struggling ^^'

Thank you and have a nice day!

oh ofc!! if u want, i have some good posts in the #image descriptions tag on my blog, but i'll link some stuff here too :D

Why and how, basics

Quick tips and tricks

Describing comics

Describing videos

Image Description Guidelines

and a couple of my own tips !!

a great rule of thumb is, "the more time someone would look at an image, the longer + more detailed the description should be". This means, if it's a little doodle or a meme, u don't have to spend hoursss describing every little thing (ie, the clothes ppl are wearing, the lighting, that typa thing -- unlessss it's like,, part of the joke/meme. does that make sense ?) this post by mothfishing [hyperlinked] explains it SO much better than i ever could

on that note, a short/""bad"" id is always better than none at all!! don't worry too much abt the quality, or else you'll get stuck in a loop of fixing and editing and the description will never be published (or is that just me lol)

an absolute lifesaver for me was using a text-to-speech/screen reader to read my descriptions back to me ! especially if it were a longer piece, i would write an id, turn on the screenreader + close my eyes, then see if i missed anything important + if i needed to rephrase anything.

for practicing:

if you see an image w/ a description, try to write one yourself for that image. then just check between those ! it's bound to be different, but how? try to figure out which fits the image better, then adapt !

whenever i'm bored/have nothing to do, i try to describe things in the room. this is mostly just a fun little game to keep my brain busy, but it's also helpful in building skills !

if i can, i like to read out my description to a friend/family member if they're around. i ask them to imagine what i describe, then i show them the image to see if it matches. getting other people's input is always v v helpful... and speaking of....

the people's accessibility discord server!!!!!! i cannot emphasize enough how cool and nice everyone is there !!!!! u can ask for help describing something, ask ppl to double check ur work, or just send an image for ppl to describe!! literally everyone there is just so wonderful and helpful :3 here's an invite link!

little things that i learned:

the screenreader on my phone reads quotes without pause. so it would read "a sentence just like this" as if the quotes weren't there. so i picked up the habit of putting a comma before the quote to break the sentence up. so saying "this" sounds much more different then saying, "this".

(desktop only i think) it's much better for a screen reader to read line breaks (holding shift and enter) than just paragraph breaks (just enter). with paragraph breaks, the person using the screen reader would have to tap on each new paragraph to read it, which can be a hassle. with line breaks, the screen reader just reads the next bit automatically, but the ID is still visually broken up.

save stuff to ur drafts to look over later !

for text-heavy images, use a OCR/image-to-text extractor. just put the image in and copy the text it spits out, maybe looking over it to make sure there aren't any mistakes. this definitely removes a lot of the burden of copying text painstakingly by hand yk

i'm sure there must be more i'm forgetting, so if any of my followers want to leave any more tips in the notes i'd greatly appreciate it :D

[imogenleewriter]

Hii, how’s everything going? This has been quiet for a while lol

This is why I love you guys. I'm not sure if you mean here specifically or in general.

Here specifically is mainly just because the photos ran on a queue and the queue ended, lol. I will fix it up and add some soon.

I also didn't reblog my latest Save Me chapter that I uploaded a few days ago because I was having a writing crisis about it, but it is up.

YMAEWK is a day late but should be out later tonight/tonight/tomorrow (depending where you live).

I guess I'm still having a bit of a writing crisis. I don't think the right thing to do is stop writing though, which readers have lovingly suggested, because I just feel like everything I write isn't good enough and I think the best to overcome that is to post things I don't think are great to get over my possible perfectism. That, or really just have forgotten how to write, idk.

I also have a new fic idea and literally have 20k words of planning for it and it keep intruding my brain but I feel like I can't start writing it when I am in the middle of publishing 2 WIPs. Maybe I should start drafting it though, and then it'll get out of my head. I bet I'll write a couple of thousand words and then be sick of it and can come back to my other two.

Lol, anyway, thank you for noticing and caring enough to ask. In general, everything have been going okay-ish. <3

[amememightywarrior]

Mom's Adventures in Eorzea, Part 2

OH MY GOD THE DRAFT DIDN'T SAVE i have to do this AGAIN anyway here we go

Dec 26, 2021

Off we go! Heavensward!! (mom winced at the singer in the trailer)

But first we tested my rez macro She promptly used it before I could use self-destruct so I ended up having to explain swiftcast belatedly to her. HOWEVER! it works!!

:D

Mom looking at Artoirel and Emmanellain: "...and other son and daughter?" me: "...they're both sons" Damn you MSQ, why don't you have more female elezen

All righty just told her the manservant was gonna show her around so I'm not going to take her anywhere XD She thinks Tataru is extra excited about visiting the clothes market so she can find more things to dye pink

on Elaisse: "She's the first one who actually looks old!" (She doesn't think Edmont looks his age)

She thought the jester hat she got sounded cool! But then she put it on! and now her head piece is once again hidden. In selecting which brother to help first: "Which one is the jerk? I wanna smack him." So she's going with Artoirel XD

*sarcastically* "I bet he's very popular"

"I don't need a chocobo! I have a SNOWMAN!"

Me: Oh yeah you can't fly in these zones, you have to collect aether currents now Mom: D:<

if you're on goblin and you see two snowmen bouncing across coerthas that's probably us

on Deepeyes: "That red thing is its eye?!"

"All this nice peaceful music when you're killing things is jarring..."

"This duty is all about getting lost in a blizzard" "Oh great"

*gets ambushed in the house basement* "WHOA!"

Iceheart says "We can do naught else, for we are as one" So...does she think herself tempered by Shiva? Hmm

Artoirel: Pity Iceheart escaped but blah blah Mom: She didn't escape though? We just let her walk away... Me: ...yeeeeup.

