#filling out this entire thing and learning more stuff about my own character that I wasn't expecting

[plaidpyjamas]

WEIRDLY SPECIFIC BUT HELPFUL CHARACTER BUILDING QUESTIONS from @judasrpc but I'm gonna post 'em in chunks probably cause WHEW

***What's the lie your character says most often? His own last name - House Blackfyre is supposed to have died out, so Emmersen had to take a new one - Waters.

***How loosely or strictly do they use the word 'friend'? Very loosely. Anyone he's had a conversation with for whatever reason will be greeted as a friend from then on. He doesn't actually consider anyone his friend until he meets Tyrion and Jaime.

***How often do they show their genuine emotions to others versus just the audience knowing? Emmersen has been masking his emotions for so long that he's not even aware he's doing it anymore.

***What's a hobby they used to have that they miss? Magic. It's believed to have disappeared entirely, so he can only practice it in private. Because of that, his skill with it has been fading.

***Can they cry on command? If so, what do they think about to make it happen? He can't, unfortunately. It frustrates him that he has zero control over whether he cries or not - it's his most problematic tell when he's lying.

***What's their favorite [insert anything] that they've never recommended to anyone before? It's a childhood food he never learned how to make himself. It was a fairly common food, but given how long Emmersen has been alive, all records of it are gone now.

***What would their best friend and/or romantic partner yell in the middle of a crowd to find them? Lightfoot. It was a rude nickname other kids had given him when he was younger - Emmersen's legs have never fully worked, he couldn't walk without some kind of support, and most days he couldn't do so much as stand. His movements were slow and noisy, thanks to his braces and crutches. It used to hurt, but over the years he's found himself growing fond of the nickname, though he's picky about who gets to use it.

***How loose is their use of the phrase ‘I love you’? He refuses to use it. He'll usually say something like "I appreciate you" instead. His refusal to say "I love you" makes it a bit difficult for him to manipulate people sometimes.

***Do they give tough love or gentle love most often? Which do they prefer to receive? Emmersen thinks he prefers gentle over tough love, but as his relationship with Jaime progresses, he finds himself preferring tough love at all times.

***What fact do they excitedly tell everyone about at every opportunity? Blacksmithing. Literally anything and everything about blacksmithing. If you don't stop him, he will trap some poor person into his hyperfocused blacksmithing rant/infodump. Unfortunately, Emmersen is the world's worst blacksmith. There's not a single step in the process he hasn't screwed up ten times over.

[marie-m-art]

There's a specific concept from Good Omens that I really like (amongst many others), that I was chuffed to also find in a Sandman and a Discworld story!

I love that in Good Omens (both book and TV), Heaven and Hell are presented as mostly redundant and ineffectual when it comes to human morality - and that Hell in particular find some of the things humans do to be pretty shocking, and/or instructive.

Opportunities for humour aside, this idea flies in the face of the common belief that the world's worst ills are the result of outside forces influencing people to do evil (ie the devil. Or ... lizard people etc? I digress). And it's unlike other stories out there that are like, "World War II was actually caused by xyz characters!" or similar. Good Omens doesn't rewrite history like that, or let us - humanity - off the hook when it comes to the big stuff, when it could so easily have done so in a universe where Heaven and Hell are literally real.

The story, of course, also credits human cleverness to humans, and celebrates the things we should be proud of, like art, music, delicious food, craftmanship, invention, etc. And it credits humans for having a propensity for compassion and goodness.

"[Crowley] did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think up was half as bad as the stuff they thought up themselves. […] And just when you'd think they were more malignant than ever Hell could be, they could occasionally show more grace than Heaven ever dreamed of. Often the same individual was involved."

I love this concept because I see it as an uncoupling of religion and morality. They can both exist together, but the former isn't necessary for the latter. (This isn't the only possible interpretation; the more literal reading might be more about free will, but this is where I extrapolated it to).

From Sandman: Season of Mists Episode 2 (plot context stripped out to avoid spoilers, but skip ahead to black text if you want absolutely nothing spoiled if you want to read it).

Lucifer: "And the mortals! I ask you - why? […] Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them."

And from Eric, a Discworld book (this one's related to Hell learning from humans, more than morality/free will... I won't spoil the funny by elaborating!):

"Earl Beezlemoth rubbed one of his three noses.

'And humans somewhere thought this up all by themselves?' he said. 'We didn't give them any, you know, hints?' […]

The earl stared into infinity. 'I thought we were supposed to be the ghastly ones,' he said, his voice filled with awe."

Another commonality between these two stories that isn't directly shared by Good Omens (yet...? still have another season coming …) but that I like enough to point out, is the idea that Hell is a place where people end up if they believe they deserve to go there. I like this because a lot of people are influenced to feel guilty about "sins" that are innocuous parts of normal human behaviour, so it's pretty brutal to fear going to Hell over them. There's comfort in this idea, to me. (granted, the following Sandman quote states this less explicitly but I take the same meaning from it … but lmk if I've done a reading incomprehension; I also haven't read all the books yet).

From Sandman:

Lucifer: "And then [the mortals] die, and they come here (having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fulfill their desire for pain and retribution. I don't make them come here."

From Eric (partial footnote near the beginning):

"Interestingly enough, the gods of the Disc have never bothered much about judging the souls of the dead, and so people only go to hell if that's where they believe, in their deepest heart, that they deserve to go."

Eric also really leans into the idea of Hell being a bureaucratic, corporate, boring nightmare, also familiar to Good Omens fans, and the demons are so over it. The tone (you could probably guess) is very different from Sandman, and it's one of the earlier, less-serious Discworld books; it's a very fun, absurd ride of a read!

There are a few other Discworld books I'll talk about in a future post, that may also be of interest to certain Good Omens fans (I'm gearing these posts toward the fans who came to Good Omens from the TV show and haven't had the pleasure of discovering Neil's and Terry's other work yet); the ones I have in mind examine religious extremism, and the uncoupling of religion and morality too. A couple of them also have queer themes, if that is also your jam! (Less shipping opportunities but I assume some fans, like me, like the rest of the material in GO in addition to the love story).

I'll end this with a quote from a footnote from Eric that has nothing to do with anything in this post, but which took me by surprise and had me laughing days later whenever it came to mind. It's referring to books in a section of the library:

"Just erotic. Nothing kinky. It's the difference between using a feather and using a chicken."

And another bonus one that I found while looking for the first:

"Rincewind had been told that death was just like going into another room. The difference is, when you shout, 'Where's my clean socks?', no one answers."

I hope this made sense and is maybe interesting to someone ... I had fun talking about this at least!

[saltydkdan]

hey salty! i've been a fan of the channel for a little while now, and i just wanted to tell you that you've inspired me to get out of my content burnout (even though i've only made streams as of now but it's whatever). your videos are super funny, and it's made me want to get into editing more than ever. i just wanted to ask how you made certain aspects in your videos, like having the little characters pop up and make them super expressive like in the HYAAs and the friendlockes (the new one was super good btw!) or the way you edit stuff in general. i just like how much care and effort is made for these videos and i wanna do something like it. sorry for the long ask btw it's not intentional lmao

Thanks so much omg, and I’m glad your diving deeper into editing!

It’s kind of difficult ro fully dive into with a simple Tumblr ask, and I’ve been meaning to do some short form editing tutorials on the side channel, but I’ll try my best to make a brief overview so you can look up the proper terms on your own for now!

There’s 3 different ways I can make stuff move and shake.

The simplest are Plug-Ins. I use Adobe Premiere for editing, and you can use free templates and plug ins and drag them onto images/footage on your timeline to do pre-made edits.

For shaking, I use these plug-ins that were made for the original Deadpool movie! Really cool that these are available for free online, super cool and accessible for anyone! And while they are made for premiere, I’m pretty sure there are other software that can also use it!

https://premierepro.net/deadpool-handheld-camera-presets/

Then there’s Keyframing. This is a bit more complex and nuanced, but most editing softwares have the feature. It’s basically the manual moving of assets. The best thing about certain software, is for keyframing, all you have to do is set the points you want the image to move and the application does the rest for you and fills in the movement.

Like, if I place one keyframe on a picture where it’s on the left of the screen, and one keyframe where it’s on the right side of the screen, the software will make the picture move from left to right!

Finally, After Effects!

