#how cole I didn't know about that kickstarter?!!

[shieldmaiden-tabris]

DRAGON AGE THE VEILGUARD SPOILERS BELOW! (Discussion of Solas and how new information provides context to a certain quest in Inquisition.)

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I'm thinking about Solas's disapproval in DAI, particularly in regards to Cole's quest where Cole can become more human or more spirit. At first, it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me why he disapproved. I chalked it up to Solas just preferring spirits to people and assumed it was because he thought he knew best, seeing as he was the team's resident spirit expert.

Now, it's been confirmed that Solas actually originated as a spirit. This confirmation just adds so much context to Solas as a character and also to that quest in particular.

Solas is not a spirit anymore and hasn't been for a long time, but we know from what we see in the Veilguard that one of his biggest regrets is agreeing to take a physical body. He never even wanted a body in the first place. He only agreed because Mythal asked it of him and because he loved her. From the time he took a body onward, Solas didn't really know peace. There was war with the Titans, then the rebellion against the Evanuris. After creating the Veil, he was asleep for thousands of years, and upon waking and seeing what had become of the world he created, was utterly devastated and overcome with guilt, and in his desperation, gave his orb to Corypheus to open and kickstarting the events of Inquisition, which is just one more thing he probably felt responsible for. I think he constantly questioned if any of this would have happened if he had just remained a spirit.

It's possible that Solas saw himself in that moment with Cole. He couldn't change the past, but I think he saw a chance to prevent another spirit from making the same choice he did; a choice that he considers as one of the biggest regrets of his existence.

Cole is a spirit of Compassion, which Solas makes a point to mention is uncommon. I think he's also afraid of Compassion vanishing forever, just like the other spirits he tells Rook he couldn't save.

I wonder if Solas sees Cole becoming human as another of his failures.

[mermaidsirennikita]

what would you say are the biggest trends when it comes to romance novels getting published nowadays and how do you feel about them?

Oh gosh, that's hard to say. In part because I am both deeply NOT on trend in what I seek out, and on trend in that I read a lot of ARCs from trad publishers? Who aren't the only trendsetters by any means, but are the ones with the most $$$.

(This got long so some of it goes under the cut.)

—Romantasy. Obviously. I hate the term romantasy, I think it's literally just made by marketers

(digression: I don't care if a random TikToker came up with the name, the nebulous thing that it IS... pure marketing, there is no definition, and I truly think that genre has to have DEFINITION to be a genre or even a subgenre, it can't just be what one random person thinks it is; you can genre-bend, play with it, but the people you are directing your product to needs to know SOMETHING about what they're buying; I'd compare it to selling a necklace and calling it jewelry without telling the buyer what the stones or metals ARE)

but undoubtedly this is a huge trend. There seems to be a biiiit of paranormal romance making a return with this—see: Kresley Cole's IAD rerelease books being marketed as "romantasy" when there's very little romantasy about that series.... But overall you see the connection to shows like Game of Thrones, etc, within them. Tons of dragons.

—Romcoms continue on. Lots of low stakes romcoms. I do not like these. A lot of the time they blur into women's fiction. The women's fiction blur I think has something to do with Colleen Hoover (though most of her books aren't intentionally funny) but also just publishing trying to capitalize on romance without committing to romance. Emily Henry is a good example of this. Sally Rooney is a more ~literary example. Jasmine Guillory. Etc etc.

They're impossible to really figure out, imo. Are they gonna be hot? Are they gonna be funny? Are they gonna be emotional? Yulin Kuang's How to End a Love Story is a great example of a book that is, to me, near-perfect. It's ABSOLUTELY a romance novel. But is it a romcom? Not really. It has funny moments and a beautiful HEA, but it's a VERY angsty book. Yet I saw it marketed as such.

—Kickstarter campaign books on the indie side, plus other ways to sort of circumvent the tradpub issue while also not... losing as much money. Several big time authors (in and out of romance) have seen huge success with Kickstarter; obviously, it's harder for small-timers, but still possible! I also know of authors who've written chapter by chapter on Patreon and given their patrons special goodies before publishing the book.

—Genre diversity for authors. A lot of authors in the past wrote under one genre or subgenre, then had to use a pen name for anything else. Amanda Quick was Jayne Anne Krentz's historical romance pen name, for example. Now... I don't think people are as strict. Sierra Simone has written erotic historicals, contemporary, dark romance, monogamous, poly, m/m, m/f, f/f, m/m/f, f/f/m, romcoms, etc. Sarah MacLean is dropping a contemporary (not romance) novel soonish. I see this as a good thing all-around. Pen names are cool, but I don't think they should be a MUST.

—Less angst, more fluff. THANKS I HATE IT LOL. I'm gonna say something controversial (apparently) but this is my honest opinion: It is not a story if there is no conflict. What you wrote was a scene. Perhaps a very good scene! A very long scene, maybe! But there is not a STORY unless there is CONFLICT.