After Artoirel admits his fault I asked my mom if that was good for smacking him and she said yes

All righty, Emmanellain's task will have to wait til tomorrow!

The casting robe she got was black and grey so we ended up going to the inn room and messing with her glam before we stopped for the day XD

Dec 27, 2021

Mom: "Okay I'm out of bed (in game), all rested up! Let's kill some stuff!"

*reading Emmanellain talking about being trueborn* "They're both assholes."

Chew time

as we run past a lalafell's chocobo: "It's like a giant chicken!"

My mom is carefully running around the chocobo because she doesn't want to step on it

The struggle of targeting a quest spot with controller when you're in the middle of a FATE with lots of targets

just a couple of snowmen bouncing around sea of clouds

*After waking Emmanellain* "Oh...well, that backfired on her."

She's very invested in how the gear looks

Honoroit: Lord Emmanellain has been gone an awfully long time. Mom: He's probably drowned in two inches of water.

she asked me if his rock was gonna be bad and if we were gonna see a temper tantrum just before this

Emmanellain: NORTHOTA I'M OVER HERE Mom: Thanks for ruining my sneak attack

Mom: How does Haurchefant know this is happening? He wasn't even here... Me: You'll find out

*Bismarck appears* "........all righty then."

She's pleased to see Cid XD

*Haurchefant leaps aboard the airship* "Showoff!"

*after the umpteenth attack by a gaelicat* "Seriously, everything attacks you here!!"

*After Laniaitte shoots Emmanellain down yet again* "Hah! She's mean :D"

she's disappointed we missed edmont smacking emmanellain

THE FURY HAS SPOKEN HW members slapped down by a couple of book-wielding nerds

yaaaay HW flying unlocked

"I didn't realize my blue was the same as their blue, I'm gonna have to change!" (She used Royal Blue for her chest piece)

I forgot how deep Zephirin's voice was, goddamn

Me: Now we get to go to Limsa! Mom: So I can teleport? Me: Yep, and you won't get arrested on sight! Mom: *dryly* That's good to know.

Sleeping during gaming time is just so exhausting

"Who's Lolorito?" "Mask, white moustache, shows up in ominous cutscenes with lightning flashing in the background as he appears to be the mastermind..." "Oh."

Had to stop and stare at someone with the Adamantoise mount as it spun wildly midair with fire coming out

Picking a different color for her robe so we avoid fashion faux pas for the rest of Heavensward Aaaand we're done til her next weekend!

Jan 1, 2021

Snack time as we work through heavensward

"Oh yeah you can use the left side (of the cross hotbar) so you can hit as many as possible" "GOOD"

And now it is belly rub time

After getting the quest to question various convictors: "And now I get to talk to all these people who won't tell me anything useful AGAIN."

"Ah yes we finish celebrating year of the ox and now we get to go kill one." *after seeing a woolly yak* "...bighorn sheep...?"

Ysayle: *prepares to monologue* Mom: *turns to me* "Are we about to find out we're helping MORE bad guys?"

can't wait to reveal to my mom that hraesvelgr is just a depressing old fart

Estinien whips out the eye and my mom goes: "That's really small, considering the dragons we've seen..."

All right, she elected to do all the aether current quests to unlock flying first since we're here XD Which means DUSK VIGIL

Freebird: Coerthas Western Highlands obtained!

my favorite part of SMN is when ifrit just hares off to parts unknown and unsummons itself

Mom: "Holy rainbow!" Me: "Yep. Throw it on and see what it looks like!" Mom: "OH MY GOD I LOOK LIKE A PIRATE I LOVE IT"

Estinien: WATCH YOURSELF DRAGON OR I'LL GOUGE OUT ONE OF YOURS Mom: Oh that's helpful

Vidofnir: THOU ART IMAGINE THYSELF EQUAL TO THE TASK Mom: Oh please! Primals are just another notch on my belt!

She discovered her wind-up Onion Knight, declared she wanted it, saw it run with its crazy little legs going...it's her new favorite. And just now she saw its little sword hacking motion and cackled.

Jan 2, 2021

we're back on our nonsense again

Mom: *puts on holy rainbow pants and studies her toon* I can live with that. Me: *laughing* Mom: There's NO TELLING what it could've looked like!! The jester skirt still haunts me!

Estinien: *talks* Mom: He just needs to be slapped.

Mom: "I've really got a swagger with this outfit!"

as the gnath summon ravana: Is it like a giant bug? as ravana appears: Good heavens.

on Ravana: "He's being very polite, he could've just chopped her up while she was summoning Shiva"

when the song kicks in on second part of ravana fight: "HE SINGS???" Apparently she found it very distracting XD

dps in sohm al giving us smn tips...thank you very much XD

She loves her wind-up Onion Knight and stopped doing MSQ to watch him wave his little sword

All righty, we stopped just before the churning mists moogles got to start annoying us but she already views Moglin's 'Trials of Trustworthiness' with much dubiousness.

Jan 3, 2021

I made the Trials of Trustworthiness easier by flying my mom everywhere because FUCK MOOGLES

Estinien is now 'The person most likely to get me in trouble', according to her

I discovered the zurvan weapons and showed them to her and now both of us want zurvan weapons because SHINY LIGHT TRAILS

Me: Kan-E-Senna is just explaining that Estinien is very angsty and will probably be a problem Mom: ... Me: ...like he wasn't a problem already. Mom: I was gonna say

a wild hraesvelgr appears

mom after the big reveal about the nature of primals and Ysayle collapses: uh oh

after hraesvelgr flaps away: well that was productive (the revelations have blown her mind)

Estinien: I shall be surprised if my armor is not stained crimson ere this conflict is ended Mom, dramatically: "My armor cleaning bill is going to be through the roof!"

a brief pitstop to touch up the glam and we are on our way once more

Mom: There she is. *to Meriel's back* You are in SUCH deep doo-doo.