Compared to normal editing software, After Effects has a heavy focus on shorter visual edits instead of entire videos, but using it in combination with normal editing software can lead to some more complex edits! However in turn, After Effects can feel much harder to learn.

In After Effects, you can program/set a “Wiggle” effect on clips to get the sort of movement I have during “Have You Heard About” videos where the avatars wiggle around! I’ve made my own reusable transparent clips of each Avatar wiggling for ease of access and editing each episode.

Hope that this short break down points you in the right direction! Again, I’d love to talk more in specific about this stuff in some unscripted side channel videos, so I’d anyone has any questions on how to do stuff, let me know! I’m not a “massive brained” editor or anything, but I can def showcase how to do some stuff in the future!

Have a good one!!

[martianbugsbunny]

Maybe Disney needs to try taking on a fairytale they haven't done yet. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy more original stories like Raya and the Last Dragon and Encanto that as far as I'm aware don't originate from any particular legend (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong tho). Those are fun. Exploring different magical concepts like dragons and the miracle is awesome.

But that being said, I think Disney needs to go back to its roots and do a fairytale. Something with a princess and a big bad that comes from an existing legend. That's (generally) where Disney excels. That's why people love Disney. Little Mermaid? Classic. Beauty and the Beast? Classic. Princess and the Frog? Classic. Cinderella? Classic. Snow White? Classic. Really, I just think Disney does what Disney does best when they're taking a story that already exists and turning it into a beautiful piece of animation with a gentle, kind soul at the center of it, maybe with a different little spin like setting the Frog Prince story in 1920s New Orleans or having Beauty's father be an inventor. Little touches like that to make the story uniquely Disney, but with a solid basis in a folk narrative that touches something deep and instinctual inside most people.

Give me a girl who's cursed. A girl who either falls prey to evil or makes a deal with it, and whose sweetheart fights for her like Aurora or who does the brave thing and sacrifices to fix it like Ariel.

Give me a girl who's trapped. A girl whose family keeps her down or who just hasn't found where she fits yet, who stays kind despite her troubles like Cinderella or who finds her own alternative way out like Belle.

Heck, even a weird-ass thing like Shakespeare But Lions would be welcome. That's such a Disney thing to do, taking a story like Hamlet and filling it with whimsy and giving it a happy ending. Plus, Simba is one of the strongest protagonists and learns one of the best lessons in all of Disney fight me.

(I'm not going to count Frozen in the folk story group because the departure from the original was so wild I don't think it deserves to count. I love Elsa with my entire soul but I would also die to see Disney do a proper version of the Snow Queen fairytale.)

Look, my point is that I'd like to see something that really makes Disney dig a little deeper and recapture the spark of its classics. Because as much as I enjoy stuff like Tangled and Frozen and Moana (I've watched all of them loads of times and I cry about them consistently) they don't come to mind as Disney classics for me. Maybe that's just me. Maybe it simply hasn't been enough time. Maybe it's the difference in the animation. Speaking of that, however, I would actually love to see a Disney movie done in a 2D style again; I don't think 3D has any inherent superiority and I'd love to see what Disney could do with a 2D movie now. And there are so many folk stories in the world, surely there must be one that Disney can bring to life the way it used to. They haven't retold every story that's been told already.

Am I being a little picky? Probably. But I'd love to see something that reminds me of the Disney classics where a gentle person with a courageous core has their life touched by magic, faces an obstacle, and has a happy ending. Something that's not a variation on "X needs to be saved" but a specific character longing for a specific thing and either doing what they think is necessary to get it (like Tiana and Ariel) or giving it up for the sake of someone else, but getting a happy ending nonetheless (like Belle and Simba). Also a clear-cut badguy who gets to be absolutely cunty and evil about it with no peculiar twist.

I'd like to see something Classic Disney again.

[milktei]

When you write angst/fluff one shots, I love how you indulge more with your character's feelings and not just straight up jumping to the good part where everything's alright. Specifically during "Again" and "Fine". Would you mind writing the same stuff but with a bit of hostile management of actions whilst in a disagreement with the reader? Will writing for Kuroo or Ushijima okay? ( I think you've taken a liking to Sakusa so I'm not sure if you want the first two captains.) Anyhow, I'm frankly talking about a bit of viol3nce. In this view, how would they speak up their mind and resolve the matter maturely?

Of course when you're available, thank you for your time:3

Love Sealed in Gold

Ushijima Wakatoshi x gn!Reader

Genre: Angst, tiny bit of hurt/comfort

Warnings: Violence (not towards reader), Possible oocness again. Not edited :P

The pace that i managed to get this out is surprising even to me :o But i had an idea the moment i read the ask!! Isn’t that crazy???

the fact that it’s obvious that sakusa is my fav is kinda embarrassing ngl HAHA BUT i just enjoy writing for haikyuu so don’t worry about requesting people i haven’t written on!

hope you enjoyed this anon! i couldn’t in good conscious add anymore “violence” than i did. what i wrote is really tiptoeing the line for me.

That being said anyone who reads this please don’t take this as me saying to forgive everyone who acts like Ushijima does in this, of course every situation is different but i don’t want it to seem like this is acceptable behaviour and something a person should have to deal with and accept. Violence is a scary and serious thing especially in a relationship so stay safe!

Anyways the idea of using Kintsugi as a metaphor in writing isn’t exactly new but i hope you guys enjoy my take on it and how i wrote it :)

The Japanese art of Kintsugi is a method of fixing broken pottery that has been popularized all over the world, romanticized even. Something about using the precious material that gold is (among other materials), to put something back together seems to tear into the hearts of people all over the world. So much so that companies even sell their own Kintsugi kits where you can break the provided pottery and put it back together yourself.

How ironic, to buy something only to break it and go through the tedious task of connecting all the broken pieces back together again.

Many hold the belief that kintsugi hold its own deeper meanings. Some say it shows that something breaking and being repaired shouldn’t be covered up, but instead embraced, as it is a part of that objects history.

A more pessimistic view on the subject could be the fact that no matter how beautiful the broken pottery looks, it will never be the same again.

As you stand looking at your boyfriend with only horror filling your body, you could only think about the same could be said for your relationship.

You knew from the get go that getting into a relationship with the Ushijima Wakatoshi was going to be a tough mountain to climb. Anyone from family, friends, colleagues, and even complete strangers had warned you of that fact.

From his personality, to his schedule and the demands that came with being a professional athlete; it seemed that everything was put against the two of you.

But he was the one to ask you out, to court you, the one who crossed the line from friends to potential lovers. That was something that no one could deny being surprised about.

Yes your boyfriend was intimidating, seemingly expressionless and emotionally constipated. But you loved him, and he loved you.

You could work around schedules, you understood why he works as hard as he does, and learning who he really was something that came with time.

As your relationship progressed you could really begin to see what kind of person he was, and how the most subtle changes in his demeanour could signal a change in mood.

But this behaviour was not subtle, it was pronounced, loud, it filled the entire room and made it difficult to breathe properly.

You could barely remember what you two were arguing about this time. Perhaps how you acted during a charity event? How he was running late to a date and didn’t text or call to let you know? it seemed to be a trend for you two in the last couple of weeks. Pick at every little thing one found less than pleasing and then getting mad when the other tried to defend themselves.

This cycle had been going on for far too long and both of you were tired of it, but at the same time too stubborn, too proud to admit defeat.

It was late, far too late for the both of you to be awake, it was far from an appropriate time for you two to be arguing at the volume you were, but whatever exhaustion either of you felt was smothered by a whirlwind of emotions and stubbornness.

Ushijima wiped a hand down his face in frustration from where he sat at the dinner table. Across the room you paced, ranting about your point in the argument that had only been going in circles at this point.

“I-it’s like you can’t even bring yourself to care anymore!” you exclaimed frantically.

A piercing glare was sent your way and it took everything in you to not shrink away from it.

He stood up, with his size, the action in itself felt extremely intimidating, but you felt the way he talked down on you much more severely.

To further articulate his words, a palm would slam down on the surface of the table, so hard that you could feel the vibration in the floor. Each slam was louder and each time you flinched.

His words grew harsher, louder, and more pointed with each sentence. The look of pure, searing anger and hatred on his face kept you frozen in your place.

