#i might add to this later but currently i don't have coherent thoughts

[countlessofvoids]

Justice for my girls Angrboða and Thrúd.

One (Angrboða) is constantly "criticized" for daring to be *gasp* black in a norse video game that is definetly historicaly accurate and revolves around vikings and not Gods that could have any possible design! Apparently everyone just forgot that Jotunheim's landscape is designed after Africa.

If she's not attacked because of skin color, it's because she has "ulterior motives" even though the only moments where she was 'hostile' was when Atreus asked about her parents - a topic quite invase for someone you've met not even 10 minutes ago- or when she told him to be careful when digging in the bag full of Jotnar souls that could be lost forever if their marble is destroyed. The only 'ulterior motive' she was hiding was... trying not to show too much emotion when talking about her dead people and being sad about the fact she's destined to be forgotten by Loki?

Other (Thrúd) is reduced to either Atreus' white girlfriend, the "forced woke bland female character" (these two come from the same group of people - long live the gamerbros!) or a "selfish bitch who only cares about her own good". Thrúd is supposed to be a slight subversion of that woke girlboss - it's what you're meant to see her as at first, then when you progress through Asgard (if you're paying attention, which seems like these people aren't) you see that she's quite sheltered. Sif and Thor's attempt at being better parents, and ultimately - another pawn in Odin's great game.

Thrúd is essentialy a sheltered rich kid who wasn't shown the 'real world' and has to learn to be better after witnessing it. While Angrboða is a character who isn't shown to really have moral flaws - Thrúd IS supposed to be that! That is the moral of Ragnarok - to learn to be better.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if these two are supposed to be parallels?

[ari--anon]

Hi! Big fan of your writing! If it’s not too much to ask:

How do you keep track of the small details you add in your writing? Especially the mega master writings. I find myself not writing for a while and struggling to remember or find the small infinitesimal detail I may or may not have mentioned - in order to keep coherency.

Hi, thank you :D

There's two way I keep track of details. First off, (and this saved me many times), I have a beta reader (friend of mine) who will often remember stuff I don't, and point it out in scenes where bringing that detail up would be plausible, or even if I completely contradicted something I've written before

Then I usually make a note of things that I should keep track of in a separate document, which is sort of a place where I dump all my chapter ideas. It doesn't have to be anything complicated, just a quick mention like "remember x!"

For example, me and my beta reader will often make rudimentary floorplans for rooms the characters will spend a lot of time in. These are made in ms paint and are really ugly, but I always come back to them to see where the characters are in relation to the room. (Plus this is a good way to initially really visualize the room!)

Or before I'm writing, I will make a really simple list of information to every character, and I will update it as I go. This includes stuff like age and important bits of appearance that stray from the norm, and then a sentence that describes the core of their character. You could do something similar with the chapters as you're writing them, so you'll always have an up-to-date list.

I know that taking notes is not for everyone, though, so this might not be good advice. Everyone has their own system that they need to crack, and I'm certainly still trying to settle into mine. Maybe, if notes aren't working for you, you could try to do it in a more visual way.

Like, if they pick up an item in chapter 4 that you want the character to use from then on, but you have trouble remembering, you could take a sticky note, write 'chapter 4' on top, and draw that item, and keep it close to your computer/laptop/writing paper. (Or if you write on your phone, I know that many notes apps have a function to draw on them too. It doesn't have too look pretty, you just have to know what it is! Like drawing a letter on your hand to remember something you need to do later)

If it's more abstract things, like a string of thought a character had that you think a character should hold onto for the story, this might get a bit more difficult, but I think that if you draw something related to it (even if it's just a thought bubble or something), you will most likely remember what it meant, even if vaguely.

But this is all stuff you do before, or during writing. I know this bit is difficult, especially when you've written A LOT but I guess the easiest way to keep track is to just read through it again.

But it's really important to remember that it's fine to go back and fix stuff! That's the fun part of posting online. If it's a matter of if a dress was white or red, and nothing you considered worth writing down (we can't put everything down after all) then I assure you, the minority of readers will catch if you change that up.