Sultana awakened and Braves disbanded...that's all til next weekend.

Jan 9, 2021

It's the weekend, you know what time it is... SHENANIGANS WITH MOM

The Aery unlocked~

Hey, there are Allagan ruins in here...

@nofearsnolimits requesting explanation

"Now he's all covered in blood!" "So if Nidhogg is dead, what use are the eyes?" "Ooo I got 3 crystals back now"

me: HE'S GOT TWO EYES mom: ...did he give one back or something??

"I'd be afraid to make any sudden movements in that outfit" *referring to Haldrath's dragoon armor*

*After getting the other eyeball* "Where am I supposed to put this? I have no pouches!" me: "You have plenty of pouches, just none big enough." Mom: "NEITHER DOES [Estinien]! HE HAS TO PUT THEM UP HIS BUTT!"

after estinien yells at ysayle: "he deserved to be doused in dragon blood...just saying."

As Ysayle is stopping the heretics: "She's yelling at like 6 people." Me: "Yeah, well...budget."

suggestions along the lines of hosing Estinien down have been made

I like Edmont looking away to the floor when Lucia says "Even the holiest among us are not immune to temptation"

Dawn in the Brume as we once again run to rescue Tataru

All righty, stopped just before we get into the fight with Charibert, that'll all be tomorrow... the Vault is coming...

Jan 10, 2021

Will my mom get to the vault today? stay tuned to this thread and find out

*Charibert arrives* "Who's he??" "One of the Heavens' Ward, twelve knights who protect the archbishop." "Ohh so he was one of the ones around that table." she remembers :O

Lucia: "ENOUGH!" Mom: "Too little too late."

She just started A Knight's Calling ;_;

she's excited to be going above ground instead of through someone's basement torture chamber

just reviewed how to rez on SMN while we wait for a friend to get out of a dungeon

she managed to rez someone but then I let both dps die RIP she called Charibert a bad penny XD

here it is. the cutscene.

"That's too bad... :( they don't resurrect him or anything?" "no" "I'm sorry you had to watch that again, then"

One of her observations as Edmont is clearly grieving: "In contrast to the bastard archbishop and his son" (in terms of emotion/relationship)

update: she is willing to throw the archbishop in the garbage where he belongs

Now she's trying to figure out what he's up to... XD

PRIMALSSSSSS anyway we're pausing MSQ to do our job quests because we're both missing some skills cough cough

"Why is this person standing on the rock with a red dress and bunny ears" "some people wanna be admired" *later* "okay go to drybone..." "I wanna stand on the rock with bunny girl here!" *the player changes glams and waves* "some people play this game for very different reasons"

"DOG YOU SMELL SO BAD" the time for Brie to be bathed approaches...

we've been doing our job quests separately, my mom has gotten much better at navigating on her own :D

Aaaand done for the day~

Got some new skills that I do not know how to use but tool tips say they're all AoEs so I put them in the right spot on her hotbar...

Jan 16, 2021

Been playing with my mom but nothing too exciting other than Bismarck eating an island and me figuring out how dreadwyrm trance works so my mom can beat up the striking dummy

"So the whale...just ate the key." "Yep."

Brie started wagging her tail in her sleep

limitless blue...

queued up and ready to gooooo

Bismarck down! Mom: "Soooo where's the key" Me: "You'll find out"

Archbishop: "I see you have what we want" *looks at key* Mom: "QUICK, SWALLOW IT"

"Now I'm gonna spend a ton of time getting it back, aren't I."

Mom: So where is MY team...Cid and everyone and the ship Me: They're towing the island Mom: UGH

"With my outfit Alphinaud looks like a mini-me!"

This is what she's currently in, btw

upon seeing the airship: "...that's big. Is that gonna get us to Azys Lla?" Me: "Nope"

Done for the day, tomorrow...more HW!

Jan 17, 2021

mom and i back on our bullshit again

She said the sea of clouds makes her palms sweat because she's afraid she'll fall off, so I had her try to run off an edge to reassure her

Edmont says Tataru is super excited, mom says, "I can't even imagine Tataru more excited than she usually is, squeaking like a mouse..."

mom deeply confused by Urianger putting goggles over his goggles

me: *starts doing moonlift dance* mom: you're very distracting me: THAT'S THE POINT

Mom about Y'shtola in the lifestream: So she's broken up in little particles like Willy Wonka?

"Wrapped her up like an egg roll" "We call that a purrito" "A phhh--hahaha"

"Were her eyes always that color...?" "Nope." "Ah, okay."

Mom, about the Idyllshire goblins: Have we seen these before...

"They all look the same under those masks don't they" "we don't know" *later* "And now he (brayflox) is taking all the credit" "she" "...she. You can't tell!" "Sure you can!" "..." and so I explained goblin naming conventions to her

I think my mom likes Matoya

Gubal unlocked, gonna save that for tomorrow!

"You were right, it does get a lot more interesting! It just takes a while to get there."

Jan 18, 2021

Hey. Guess what time it is. That's RIGHT it's GAME TIME WITH MOM

Review of Gubal: Sliding around on ice was lots of fun! the orbs exploding and stopping the summoning was NOT fun XD

"So if I jump off the bridge I would die?" "Yes (when something's chasing you" "Ugggghhh so many ruuuules"

Me as Matoya translates the tome: That's what you call google translate...GUBAL translate! HAHAHAHA Mom: hah. hah. hah. *eyeroll*

Alphinaud: THE EYE!! Mom: Yeah you gotta wrestle it from whatshisname Me: I think we can just ask him

Matoya: Shtola, when did the light fade from your eyes? Mom: I was waiting for someone to notice her eyes were all weird.

