#Quill's advice

[rqbossman]

Hello,

I am embroidering a pair of jeans because I want to and I needed to repair them, I’d like to add a quote from the Magnus archives, any recommendations (preferably without swears since I volunteer at girlguiding and I don’t want to be kicked out because a 7 year old learns the word fuck from my trousers)

"Ceasless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing"

 "I refuse to become another goddamn mystery."

"I spy with my little eye... Literally everything."

"the sky... it's looking back"

“I have done my duty, and none may ask more of me. I am proud of the work we have done, and it has been an honour to do it alongside you."

“I could be on drugs!”

"As I was going up the stair I met a man who wasn't there He wasn't there again today Oh how I wish he'd go away

"I try to think of life as a pleasant holiday from non-existence"

[thatsbelievable]

[rad-roche]

my first model/texture paint is complete!

lots to improve upon, and my 2D background is really helping, but i'm really happy with this! i think he looks so cute. mixed and matched a lot of the model styles over the years to suit my preferences, so the colouring is from sa2 with slightly lankier proportions. gonna rig him, pose him, maybe make a little base, and call it there. i haven't tried animating at all so i don't think this model is quite built for it, but who knows when i get some experience under my belt. but all in all, really happy

[quill-and-whetstone]

“The Sniper Problem”

I have a favorite litmus test that I apply to just about everything I write: “Could this entire plotline be resolved by one sufficiently trained sniper?” The hypothetical sniper is there to evaluate the quality of the conflict I’ve set up. If they can resolve the whole thing by taking out their target then I… probably have some rethinking to do, because the test succinctly highlights a few key issues with any story that fails it.

First, the obvious: if the problem your protagonists are facing can be solved this way it’s probably just not as interesting as it could be. A conflict of “big bad evil dude does a big bad evil thing and our hero goes and mercs him about it” can make for a fun blockbuster action film, but the plot of those films are rarely–if ever–the point. Stories with a central villain stand to gain a lot of narrative depth from asking yourself what issues would linger if they were suddenly removed from the picture. What internal struggles might remain in your protagonists? How might the world around them still need to be changed or healed? Which elements or areas of the story just seem empty without the big bad to fill the narrative space, and how can we develop them?

The second facet of the sniper problem is an inverted Occam’s Razor, a call to ensure that there’s a good reason the protagonists aren’t just using a simple and direct route to solve their problems. It’s like how modern horror movies have to cripple the victims’ cell phones to justify everything else that happens, though ideally less contrived. When revising a story through this lens, it’s almost difficult not to improve it. It aids suspension of disbelief, lets your protagonists present as more competent, and gives them more to do outside of biffing people they don’t like which in turn showcases more of their personality.

A great example of all of this is Avatar: The Last Airbender. Throughout the show the bottom line is that our heroes are out to defeat the Firelord to stop the atrocities he’s committing against the rest of the world. So it stands to reason to ask, why not camp outside his house early on with an assassin good enough to score a quick or lucky kill? But the show answers this amply with just its concept, mostly without having to draw direct attention to it. If Firelord Ozai dropped dead in the pilot there would still be a whole Fire Nation pursuing his goals complete with other emotionally unstable royals and military officers. It wouldn’t actually… solve anything. “Defeat the Firelord” is just the mission that sets our heroes on the path they need to take to stop a war that’s destroying the world. The real solution is cultivating friendships across cultures, healing and maturing together, growing spiritually, protecting and empowering victims of generational violence, dismantling fascistic power structures, and ultimately even finding a relatively peaceful / humane solution to the problem of the Firelord. While they do call this out directly in one episode, they didn’t have to, because with the way they structured the narrative it was already evident. As a result of that good planning the characters got to do a lot of interesting, character driven, thematically resonant things and the show isn’t just one long and kind of dry martial arts training montage until they show up at the finale.

So keep the sniper problem in mind as you write! Or even as you read, watch, and analyze other media for what worked and what didn’t. I can’t promise it’ll be relevant to every story, but I can promise that it’s a quick and easy standard that’ll help you layer in a lot of nuance and flavor into your narrative.