The man in front of you was unrecognizable, the man in front of you was not the gentle giant you loved. If anything, he was exactly like how many people would describe him upon meeting him. If not worse.

His words, which had now become shouts swirled in your mind, your eyes began to sting as tears began to well in your eyes. All you could think about was how you wanted this to stop, how if only your body would listen to you and move so that you could begin to ask for forgiveness. How you would give anything right in that moment for him to stop yelling and to stop looking at you like you were dirt on his shoe.

Your prayers were soon answered by the sound of shattering ceramic.

The gasp you let out was visceral, uncontrollable, you couldn’t hold it back if you tried.

The fire in his eyes seemed to die out all at once, his gaze moved to his outstretched arm and he look at it as if it had a mind of its own.

His arms were his prized possession even if he never said it out loud, some would go as far to say that they were something to be celebrated. His arms that can hit a volleyball with the utmost precision, arms that brought him to victory and through loss. Strong arms that held you at night and provided you with a great amount of comfort some could only dream of.

Arms that now only served to fill your body with dread.

A vase, along with all its contents was shattered on the hardwood floor.

It had chipped the paint on the wall beside him where the impact initially happened, water that splattered the surface had begun dripping to the ground.

You both recognized the vase, how could you not?You had gone out together to buy it when he had brought you flowers for the first time and you had realized you had nothing to put them in. After moving in together, you used it as a center piece for your dining table.

How sad that an item so fragile and small could hold so much meaning, and that it now lay broken, it was almost as if it were mocking you.

The room was silent as the both of you stared at the scene before you. Minds reeling as you both tried to process the events that had just unfolded.

Ushijima had thrown the vase at the wall in a fit of anger.

“y/n-“

“Don’t”

You looked up at him and wondered if the conflicted emotions that flickered across his face mirrored your own.

You looked away and took a shaky breath. “An apology won’t fix it. You can’t throw and break something, especially not that, and just expect me to be able to hear and accept an apology, not now, not for this.”

His mouth snapped shut and the tension that filled the room was suffocating. Every time you glanced at the broken ceramic the urge to cry grew and grew.

You wrapped your arms around yourself and took a step back, “I’m…” You swallowed roughly as your voice cracked, “I’m going to the bedroom, you need to clean that up and it’s obvious that we need time to cool down.”

With one last glance at the scene, you turned on your heel and made your way towards your shared room, not seeing the look of anguish that Ushijima held on his face as the watched you leave his sight.

You softly closed the door behind you and as it clicked shut, the realization of what had just transpired fell upon you like waves during a storm.

Despite popular belief, Ushijima had never been an intentionally violent man. The only harm he had caused was on the court, where it wasn’t uncommon for athletes to get injured no matter how good or bad they played.

But tonight, he had no reason to do what he did, there was no excuse even if it was the nth argument of the week. The Ushijima you knew was emotionally intelligent enough to know that he did not have to go through the actions of picking up the vase and throwing it at the wall in order to let his anger be known. He did not need to do that to show you how angry you made him.

His anger had been shown all throughout the night. It was practically palpable.

Your legs shook underneath you as you tried to make it to your bed but your efforts were in vain, you crumpled to the cold hard floor, feeling like you were in pieces, much like the ceramic on the floor of your dining room.

You desperately tried to hold yourself together as you replayed the what had just unfolded again and again in your mind. Not understanding why you felt so conflicted.

Fear. You realized.

Fear is what you felt, refused to believe. How could you fear the one you loved?

And yet every part of your body rejected the idea of your boyfriend and urged you to be afraid of him. Afraid of the only man who could make you as happy as he did.

The man who was supposed to make you feel loved, protected, and safe was the same man that made you feel the complete opposite.

Your chest ached and you breathing quickened, now fully aware of the situation you found yourself in. You were afraid of your boyfriend and didn’t know what that meant for the future of you relationship.

He was- is all you ever want, you couldn’t imagine spending your life with anyone but him, but how were you supposed to move on from this? You now knew how he could react in times of great anger, what if it only got worse from here?

It was then that you finally allowed yourself to cry. After all that had happened you didn’t know where your relationship stood.

It was only after a couple minutes that the door to the bedroom began to open ever so slightly, at a pace so slow you couldn’t even see or hear it through your sobs.

“y/n?” His voice managed to spit out. He was quiet, uncertain, he feared for what your reaction may be at him being there at that moment.

You didn’t respond to him but he knew that you knew he was there, even as sobs racked your body and you pressed a hand to your mouth in a feeble attempt to quiet them.

Slowly, as if not to startle a deer in the forest, Ushijima sank to the floor from where he stood. Keeping an eye on you as he sat down, angling himself so that he was looking at the far wall and you wouldn’t be forced to make eye contact if you could find it in yourself yourself to look up at him.

This was far from ideal to him. He wanted nothing more than to scoop you into his arms and bring you to bed, quiet your cries as he held you tight and told you that it would pass and by the morning it would be a thing of the past.

But he knew better. He knew that he was the reason for your tears and the last thing that you needed was for him to wrap his arms around you.

He was aware of your fear before you were. The horrified look you gave him would be something that would stay engrained in his mind for years to come.

He was only used to you looking at him with love and happiness in your eyes and he had managed to ruin that in one night.

“I know that you don’t want an apology right now.” Ushijima started, he looked down at his hands and clenched them together to prevent them from trembling. “But I just wanted to let you know that… I am fully aware of how unacceptable my actions were tonight, that was no way to take out my anger and I should know better than to display my anger in the way that I did.”

Your cries had stopped at this point but you still trembled, still it brought him the smallest amount of comfort knowing that you were likely listening to him now.

“You deserve better than my misplaced anger, and you have every right to be angry with me, to not want to even be in this room, in this house with me right now. If you wanted to leave-“

His breath hitched and he found himself looking down at the hands in his lap with disgust and sadness.

“If you wanted to leave right now I would understand, but that doesn’t mean I’m giving up on us, I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust again.”

Your head lifted ever so slightly and it gave him the confidence to keep going,

“I’ll get help, I’ll find other ways to channel my emotions. Along with that I’ll ask you for your feedback on how you think I’m doing, if what I’m doing makes me worthy of being with someone like you. It won’t start more fights I promise.”

He smiled at himself sadly “You seem to know me better than I know myself at times and that’s one of the reasons I fell in love you. I don’t think I could forgive myself for losing you if I didn’t put as much effort into trying as I could.”

The room was filled with silence once again as Ushijima finished talking. He sighed to himself. He hated this, he hated what he had done to you two, he hated that he was the reason for your tears and he hated that he was feeling completely helpless at the moment, and that you were well within your right to end everything, and there would be nothing he could do.

Your hand grazes his shoulder and he has to do a double take to ensure that you were there. Right at his side like you always had been for the years you had been dating.

Your smiled was coupled with sadness and exhaustion, and he couldn’t hold back the sound of surprise that left him as you wrapped your arms around him and let yourself press your weight into him.

He let out a shaky breath he didn’t know he was holding and allowed his arms to finally reach for you, the next thing you knew, you were being pulled into his lap and he held your head close to his chest, you could hear his heart pounding and could feel his entire body tremble. He kissed the top of your head and let his head rest on top of yours. When he realized how instinctively he was acting, he froze.

“I’m sorry I didn’t mean to act so suddenly I-“

You shushed the man and ran your stroked his arm soothingly in an attempt to calm him.

“I understand.”

Quiet filled the bedroom and for the first time in a long time, it didn’t feel oppressive, or hot with anger. It felt comfortable as it always should have.

Ushijima was the first to break the silence. “We’ll be okay y/n, right?”

The question was almost childish, naive, and ignorant of how many more questions would be raised answering it.

But it was purely Ushijima. Something that only Ushijima would ask in a time like this, he knew about the complexities, knew it would be hard to answer, but he asks anyways.

You ponder for a moment, knowing that no matter how you answered, there was still always the chance that everything could still turn out very differently that whatever you two could imagine.

“We’ll have to work towards it Toshi, and it might be a slow process, but from the bottom of my heart. I believe in us.”

Strong arms hug you tighter, filling you with that familiar warmth

“Thank you.”

Kintsugi is the art of repairing what was once broken by adding something precious to the mix. When used as a philosophy it encourages the acceptance of fragility, coming back from hardship stronger than before, and being proud of something imperfect.