Brie cam

Verdict on Estinien after he bitches at Y'shtola: "He's still a jerk."

Ysayle just appeared! "Oh, how fortuitous!"

She kinda jerked back when Ysayle died, I don't think she expected that. No comment otherwise. Anyway, we're in Azys Lla!

We're trying out Titan-egi but I guess it likes desummoning itself???

Estinien: Wait...something's afoot. *garlean theme starts playing* Mom: Garleans are everywhere!

I wonder if the garleans are confused by the snowmen bouncing past

We're at the 2 hour mark but this is a really exciting part of the story so we're trying to make it to the dungeon before we stop

All righty, stopped just before the final HW dungeon~

Jan 23, 2021

THE END OF HEAVENSWARD (base), AS DESCRIBED BY MY MOM: a thread

I showed her the shoebill minion and she was entertained

I got some volunteers but while we wait my mom decided to start chatting up the nodes and accidentally picked up a quest so she's off getting lost in Azys Lla

*while getting into the black hole for universal manipulation*: this doesn't seem great...? me: it protects you from worse

*suspiciously* "...who's in the box?" (it's haldrath)

Thordan attains primalhood: "...we didn't want that to happen, right?" Me: "Nope" Mom: "Welp"

me: wait time, 9 minutes mom: D:<

Mom: Do we have to kill him multiple times? Me: Nope. Mom: Good. ...I'll take that eyeball, thanks.

*Estinien gets the other eyeball* Mom: Is he going to turn evil?

she has just dubbed him Zombie Estinien

"Ohh so there's a warrior of darkness to my warrior of lightness..." *camera zooms out* "I was being facetious when I said he was on the moon!"

Heavensward base complete~

we had a nice lengthy bike ride before this and now we're both starting to feel sleepy so I'm telling my mom to wake up during cutscenes XD then Aymeric closed his eyes and she said "See? Now HE'S falling asleep!" and I said "He's being SOMBER"

Got all the overworld aether currents in the forelands and will get the quests so she can fly there tomorrow. Also got her some boots from Hismena. Slowly but surely...!!

we both got up and groaned at our stiff legs RIP

Jan 24, 2021

Okay mom is doing forelands aether current quests and then we'll be back to MSQ

*watches her get lost around the Forelands*

it's just her yelling "Up! Up!" while trying to climb a cliff with her snowman

me: *flies past* mom: I SEE YOU >:( taunting me

just two snowmen bouncing across the forelands

:D

Krile: Looks like someone grew an ilm or two in my absence...or are those lifts in your boots? Mom: ouch

*watches mom get lost in the hinterlands* this is very relaxing

Krile just said she has the Blessing of Light as well as the Echo...?? hmm I forgot that..

She laughed at Y'shtola going "IS IT NOW" when Alphinaud started talking about her showing up naked from the Lifestream

she's dying at the nutkin hiding thancred's nether region

'Good thing it's got a big fluffy tail'

mom: Did Thancred lose an eye? me: we're not sure honestly, most think he had an injury but then later he was using it to attract the ladies mom: oh...

Mom, about Alphinaud: Does his sister ever show up? Me: Oh yeah. You'll like her. Mom: Is she snarky? Me: Yeeeeup, she knows just how to get to Alphinaud. Mom: Well, twins, right? Me: Yep Mom: *nods*

me as they find the guy setting fires: They've located the criminal!! mom: Yep. Northota, sit on him! That'll teach 'em.

mom said all this stuff about people trying to preserve the old order sounded aaaawwwwfffully familiar, btw can't wait to get her into SHB, vauthry will make her blow a gasket

hah at aymeric at 0/100 vitality just curing himself furiously, refusing to die

as priest pushes maelie off the vault wall: well, *he's* evil.

Mom after Aymeric and co arrive downstairs: Wait, what did they do with the nutjob? Me: Oh they arrested him Mom: They should've just pushed him off the railing. Told the dragon 'let this one fall'.

you can tell where my vindictive streak comes from

Okay, that's it for this play session! Once we get to the end of post-HW we'll be going back to finish off Hildibrand and other optional/side content XD

Jan 30, 2021

It's THE WEEKEND time for MORE MOM PLAYS FFXIV

"I forgot what we were doing??" the crazy catholic dude shoved a kid off a bridge and now we're working on a peace conference

hearing honoroit speak is gonna make me sad though :( RIP Archie

Emmanellain stalks out of the manor in silence, mom says, "What was THAT all about?"

Urianger speaks to Elidibus, mom says "...I thought he was a good guy?? No? Clearly not."

Yda and Papalymo show up! Me: Hey, we found them! Mom: Yep Me: She lost her mask somewhere so they aren't showing her face... Mom: ...because we're not supposed to know what she looks like? Me: NOPE. They'll zoom in on her boobs instead! Mom: I noticed that, yes.

The big reveal with Yda/Lyse would've been way better if they'd incorporated Yda's real face into like...flashbacks or something.

Mom, about Hoary Boulder: I'm sorry, he's just weird. Me: gasp Mom: *imitates his roegadyn psych emote* Me: He's flexing! Mom: Ohh, right. You just can't see it under all that armor.

We exhausted Brie with a 3.7 mile bike ride before this and I made her dig a bit so she is extra tired today

walking into the Seventh Heaven: ah the bar with the Peanuts music me: it's the bar music from FF7! mom: I'm telling you this sounds just like the Peanuts music!

*looking at the rewards for this quest* Me: fish or cookie? mom: cookie, steamed fish sounds gross... me: it's a steamed staff mom: that's worse me: ...which is also a fish mom: ...

Oh boy my favorite HW dungeon the Antitower is coming up...

