#it was tricky to make it all cohesive for me

[medicinemane]

Anyway... as always I'm just so very very very picky when it comes to horror. I just have this very narrow window of what I personally like, and there's just so many things that just have horror elements rather than being horror to me (and don't even get me started on stuff with a human killer, for me personally that's a thriller rather than horror, and I don't care for it cause sadly we've got plenty of human killers in real life)

It's just so hard to do good horror. It's hard to ride the line between showing too little and showing too much, between building tension and being boring... and dear god is it so easy to trend into being goofy

Then you've got the issue of generally having to come up with something totally new that we don't have in the real world (to please me anyway) and having enough lore that it's actually something... but not talking about it so much that you make it sound stupid or open it up to plot holes

Very very very very tricky genre... I think I still respect bad horror, even though I also have disdain for it and don't like it at all... at least they tried, or... at least... some of them tried (some is just schlock)

[kiwipineappleparasol]

Sonic WIPs and Scribbles from 2023 (Notes Below)

Gave Chaos the Angel Chao ... "Ears" ? So that All Forms (Neutral/Dark/Hero) have some form of Representation. (The two split ... Hair? Things? In the back already resemble the Devil Chao, since the Light Chao only has one.)

Solaris Exists! ... Crazy. I recall this redesign being bit tricky because it was just so hard to see what the fucking thing looked like Originally, but I did my best. Tried to show the Bird/Eagle Theming, and to simplify the design so People like Me could understand it. I wanted this design to look like a counterpart to Chaos -- because in this AU, Solaris is from, you'll never guess...the Sol Dimension!

Gave Team Dark a sort of... cohesive color scheme with eachother, so they really look like a Unit. Plus, Rouge wearing Red just... Makes sense, considering her name, even if I enjoy the Purple color scheme as well.

Similar color scheme thing here with the Babylon Rogues -- They all share Red/White/Yellow -- I took the darker colors out of these designs to not be so similar to Team Dark haha. The amount of points on each of their...Chest...Fluffs?? matches the amount of feathers they have on their head Respectively . Changed Storm the most -- I wanted to make his "Hair" Silhouette more Unique from Wave's, and really just wanted an excuse to give a character a Cool Jacket . The Shoes ... I phoned those in a bit, I'll probably change them Later...

Sharddddddd. Throughout my Scribbles (including some here) You might've seen me struggle to decide what Quill Style to give him -- his OG style? Or the Metal Sonic style? Eventually, I decided I didn't need to choose -- I could do both. It's not demonstrated that well in these, but it's basically the same style the Bits have in Sonic Universe: The Silver Age -- just thinner and more Pointy .

Ahhh Faceless Jumpscare! This is what they look like when I'm trying to work on Poses and Colors but don't want to Commit to a Face yet, haha . Nicole, I'm always changing her design it seems -- don't be surprised if it happens again! But I based her handheld off various devices Tails uses -- I wanted it to be compact while being more Modern than the Nokia Flip Phone. Changed her hologram form slightly to resemble her handheld -- her ears are the antenna, and the rings are on her feet like how the ring is plugged in at the bottom. Made her vest longer too! So it looks more like her Reboot Outfit . Just a little.

And that's mostly it! I've been on a quest to draw Every Character in my Sonic Au -- I've sketched about... 35 so far? Here's a Screenshot of a bit of the Madness on that canvas haha.

[asha-mage]

Having sat with it for a few days, I think what I've realized is most curious about Tortured Poets Department is that while I would still say that Midnights is a better album- both more cohesive and more brutally honest as a work of art- Tortured Poets Department represents Swift at the most unfiltered she's ever been in her career.

Swift has reached that elusive level of success under capitalism where it is genuinely impossible for her work to be a financial failure, but more importantly she's threaded the very tricky needle of breaking free of music industry main stay control without alienating her core base, a feat only a handful of musical artists have ever pulled off. This means she has the freedom to do, essentially, whatever the hell she wants going forward and we've seen that move increasingly in her work since Folklore as she takes bigger and bigger out there swings musically. I would argue that Midnights is the culmination of this- Swift at her most brutally raw and honest with both herself and her audience, via songs like Antihero, Mastermind, and Your On Your Own Kid.

