#and probably they'd be bitter a bit but that's also character improvement

[jade-curtiss]

People with a supportive background when they're successful: my courage and my efforts paid off and everyone is free to do everything they want, sky is the limit.

[piosplayhouse]

I JUST SAW UR POSTS ABT CQL AND OH MY GOD YEAH ITS. THE WORST my sibling and I just finished it a couple days ago but after they'd finished reading the novel we were mostly making fun of the show as we watched LOL-- one thing I will say is that I like most of their casting choices bcus yibo gets all the little wangji microexpressions dead-on

It's like !! Idk I know it's a lot of people's first introductions to the series, and I do think it's good on its own, but I hate when people analyze it like an improved extension on mdzs. It's not! More than anything it's like. Mdzs-inspired content honestly. Idk maybe discourse has made me too bitter, but I've seen far too many takes that cql makes mdzs better in some way by adding "ace representation" (I'm referring NOT to ace people who see themselves in cql wx! You guys are great and I'm happy for you!! but to the people who say stuff like so glad they got rid of the icky gay sex and PDA, if your ideal ace representation is quite literally government-censored gay content, please reevaluate) or feminism or something. It's like, idk, if you see it that way then good for you, but I can't help but be a bit cynical that a monopolistic company rife with government censorship would have more authentic intentions than a vulnerable young fem indie author who probably barely makes profit off of her original work. It's the scum villain main in me I guess.

Though the casting is so good!! I'm always surprised when I remember that yibo wasn't an established actor before, he gets all of lwj's little details so perfect. Xiao Zhan too is also incredible. You can tell the cast had a lot of love for the characters, and I'll never fault them for that!

[askyourwritergrandma]

Hi, grandma! I hope you're well and that it's not too cold wherever you are. i was wondering if you have any tips on settings descriptions? Especially in terms of describing areas and the weather. I feel that my characters are always acting in a void and I want to work on improving that. Thanks!

Hi Ibovaryyou!

I am familiar with task of improving your setting descriptions. It's probably one of the weaker aspects of my own writing to this day (because not everyone can be a visual thinker, I guess). However, because I did have to improve it and concentrate on it I do have some tips!

1. Balance the generalized with the specific: Since not every part of the setting needs to be described you do not need to waste your time describing your great Auntie's kitchen down to the baseboards. Generalize what's not going to do any work in your story and concentrate on what is adding character (development) or plot worth.

Auntie Meema's kitchen was dominated on one side by an oversized window best used by school children trying their hardest not to concentrate on their homework and on the other size by a stove that seemed large enough to cook naughty schoolchildren in. Between them was a bare wall, an ugly cabinet and vigorously scrubbed countertop. The only splash of color (and temptation) was the gleaming ceramic cookie jar. It had been an impulse buy, late into the Christmas shopping season, when silly nine year old girls couldn't find their great aunt any better gift. They'd giggled themselves into a hysteria, but Auntie Meema loved that cookie jar, as silly as it was, masquerading as a pig in a shower cap holding a back scrubber in one hand and it's towel pinched closed in the other.

2. Try to avoid blank, unnecessary, overly setting description This one might come down to personal preference, but as a learning tactic only, it helps to use your setting description in an emotional way. So you're describing a room while you're also tying it to an emotion or a history. Instead of just saying, 'this old kitchen had yellowed over the years,' you'd say:

Auntie Meema's kitchen had gone yellow after years and years of so many fried chicken dinners. Every bit of the room seemed to hold in the smell, and not of the delicious, crunch of the well-seasoned skin but of the old oil left cooling in the pan on the stove. That old cast iron frying pan still sat there now, fulfilling the prophecy of so many late nights frying donuts before breakfast. "This old pan is gonna out live me, you just wait and see."

3. Use figurative language. It's been too many years since middle school English so I can't tell you what's a metaphor and what's a simile but I can tell you that using figurative language along with actual scene designs allows your reader to fill in some of the gaps and then you don't have to describe them. I've used this a bit in Meema's kitchen so lets go outside:

The hard packed dirt practically sizzled under those first few drops of rain. All of Betty's begging to give up hadn't convinced Auntie Meema that there was any relief to be found indoors. She had crouched, dripping sweat like a waterfall, pulling weeds from the roadside. It had been hours of back-breaking in the bitter, violent sunshine. Betty's pouting had worn ruts in the drying grass, her dragging feet moving like farm plows, as she carried armload after armload of stabby little weeds to the pile by the woodshed. The first cool breeze that blew in brought the blessed smell of a rain and it was barely five spare minutes after that the clouds went black as midnight and those sizzling sprinkles turned to full cold shower.