She enjoyed the dungeon XD Calcabrina reaction: Oh THEY aren't creepy at all, jeez me: You can get them as a minion-- Mom: NO I don't want that following me

for those wondering, she wasn't into David Bowie so she did not recognize the Ziggy Stardust reference, RIP

Mom: Looks like we're not getting Minfilia back? Me: Nope, looks like she's been turned into a MEAT PUPPET Mom: Ah

She summoned the poro roggo minion and was overjoyed to see that it hops XD

Aymeric: A drink! Mom: Is he asking me on a date? Me: Maybe Mom: What happens with the male WoL? Me: Same thing. Everyone wants in the WoL's pants, doesn't matter their gender! Mom: That's awesome.

heavy sighs at emmanellain, 'looks like I'm babysitting again'

"Yeeeeah I've just been poisoned, pretty sure."

Northota started passing out and my mom just turned and gave me a knowing look. "First time I've ever eaten or drunk anything in this place, of COURSE"

she's just skipping past the barmaid's tirade ahahaha

Emmanellain: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE Mom: You told him to do it

Mom just referred to the punch Thancred laid on Emmanellain as 'The Consequences'

Got the Hinterlands world aether currents and quit for the day, time to stretch

Jan 31, 2021

AND NOW for game time with mom fun fact about my mom she is one of the few cool boomers

Mom: Soooo they're trying to...fight another enemy now? Me: They're trying to unite via a common enemy...so yes, more fighting, for that is the Ishgard way Aymeric: HOW ABOUT A GRAND MELEE Mom: Oh good, pretend fighting is just as good as real fighting.

on Emmanellain: "He started out as a brat, still a brat."

"Maybe his tiny manservant will help him change--" *cue me explaining some of their backstory and elezen puberty*

Aymeric: *starts talking about WoL for grand melee* me: WHO could he could be talking about mom: I don't know, the tall broad in front of him?

they should've had the grand melee take place in the lightfeather proving grounds, just sayin

I think she is enjoying being a caster in chainmail SE ALL CLASS FORTEMPS GLAMOUR WHEN

"Um, I have the tether...what does that mean" *fade to black* "DID WE FAIL"

aymeric just got fuckin yeeted by raubahn, never gets old

me: have fun, be ready to dodge mom: oh god

mom: is that the end of the duty? me: yep mom: *immediately has peanut m&ms to celebrate*

Nidstinien: NEVERRRRR Mom: there's always one...

mom's just like O_O at nidstinien right now

Mom: So we gotta kill Nidhogg? Me: Yep...again. Mom: Only he's bigger and badder than before? Me: Yeah he's got TWO eyeballs now! Mom: Oh boy

Mom on Vidofnir: Oh good that dragon's not dead!

Alphinaud plops drinks on table mom: The LAST time I drank out of a cup.......

Mom: The voice acting has really gotten a lot better Me: You enjoy the performances? Mom: Yes, especially Aymeric. His voice isn't pretty but just the phrasing Me: *eyebrow waggle* Ohhhh?? You thought he was snooty when you first heard him Mom: he WAS snooty...he's gotten better.

being a left-handed person, my mom is delighted to see SMN is also left-handed (via victory stance)

vidofnir is like '?'

CAN MY MOM FIGURE OUT THE MOOGLE'S NAME STAY TUNED

she picked the correct answer

yay we have conquered sohr kai

Fighting Nidhogg will have to happen next weekend. There will be chaos >:D

Feb 6, 2021

TIME FOR MOM SHENANIGANS

Alphinaud: if only we knew when nidhogg would strike me: IF ONLY THERE WERE A SIGN *screeching in the distance* mom: is that not a good enough sign

final steps of faith death awaits us, friends are all busy...sorry to my cohealer in advance, whoever you are

mom: Eugh! When did he give away his eye?!

waits for future cohealer to queue up...

that was 3 vets and 5 newbies who all ran away with the stack marker

Alphinaud: Estinien!! Mom: Estinien! Someone take that eyeball away from him!

Mom: *as Estinien starts resisting* is that Estinien Estinien: THIS IS NOT YOUR HAND, WYRM Mom: the ultimate dual personality disorder WoL and Alphinaud: *go for the eyes* Mom: That's right! Go for those eyeballs!

Mom: And that's Nidhogg...going...? Me: To dragon heaven! They come from space, after all

Mom: So those eyeballs are just dead balls now right Me: nah they're still full of aether Aymeric: CAST THEM INTO THE ABYSS Mom: *watches them plummet* ...only for them to return later?

we have concluded that Estinien probably weighs about 250-300 lbs with all his armor

Mom: Give Hraesvelgr his eyeball back! Hraesvelgr: *flies off* Mom: He's leaving without it?!

mom just shaking her head at emmanellain and laughing as honoroit explains what actually happened

she thinks estinien is very pretty

Brie check (this was a video of Brie staring fixedly at mom's hand as she picked up popcorn)

Mom: So he just took flowers and walked off into the sunset? Me: That's what he does, yup

on the PLD of darkness: "pretty evil grin there"

Me: Recognize that outfit? Mom: Yep! Alphinaud! Me: No! Mom: WHAT Me: That's his twin sister! Mom: Oh. Well, at least I recognize the outfit!

on the dinner: *dryly* "That's not stiff at all."

*WoL stares at manservant pouring* mom: is he gonna try to poison him??

Aymeric: So what do you want for yourself Mom: ...to not be poisoned. Manservant: PRAY FORGIVE THE INTERRUPTION Mom: We'll never find out what I want.

WoL and Aymeric leave Mom: So...I wasn't poisoned? Me: Nope Mom: suspicious.

Xelphatol cleared!

Tataru: Try on the new outfit I made you! Mom: *suspicious and hostile* WHO IS SHE TALKING TO Me: Alisaie! Mom: *relaxes* oh okay

That's all for today - that was a lot of cutscenes XD One more dungeon before we hit the end of the free trial and go back to Hildibrand. Yay!