Now, I don't know if I've read a book with ZERO conflict. But I've read many lately wherein the conflict was so thin... I felt the story had little substance. Not every conflict has to be ANGST ANGST TRAUMARAMA. A book I recently didn't LOOOOOVE but whatever, I'll accept it as an example, is Heaven, Texas by Susan Elizabeth Phillips. The heroine and the hero are not in danger of losing their lives. Their conflicts are internal. She loves him but doesn't feel like he'll ever genuinely love her, he's a dipshit who essentially doesn't want to accept that she's the one because he a) has a hard time trusting women in general b) has a specific idea of what his life is going to be that was disrupted when his career ended unexpectedly, and he's still working through some shit on that.

Nobody is at gunpoint, nobody is cheating, nobody is doing one last job. They're just... struggling with their feelings and their senses of self. (If the hero hadn't crossed ONE LAST LINE, I think I would've rated that book higher, but it's a testament to SEP understanding conflict that I can dislike the book and still say "solid conflict".)

I just see a lot of authors shying away from serious conflict, and I wonder how much of it is because readers keep complaining about it. And yeah, bad conflict... sucks. But conflict does not inherently suck. I don't want to read 800 pages of PWP or pointless slow burn. I need PLOT. I need ACTION. And I think we can have low-conflict books and high-conflict books in the same market! But it feels like publishers (and perhaps some authors) don't feel confident in that.

Which is why your girl has realized that a lot of the books she loves are like... 10+ years old.

—Historical specific... the unproblematic 1800s white people. I want to make it clear: You can absolutely write politically progressive people of bygone eras well. The Duke Gets Even by Joanna Shupe has a heroine who's outspoken about women's rights and reproductive freedom. Joanna places this against political occurrences of the time to make it flow easily, AND I think is actually pretty real about the heroine having to give some things up to be with the hero (a duke) even though he supports her and doesn't expect her to be a conventional duchess. Some sacrifices are inevitable. Adriana Herrera's An Island Princess Starts a Scandal has a great portrayal of semi-openly queer women in 19th century Paris... and that's something that totally existed and again, flows well.

It's not that I'm a stickler for accuracy at all. See: my love of Alexis Hall's Something Fabulous series. But I think that you either have to lean the fuck in to not being super accurate like they do, OOOOR you have to make it flow. When we suddenly have a duke being like "AND BTW I'M A FEMINIST" I don't fucking buy it lol. I need to see growth, and I need to understand why he has these views. I think there's a lot of low-effort shit being done to make historicals appear more progressive. And while I do think HR has a lot to reckon with, if that's the only way it can continue to exist... It feels as if that subgenre has to exist within a structure that we don't necessarily expect from other subgenres. Not a lot of billionaire romances (and that's still popular, despite what some may tell you) have the hero going "LET ME STOP AND EXPLAIN HOW I'M AN ETHICAL BILLIONAIRE".

I think that romance needs to be aware of its environment and progressive; I also think that romance requires some suspension of disbelief, and I think we're seeing a lot of white guilt driving some newer historical romances.

Because to go back to Adriana Herrera... That's a woman of color writing very politically aware historicals, while at the same time FULLY diving into the escapism and wish fulfillment and all the things people should be able to get out of a romance novel.

(And btw: All the things marginalized groups should be able to get out of romance novels! A Shore Thing by Joanna Lowell is an amazing romance novel with a trans hero, and I've gotta say, the book confronts transphobia, sure, but there is such fucking delicacy and it BY ZERO MEANS drives the fucking book, and I find that really important. That the hero is existing. That Adriana's heroes and heroines exist. And so on.)

[elitehanitje]

Samoa Joe Is The Real Target?

When MJF, without even being provoked, suddenly accused Adam Page as The Devil, I was like..."Huh?" Why you were throwing accusations like that? That was a weird segue from their banter. That makes me wonder whether he wanted to steer away from the suspicion off of him. It resulted in Samoa Joe interfering and giving Adam Page a side-eye, and it seems he protects MJF.

Maybe the whole thing about The Devil targeting MJF is a ruse. Maybe the intended target was Samoa Joe all along. Maybe...

MJF is The Devil. The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. In this case, the trick is that he try to convince the world that MJF is not the masked man.

MJF has had a beef with Samoa Joe since he was young. The younger man was always being underestimated by Joe for quite some time. Samoa Joe also hurt Adam Cole to get to MJF, but for some reason, Adam forgave him and even pressured him to tag with Joe. My guess is that Adam wanted revenge as well, so he's being nice to Joe. MJF and Adam decided to get to Samoa Joe.