Tortured Poet's Department is interesting as an evolution, not because it has anything as raw and revelatory as Antihero, but because it is the most candid, unedited, uncurated version of Taylor Swift's art we've gotten so far. Their is no one left, really, who can try to exert control over her art in any meaningful way- and I think what that shows is fascinating. You can see so much disgust and anger: at her small town Tennessee Southern Baptist upbringing, at the hollowness and shallowness of life among the rich elite, at the media that constantly made growing up a nightmare and growing older a sin. I wouldn't say there's anything particularly barn-burning- no big declarations or powerful ballads ragging against her life. But her work feels rougher, unsanded- which for someone like Swift who is a master of curating what she wants people to see and hear from her work, of managing (and playing with) people's expectations while keeping her audience on side- is significant. Even the way she talks about her exs feels...nastier then she usually is willing to get. She's not bare knuckled swinging for anyone, but she's not toeing the line either the way she did- and that makes sense. She doesn't have too.

Even her self reflective songs- Whose Afraid of Little Old Me?, I Can Do It With a Broken Heart, Down Bad- feel like they are not shying away from showing off the parts of herself she normally would censor or hold back: Messy and human and irrational. All the things a female artist has to avoid being in order to be successful in the media landscape we've had for decades.

That we read that as 'cringe' I think says more about us then it does about Swift.

[perplexingluciddreams]

Autism and sense of self

For as long as I can remember, I have been almost completely unaware of the fact that I'm a person. Of course, I was not always aware of other people and the fact that they have their own thoughts and feelings, but even once I gained that awareness, I only viewed myself as the sum of my thoughts. Just a floating brain, no connection to the body that I supposedly inhabit - this disconnect being greatly exacerbated by the lack of control I had over the body I'm in.

As a result, I have a flimsy-at-best sense of personhood and identity. I'm just a blank character that I have to memorise facts about. My name, my age, hair colour, eye colour, height, things I like, things I don't like… I have to repeat these facts to myself in my mind, to stop myself from forgetting it all. The real me (that I think of myself as) only exists in my head, and even that is tricky to hold onto with my mind being so polluted by everything around me, in the "real world". Noises, colours, lights, voices, words. I say it gets "loud" in my head, which is as close as I can get to explaining how it feels, but in reality it's so much more than just "loud". It splinters my true thoughts into fragments that end up scattered and hidden in the din of my memory.

I don't think in words. I don't think I will ever be able to describe the way I think, but I do know that the best way for me to separate my true thoughts from the rest of the noise in my brain, is to ignore the things that come fully-formed right away. I can't trust the "thoughts" in my head that are immediately there in words, that is always a strong indication that it's a script from somewhere else, and that it won't reflect my own opinions. Unfortunately, simply deciding if those scripts do match my opinion is not something I can easily do - it requires the skill, time, and energy to break down all of the words and their definitions, and then build it back up again - and the majority of the time, it's simply too overwhelming to even try.

Because of my fractured and flimsy sense of self, plus my strong interest in books and reading from a young age, I used to imagine that every time I read a book, my brain merged with the brain of the main character(s), and I now had their thoughts in my head, too. It was the best explanation I had for my "loud" brain, at the time. I would think to myself that all the times I really lost control of my body (especially my mouth), it was just another character taking over my body for a while. That explanation - despite being incorrect - was very comforting to me as a child, and helped me feel more like I could still have my own thoughts and opinions, even if I could never use my body to get them out to the real world.

I have always been a "daydreamer" - that's another explanation that other people indirectly gave me for my feeling of being a floating brain. I do daydream, but that's only a part of it, and when I'm daydreaming, it feels more like my brain finds a stream of interlocking thoughts and just goes with the flow. It's the least difficult and least confusing way of thinking for me. When I'm forcefully jolted out of it by a real world thing, it's very upsetting. The worst thing that can happen here is someone seeing my involuntary visible reaction to a thought, and assuming that I'm reacting to something in the real world that I wasn't even aware of. It makes me feel so disconnected and misunderstood.

I have a whole world in my head that can never mesh with the world outside of my head that my body lives in. The people around me who (I assume) live freely in the real world, with control and connection between their brain and body, will never be able to fully know me. It's very painful and disheartening. They can only see snapshots, when I work for weeks or months to write something like this.