Feb 7, 2021

reminding my mom that urianger is a POTENTIAL EVIL DOER she just sighed heavily

me: Alisaie is INTIMIDATING Urianger! mom: yes, from his waist

Mom: Alphinaud NEVER glared like that! Me: Alisaie is VERY different

Oh we're at the part where we meet Ga Bu

brie trying to chew while on the couch, mom has vetoed this plan

it occurs to me that alisaie's teleporting ability is the most powerful because she just teleported the entire party while half of us had aggro

mom: titan...is he the one who kept shoving me off the edge me: yep mom: UHGHHGHGHG

report-- gravity: 3 WoL: 0 3 dps fell off XD one of which was my mom, another of which was a dps CERTAIN he was out, and a third of which was a RDM who backflipped off

Alisaie: Maybe you could tell me about some of your adventures in Ishgard Mom: But I only nod! *dialog choices pop up* Mom: oh, there I am

Mom: "Old friends"? me: who do you know who talks like that Mom: ..........the guy who the girl was suspicious of... me: Urianger. Mom: yes me: We've never seen him with his hood off though! Mom: Who knew he had grey hair...

Urianger: *DRAMATIC SPEECH* Mom: Is he feeling guilty? Me: Yep

Mom: Sooo he wants them to kill the WoL??? Me: He wants them to meet up Mom: So they can combine and become the warrior of grey...

my mom always makes resigned noises when told to gather information because it's usually bad info from idiot townspeople XD

Papalymo and Yda spotted!

she's in disguise

Mom: A trap! Of course.

Alphi: CARBUNCLE DEFEND ME Mom: OH Carbuncle: *catches arrow in mouth* Mom: Nice catch!

Urianger tears off mask Me: Oh no he's pretty--but with questionable taste in facial hair Mom: yeah that's terrible...he looks like wolfman or something...

trying to target alisaie's blade of light when literally everyone decides to stand around her fighting while you're on controller is a new hell, my mom has found

Urianger: Quickly! Invoke the power of your crystal! Mom: ...and what will that do...? Me: :)

Minfilia: *gives WoL Tupsimati* Mom: I'll put it in my pocket with everything else

and now with my mom left in a haze of confusion over yda's reaction to gundobald, we leave the rest of the story for next weekend

Feb 13, 2021

MOM GAME TIME MOM GAME TIME We parked her outside the Rising Stones last time for fear of being caught in another long cutscene. Turns out we were right XD

Mom: "WHAT BATTLE???" (as fake griffin talks to real griffin)

Mom: Are those the dragon eyeballs? Yes, they are. Me: What a surprise! Mom: Quite the gift. Good luck controlling them!

Brie being absolutely incorrigible about the popcorn moving past her nose

Mom, when Tataru corners her with some other people: new characters? Me: no, you're being AMBUSHED! YOU ALWAYS KNEW SHE WAS EVIL Mom: ...oh! She's got a new outfit for me, doesn't she!! Me: *cackling* Mom: They got the big guy to hold me down, huh.

tension in the scene where m'naago appears ruined by the fact that we're trying to order take out for dinner right now

ordering food never sounded so ominous, it's just the suspenseful BGM going on the entire time

PLOT TWIST you can choose which sauce you want!! DETERMINE YOUR FATE, BECOME WHAT YOU MUST

Mom: Who is this? Me: A new person!

Mom after hearing Papalymo's ominous narration: Is he about to become a traitor?? Me: *shrug* Mom: He's got that stick, too! Me: What's he gonna do!!

someone playing a polka in gridania right now

mom, seeing me on ixion mount: *sigh* I want ooooone...

Mom, about Yugiri hiding behind trees: Kinda creepy Me: Well, she's a ninja Mom: Ohhh, so force of habit...though she's not very good since [Aymeric] spotted her! Me: She wasn't TRYING D:

We are on Griffin, Griffin on the Wall for anyone wanting to see how close we are to SB 6 more quests before she gets blocked in MSQ!

Baelsar's Wall conquered Mom, after some careful explanation about the betrayal: Soooo the Griffin is just killing everyone.

Mom: THE EYES

Mom: That was a great splat noise

me: This is the song they played just before the calamity mom: it's very pretty considering what's going on me: yeeeeah after a while you start to associate it with ominous things...

told my mom to pick the second option...papalymo blasted her back onto the ship and she just said 'oh'

OMG our power just went out

Papalymo’s spell was too powerful. Also took our neighbor’s power

Welp we will continue our adventure tomorrow I guess. The whole area went down and it’s 2 degrees outside

Time to gather around the fire

The power has returned and i no longer feel like a pioneer

Was gonna make ashcakes or somethin oh well

me earlier: what if power went out at the restaurant we ordered from!!!! restaurant on our receipt when it arrived a few minutes late: our power went out!

Feb 14, 2021

Back to mom game time! Upon login, she was taken back into the cutscene the power outage interrupted...

If the power goes out again i will have to declare this cutscene cursed

Mom picked the option to try to stay again because she wants Papalymo to blast her back onto the ship

Mom: So that leaves a mystery as to what happened to Papalymo? Me: Well, if you've seen the previous time that was cast, Louisoix dies after casting it... Mom: Ahh, and that was apparent from the conversation... Me: Yep. Yda knew too, so that's why Thancred had to drag her off

achievement: School's Out Forever mom: =_=

Gosetsu: *appears* Mom: Okay, very Japanese... Gosetsu: *takes off hat* Mom: Whoa!

Gosetsu: *psychs up* Mom: Is that his way of overcoming his he-- Gosetsu: *falls over* Mom: Or not. Good thing no one was in front of him.