[skullmakesmelaugh]

𝙷𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚈 𝙻𝙸𝙵𝙴 𝙰𝙳𝚅𝙸𝙲𝙴:

ask all your friends and family whether they like Lockwood and Co

if the answer if yes the congratulations! you have made a friend for life. proceed to seek out the company of that family member at gatherings, and naturally you will have a whale of a time

if the answer is no then respect them for their honesty to you, a hardcore Lockwood and Co fan, but when they are asleep you are encouraged to take revenge*

if the answer is what? then you must fetch The Wooden Spoon. you are allowed because not only is this scandalous, they clearly have never listened to you and that is rude

*please note that the type of revenge you take is not specified. steal their phone? good. secretly eat their cake? excellent. murder them in cold blood then scatter the pieces everywhere so they never find the body? sounds fun. it really does not matter as long as your disapproval has been recognised

[regthomas1728]

CALLING ALL WRITERS! - Quill Games to Ensue!

Think Survivor, Hunger Games, and Hell’s Kitchen but for writers! I’ll be in need of twelve writers of varying experience–beginner, this can be your debut, or expert with twenty years experience and four published books. It’s up to you! 

With a butt ton of challenges at the ready, contestants will compete in biweekly challenges testing and improving their individual writing skills and collaborative skills. You'll work alongside fellow Tumblr users to create one work and you'll compete against your fellow Tumblr users for a writers prize. What prize you ask?

You're competing for a free editor/collaborator/listener of long rants about stories, attract readers to your story (whatever your story may be), and free resources and experience from English courses about writing in various formats. (Nothing in this entire thing will ever cost money, like ever. I don't feel like dealing with that.)

There will be six to twelve contestants but don't fret! We're in need of three to five editors, those who want to personally work/help the six to twelve contestants. If neither of these options tickle your fancy, allow me to introduce you to the audience. (unlimited number of audience members, within reason)

Imagine a theatre and you, as an audience member, will vote and provide beta reader worthy feedback on contestant works. You'll have a week to do this and works will be divided between audience members, so your feedback had better be good if others are going to vote properly. No one will be required to read every contestants work but you will have to read quite a few in a week.

If you don't like reading AND writing, this game might not be for you. If you'd like more information, click the application in the form of a google form (hehehe). You may fill out the google form and subsequently agree to the imaginary terms and conditions. (They actually aren't quite so imaginary but they're not as long as game terms and conditions or the apple terms and conditions. No souls will be sold, as a moral obligation.)

I've bolded everything important throughout the application (and this post, to be honest). You may skip over everything else, there may be some overlapping commentary in the application and the email that will be sent if your application is accepted.

Emails won't be sent out until there are enough contestants, editors, and audience members. If you have any special questions, comments, or concerns, just shoot me an email.

Additional Content:

Example Challenges

In Anticipation,

Regine Thomas Tumblr Arse | With (His) Spunk regthomas1728@gmail.com

[just-an-enby-lemon]

My most special RQG headcannon is that RQG Wilde actually keeps the long hair and actually let's it get lobger because cutting his hair reminds him of shaving his head because of the curse (and of Grizzop and the guilt he has over Grizzop's death) and so he avoids cutting it unless "absolutlty necessary".

No one can figure out what Wilde considers "absolutly necessary haircut time".

[quill-ting]

Help me improve my work shirts! I've cut them so they're the right length and will fit my shoulders (thanks T?) and now I need to pick fabrics to make them nice again. The trouble is I like all of these, so folks it's up to you! There are three shirts that need choosing:

[edandstede]

i wanna reach out and make new ofmd friends but i’m hesitant both because i feel like people won’t really like me and because i’ve been badly burned by online friendships before and i’m scared of being hurt again. so i just make my stupid posts and watch other people really engage and have fun and make friends and i feel like i’m not allowed or meant to be a part of it. and it sucks especially because there are so many older fans like me and that would be lovely to enjoy. idk man i’m just frustrated and a bit disappointed and hurt that i could potentially be connecting with people but i’m not.