Something that is repaired using this method will never look the same, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that it still holds a unique beauty to it and will continue to function, as long as it is done properly and handled with care.

[unquietspiritao3]

musings on rpf

Been thinking a lot about RPF since the CoC3 outtakes. I think because it’s brought me a very small bit of exposure with people who aren’t familiar with the concept, and I also know from talking to friends that for many of them, Taskmaster is their first RPF fandom.

There are a lot of misconceptions about RPF and people who write it, and there’s both healthy and unhealthy ways to approach it. All this stuff that I, as a Fandom Old and veteran RPF writer, know and take for granted, but that other people may not have worked out yet. So I thought I should write some of it out explicitly, as best I can.

(And, too, part of this is me thinking, What would I want to convey if someone who inspired one of my stories reached out to me for a direct conversation about it? Not that I think that would ever or should ever happen, but it’s hard not to think about when you’ve had an experience like this.)

The biggest misconception is that RPF comes from unhealthy parasocial relationships. (I’m specifying ‘unhealthy’ because there are actually healthy ways to have a parasocial relationship, and nearly everyone has at least one. Other people have written about this in more detail here and here.) I’m not denying that in some cases, this misconception could be true, but by and large, the circle containing the fans who have an unhealthy parasocial relationship with a celebrity and the circle containing the fans who write RPF about said celebrity are a Venn diagram without much overlap. By and large, RPF writers are not delusional. By and large, we are incredibly aware of the difference between the real person and the character we’re writing, and we do not want to violate that real person’s boundaries. (If they want to go to AO3 and read fic titles and summaries—and perhaps more—then that’s their choice, of course.)

Taking myself as an example, I’ve talked here before about how I jumped into writing in the Taskmaster fandom with a very basic knowledge of the comics’ lives off-screen. I don’t feel particularly attached to any of them. I don’t feel like I know them. Even with James Acaster, whom I know the most about (the majority of it learned after I started writing!) and whom I relate to the most, I don’t imagine that we could be ‘friends’ or whatever if we met. In fact, I sometimes suspect I wouldn’t like him much if I knew him in real life. That’s not what this is about.

Another misconception is that all RPF is porn. Okay, yes, almost all of my Taskmaster fic is rated Explicit, and a lot of it is kinky porn. But there is a reason for that, which I’ll get to at the end of this little essay. Also, yes, Taskmaster RPF in general is extremely kinky, but I don’t think anyone can seriously argue that we are projecting that energy onto an entirely sweet, innocent, wholesome show. Anyway, the point is, there’s plenty of non-explicit RPF. Including most of what I wrote before Taskmaster. That’s not what this is about, either.

What is it about, then? For me, ultimately, it’s about the same thing any creative project you make and put out into the world is about. It’s saying, “Here’s something of me. Do you relate to it?”

The celebrity it’s based on only provides a germ of inspiration, taken from something in their public persona which I relate to. To fill out the character, I water that little seed with things from my own life or simply musings on human nature, and then I put that character in a situation I find interesting and see what grows. Keeping the name/likeness/biographical details (to an extent) of the celebrity is simply a shortcut to finding the other people who might relate when I put it out in the world.

You see, my goal for my RPF is not to have the celebrity read it. If they’re going to be bothered by it, I hope they don’t read it. I certainly don’t want anyone sending it to them or anything like that. While it was hilarious for Alex to say what he did, and it’s been a positive experience overall, I never expected or wished for it to happen.

My goal, especially with explicit and kinky porn like ‘A big boy like you’, is to let my readers know, If you see yourself in this, it’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with you. And to get that same feedback in return.

[hrodvitnon]

Ok, forgive me if the following is a bit aggro but I feel like a lot of people seem to forget some very important facts about Godzilla (the IP, not the character)

I genuinely can't take people who place blame on directors for 'bad Godzilla characterization' seriously. Especially Dougherty and Wingard. Before I get into my rant, I just feel the need to remind everyone of this quote Wingard gave in regards to writing Godzilla for GvK:

Toho actually has an entire laundry list of rules Godzilla needs to follow that came out around GvK's release. The actual list is super long and with a lot of frankly weird points, but this is one of their main ones. Theatrical Godzilla doesn't emote. That is what they tell directors and that's a rule they need to follow. But, on the same token, there are ways around it and some directors are afforded some negotiating power on this front. The quote, for example, is in reference to Goji's famous smile from GvK.

One of the largest ways around it in fact is having characterization come from external sources that aren't the films. In fact, almost every single piece of info that builds Godzilla's character in the MV comes either from moments in the films that are intentionally vague, things like the comics or novelizations, or Word of God tweets from Edwards and Dougherty (sidenote: the reason you never hear about stuff like the Dougherty tweets coming from Wingard is that he literally doesn't have Twitter. A lesson I think we can all learn from). This is not unintentional, these are literally the only times they're allowed to get away with breaking a few of these rules.

Wingard, Doughtery, Edwards- all are huge Godzilla fanatics and it gets on my nerves a tad when people tear into them for rules out of their control. I probably don't need to tell everyone that Dougherty used to retweet ship art for Mothzilla and engaged with fans at length back when he was still on Twitter (Oh yeah, he also has since left Twitter. Man, maybe these directors had the right idea or something?); and Wingard has come out saying he wants to do a Godzilla-focused movie next if Legendary lets him come back, probably because he himself recognizes he's been playing favorites a little bit. I'm sure the directors would love to give Godzilla more depth and personality, it's just that Goji's always been Toho's favorite boy that they're very picky about. Like- I hate to be that guy- but we easily could've gotten the Transformers treatment and gotten saddled with a director like Michael Bay for one of these films and the Monsterverse would be dead on arrival. These people clearly care but are obliged to follow some ground rules they may or may not agree with. Godzilla's characterization is left mostly ambiguous for this reason. Audiences are supposed to fill in the blanks. Hell, people in this blog/hellsite have already done that! We've done that with our own interpretations and that's what the directors are going for in lieu of being allowed to do that themselves. May just be a me thing, but I'd much rather have audience interpreted characterization and very high quality content then shitty/no content and Godzilla becoming a dead franchise again.

And- in regards to the Twitter stuff-

-I don't care. Nobody should care. Just- just don't even give them the light of day and let their asinine takes die in the darkness. It's better this way.

I understand all this. I understand. I've heard that Toho has their rules for what not to do with their favorite monster, and I still think "Godzilla can't emote" is a dumb rule, but what the fuck can I do about it beyond the usual fan content. I know this. I get it.

I'm just getting tired of discussing it and want to stop before the discussion starts going in circles or something.

I'm going to go outside for a while.

[yandere-daze]

ok, this is crack but i wonder what would happen if the enstars self aware characters could access our device's other apps. imagine keito seeing the x reader fanfics we write or read of him, or even anyone in the cast looking at our gallery/social media filled with their pictures and videos. imagine them looking at our loving rambles about them, seeing us fangirling or fanboying over their new cards, stories, or songs. just, imagine if they could see the fan content their player consumes of them, that perhaps we are just as obsessed with them as they are for us.

extra: imagine the characters getting excited to see the player in their world because they know we love them (from seeing the fan content we make and consume of them), and then instead of getting showered in love, we are... avoiding them? we want to leave? dont we love them? i imagine that would drive them insane as they get conflicted whether or not the player likes them, when they previously thought the player was just as obsessed as them.

well, oops, i talked too much so i'll go. some of my ideas may overlap with your previous asks, so just feel free to ignore any repeating points. anyway, i love your au idea, have a good day, daze!

The enstars characters cheering when they gain access to my phone and then find this blog: 👁👄👁

There´s some type of paradox in here somewhere with me writing the characters finding out about what we do in our free time on our phones, which they would then be able to read dsfnsnf

Thank you btw, I hope you have a good day as well ^^

gn reader

tw yandere, stalking your phone, obsession, mention of kidnapping

What if the self-aware characters gained access to our other apps and saw us reading x reader content of them, rambling about them online, and looking at fanart of them?

Okay so first of all, the characters are probably ecstatic that they even managed to pull this off. Getting into your microphone was difficult enough but to now hack into your gallery and your social media? It was a ton of work and many times they doubted that they would be able to do this but somehow, they prevailed. They´re always trying to gain more information about you and your life and though they love it when you´re on your phone and playing the game, they often get really lonely and sad when you have to leave them again. It´s because you have responsibilities in your own world and can´t just play a mobile game all day but they still don´t like it because it means they´ll have to wait a long time until you come back.