I'm currently going through iawwc again before posting the last chapter, because I'm looking out for exactly those type of details that might've gone under as I've been writing. Especially in those mega works that take a while to read and write, readers will often not notice if you changed a past chapter up so that it fits your current stand of things. So don't worry too much about this. Oftentimes when a detail went under, it probably wasn't that important in the first place, and can easily be cut out/changed.

I hope this helped, and thank you sm for your ask!

[crossdressingdeath]

I never thought much about it tbh, but now that you mentioned how little time passes between Markus deviation and him leading a revolution is really baffling. I think my mind refused to process how little time passed until I read you say it, and I totally agree with you that timeline is insane. I don't think fixing that problem would have been very difficult.(1/3)

Of course the ideal thing would be more game runtime but even without that they could just start the game with Markus and then give a time jump after he meet Jerico, let him be there some months or something like that before introducing Kara and Connor, it would have made him becoming the leader of Jerico more realistic and less rushed. Just that would be fine and if then they streched a little the rest of the timeline even better. (2/3)

Markus story would benefit so much of that streched timeline. Connor and Hank story wouldn't be badly affected by it, they can be there resolving cases for months of needed, that's fine be me (if they could add more runtime giving us some more cases to fill that time would have been great because I'm always ready for more of Connor and Hank). Kara story is the only problem because there is not that much, it fits fine in a week so I really don't know how to strech that one. (3/3)

Yes. I’d prefer... y’know, More Game (DBH isn’t actually all that long in its current form, according to the internet it’s only about ten hours; I can’t remember the last story-based game I played that was less than twice that), but a time skip would be something. And yes to Markus becoming Jericho leader before Kara and Connor’s stories get started, that would just work better. I can’t quite articulate why it would work better, but it would be better. Maybe have his first couple of missions spread out through the time skip, showing him being a major asset within Jericho and taking on a leadership position without us having to not question them deciding this guy they’ve known for like two days is the best choice to lead them. The main benefit for Hank and Connor would be More Hank And Connor honestly, but personally if I was making the game and could give them more time I might actually add some things, for example the option to have Connor trust Hank enough to tell him about Markus being an RK model and investigating that with him (or alone, if Connor doesn’t trust Hank) and as I mentioned earlier maybe showing Connor actually succeeding in some cases without the option of letting the deviant go to make his title of deviant hunter a bit less ironic. Maybe have Connor solving cases during the same period that Markus is slowly becoming Jericho’s leader; it honestly makes more sense for CyberLife to send such a highly advanced model to work with the police if they already have reason to believe that the androids are organizing some sort of resistance, at least to me. (Actually, while we’re talking about Connor, if I was rewriting the story and could make it as long as I deemed necessary I’d show him starting to hesitate and go easier on the deviants in increasing amounts throughout that period if the player chooses, with Ortiz’s android being the last one he has to turn in, maybe even including the option for him to genuinely consider letting him go before Hank or another officer starts coming up to the attic and leaving it unclear whether Connor turns him in at that point due to his programming kicking in or a fear of being found deviant himself, as he does give the impression that that is something he genuinely fears as the story progresses if you consistently choose options pushing towards deviancy; honestly just a bit more focus on Connor slowly going from completing his mission due to his programming to completing his mission due to fear of what will happen to him if he doesn’t to not completing his mission due to growing feelings of empathy towards the deviants he’s supposed to be hunting if you’re going down the deviant route would be nice.)