I forgot Nero did in fact have a voice actor XD

Me: So, got a good impression of Alisaie yet? Mom: Yeees...she's got claws. Big ones.

Mom's roegadame is taller than Nero by a head but she said "He should be more afraid of the little one (Alisaie) than me"

Gosetsu: BY YOUR LEAVE Mom: Ah, he's recovered.

Tataru gave my mom her outfit and she was like "D: OH! ...somebody stole my skirt!"

bit too difficult to ground target on controller for mom so I ended up doing the middle section of the solo duty for her with the red baron XD

Mom as they activate Omega: Releasing the Death Star!

Mom as they trade blows: Holy Harry Potter! (it reminds her of dumbledore and voldemort fighting in the ministry)

Mom as shinryu and omega blast off in different directions: That went well. Me: Would you say it was a tie Mom: Looked like it

Usually when something funny happens that they will immediately explain in the next two speech bubbles my mom will instantly stop in confusion and ask me what is going on and I have to be like 'You'll see'

ex: Yda's tattoo disappearing just now

We're on the Far Edge of Fate!! Last quest!!

Mom has passed judgment on Zenos. His helmet is creepy. His hair sticking out from under the armor is weird.

MOVING ON!!! to Hildibrand!!

I won't go into detail but suffice to say she laughs every time Hildy pops up on screen to pose XD

can't wait til she meets godbert

Me: We have to track down this dangerous goldsmith! Mom: ohhh I can see this is going to be silly

Hildy: I...I MUST DANCE! Mom: What?!

Mom: At least he has underwear on Me: Only because they have to preserve their rating.

Mom: OH he used his whole name!!

She believes Godbert explains Hildibrand a LOT

Mom: Hildibrand HAS figured out it's Greg, right? Me: Nope. Mom: ...oh my god.

Battle on the Big Bridge UNLOCKED time to queue and see if my mom gets turned into a toad

update: Me and my mom got turned into toads so it was just us screaming and running in circles

[loopy777]

Loopy, I love your work and your tight plotting, and I've found I seem to be not good at planning stories out - I can write a 2-5 page snippet, but nothing long form. How do YOU approach planning a novel, and to what degree is it planned and to what degree is it improvised as you go?

Well, first I need to clarify that I had to actually build up my writing "muscle" in order to do novel-sized stuff.

I started writing fanfic with short stories, averaging a couple thousand words. I worked my way up to 3-chapter ditties that were getting as high 6-7k words. Then I participated in a Big Bang which required a minimum of 20k. I thought it would be easy if I gave myself enough time and paced myself, but I found it to be agony. I was mentally exhausted by the time I had written two-thirds of the first draft, and as a result, the original ending was terrible, something I spat out just to finish the dang thing. Fortunately, I had a good beta-reader who was able to call out the precise problems, and after taking a break from writing completely for a couple of weeks, I was able to completely rewrite the ending (it was the same plot events, just presented in a completely different way) and make a vast improvement.

A key point in that little anecdote is that my rewrite contained the exact same plot events. I didn't have to second-guess the structure of the story because I had fully outlined it ahead of time and knew exactly what the theme of the story was and how all the happenings play into it.

For me, that's the benefit of having a plan. Writing is not so easy that I can do it while also figuring out the story I want to tell. The more planning I do up front, the smoother the writing process is for me. Those who don't struggle so much with the writing might not get the same return on investment from a detailed plan.

So your problem could be that you haven't built up your "writing muscle" yet- your ability to mentally focus on a plot, tone, style, theme, and feeling. The most writing you do and the more you stretch your word count, the more your ability will grow. But there's no pain without gain, and there will be mental struggle sometimes.

But that doesn't get into what I mean by a plan or outline. Yet!

My concept for a story always starts with a premise, which is essentially the story's beginning: "AU where Mai finds Aang instead of Katara" or "Mai and the Blue Spirit meet during Season 2 before Ba Sing Se" or "Azula discovers that she's immortal and is bothered by it," etc. The next part I like to decide is how that premise is resolved, which is essentially the story's ending: "AU Aang saves the world thanks to his connection to AU Mai" or "Mai and the Blue Spirit part with a new familiarity with each other that sets the foundation for their getting together between Books 2 & 3" or "Azula is able to die again but her certainty about herself and her path is shaken," etc.

The way I work, those are my beginning and my destination, and from there I outline my journey. I start with some brainstorming, figuring out scenes I'd like to do or characters I'd like to involve or locations I want to visit or even lines of dialogue that sound good. That's like, when planning a journey, figuring out what stops you want to make on the way; sure, you might get to your destination faster if you keep driving or go a more efficient route, but it's more important to you to get off on Exit 42 and visit that great restaurant before picking up the highway again. And that comparison isn't random- you should try to fill your story with stuff you'd enjoy as much as visiting a favorite restaurant. This is a hobby we do for fun and writing is hard, so it's important to make it as enjoyable for yourself as possible.

The brainstorming portion is surprisingly critical, and it needs to be done correctly. You don't want to throw away any ideas at this point, and you want to come up with as many ideas as possible. Put yourself into a heightened creative state by listening to your favorite music beforehand. Riff on each idea. Steal from other stories. Tell yourself you can't have lunch until you fill a page with ideas. Talk to yourself in your notes. Pose ideas in the form of questions (that you don't have to answer yet). Imitate your favorite characters and do bad impressions of them. Make yourself smile even if you don't feel like it.

Then, using those brainstormed ideas, I figure out my exact route from beginning to destination. This is a more practical portion, because if you just have a jumble of roadside stops you want to make, you're never going to get to your destination. You need to bridge the gap between your beginning and your ending, use your brainstorming stuff as the box of building blocks that will form the foundation of your bridge. What really helps here is that I have read so many books/stories in my life, I know the shape that I'm aiming for. I know what a basic mystery, adventure, romance, etc look like. A romance, for example, starts with our pairing separate and lesser for it, has them meet, then they overcome an initial conflict, they grow closer, a bigger conflict forces them apart, and then they overcome that conflict to be together forever or at least until the credits finish rolling. There are variations to it, but that's your basic shape. The more familiar you are, the more you can twist it unrecognizably without losing its support structure.