Despite all that I've just said about my body and brain being separate, I still don't see "myself" (/my mind) as a cohesive whole. It has always felt splintered and confused, like a swirling mess of consciousness that's constantly fighting itself. The sort of things that come to mind when trying to express this are lava lamps, or oil and water.

Another thing that comes as a result of this low sense of self, is that exploration of my own identity is very challenging. There's lots of things I'd love to learn about myself, but the combination of barely understanding anything about myself, and my difficulty with language comprehension, makes this nearly impossible. I feel so lucky that through the internet and a lot of time, I was able to figure out my feelings towards my body, sex, and gender, and communicate that to my parents. But there were so many failed attempts during this process, and there were several years where my body and mind were both so busy and loud and out of control that I resigned myself to a miserable life, unable to express these parts of myself.

I still can't really put labels on myself, I don't understand the words, or what they mean in relation to my experience, enough. I would, of course, need to perceive myself as a person in order to do any of that!

My memory is a strange thing. I almost think of it as a sensitive creature living in my skull, easily startled and triggered, and with no sense of linear time, but possessing incredible pattern recognition. It seems to work in tandem with my emotions, and the more intense the emotion, the more I become mentally enveloped in the memories in which I felt the same way. The hardest thing about my memory working this way is the fact that I spend so much of my time pulled back to when I lacked communication, and that's the most painful thing I've ever gone through.

I'm so glad to be able to express myself like this now, even if it takes this much time and energy. Communication is worth any price.

[fernsnailz]

also if it's not bothering i'd like to ask you if you have any tips on how to make a zine/fanzine? i've been wanting to for a while but i am unsure how to and it feels kind of intimidating

yeah no worries! the good news is that personal zines are pretty easy to make because you can put basically anything into one and make it any length/size you want. they also come in a lot of different forms - you can make one that's just a digital pdf, post some loose pngs online, draw it out on some sheets of paper that you staple or fold together, have it printed at a professional printing service, or create an entirely new method that works for the zine you're making. it's up to you and depends on what resources you have or what zine you want to make - which is always the first step! start with an idea or general theme you want to make your zine about, which can be quite literally anything. is it a fanzine about some characters you like? a personal comic? a various collection of your art, writing, or other creations? again, can be literally anything.

i can help most with digital zines because that's what i've made and participated in so far. really the biggest hurdle with any zine is just making the stuff that goes in it - i was very ambitious to make dance in fire over 30 pages, especially since it was my first solo zine. i say start small, zines can be as few as four pages if you want. if you do want to make a longer zine, something i did that i highly recommend is finding old sketches or unfinished/unposted art that you can use as a starting point for some pages. or just keep them in an unfinished state! sketch pages are always a welcome addition imo.

another thing i recommend if you're making a long zine (though is entirely optional) is keeping a tracker with the pages you want to make or have already been completed. this is part of what my tracker spreadsheet looked like for dance in fire - just a way for me to log when things are done, what things needed to be changed, any info i wanted to keep written down. this was a HUGE help for me personally since i was dealing with a lot of pages of just. stuff.

with digital zines, you don't necessarily have to make every page the same size, but i suggest sticking to one page size to keep everything cohesive. for dance in fire, every page is about 7x10in (with a little bit extra added for print bleed). once everything is done, there's a couple of different ways to combine everything into one pdf. sometimes you can export multiple canvases as a single pdf depending on the drawing program you're using - my version of clip studio can't do that, so i uploaded 37 individual pngs of the pages to an online pdf converter and just downloaded that lmao

last thing to figure out is where to host your zine - if you have a pdf, there's a few online file hosting platforms you can share them on. i used itch.io which is mostly for indie games and creators, some other people i know use github. these are good places to host your zine if you want to sell it, but you can probably also do that on ko-fi or patreon if you wanted? idk i don't have experience with those

that's all i got for now! there's some tricky stuff to figure out if you're printing a digital zine, but i'm still in the process of figuring that out myself so that might have to be a guide for another time lol

[dreamweaversfavsandthoughs]

Rick and Morty S7 Ep. 9: Mort: Ragnarick

(God is dead and we killed him…and killed him…and killed him)

Turn away now to avoid the Viking hordes of spoilers ahead

My Favs

Delightfully unhinged…

This is a perfect description of the episode (and this season as a whole)

Somehow this episode combines the afterlife of Norse mythology, Pokémon, Bigfoot becoming an enemy-turned-ally and a showdown with the leader of the Roman Catholic Church into a story that is cohesive and wildly entertaining. Every single screen grab of this episode is one WTF moment after another, probably more so than any other episode to date.