Wardlow is also the obvious choice as (one of) The Devil. His hair, his shoes, and even his physical attributes point at him as the masked man. And he HATES Samoa Joe. When Zack Sabre Jr. asked Samoa Joe to team up, an audience yelled, "DID YOU SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO WARDLOW?!" warning him. Samoa Joe betrayed Wardlow back then for the TNT belt.

Roderick Strong (and The Kingdom) is definitely the henchman. Remember, Roddy's neck injury was caused by Samoa Joe. TWICE! And the fact that Roderick said that he forgave Joe was so suspicious because let's face it: RODDY NEVER FORGIVES! He remembers everything and will keep holding grudges forever. And don't forget, his neck injury caused his friendship with Adam Cole to diminish. Adam had to be paired with MJF, and as a result, they became BFFs, leaving Roddy alone.

And now we see Samoa Joe being surrounded by the henchmen and we see MJF lying there (perfectly, I might add, without blood, and the belt placed there neatly), and we didn't see the attack while every attack against others was always being filmed.

It makes me sad that it means the attack against The Acclaimed is because they were the patsy for the ruse. And the attack against Jay White was only done to kickstart the ruse.

This means possibly that The Devil is several people.

MJF is the Devil. Always has been. He hates Samoa Joe. Recruited Adam Cole, his best friend. Even possibly recruited Dr. Britt and several other wrestlers. Try to throw the suspicion to Adam Page because he knew that Page wanted the AEW belt to annoy Swerve Strickland.

Wardlow is the Devil. He hates Samoa Joe. Bonus point, he hates MJF. He recruited Roddy and co. because he hates MJF and Samoa Joe too. Adam Cole and MJF are innocent.

Adam Cole was intended to be The Devil, but his real injury prevented that and they had to change the plot. Who knows whether this would still be happening because he can order others to wear the mask. Remember, Adam always betrayed his friend since he was in other companies. How many times did he betray Roddy? Betraying MJF would be simple.

The Devil is a House of Black member.

If I'm wrong, obviously I will delete this post 😂

[theclo4ked1]

iiiIIT'S SUMMER! Well, not quite, but close (enough...) I feel so free, but you know what isn't free? My laptop's storage space, there's a gigabyte and a half left on the C drive right now, but that hinders the performance; it frees its own space so I can put more things, but that's not good since the computer needs those resources to function goodly, or so I've heard.

This is why I am (not) launching a Kickstarter to buy a Faster Stronger Better Gaben- I mean a cooler computer, preferably a desktop tower. Here's a list of perks and things YOU will RECEIVE If you support me:

 

 

...and as a bonus,  

Please (do not) donate! Give to the (not so) needy XP... Alright alright, I was just playin'. I finally caught another break so now I can rest and do other things like: cleaning... AHEM so, some days ago, I made a short post hinting at something I was doing relating to Dora the Explorer, if it wasn't obvious. If you know me, you'd know that show (the first four seasons anyway) is a...pretty significant part of my life, and I look forward to what plans the creators have in store for her future.

Hm, what's that? A reboot on Paramount+? One season has been released? Oh, okay, yeah I'll give it a look- Kathleen Herles returns as a voice? Holy. Miér-coles. Okay real talk, I was gonna watch regardless of if she was gonna come back as a voice, if she would come back at all. I actually just watched the first Paramount+ episode, not the ones pre-released on YouTube, and when I finished watching it, I thought to myself...

Huh. I don't think I learned much of anything.

Maybe the point is to just entertain children, and if that's the case, fine. But in my opinion, that makes this reboot far less interesting. Y'know I wrote this big ass post to the Forum for the franchise's fandom wiki giving a critical look at the reboot, "Dora '24", and comparing it to the original show that I lovingly call "Dora2K" because the show began airing in 2000, but did you know it was being produced in the late '90s? I call them by numbers after "Dora" because the new show is just called "DORA", subtitled "Say Hola to Adventure". Anyways, I'd appreciate if you read it, and gave me your thoughts either here or there. Actually, I found out today that someone wanted to know about a Discord to talk about the show, one that I did want to lead, but wasn't sure how it would go, how to promote it, who would help moderate; the works. Okay okay okay okay, enough pr'amble, (more like mumble lol (could you even call it preamble? i got caught up in things again, im so sorry)) BEHOLD, MY FLOATING MA- *skips cutscene*