4. Let your reader do most of the work. Think of example 3. We only know for a fact that there's a dirt road, weeds, grass and it's hot. We don't know how hot it is. We don't know what the area around them is. We don't know what the weeds are (other than pokey).

This means that what I'm imagining as this little dirt roadside, and what you imagine as this little dirt roadside are different. Those weeds are something from my childhood, but your weeds might be different. By not over-describing them, you allow your reader to substitute in their own vision of stabby weeds which lets them connect to your scene more fully.

5. Sometimes green is just green. If you're writing a description and you are bored and you have the deep, abiding need to make it more exciting... Trust me all writers have been there. While you might be tempted to head to the tumblr thesaurus and find a new fun color word (which has it's uses, but isn't the answer every time), take a moment to ask yourself this first:

Am I bored because nothing is happening in this description? setting is important, but too many sentences of "The grass had been cut yesterday. Its vibrant green vibed perfectly with the lush, verdant glow of the manicured bushes situated between the house and the duck pond. Speaking of the duck pond it was blue, as water is wont to be." The lawn is pretty, but try to add in some character/personality/connection to the lawn.

Am I bored because this description doesn't matter? setting is only important if it's important. your story doesn't need to know the color of every pair of Auntie Meema's underpants are just because we're describing her bedroom.

Am I relying too much on color? There are other aspects to a scene to think about. The smell of things? The way they feel? The temperature of the setting hot/cold/cool. The lighting. The noise. Color is sometimes a crutch we get stuck on.

I know these were just a few suggestions, but hopefully they're helpful in some way!

Good luck!

[boneconstruct]

Just need to have a bit of a ramble about mass effect 3 after watching some YouTube videos today, sorry this is so long!

___

I saw a video on YouTube by Revan 100 showing their mod that replaces Kai Leng with Kaidan/Ashley in mass effect 3. They use whichever one was left on Virmire. I'm gonna refer to the virmire casualty as 'K/A' and the one who didn't get blown up as the virmire survivor/ VS.

K/A are masked up and completely silent at first in the mod, then I think they get unmasked in the Thessia fight and I was like damn, that's actually genius!

On a first playthrough the reveal of the virmire casualty to the player would have been so jaw dropping. In-universe to Shepard it would be an absolute kick in the teeth, another decision that's come back to literally haunt him when they're already having guilt-ridden nightmares about all the people they've lost because of their decisions.

The shock of the unmasking could absolutely give K/A an opening in a cutscene to take down Shepard while they're in shock and that's how they win on Thessia without seeming too plot-armoured.

This is an improvement on Kai Leng in every way, not just in being less annoying in personality, but also thematically. The whole thing with mass effect is that the choices you make have consequences for the characters and the universe.

This decision you made 2 whole games ago has completely changed the course of K/A's life -and their relationship to you - so dramatically. I know it would lose some of its impact after the first playthrough but you'll also have the tragedy in future playthroughs of knowing what could have been. This person who's your most bitter rival and enemy in this playthrough...was your loyal teammate or even lover the last time you played (and they even criticised you for working with Cerberus in ME2 & 3 when they lived! Definitely some fun dramatic irony or meme potential there).

It does seem out of character for Kaidan in particular to join Cerberus, but Miranda talks about wanting in the past to put a control chip in Shepard. We know from me2 Cerberus can rebuild people who are just meat and tubes, and we know from citadel dlc they can clone, so Bioware could have even gone down the route of "they were rebuilt (or cloned from multiple DNA samples on virmire and the SR1 wreckage) and then cerberus had a control chip implanted."

For the illusive man it absolutely makes sense he'd have an ace up his sleeve to drop on you, maybe he'd even originally planned to 'gift' the rebuilt K/A to Shepard for their team in ME2 but they weren't ready yet, or they were too unstable so they had to put in the control chip and TIM was like "yeah they're probably not gonna be cool with us presenting them with a brainwashed clone of their dead friend" or maybe TIM just kept K/A as a secret weapon.

And the drama! Imagine if you'd started romancing Kaidan/Ash before you left them behind on Virmire! Or if earlier in ME3 you had to kill the virmire survivor and K/A had additional dialogue for that! What if you could disable the control chip if you were an Engineer (or fulfilled some very specific requirements - like how you could save Mordin or make peace between geth & quarians, but a little harder to do) and there was a secret alternative where after you beat them at Cerberus HQ you could actually recruit them again as a war asset?

Maybe you could even have them as a teammate??? They'd only need unique dialogue for the earth mission since Cerberus HQ is the lock in point of no return, and their powers and teammate AI are already in the game for if they're the VS and on your team in ME3.

I also think the catalyst should have taken the form of either K/A or whoever you romanced rather than some random kid... but let's not open that can of worms.