…and sacrilegious

Did I mention that the villain of the episode is the Pope himself? Well it is.

“Fuck you, I’ve been tired”

Gotta love a sassy Morty moment.

Feral Clone Rick

I can imagine the conversation the director had in the recording booth,

“ Hey Ian, we’re going to need you to sound like a rabid squirrel at this moment. No, more rabid. More rabid.”

Plus, I don’t know what comment the writers are saying by implying a feral, animalistic version of Rick can make his way up the hierarchy of the Catholic Church….

Heavy Metal song during the tower defense sequence

Bigfoot being transported into Summer’s clone

Honest moment, I didn’t get why Summer/Bigfoot commented on how small her feet was the first time I watched this episode. I am slow on the uptake.

Poooooooope!

Popey Ball

I love me a corny pun and the fact that Rick had to point out this very corny, very obvious pun was icing on the cake.

Saying goodbye to Bigfoot

It absolutely killed me that they forced Bigfoot, who is just some guy at this point, back into the woods like he some stray animal. So mean!

Not My Fav

I wish we could have explored other afterlives.

When I saw the cold open for this episode I got really excited because I’m a bit of a mythology and religion nerd and I was expecting that this episode was going to be more of a deeper dive into different kinds of afterlives. It was a little bit disappointing that we only visited Valhalla and, very briefly, Jerry’s concrete and fog machine heaven. If I had written or pitched this episode I would have loved to see Rick and Morty hop around to different religions’ afterlives (Greek, Egyptian, Christian, Buddhist,etc.) and use different elements of those afterlives to harness infinite energy and defeat the Pope. Maybe in an early draft they went in that direction and it just got too bogged down and they had to cut back. Or maybe Valhalla is the only afterlife that Rick had a chance of getting into. He sure isn’t getting into Christian heaven after this episode.

My Thoughts

The concept of an afterlife is a bit tricky to develop in a show where one of your main characters is a staunch atheist and there is a scientific and naturalistic explanation for everything, including things that are traditionally associated with the supernatural, i.e. the afterlife. Of course, the explanation is nothing but science fiction mumbo-jumbo, that is said rapidly and moved on quickly, less we dwell on the nonsense too long. Nevertheless, I prefer the attempt to create consistency in the show's philosophy rather than have the writers throwing their hands in the air and conceding to the existence of the supernatural. Curious observation, we never see any deities in Valhalla and the Valhallans haven’t either since Rick is able to convince them that he’s Odin. Feral Rick being hung on a crucifix didn’t escape my attention either. It’s a running joke that Rick’s a god but maybe it’s not a joke after all…

This seems like a standalone episode but there has been a trend since season 4 or season 5 to have the penultimate episode connect with the finale, so I’m interested to see if this trend will continue. I don’t buy that Rick wants to tap into the afterlife just for the wealthy of infinite energy. Do you?

[pinktom]

hi! you've mentioned a few times that the current version of Lover's Spit is a re-write of a previous version. Sadly I wasn't around for said previous version so I can't tell how much has changed (though, rest assured, I absolutely adore the fic as it is)

So what I was wondering is how did you go about writing it again? I have a couple unpublished fics that I'm not happy with in their current forms (my writing style has changed, I've learnt about writing tricks to make it flow better, learnt proper dialogue punctuation...) but I find re-writing to be a very difficult and tedious exercise which puts me off doing it. I'm guessing that I just haven't found a good way to do it, which is a shame because the fics are good, they just need to be made better before I can be comfortable publishing them.

So I wanted to know, how did you completely re-write what you had already written? Please be as detailed as you want in your answer, I love this type of stuff lol

I can't wait for the next installment of Lover's Spit, and I hope your writing is going well xx

First of all, I’m honored you’d ask for my humble opinion here, and I wish you all the best of luck with your rewrites. ❤️

I also cannot tell you how uncanny your question is. A few months ago, I toyed with the idea of re-posting the original Lover’s Spit for exactly this purpose—so that other fic writers could read it, instructively, as I used so very many fics over the years. (I'm still on the fence about whether it's a stupid idea, lol.)