[poet-with-a-quill]

[Text ID: “Title: Some Advice about friends love your friends- the ones who always call you back, the ones who never do, the ones who stay up late talking to you, the ones who pop in for a how-do-you-do, the ones that always elicit laugh or two, the ones you call when you're feeling blue, the ones who bring cards and the sudoku, the ones who are filled with virtue on and on let it continue- have friends of all shapes and sizes, appreciate them and their point-of-view, love them unabashedly- and they will always be true.”]

-shums

[rqbossman]

hello sir, what should I name my cat, he is a small bastard who abuses me, however he likes my stuffed animals.

Sounds like head archivist Jonathan Sims to me.

[zroem]

How do you draw basic anatomy parts for your vr work? I've tried to make faces and hands in quill but they always come out either weird looking or way too high poly. How can you make stuff that looks so smooth?

I use Daniel Martin Peixe's method of using big, clean strokes and then kind of bending them into place. It is super tricky to get faces right though, definitely takes some practice!

[quill-and-whetstone]

The Sniper Problem, Reloaded

A while back I wrote about my favorite litmus test for stories: “Could this entire plotline be resolved by one sufficiently trained sniper?”

Today I wanna talk about how it applies to game running as well! Specifically, designing and running encounters or plot arcs for tabletop and LARP.

Running a roleplaying game has dimensions to it that writing on its own just doesn’t. Though it doesn’t rely as heavily on prose, it still requires the Narrator to craft a story with and for their players. They have to manage engagement on two levels: both with that narrative overall, and with players’ moment to moment participation. The sniper problem addresses the former in the same ways it does for any work of creative writing, but even for the latter it’s a gift that keeps on giving.

What gets players to participate in a roleplaying game, and what makes sessions interesting for them? This is an incredibly broad two part question but very simply put, it’s having roleplay to do and scenarios to address. When designing sessions, events, or arcs it can be very tempting to think in basic game terms: we set up a big bad to oppose the players and let the players figure out how to deal with them. Only… that on its own isn’t actually all that interesting in a roleplaying sense. It’s a core gameplay loop, and one that primarily comes out of classic D&D thinking. It’s interesting in a board gaming or wargaming sense, for players that are there to play the mechanics and “win.” For collaborative storytelling, however? You need more.

If a situation is end-runnable, many players will try to end run it. Not from a place of malice, either! This is a whole topic of conversation in and of itself, and I could get into respecting Narrator prep and the player to Narrator social contract, but part of that social contract is crafting a scenario without a reasonable loophole solution. Having a session planned for a full evening and having players blaze through it in ten minutes feels bad, and so does being a player and seeing an obvious way your character would react to a challenge only to be asked to ignore it. Fleshing out the narrative path–especially in a way that doesn’t rely on dice rolls–gives players roleplaying prompts and overall more game content. It also lets them be more complete characters, more than just game avatars.

The other big thing to consider here is what playstyles are present in your group. In an average rpg party you’ll have characters who compliment each other, so asking yourself if the situation favors a specific combatant or even combat as a solution is critical to examining whether you are providing content to the rest of the party! I find that common playstyle tracks involve combat, stealth, puzzles, and social engagement. Designing a problem that necessitates as many of those elements as possible to solve is crucial to getting the whole party involved and not just spotlighting one person!

So keep the sniper in mind when you prep for games, too! Diversifying the narrative and the mechanical design of your game will help cater to as many players as possible and enrich the roleplay experience for them and for you!

[skullmakesmelaugh]

Holly: Where is everyone? 

Kipps: George got beaten on the streets, Flo is looking after him. Lockwood and Lucy have taken some of the Skull’s advice, and so I’m in charge

Holly: Oh my god! 

Kipps: I know, right? It’s brilliant being a leader again

[regthomas1728]

Quill Games - Audience Members

WE NEED AUDIENCE MEMBERS!!!!

Gonna be so honest with you, we need people who want to read all kinds of work. People who want the drama, people who want to hold the virtual and metaphorical lives of writers.

You get the opportunity to vote for best writing pieces, you get to meet and greet online people and converse personally with editors and contestants about their works. You can practice your literary criticism skills--kindly!--and take part in a fun event where the priority is having fun while improving.

So, what's stopping you from reading Tumblr author's works?

Application

With Excitement,

Regine Thomas Tumblr Arse | With (His) Spunk regthomas1728@gmail.com