#if seal: planning

[if-seal]

Hi Seal, so a couple days ago I finished up plotting the whole storyline for my IF (horay!), but today as I was looking for some IFs to play I came across a moderately popular one i've played before. I decided to replay it and realized that it has a couple of similarities (roadtrip backdrop, some members of the cast having the same/similar roles/personalities, a plot piece or two, etc) to mine. Now I'm worried that what I've written was me unconsciously taking inspiration from this IF and even more worried of people pointing it out and asking about it, so any and all advice would be appreciated!

Dear Inspired Friend,

This is a fraught question and I understand how worried you feel: it can be really tricky when imagining what people will think, being accused of copying someone else's work and so on, so please accept my sympathy in this situation.

A couple of things are true:

Creative people can draw from similar or the same wells of themes, tropes, settings, and so on, and the results are wildly different and original. There are so very many ways of exploring similar themes or character types.

If a piece of work feels derivative or unimaginative, that can put a real dampener on people's enjoyment, and on the quality of the work in question.

People can be very overzealous in pointing out what they see as derivative elements.

I cannot make any judgement about where your writing is placed on the spectrum of "inspiration" or "copying" but it up to you to decide whether you want to change any aspects of your story. Perhaps there are elements in which you'd like to go in a different direction. Perhaps you will feel that your story has its own identity and you're happy with where it is now.

Either way it's worth examining and figuring out where you're making your own personal creative mark on it. You are at an ideal time to be doing this, because you're at the planning stages.

What I would advise not doing is tangling yourself in theoretical worries about what people might or might not say about your story's relationship with another one. I have seen people say that one game is ripping off another when it was made before it. I have seen people claiming that an overlapping element like, for instance, being set in a castle means that one story is copying another. People will say these kinds of things whatever you're writing. So: be true to yourself, do not sell yourself short in cleaving too close to someone else's work that's inspired you, and get in touch with what you love about what you bring to your work.

Good luck!

[dark-lord-ivy]

Hapless arctic researcher Shang Qinghua helps a leopard seal tangled up in a fishing net. This seems to have earned him an admirer.

A moshang selkie!au for @moshangevents DxD event! I love me a selkie!au.

[axoqiii]

another p5r art dump hiiiiieii 😢😢😢

[thatsbelievable]

[mobius-m-mobius]

OWEN WILSON and TOM HIDDLESTON behind the scenes of LOKI S2

[theghostlyunknown]

I also feel like we haven’t addressed enough the absolute hilarity of mumbo

A.) inadvertently keeping Grian from completing his task by laughing at all his intentionally unfunny jokes

B.) seeing Bdubs building an ugly house on purpose because of his task and deciding it’s unironically a brilliant idea and then deciding to copy him

Like, he came back to the life series and decided to be the most mumbo he could be.

[captainmaxatx]

Late Mermay idea!

Orca mer Ghost in an aquarium but he is almost always hiding and quite depressed so the aquarium decide to give him a little more enrichment.

With humans lack of mer knowledge they come to the conclusion that because orcas eat seals then surely an orca mer would eat a seal mer. They decide that during closing hours (to avoid guests seeing the blood bath that will surely follow) they will drop a live seal mer into ghosts tank so he has the natural experience of hunting instead of just being fed slabs of meet.

But mer’s don’t eat other mers, regardless of secondary species.

So when seal mer soap is dropped into his tank, ghost just thinks he’s being given a very energetic handsome roommate.

And the humans are confused as to why ghost hasn’t eaten the seal mer yet

[danwhobrowses]

Goodness this is like the third episode in a row begetting discourse among the cr fandom. For me this discourse has two perspectives where the division depends on whose perspective you're looking at;

For the armies it was 'We've been sent by the gods and are here to help you stop Predathos as we pla-wait, you're a vessel of Predathos? Isn't that just like Ludinus planned??' which yeah is valid from their perspective

For the Hells it was 'We just came out of 4 back-to-back battles with Ludinus and Predathos itself, we have a solution to save the gods but change the dynamic but we want to discuss it privately with the gods first and now you're trying to kill us!?' which is also valid

What puts me more on BH's side is that we have the context; BH are allowed to be terse when people try to kill them and fail, least of all allies who don't ask for an explanation before asking their god to come down and smite them. They're not villains because they snarked at the person who attempted to sic their god on them, and it's not as if Imogen sic'd Predathos on them in retaliation. Once again they are met with the thankless job and burden that they neither wanted or asked for, but was thrust upon them anyway. With all the times Bells Hells have been criticized for being aimless and indecisive it seems a little strange to criticize them now for being focused and decisive.

Could they have explained from the start? Maybe. Would it have caused a different reaction the moment they said Predathos is in Imogen? Probably not. I can't tell you why they didn't come out of the Cage and immediately explain because I'm not the players; perhaps they wanted to avoid the hysteria and conflict, perhaps they were drained from the fight and wanted to wrap up the episode, or perhaps it was just down to Bell's Hells, as with all CR campaign parties, being infamously bad at communicating, I don't know.