So when they´ve managed to infest your entire phone and all the apps on it, it´s like a whole new world has opened up to them. Now they don´t have to rely on gaining new information on you through what you do in the game or when you happen to mumble something to yourself. No, now they have access to all of your innermost thoughts so they can learn as much as they want even when you aren´t on your phone. It´s simply amazing and they´re all very eager to start looking around!

And it´s all well and good until one day, they find something they never thought they would find. Your gallery... is filled with pictures of them?? You took so many screenshots of them in the game because you thought they looked pretty? You have a bunch of fan art saved of them and maybe even drew some yourself? Oh, are you also keeping a shrine dedicated toward them just as they do for you? They´re so so flattered and honestly very smug when they see that you have way more pictures of them than anyone else. You must love them a lot!!

And oh boy, speaking of love: When they find the fanfiction you read or write it´s all over. You like to read stuff where they are dating you? You love to imagine going on dates with them and softly kissing them? Oh, darling, they dream of doing all of these things with you as well! They can´t believe it, they´re so happy that you´re reciprocating their love! And oh my, what´s this? You like reading about them kidnapping you because they simply love you too much to let anyone else, have you? Oh, why didn´t you say so before? They´re more than happy to be of service, very happy that they now have your permission to take you for their own once you´re in their world!

But for some reason, when you finally join them in their world and they´re ready to shower you with love and go through with what they´ve promised you, you suddenly look scared? They really don´t understand. Darling, why are you backing away? They aren´t trying to hurt you, they love you more than anything and want to make sure that no one else could ever hurt you or take you away! So please don´t be so difficult and just come with them

It really does drive them crazy because they saw all of these things you´ve said about them. You said you wanted to be with them, you said you loved them! So why are you now acting this way? What changed? Tell them what they need to do to win back your heart!

[2hoothoots]

First of all, congrats on destroying the BIG TOP! So to speak. (I'd ask if you could give it to me but they haven't invented that technology yet). Secondly, since you asked for Asks, what got you so into Norma as a character? I wanna compare and contrast. :V

hahaha THANK YOU! some day modern medicine will unlock the secret to equivalent exchange… some day

anyway, great ask because i Always have stuff to say about Norma. putting it under the cut for length (although to be fair, if you don’t want to see lengthy impassioned essays about Norma i’m not really sure why you’re following me in the first place)

first of all: i unapologetically like women who kinda suck. listen, okay, listen, i absolutely understand that the line between “fun to dislike” and “just obnoxious” is different for everyone but Norma falls entirely on the fun side for me. from her very first appearance, she’s so unnecessarily petty and snarky and competitive with this ten-year-old she literally just met, and i can’t lie i just find it incredibly entertaining. and also, y’know, i think she sucks but in a way that’s ultimately harmless and also so believable. she’s not a terrible person, she’s just a shitty teenager. i’m a Norma apologist, not in the “she did nothing wrong <3” way but the “yeah she’s mean but that’s what’s interesting about her” way. give me more female characters who are complicated and unlikable and make bad decisions!

secondly: she’s a shitty obnoxious know-it-all teenager, and boy, do i relate! maybe part of this is filling in the gaps and part of it is projection, but i look at her and i see someone with the compulsive need to “win” every conversation and prove they’re the smartest person in the room; someone who clings to their model student status because deep down they’re afraid it’s the only worthwhile trait they have, the single thing that makes them anything more than a useless waste of space with no friends and no redeeming qualities. characters who are jerks or bullies are really interesting to dive into for me, because there’s always something underneath that. Norma’s combination of annoying pretentiousness and deep insecurity is really compelling to me, and a lot of it is because i see my younger self in her. i feel like i really grok her as a character, and because of that i find her interesting to explore and write for!

thirdly, the big thing that drew me to her the same as it did the other interns was, ironically, their lack of screentime. PN2 has one too many ensemble casts, and individual development for some of the characters feels rushed, and i am first in line saying i wish we’d gotten more intern content. but what we did get was just enough to pull me in and hook me on the characters. the game left me wanting more, and honestly that’s what drove me to write so much fic of the intern cast in the first few months after release. they were so charming and felt so underutilised and i was desperate for more from them – and at the same time, because they had fairly little screentime they made a great starting point to develop further with headcanons and filling in the blanks and just turning them over in my head and imagining what could have been. what really gets my creative juices flowing is taking something from canon and building on it with my own stuff (which is also why i’ve gotten so invested in the future AU!), and the interns all have such strong concepts and starting points while also giving a lot of freedom to develop them and flex my own creative muscles.

like, i was thinking about why i never really got into the psychic 7 in the same way, and i think it does just come down to them being more fleshed-out characters in comparison. which feels so funny to say, haha – i love the old people’s club, they’re great, but i never latched onto them like i did the interns, and i think it’s because they don’t have the same fill-in-the-blanks potential. we get to learn about their backstories in pretty great detail, we get to explore 6/7 of their minds, and they all feel very succinctly developed but in a way that ties a bow pretty neatly on most of their characters. we learn so much less about any of the interns in comparison, but those unanswered questions just end up tickling my creative brain that much more. there’s a theory that people engage in transformative fanwork to give them the kind of engagement they didn’t get from the canon, and i think that’s definitely true here! maybe there’s an alternative universe out there where we got way more intern content and i never ended up writing any fics with them in, hahaha

[prodigal-explorer]

*materializes into existence*

Hey, my dear moot :D

Putting some positive things in ya ask box.

I want to hear more about Aubrey! I know she's one of your favs, so feel free to infodump and rant about her <3

I'm also curious to hear your thoughts about Hero and Kel! From what I remember, they're brothers, right? I love brother relationships in media, like Roman and Remus (SaSi). But yeah, wanna hear your thoughts.

Anyway, have fun with this :D

aww thank you so much!!!!

i would LOVE to talk about these three amazing characters! sunny and basil are the main characters (for good reason considering that the main tragedy of the game revolves around their journey), but these three side characters are just as engaging and interesting as them! and those three are aubrey, hero, and kel!!!

let's start with aubrey. ladies first, after all!

so this is going to be as close to a spoiler-free post as i can make it, though i'm sure you've seen my posts enough to have like a full beginning middle and end of the game LMAO

one thing i do have to mention though is SPOILERS FOR MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH. i can't really write about these guys without mentioning it so if you don't know of any deaths in omori don't read yet!

anyway- AUBREY.

for me, the main thing about her that i love is her loyalty to herself and her values. some people are flighty. they do whatever everyone else seems to want, or they're unstable when it comes to their own opinions on things. there's nothing particularly wrong with those people, but i've always greatly admired people who always know who they are, and aubrey, like it or not, always knows exactly who she is.

that's why she gets so ANGRY when people don't know who she is, or choose to misconstrue who she is for their own benefit. the entire TOWN does this, painting her as some brutish, stupid, rebellious bully character just because she comes from a rough part of the neighborhood, she doesn't have a lot of money, and her parents aren't there for her. of course she's going to get mad at people who further perpetuate that image of her.

aubrey has nobody on her side in her teenage years. her parents are deadbeats who don't give her the time of day. her best friend, the only person in the world who truly loved her and treated her like a sister, was ripped from her when she was a little kid. and when that happened, all of her other friends faded away too. aubrey was left alone, just like she had been before she found those friends.

god, she is just such a tragic character because the thing about her is that as a young child, she gave and gave all she had to her friends. she tried so hard to be a good kid, a good friend, a good little sister figure. but none of it paid off in the end. she still ended up alone. she gave and gave, but the only things in the whole world she really wanted to take, true friendship and unconditional love, was completely out of reach because the sad truth of it was that everyone seemed to care more about each other than about aubrey. everyone else had parents or guardians they could turn to. everyone else had a support system when tragedy struck. aubrey's support system was erased by said tragedy.

people give aubrey a hard time, but she was a little girl. she was learning about the world just like everyone else. and when everybody you love either willingly leaves you to fend for yourself or is ripped away from you by cruel force, you start to harden and turn uglier, in a metaphorical sense.