The trouble with Kara’s route is that the stakes are so much lower. It’s kind of nice to have lower stakes for a bit, but it also feels like she got the short end of the stick; Markus has the revolution, Connor has the conflict between his programming and his growing humanity, Kara has... a motherhood story. It’s an effective motherhood story, and having one part have lower stakes is good in the sense that it gives the player some time to breathe, but it still doesn’t seem fair to her. If I was rewriting the game I might make her story involve... learning about androids and deviancy and rA9. Like, everything we know about how deviancy works is kind of dumped on us; it’s a glitch that causes androids to simulate human emotions and can spread between androids like a virus. That’s it. Similarly rA9 is just believed to be the first deviant. Kara isn’t actually doing anything in terms of the larger story; why not have her uncovering some of those mysteries instead of just shepherding Alice towards Canada? Close up some plot holes and give your female lead something to do in relation to the larger story (beyond meeting Connor and Markus once each) in one move! Seems pretty win-win to me. And that would also extend her part of the story; probably she’d start her story later than Markus and Connor due to things only getting started for her after getting picked up from getting repaired (although they could add in a section that actually shows the incident that gets her sent in for repairs so we can actually see it instead of learning about it from a bunch of crayon drawings), but the lack of her in the early game would be matched by her having more to do in the later parts. Keep the parts she’s already got, maybe add another way or two for players to keep her group safe using the knowledge she gains from her expanded role, and make her story about discovering where they came from instead of just protecting a little girl who she’s convinced herself is Totally Human And Not An Android. Also I feel like the story might be stronger if Alice really is human, just because that gives all three leads a strong tie to humanity? Which feels important in a game about becoming human. I mean, Rose exists, but Markus has Carl and Connor has Hank and both those characters play a huge role in our leads becoming who they are at the end of the game; giving Kara this little human girl to look after but psych actually she’s an android and Kara was just deluding herself the whole time... feels like it’s undermining an emerging theme, and Rose doesn’t really make up for that (given while she helps Kara she doesn’t have the same impact on her as a person as Carl does Markus and Hank does Connor). Also it’s a stupid twist that adds nothing to the story. Get rid of it.

...I’m getting sidetracked. If anyone wants to remind me later maybe I can put together a coherent post about how I’d rewrite each character’s story given unlimited runtime (or possibly three posts, one for each story, given those are... likely to get long and splitting them up might work better), but for now I uh. do actually have homework (ah, uni), so I’m gonna wrap this up. Basically yeah, it would’ve been good if David Cage remembered that time skips exist and using them is allowed outside of the prologue or alternately that it is actually possible to make a game longer than ten hours, or even just not mentioned the date and left it up in the air as to how long things took; having so much happen in under a week just feels silly.

[madeofsplinters]

For that ask meme, if you don't mind: G, T or U? (And I wish you a pleasant time of day)

Thanks, you too!

Since you said “or,” I will pick T and U:

T: Any fandom tropes you can't stand?

Honestly? Righteously angry fix-it fics (regardless of what they’re fixing). It’s a “me” problem - I get why they exist and what purpose they serve for people, and I think it’s really cool that people can engage with a fandom that way! I don’t want to get rid of fix-it fics! But there’s just something about them individually that sets my teeth on edge and makes me not want to engage.

I think it’s just because it’s so antithetical to my own approach to fanwork. Most of my fic ideas come from a willingness to be compelled by the messy or weird or uncomfortable parts of canon and just sit with them and play around with their sharp edges and figure out what they might be saying to me. If I “fix” anything, it’s only because I thought that particular way of solving that problem might be cool to explore. Often I just add more problems.

If I approached them with the attitude of “Ok, but why is this bad and what should have happened?” I would be paralyzed into never writing anything again. I can spite-write, but it’s usually motivated by someone implying I shouldn’t write a thing - not by someone (even the canon authors) writing a thing I think they shouldn’t.

And again, that’s a “me” thing... my process is pretty weird. I don’t expect anybody else’s process to look like mine.

U: A pairing you might like to write for, but haven't tried yet.

I mean I just tried out a whole bunch of my “maybe might write” ships over the course of Kinktober, but I am a font of ideas so I’m gonna give you three more:

Reylo? Kinda? I’m hesitant to wade into all that discourse, but I keep thinking one of these days I’m going to figure out how to say anything remotely coherent about Kylo Ren, and if I ever did, his relationship with Rey would probably be a part of it.

One of my mutuals is very into Obimaul lately and it seems fun. I don’t have any more specific thoughts about it yet.

Natasi Daala/Ysanne Isard? Maybe? I shitposted about it at some point but then I realized it would actually be hilarious and kinky and terrible-in-a-good-way and it might have some deep thoughts in it somewhere, and now I’m toying with the idea of actually doing something with it later on in the co-emperors series. Not the current fic, though, there is definitely no room for any more characters in the current one!