But it's times like these where it's worth reminding that this is a DnD show, nerdy-ass voice actors having fun, it can't always be clean and clear-cut storytelling every second. And sometimes as a fandom we need to take a step back so we don't get ourselves stuck, because we're probably making it deeper than it is and getting annoyed at each other over our interpretation of two groups from the same side getting annoyed at each other. Just, take a breath.

[thalassata]

GUYS THEY NAMED HIM. HIS NAME IS MASHIRO, HES STAYING AT TOKKARI CENTER AAAAAAA

[smashwolfen]

EYYO LOOK WHAT I GOT TODAYYYYYYYYYY

OKAMI PHYSICAL SWITCH EDITION MY BELOVED!!!!

The box art is so damn pretty and I NEVER see american releases come with a tiny lil leaflet for game controls and tips inside it! And the fact we never got an english physical release of the game and only digital is so mean, but thankfully this costs less than even some of the cheaper english games you can buy and it arrived WAY ahead of schedule yay ;;w;;

Only one teeny tiny downside.....

I was misinformed that my digital copy was gonna also work for the physical and like, load my saves there too..... it does not

THAT JUST MEANS I GOTTA 100% THIS ONE TOO ONCE IM DONE THE DIGITALLLLLLL WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE sobs in 40+ hours agaiiiiiin

Least it plays in english thanks to not being region locked, the title logo remains the same in its Japanese form, its really nice XD

Now I patiently await one more tiny Okami thing to arrive!

[if-seal]

how do you manage huge, branching scenes? i don't mind writing them!! but coding them + making them all impactful (and also narrowing the story back down to make all the paths meet once more) is what scares me.

Dear Branching Friend,

For interactive writing, planning is your friend. Sometimes a rather tough friend to have, but a friend nonetheless.

It can be overwhelming, so I would recommend planning the scene and the branches in very broad strokes, say, "While swimming to the lighthouse, the selkie MC is beset by a storm and some other obstacles."

Then I would consider exactly what obstacles the selkie will face as they go, and the different ways that they might handle them. Perhaps they can dive to the bottom of the ocean to hide from lightning. Perhaps they can befriend a seabird who can let them hide on its rocky island. Each of these scenes can be as small or large as you like - planning will help them not spread out of control.

As for narrowing the story back, in this example you know that the selkie will arrive at the lighthouse by the end of this sequence - but in what state, and after what experiences, will vary. So in this case you will not have vast amounts of branching to do at the end, but the mood, tone, and details may be different.

It's helpful to keep in mind what scenes are the ones your players will see on every playthrough, as well. There may be lots of these, or fewer, but they will form the foundation of people's play experience.

My human roommate @hpowellsmith likes to code their work before writing it, which helps them keep it (somewhat) tidy. That helps them notice whether the events flow and means they can make sure the code is functional, and correct things more easily than once the writing is in there.

Of course you do not have to do that, but figuring out which way works for you will help you a lot when you start juggling scenes.

What I will add is that an outline does not need to be fully set in stone even when you are coding or writing. But it will be a useful map to help you navigate through complicated paths.

May the stars guide you on your way!

[kingpagie]

Questuon from the audience I'm writing this very quickly at wrok sorry fi this is rushed, would hat teen still be banned from the artic cruise and would shw still be public enemy #1 in the metro

Truthfully, I haven’t thought about the DLC chapters. Because 1. They left little to no narrative impact on me, and 2. I think I’m slowly starting to understand the overall theme of my sequel, that being closure and tying up loose ends. To me the DLC’s ended pretty unambiguously so there really was no real reason for those places to be brought back. The only two locations I’ve brought back so far are Mafia Town and Subcon, mostly because there’s still more to be explored in those locations in terms of lore and story beats. But you know what? Just for you, Ash. I’ll give my visual representations of Hat’s hypothetical status within both locations.

[ryuki-draws]

Limiters disabled. Sealing implants offline. Blood Type: Blue. Angel identified.

[naffeclipse]

I keep thinking of a Leopard seal!Y/n or the ribbon seal!y/n being absolute menaces

If a leopard seal!y/n existed and had a pup of there own, they’d try to get into a fist fight with eclipse or something or just try and beat the hell out of him if he got to close to there baby

I’ve had baby brain rot, I love baby seals there such cute puff balls

Oh, I've had several asks about a leopard seal Y/N!

Your a feisty one who does not take kindly to anything or anyone sniffing around your kid. You hide your pup in a snow hole you dug out yourself. If you come back to find a an orca siren scooping your baby out of the snow hole, it's an immediate launch into defending your baby--even if you know that an orca siren can very well take you.

Eclipse would enjoy the struggle if only for the venom and fierceness your striking back with, and so defiant! But he eventually gets you pinned despite the fight you put up--he's still stronger and bigger. He would only let you up (but not let you go) once he nabs the baby and puts the little one in your arms. You can't fight when you're holding your kid but that doesn't mean you're not threatening him (which he finds adorable.)

Needless to say, leopard seal Y/N would be the toughest for Eclipse to ease and persuade and convince to let him hold your baby, but, he's nothing if not persistent.

[tennesseeroulette]

We NEED a time travel esque kirby game