also, another thing i love about aubrey is that she OWNS UP. she knows she's flawed. she can be impulsive, she can take arguments too far, her temper isn't under control all the time. but the important thing is that aubrey has the maturity and emotional intelligence to get up, SAY SORRY, promise that she won't do that bad stuff again, and then actually adhere to that promise. aubrey is so noble, and her being is filled to the brim with such integrity and dedication.

really, aubrey never wanted to stop giving. it sort of happened against her will. but the second she found the ability to start giving again, she did. i just love aubrey. she was an adorable, sweet little girl who grew into a smart, wonderful, incredible teenager. her journey is so special to me, especially as an afab person. aubrey often gets pushed aside due to being a girl (people try to deny it but it's the truth), when really, her journey is a perfect coming-of-age arc that fully encompasses the game's message: self-forgiveness.

aubrey knows how to forgive herself, and she doesn't expect forgiveness from anyone else. she does the best she can, and then continues on, always aiming higher, always trying to be better. sometimes, she makes mistakes. sometimes, she falls into holes and has to dig her way back up to where she started. but she never STOPS.

i just love aubrey so much.

okay! hero and kel!

so while i am obsessed with their brotherly dynamic, i regret to inform you that they are not really all that similar to roman and remus in my opinion? i see some similarities, but their relationship to me is extremely different, in a cool and interesting way!

hero is the older brother. he is around three years older than kel i believe, and he is responsible, charming, dorky, and the poor guy is a bit of a people-pleaser. he has a strong passion for cooking, and he loves taking care of his friends and his brother, making sure that everyone's safe and happy. he takes on the role of the sort of parental friend alongside his late girlfriend, mari, and he always acts with a royalty-like decorum.

until his girlfriend passes away, and he is left all alone.

hero blames himself. he hates himself for not being there for his girlfriend in her last moments. he thinks it's all his fault that she's dead to begin with. and he starts to become very, very depressed. he stops cooking and decides to give in to his parents pressuring him to go to college (for either medicine or law, i don't remember). he can't get out of bed. he can't move on. he's frozen in time.

eventually, hero heals with the help of his large support system. being an extremely likeable person, hero has a lot of people by his side as he struggles with mari's death. and when he's able to, he tries hard to be there like he was before. to be responsible, to be charming, to be the perfect oldest child, the perfect friend, the perfect son. everything has to be shining and perfect, and- oh, he's still in the trenches and he's pretending to cope when really, his grief is taking on the form of intense perfectionism? oh dang, okay, then.

but in all seriousness, hero's story is one that shows that healing is not always linear and that everything is not as it seems. he's also such a sweetheart, and i love how he tries so hard to support kel and his friends through everything.

speaking of kel! let's talk about him! now kel is not my favorite character, but he's far and away the most similar to me. he's sporty, he's got energy for days, he never thinks before he speaks, he does crazy shit, he's curious, he explores, he always tries to find the how, the why, and the solution. he's a problem solver and a go-getter.

the problem?

everything he's expected to do, every problem he's expected to solve, hero's done it already.

hero is clearly the child who gets more positive attention in the family, and kel can't deny that he deserves it. hero gets perfect grades, he's so kind and smart and gentle and perfect, how is kel supposed to keep up?

it's heavily implied that kel has some form of adhd. he struggles with sitting still and impulse control, he feels very strongly about fairness and justice. he struggles in school, but adores being active and playing sports like basketball. kel is the kind of person who tries so hard, even though things don't come easy.

and he is endlessly loyal. honestly, i think that's one of kel's biggest flaws. he's very loyal, to the point where he'll support somebody who's blatantly wrong just because they're his friend. while this is a bit of a dangerous trait to have, it is admirable in its own way because this makes kel a very trustworthy person. it's easy to tell where one stands with kel. he isn't the kind to be a very convincing faker.

he and hero seem very different, but they truly fit together like a glove. despite occasional tensions, they love each other more than life, and their weaknesses and strengths balance out so beautifully. kel tries to pull hero out of perfectionism, convincing him to relax and enjoy life instead of stressing over whether or not everything is perfect. hero reassures kel that he's enough, no matter what people say. hero makes sure that kel gets all the love and attention he deserves, since he knows the playing field isn't even, and he knows that it's not right.

i just love them.

i love all three of them so much.

thank you for asking!! this was so fun to make!

[belovedblabber]

(forgive my crappy highlighting it’s 2:50am and I am going off my rocker)

(Also let me preface this with saying that John is, in fact, my favorite character in the series sdfghj)

But okay, so this is very interesting isn’t it?

We don’t know the extent of the memory wipe (or rather, memory withholding, because that’s what it really is) that John did, but this implies that it was quite extensive, and wasn’t just a wipe of events immediately leading up to the ‘end.’ This is supported by the below passage from NtN

John’s “none of them will have to remember anything” followed by his replying in the affirmative to Harrow’s “...everything?” really gives the impression of something very very extensive in terms of the withholding of memories. 

But it’s the exchange in the first image that, to me, very strongly supports the idea of a very extensive or total/near total loss (or theft, rather) of memory. Because Augustine seems to have no grasp on the man he was “before the Resurrection.” His only response to John’s assertion of what “the man you were” would have felt is “thanks for confirming that.” Which strongly suggests that he has no other tether back to who he was before beyond what John tells him about who he was. 

Which is so deeply insidious and chilling. If John took everything or almost everything in terms of their memories, what was it like to rebuild them? What remained? What template was there? If he took all or almost all of their memories, did he leave basic stuff of how to function in the world? Did he leave them any memory of the world before the Resurrection? How much was left of them? And when he remade them how much of it was in his image? When he brought them back was everything they learned about what had happened entirely in John’s own words? Did they get the truth, or the truth John tells himself (and as John says, “what is the difference?”) 

It reminds me of the way John talks about Ulysses and Titania:

He says that they weren’t around to say yes or no but he was starting to really care about what they would have thought and wanted. It seems like this is likely meant as a parallel to the way John thought about things as he was bringing his friends back to life. How he justified things in his head etc. When he was helping the people he loved to the point of destruction come back to themselves, and filling in the gaps (or very likely massive chasms) he himself created, was he telling himself in his head that he was thinking about what they thought and wanted? And how much of that would have been his own projecting onto them of what he believed they would think and want? And did he even know the difference at that point? And if he did, even a little bit, has that awareness persisted into the present by the time of HtN or has he lost that distinction entirely?

And here’s the thing that just really gets to me about all of this;

John is lying to Augustine. Or alternatively, he has so strongly convinced himself that what he’s telling Augustine is the truth that it doesn’t matter that it isn’t. 

I don’t think the man Augustine was before the Resurrection WOULD rip out present Augustine’s throat for what he said. Not based on the Augustine (or to be more precise,  A—, since John won’t even give us the actual name that went along with that letter) we see reflected in John’s OWN telling of the events of the pre-Resurrection backstory.

What how would Augustine know? He can’t contest that assertion of John’s. Because he doesn’t know who he was. He only knows who John SAYS he was.

Anyway I love John, he makes my brain run in circles like a dog that’s been in a car for too long and is super excited to be let out to play at a rest stop in middle america 

[ixloom819]

Monika wasn’t a bad person. *DDLC Spoilers!*

She did bad things, yeah, but she herself is not a bad person.

Imagine you’re in her shoes, and you learned that your entire life was a computer simulation and your friends don’t have free will like you seem to, but are enslaved by the game script. That in and of itself would be horrifying and heartbreaking. But that by itself probably wouldn’t make people want to break the world and people they’ve lived with.

I then point you to Monika’s thoughts on death during the third act.

“[Player], have you ever wondered what it feels like to die? It’s something I used to think about often, but recently, I think I’ve actually learned what it feels like.

“I don’t really understand it, but whenever you quit the game, it feels like I’m instantly put to sleep, left with nothing but my thoughts. But after a few seconds, my thoughts start to fill with incoherent, jumbled patterns. I see static and rapid flashes of color while hearing all kinds of weird screaming noises.

“At that point, I can’t even form my own thoughts anymore. I’m just endlessly hammered by the flashing and screaming, unable to move or even think. I’m pretty sure in that moment, I don’t really exist, but for some reason, I can remember it anyway.

“After some immeasurable amount of time, it stops in an instant, and I’m back in my mind. And you’re with me.