This, my guys, gals, and nonbinary pals, is my BIG FUCKING THING! I'm not just referencing the Shadow the Hedgehog Fandub unnecessarily, no, this paper is approximately 4'x6'. "seee~, moy grahn-day" teehee Yes, this is what was brewing at D(ora) ‘n D(rawing). I planned for a cubism kind of drawing, then saw it after it was finished and decided it wasn't exactly cubism, then I was told it looked like cubism, so ultimately... It'S iS CuBiSm!!! I didn't explain it before, but the drawing takes from that scene from the live-action movie where Dora's cutting a GOT damn rug at the high school dance. She dances in a style that mimics animals from the rainforest, but the thing about that scene is that it's just Dora on the floor-a. Everybody else is by the wall, not on the dance floor at all because it's an awkward event, as any school would have it. I call this piece "Disco Dorka: Inspiring Sunshine", but I shortened it to the subtitle when sharing it with peers. "Inspiring", because the whole scene with Dora just being herself, not giving a damn (though I can't remember if she knew the other students were making fun of her right there) is inspiring to me. "Sunshine" comes from the sun costume Dora wore because it was a solar system-themed school dance. You may have noticed this is an ink drawing as opposed to my pencil or a digital drawings. A month or two ago, I was introduced to ink, and of course, that changed my life. I wholeheartedly adore ink, THIS is what I needed, it's a digital exclusive thing I can achieve only on a computer screen; it flows, it can make thick black lines THATS LIKE MY FAVORITE THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD but its messy but like OMG WHO. DA HELL. CARES?

Being introduced to ink really helped me to find myself, artistically, and my, is it freeing to know what I can do; what kinda potential I had. I apologize if it sounds like I'm bragging, but I think maybe it shows that finding out exactly what you're made of requires you to go outta your zone. Not your comfort zone, just what you know. Explore. (oh my god thats dora's whole thing, wtf why does it loop back) Last thing I wanna bring up is the text. I was told by peers that adding text is something that defines my ink style, it makes it mine. Probably not unique, I shouldn't have to say "i KnOw I'm NoT tHe FiRsT", but I know. I'mnotthefirstHAHA The text references Season 3 and parts of 4 of "Dora2K", y'know, the stars that Dora and Boots caught like Pokémon? It confuses me, do the stars travel from Star Mountain and are returned there from a wormhole in the Star Pocket, or is the Star Mountain in the pocket a pocket dimension, or OUGH! MY HEAD. The movie, as far as I know, makes no reference to this. I thought of writing REACH FOR THE STARS but then I was like "nah that's Sonic, this is about Dora now change it" and so i did. Ah, that's all I wanna say about my cool thing. These last four months have certainly been a trip, but now you can expect MORE ART probably. I'd get back to playing Sonic Mania (which is apparently bad now??) but I'm too tired...zzzzzzz... zzzz- oh yeah thanks for reading... z.....zzzz......zzzzzzz.......

[pandor-pandorkful]

A couple days ago I was thinking about the disconnect between the makers of classic adventure games (the Coles, Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert, etc) who later went on kickstarter cuz they wanted to make more games, and the fans who desperately want more games from them.

And while there's been several crowdfunded games that seem like they've managed to scratch that classic adventure game itch for folks, the disconnect I'm seeing is this:

Game makers want to make new games with new methods in new styles, which is fair!

But fans of classic adventure games crave classic styled adventure games, which I think is also fair.

However that does mean that as much as I want it, I'm never going to get "Quest for Glory 6: You Can Actually Customize Your Hero This Time" because the Coles aren't interested in making the same old same old. (And idk if they've got the rights to the title Quest for Glory anymore or if they've glommed onto HeroU because that's closer to the original title they wanted for the series, Hero's Quest.)

Like I don't have a conclusion here or anything, but it's just interesting to think about how the things that creators find important and are attached to can be so massively different from what the fans get attached to and hold on high as being important.

Like pixelated graphics. VGA style graphics are very dear to me, and I prefer adventure games to look like, say, Quest for Glory 4.

Or a silent protagonist with heavy, pun laden second person pov narration.

That's just kinda my preference because those were the types of games that made a huge impression on me as a kid.

HeroU: Rogue to Redemption kinda failed to capture my focus, in spite of my best attempts, because the protagonist has his own dialog, and because there was this lingering disappointment that I wasn't going to really be able to craft my own hero in the way it felt like you were in QfG (aside from being limited to the physical appearance of a white human male.)

From as far as I got, I could tell that the punny sense of humor was there, and there were loads of call outs to the characters and events in the prior QfG series, but it didn't suck me in. Shaun kept butting against me, he's no blank slate with an ambiguous past.

Also I just kinda hate school narratives, please don't force me to keep up my grades or risk expulsion/game over. Just, don't.

QfG1: So You Want to be a Hero, you're nobody, you have a short explanation of your character's background in the manual but that's pretty much it. You choose your character class and wander into town. From there you're on your own, kid.

I dunno, like I said, I want completely different things from what the actual creators want to make.

It's kind of a Star Wars: Special Edition problem, isn't it? Now that they're unrestrained by a publisher or by technology, adventure game makers can chase their original vision.

But fans didn't know what was in the game maker's heads in the 80's and 90's. Fans only knew what they actually saw, and they liked what they saw.

So, disconnect. Yeah.

That's my pointless ramble for the day, take care.