And the story feels more continuous if each of the points in that shape lead into each other. They're not a bunch of towers standing next to each other, they're an arch held together by each stone leaning against the others. Something happens, and then as a result of that something else happens, and then as a result of that something else happens, etc. Even a bunch of random, unconnected events can become a continuous story if the main character is affected in a progressive way by those events. A decision the main character makes is different from what they would have otherwise done without having experienced recent events. I often find that an interesting plot can be made out of simply asking what the worst possible outcome is of the current dilemma and seeing how the characters would react to that.

So, using that romance structure with the BlueSpirit/Mai idea I had above, I can create something out of the ideas I'd brainstormed that looks like this:

Mai is on the way to buy/procure Azula's tanktrain, worried about Zuko being a traitor and having to catch him, when she is robbed by Zuko during his Bandit Blue Spirit thing.

Zuko, inching towards his slightly healthier mental state in Zuko Alone, somehow learns what Mai is doing and wants more information since Azula is a danger to him. So he follows Mai to her destination.

Mai's destination is an army base where they build tanktrains.

Mai's aunt runs the place.

Zuko is caught during his infiltration and takes Mai captive to escape.

Blue Spirit and Mai are stranded in the wilderness for a bit as kidnapper/captive.

They work together to survive and learn a bit more about each other's characters.

There's an attraction.

They work out a deal to team up and both get what they want.

They enact a scheme to steal the tanktrain.

The scheme goes wrong.

They fight their way to safety and are forced to go their separate ways, still drawn to each other but unfulfilled.

Epilogue: They meet up in Ba Sing Se.

Note how vague it gets towards the end there. (Also note that this doesn't exactly match up with the story I wound up writing. I believe the meme goes that this is a secret clue for later.) The "scheme" bit is something that I would later do extensive planning for, because that's a plot-heavy part of the story. At the final level, I like to have things broken down by scene, such as:

Scene MAI POV: Mai fakes her way out of attending the inspection and sets off the explosion in the chemical depot

Scene ZUKO POV: Blue Spirit fends off attackers while failing to figure out that he needs to remove the bolts

Scene MAI POV: Mai works her way to the tanktrain, obtaining the spare mask from the rebels on the way. When she meets up with Zuko, she tells him about the bolts

Zuko removes the bolts and the tanktrain runs away. Maiko chases it. Zuko gets onboard. The rebels get onboard. Mai gets onboard to fight the rebels. The train leaves the fortress. Everyone fights. They approach the ravine. Everyone jumps off the train.

Notice how that last bullet point isn't a scene like the others. Sometimes, even in my final detailed outlines, I do like to leave myself freedom to change things with scene transitions to manage the pacing as I write, and with action scenes especially I don't bother working out all the details. It impossible to plan how many punches you're going to wind up needing.

But these bullet points are from the final chapter(s) of my story. Do I really work out the scene-by-scene breakdown of my entire story before writing anything? It depends on the size of the story. For a short, I'll do the full breakdown. But for anything multichapter, especially a novel, I'll only do a chapter-by-chapter summary before doing any writing. Those summaries will be about a paragraph or two long. Each chapter will get its scene-by-scene breakdown when it's time to write it.

So, to answer your original question, the amount of planning I do for a novel-sized story before writing is a chapter-by-chapter outline. Each chapter will get a 1-2 paragraph summary, and that can include very short descriptions of important scenes and sometimes even a line or two of dialogue I want to make sure I include. And then, as I work through the chapters, I get into even more detailed outlines with a scene-by-scene breakdown with notes about whose POV is commanding each scene.

I like to leave that gap because it's where the improvisation comes in. I don't treat even my scene-by-scene breakdowns as something I have to stick to. I readily combine, cut, or alter scenes based on how things go as I'm writing. (One time, I turned a dud of a chapter into a banger of a chapter simply by reordering and combining some scenes, minimal rewriting required.) Changes are allowed to creep in. I might even radically alter major planned plot points. Having a detailed plan doesn't inhibit that. If I know where my ultimate destination is, I know how I need to alter my route to accommodate the unplanned detour I'm taking. And by holding off on doing the scene-by-scene breakdowns until it's time to write that chapter, I'm not doing a lot of work that I'll have to throw away if I make any major changes to the plan.

Even if I don't make changes, I'll often develop details during the writing that I might want to make further use of in a major way. Even if it doesn't change my plot at all, that type of thing can definitely change how the scenes go, so again, it saves work not to have to throw away plans that detailed.

But, overall, I find it's better to over-plan. It's easier to throw work away than it is to try to figure out what's next. My 'current' project is going slow because I did inadequate planning, thanks to some indecisiveness that has persisted through the writing. If you have a solid path through your whole story, there's no such thing as writer's block. When I have a good plan, the only thing that pauses me is wondering, "What hook of a first sentence should start this scene?" or, "What really strong line of dialogue should finish this dialogue exchange?" I can focus on the writing, not the plotting.

And that's really the big guideline. I do as much planning as I need to so that I can write without also trying to figure out the story. A scene-by-scene breakdown does that for me, since I do like switch POV around and do scene transitions that lead into each other rather than stop things, but for people who have more intuition about scenes or who don't go for that level of connectedness, it might not be necessary.

And, of course, it's not necessary for every writer to do plot-heavy novel-sized stories. I just often set out to do a short story, do somet thinking, and then find that I have way too much plot because I overthink everything. ;)