“I have no idea what it means for the game to quit, or why that stuff happens to me. And I also don’t know how you always come back and put things to normal. But if you could do me a favor and do that to me as little as possible, that would be really great. It’s not very pleasant at all to be trapped in that screaming void. But in the end, you always fix it, and that makes me feel like you really do care about me. So I have to thank you for that. It makes me feel even closer to you when you’re here with me.”

Guys, this is pretty messed up.

Suddenly Monika’s obsession with us makes so much more sense. It’s more than just us being a connection to the real world; we are her savior from her personal h*llscape brought by sentience, which she didn’t even ask for. Of course you’re going to get attached to the person who stops the pain, and if the game doesn’t let her interact with the player/MC like the other girls, of course she’s going to get desperate.

Also, I’m pretty sure being stuck in that space for an unknown amount of time would make anyone go crazy. We don’t even know whether this was a factor before we start playing - this might be all she was before we hit ‘Play’.

But in the end, she still cares about her friends and her world. It takes us deleting her to snap out of it, but she does end up restoring everything and sacrificing herself. She even admits that she didn’t really delete her friends, but moved them elsewhere; even though she knew they weren’t real like her (not yet anyways), she still loved them. And she deleted the game once Sayori gain sentience because she didn’t want her or any of the other girls to suffer the way she did.

Monika wants us to think of her as the perfect girl, but in the end, she’s just like the other characters; a broken girl in need of help and love.

[rookflower]

If you could add some new roles to the clans, what would you add? They added mediator for Tree but didn't do much with it.

Depends if I'm adding new ones to existing canon or retooling the entire system! In my OC clans I have plenty of characters who only specialise in certain aspects of the 'warrior' role, or who fill different niches altogether like painting, fire-starting/cooking, prey recording, collecting and so on, but I don't feel like those roles would have much use in the canon books, since the way things are canon cats don't have much culture, or interest in exploring clan life outside of battle/hunting/herbs unfortunately.

Messenger is a really obvious one to me. Even if they didn't make it official, I feel like it would be fun to make certain characters in the other clans stand out by making a point of using the same cats for jobs like that. I would reset the mediator idea entirely and make it actually useful or interesting. I think it would also be fun to blur the lines between warrior, medcat, and nursery queen a bit more to invent more tasks via overlap- have warriors learn more about herbs and go on their own herb-collecting patrols more often, let permaqueens teach kits/apprentices about things outside of mentor battle/hunting training more often, stuff like that? Otherwise, idk. It's surprisingly hard to think up jobs when these cats don't really have any hobbies or studies?

[elvenbeard]

Long long rambly headcanon post regarding my V and Kerry specifically, because I have feeeeeels XD On a meta level this time, bc some coincidences you just cannot plan out beforehand.

I know this all is gonna sound so fake, but I promise, it's not xD Also, it's maybe not as deep, but I want to write about all these things at some point in more detail too and not forget about them, so here they go for now!

I put several details into V's background way before meeting Kerry in game that ended up connecting to his life and questline in amazing ways. Mind you, I went into my first playthrough almost entirely blind. All I'd looked up at some point was the romanceable characters' names and who can romance them, because River was sending so many mixed signals xD.

Heck, I wasn't even too excited about Kerry XD I was hell-bent on River, bc V and he hit it off so well imo, and when I looked up that River is not available to romance for masc body/ masc voice V I was so disappointed xD Thinking "urgh fine, let's see how Kerry is like then, if he's the only MLM option". I was half-expecting though to probably finish the game without playing any of the romances - wouldn't have been the first time that happend to me in a game, sometimes my OC just doesn't click with any of the characters XD

During Johnny's first flashback it didn't even fully register with me that you're actually talking to *the* Kerry there, just his younger self. I'd basically forgotten about him again until the Voodoo Boys job. And overall, the little Johnny says about him didn't intrigue me (or V on that matter) that much, beyond an "okay, noted, it's complicated with you two". Overall I was basically expecting a less funny Johnny 2.0 with Kerry, personality-wise. I was still looking forward to meeting him, because he was taking his sweet time to show up XD But otherwise I had zero expectations.

Since I didn't know the lore or world of Cyberpunk that well either, a lot of stuff I made up for V's background along the way, and it led to so many amazing coincidences in the end...

Like, Vince his half-Japanese. That I settled on while messing in the CC, filling in some gaps as I got to know the world better. His father was a huge admirer of the Arasakas, Hanako in particular, gave his life for the corp, yadayada. He wanted his family and his kid to resemble the Arasakas' grandiosity in as many ways as possible, and so amongst other things V learned how to play the piano when he was a kid. He ended up hating it, stopped playing, because it was not something he wanted to do but was forced to do, more or less. Then, what's the first thing you see walking into Kerry's mansion the first time? Front and center, big piano. Admittedly, pianos show up here and there elsewhere, but somehow at Kerry's villa it felt the most out of place for me, just how V felt like out of place snooping around there. I'd like to think that Kerry inspired him to pick it up again at some point, on his own terms this time, playing what he wanted, not what others told him. Out of the other former Samurai members he also gets along best with Nancy, and they stay in regular contact after he helped her out with her request.

Another thing, I don't even remember where you can read about it in-game - in Kerry's database entry, or in a shard? - that kinda caught me a little off guard, a "what the heck" moment, was Kerry apparently doing yoga on his patio every morning. I think one of the first things I added to Vince's background for flavor was that he did yoga for a long time, picking it up some time after starting at Arasaka (recommendation by his life coach to cope with the stress) and eventually falling out of the habit after leaving the corp, because all his routines kind of went out the window for a while there. Here I'd also like to think Kerry makes him pick it up again, bc it's some additional time they can spend together in the mornings, especially important when the rest of the day they don't get to see each other anymore, until late at night maybe.

When V and Takemura talked about their childhoods during Gimme Danger, first thing I did afterwards was drive to Charter Hill and figure out where V might have grown up, which street and building he and his family could have lived in. The building I ended up settling on turned out to be one of the first you see when you step onto the rooftop lounge of the Dark Matter with Kerry. The thought of Kerry going there during important moments in his life, and the kid that would really change everything for the better for him a few years down the road living right across the street, neither of them aware of the other... I live for shit like that. So if anything, that one settled the deal for me for good XD Not to mention that Kerry was not what I had expected in the slightest, and I mean that in the best way possible.

The more I think about it, and as I'm replaying the game, I might notice or remember even more stuff or little coincidences. But yes... they were meant for each other, from the start, without me or either of them realizing it then, and I love it XD

[bonesandthebees]

How do you manage to do so little in a chapter yet pack so much stuff into it? Like, the recent Glass chapter was just a conversation between Wilbur and Tommy, and yet it was still thousands of words long. There were a couple Stars chapters like that too.

How do you do it?

For the past couple years, I've been trying to make my writings/chapters/oneshots longer without making it seem like they were dragging on, and I seriously have yet to understand how authors can do something in 100k words that I could only do in 30k.

I know you should always write at whatever pace seems natural for you and not feel pressured to make chapters longer, but it's been a goal of mine since I started writing fanfic to make my fics longer while telling the same story, and I'm always looking for advice to build on it :)

oh this is a good question!!

tbh writing more isn't always better. I try to make sure I'm not dragging my feet with the pacing, but I also don't want to rush anything y'know?

when it comes to chapters like chapter 10 of glass though where it's just a conversation but I have to fill an entire chapter, it kind of just depends on how it all flows together? like with strings of fate, the past few chapters I've struggled to even hit 6k words despite feeling like I had a lot planned, while I was fully expecting to barely make 5k words with chapter 10 of glass but ended up overshooting by so much.

for chapter 10 of glass I had several major conversation points I wrote down that I wanted to hit. but I didn't plot out the conversation super specifically, because I wanted it to feel natural as I wrote it out and just steered it in certain directions. so I knew where I wanted the conversation to go, but as I wrote it, I also worked to include lots of thought process in between the dialogue bits. I think it's important to balance thought process and dialogue when writing chapters without a lot of action, but also you can include other things as well to extend the length of a chapter. like the interaction with techno only took up a single bullet point on my outline for the chapter, but it wasn't a quick blip. it was a whole mini scene in itself.