Reflecting back on the experience, I think I have some potentially useful tips.

Writing is a masochistic hobby. The first four chapters of Lover’s Spit threatened all three of my brain cells, and it wasn’t really very fun for me to write them. Having a ‘big picture’ is, paradoxically, what kept me grounded during that time, and this is my first piece of advice.

I’d recommend looking at a single unfinished piece you wrote, and deciding, from a bird’s eye view, what the point of the story is. What is your objective, really? Then look at how you can reframe all of the existing scenes into a cohesive picture. 

This way your attention is probably less focused on flexing all of the new techniques (still, slay & flaunt it 💅🏻) and more on telling an entertaining story with heart.

When we drafted the original story, there was no intentional objective. It was just for fun. This go around, I did go in with a very specific objective: to explore how real life intersects with the internet. 

So every time I rewrote certain scenes, I wasn’t just retelling the scene with better words. I was attempting to focus the scene (via imagery, dialogue, diction) on that clear, concise objective. For example, the current version of Lover’s Spit begins slower, and lingers more, really to emphasize how boring normal life can be. The internet scenes, by contrast, are shorter, whippier, and don’t take up much real estate. I also include more descriptive lines about the town, throughout the story, and spend far more time in Harry’s head, chewing kind of tediously through his character development. I wanted to intentionally set an ultra high contrast on IRL and internet life, and many scenes look completely different because of it.

Along those lines: You may feel more enthusiastic if you add one or two more details that are new and refreshing, that really excite you. It doesn’t need to be ultra tangible either. For the Lover’s Spit rewrite, I challenged myself to add more mystery and anticipation, particularly where it concerns what’s going on in Tom’s head. This made rewriting certain scenes tricky, but more fun, because I had to be more inventive but I also got to indulge in the character-building aspect of it, which I enjoy.

And also, I learned how to embrace bitter work, to grin and bear it, because the payoff is worth it. I can look at forty word passages that took me an entire Saturday afternoon. I'm a grown woman, I work full-time, I like to party. That shit hurts! But because I have an objective—a point to get across, to share with people—I really feel it's worth it to sacrifice the time and endure the tedium.

But all that said, I will also say there's no shame in leaving projects on the back burner. If it's not fun for you to write, it may not be the best investment of your time, or perhaps not the right time to tell the story. I was actually about your age when I wrote the first Lover's Spit (I was 22), and I'm glad I took my time to return, because I wasn't mature enough to tell the story I knew deep down I wanted to tell.

[academicelephant]

Some study advice from a second-year education student (who struggled with her studies in the first year and knows how tricky studying can sometimes be)

I know the academic year has already started, but here are a few tips to make your university studies easier. Lets start with some basics: if you can't concentrate, learning is difficult, which is why it's smart to modify your environment in such a way that it supports concentration. Therefore study in a distraction-free place, turn off your phone while studying and get rid of other factors hindering your concentration such as uncomfortable clothes or hunger.

The key to success is planning, and creating some studying routines. Study at least a few, preferably 5 to 7 hours every day (if you are a full-time student) and make sure you have breaks during the day! Depending on how you manage to concentrate, you can study 30 to 75 minutes at once and then take a 10 to 20 minutes break. During the day, it's good to go outside, for a short walk for example. It doesn't have to last longer than the break, 10 to 20 minutes is enough, as long as you get some fresh air and exercise. This is important because then your brain gets to rest and exercising, especially if done outside, reduces stress, which in turn promotes learning.

It is important that you find the time that works the best for you to study (in case you don't have a lot of lectures and can choose when to study). For me, it is between 9 and 11 am. For the majority of people, the forenoon is the most effective study time because that's when people typically have the highest level of alertness according to human biological internal clock. Studying late at night is not worth it because your body is getting ready to go to sleep and would no longer want to learn anything new. In the evening, it's best to put school stuff aside and relax, so that you can get enough (7 to 9 hours) of good-quality sleep. If you sleep poorly or too little, your brain cannot store all you learned the previous day and cannot receive much of new information.