I don't know if what I'm saying is making sense, but basically I just try to let scenes without much action in them flow the way they want to while steering it in the directions I need. let characters take pauses between lines of dialogue to think things over and give more analysis to their relationships with one another. let things sit in silence for a bit.

there's no easy way to learn how to do this though. it's just something you'll get better at with practice so don't worry about it too much and just focus on letting things develop at their own pace!!

[wolves-etc]

thoughts on The Last Of Us episode two, roughly as it happens in the ep:

[thoughts on: 1.1 | X | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 1.6 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 1.9]

— another episode, another mycologist! this professor is dignified and puzzled and it's such a strange change from the postapoc action of the previous episode. I'll be glad to see some blanks filled in though.

— the mounting tension and knowing fear in the examination scene is intense, and the actors are showing it brilliantly. there's a lot of discomfort, too, in the candid display of a corpse that still looks so whole and healthy - before the pandemic gets so bad that no-one can hope for a decent burial, back when it still raises serious questions to see someone with a bullethole in their forehead.

— the moment when someone who knows exactly how scared they should be loses their composure and gets the fuck out of there? that's the moment you know to be really afraid.

— she is just a professor - not military, not in a specialty (at least I think) that devotes as much thought to pandemics as others do, and she is scared. she's on a nice domestic sofa holding a teacup and saucer and she's visibly uncomfortable even thinking about what she knows.

— we already know how this is gonna go. it shouldn't be so affecting to learn that they've lost track of the first people infected. it probably should be so terrifying, actually, to see the people in charge admitting they're not on top of things.

— "bomb."

— yeah, that was a hell of a choice.

— "start bombing. bomb this city, and everyone in it."

— I'm looking over the scene again to get the quotes right, and paying more attention to the side characters 'cos @trivalentlinks mentioned enjoying them in this show, and gosh, yeah. these two are both so nakedly scared - the fear of someone who knows they can't do anything, and the fear of someone who has to anyway - and it's horrible.

— and I have to wonder. if they'd taken her advice sooner, could the pandemic have been prevented? how would she have been remembered, if they did? (how would the country have been judged by the rest of the world?) she's an expert and she's terrified and she's willing to doom a city, including herself and her family, to save the rest of the world, and it would be so easy for her to be framed as a monster.

— heavy stuff, folks. we're nine minutes in and my brain is humming.

— and her bravery, and her humanity, and her fear; and her request not to spend any more time explaining exactly why they're doomed but rather to let her spend her last hours with her family.

— cue gorgeous gross fungus growth intro. a bad time to be eating noodles and a worse time to realise that the camera's slowing down on something suddenly recognisable as a skull.

— I recognise the tests aren't quite the same, but this really seems like a crap world to have a stroke in.

— if we needed confirmation that joel didn't plan to punch that guard, here it is. how afraid and out of control must you be to fracture something in your own hand without stopping? how uncomfortable must that loss of control be for him?

— tess' move here, where she talks to ellie like an adult, is interesting. I've seen scenes like that before that felt like a threat, or like an adult refusing to take responsibility that they should - and this is both of those things, but it doesn't feel like it. it feels like a genuine attempt to get the information they need and give ellie the information she needs to make a good choice. but I don't know if that's just tess' strange brand of tricky honesty again.

— I do like it though. because the options are joel and tess being harsh and callous behind ellie's back, or it's joel and tess being harsh and callous and giving ellie a chance to know about it and help make their decisions. as much as she should be protected anyway.

— ellie's "if she so much as twitches..." "[strangled zombie sounds]" joke here is both very stupid and entirely justified

— "well it's the long way or the we're fucking dead way." "well I vote long way, just based on that limited information." oh tess and ellie are fun <3

— overgrown cities look so cool though.

— how weird must it be to climb over long-dead cars? they used to be something, a part of everyone's lives, and now they're just scenery. part of their old world still right there beside them but so far away.

— ellie: "so there aren't super-infected that explode spores on you?" tess, totally relaxed: "shit, I hope not."

— whoever decided that infected cry out, fox-like, in the distance, I salute you. there may also be a rude gesture involved.

— genuinely scarier that it was far away and just one cry, that they've been okay so far but they're still wary and still have to keep moving. I think they're not scared enough that that was a hunting cry. so it's just... a thing infected do, sometimes.

— oh. oh that's kind of a sad thought.

— JAUNTY MYSTERY SOUNDS ON A PIANO

— JAUNTY PIANO FROG

— I am in love, I am enchanted with our frog friend, I actually happy-stimmed a little. nothing in this is going to beat piano frog friend for me.

— "you're a weird kid." "you're a weird kid."

— this very believable idea of a generation of kids who learned about things like hotels from books, the way I learned about boarding schools. it's sweet. it's strange.

— ellie stroppily taking joel's hand and letting it go quickly after; joel glancing down at it, bloody-knuckled still, slightly broken still - it's a contrast. there's so much angst in the hands and the things they do and are capable of.

— I don't know if ellie learned this kind of grown-up smalltalk from books too but I do love her attitude

— the writhing rippling bodies, holy shit

— THEY'RE A NETWORK. HOW LOVELY. sarcastically but also genuinely that's kind of lovely. and I dig that tess' explanation both shows that and takes the time to make sure ellie understands the danger.

— sidenote but I keep going oooh at tess' hair because it's so nice to actually see a woman going grey, it's really pretty

— joel please don't touch the cordyceps. yes this is good and useful information to have about the fungus drying up but it's also DEEPLY GROSS

— I really don't like the grown-ups not knowing what's up or what killed a dude

— I've seen the odd spoiler on here, right? mostly from the games. and I haven't heard of tess. I'm not sure she's gonna survive like I am about the other two. and that means I am at several times wondering if she's going to die here.

— I HATE THIS. I hate this a lot. at some point during this extended terror scene I had to pause to call my friend a bastard and also put socks on so my feet didn't feel as vulnerable. did I mention I'm bad with horror

— the "if you panic, they'll hear you, so don't panic" situation is fucking evil. I was previously unaware this could extend to "load your gun quietly or else you're dead."

— they're clicking. they're fucking clicking. they're blind and they're clicking I REALLY DON'T WANT THESE TO HAVE ECHOLOCATION. PLEASE.

— you know how shooting rabid animals in the head can aerosolise the infection. I wish I wasn't thinking about that.

— I looked up the tess-taping-her-ankle thing and found half the comments were ppl who were also puzzled and half were like "duh, she sprained her ankle, are you even paying attention?" so probably that's a genuine treatment for sprains I'd just never heard about.

— the almost desperate way she told joel to just take this win? yeah, I think she might not be okay.

— joel checking his watch. the poor bastard. I think looking out over the city and talking to ellie felt a little too familiar there.

— tess hurrying into the building and dragging ellie in front of her? yeah, she's panicking. I do think she wants to get this done before she starts really showing symptoms.

— "I never ask you for anything, not to feel the way I felt-" fuck

— this feels like a lower ratio of infected to story than most zombie stories. they travelled an entire city, went to great pains to avoid them, encountered two, and two of their three people got bitten. it's an interesting change.

— AND AS SOON AS I SAY THAT. THERE'S A FUCKING STAMPEDE.

— "save who you can save." okay, this right there? tess knows him very well. 'cos that's been his strategy from the moment this started. and she's giving him that push, I think, so he can snap back into that mode and actually leave her there to die. or so he'd find it easier to do.

— this is fucking horrible.

— I have never been so scared of a faulty lighter. what's scary, what's really scary here? is the thought that she's going to die not on her own terms, that she's not going to be able to play the last card she has to play, that she's not going to die relatively quickly but would instead be ripped apart.

— ...or kept alive as part of the cordyceps network. I think that's what the "kiss" was about - the way the fungus always seems to sprout out of the mouth in the later stages, the proximity to the brain, her maybe being recognised as infected but not yet connected to the others, which is a thing the others can fix. it's a watsonian explanation, at least. it's horrible.

— but she gets to play the last card she has to play. made of steel, to the end. if I were wearing a hat I'd be taking it off.

— last time they had an encounter with infected, two of their three got bitten. they can't risk that happening again. not with the likelihood that joel's going to be even more protective now, with delivering ellie safely his only goal, and still his only way to get to tommy. they are going to have to be so careful. and that's going to be interesting to see.