Also don't leave things to the last minute, ever. You should start reading the course materials as soon as the course starts and divide it so that you can read everything before the exam. Learning is most effective when you have time for thinking. If you don't process the information you read or heard, it won't stick in your mind. Therefore skimming though the course materials on the last day before the exam is not effective. By the way, making your own notes or concept maps is a good idea: that way you can organize the content in a way that works for you. Then it is easier to remember. Furthermore, focus on understanding the whole rather than the details because if you understand the whole, the details will follow (note that it doesn’t work vice versa!).

If studying feels burdensome, as it sometimes may, lean on your friends or family. Studying with friends is often more motivating than studying alone because it gives a chance for positive social interaction and creates a feeling of social cohesion; friends can share thoughts and feelings concerning studying (and life in general). However, if the support received from them is not enough, you can talk to your teachers or go to a study psychologist. Your university may also have other study and mental health support services, of which you can get information from study counselor and other staff. Remember that neither your academic performance nor you as a person has to be perfect: good enough is enough!

[eldritch-spouse]

The salt beating post really got me thinking, what does salt actually do to the demons in your world? Will it burn then? If it harms them does Obie eating the salted demon harm him too? Or does it only injure them external? Like that one girl's that's allergic to water but can still drink water as long as it does touch her skin?

(salted demon sounds kinda delicious, for some reason my brain thinks it'll taste like chips, violent urge anon)

This raises a lot of questions.

Such as "Does prayer affect them?"; "Are religions right about demons?"; "Who is God? Who is Jesus?", etc etc... These are important to make sure things are minimally cohesive, so I'm going to spend some time running circles around a couple of questions.

Salt is a tricky thing.

They don't like the scent of it, is one way to put it. It's pretty repulsive and it traps imps quite well, mid-rankers can tough their way out of one, high-rankers are insulted that you think salt is effective against the. If you want to trap non-imps in a circle, you're going to need more than just salt, primarily sigils from siadar times. Which have probably been appropriated by a series of religions, scattered across the world, misused. Demons don't eat things with too much salt, and when they do, it's because the substance has already been absorbed into the food, therefore harmless to them. They do have salt substitutes that are specifically catered to demonoid consumption. Gluttons end up having a milder reaction to the substance, something that can be ignored if they're determined.

Prayer grates on their eardrums.

It's a mood killer at best however. You can't "pray the demon away", honestly. Unless you can somehow pronounce angel chants, which you absolutely cannot physically do given you will never have the ethereal subvocals celestials sport. Praying at a demon will get them to snap at you and possibly hurt you, but it won't give you their name or make them writhe in agony.

All religions are fabrications made by humanity when siadar abandoned them, as has been detailed before. However, this doesn't mean that slight genuine siadar elements haven't been incorporated in them, offering some facetious idea of veracity that is very misleading.

[gendervapor14]

I've read a lot of your stories (and liked them a lot) so I'm wondering how you plan out longer fics? I feel like I want to add to the Corazon pile but I don't really know where to start

anon.... [steps closer and kisses you on the head] thank you. i had an entire work shift to think about this and i still haven't come up with a clear answer 😅 but i will certainly offer all the help and advice i can!!

starting is my favorite part!! you need some sort of idea. doesn't have to be anything crazy. (i'm sure you have plenty!) for instance, the idea that inspired me to write 01746 was "i want rosinante to have a proper backstory." for two fights for freedom, the idea was "i want cora and bell-mere to live and have a nice family together". i think vaguer ideas are more likely to lead to larger stories, but as i'm sure you've seen, i tend to write a lot (a decent portion of my multichaps were supposed to be oneshots) but regardless of length, every good story starts with the desire to put an idea out there, and i get the feeling you've got that part covered!

in terms of physically writing, this is where things get a little tricky. bigger stories tend to involve planning. personally, i'm a pantser. my natural writing process involves no planning. nowadays i do a ton of planning, but that's because i've taken on a ton of hours at work, so i don't have the time to sit around and experiment with my writing anymore. if i want a story to go a certain direction, i need to have some sort of guideline to keep me on track with time. so consider how much free time you have. if you have a lot, you might not have to worry too much about outlining or making mistakes, because you'll have plenty of time to fool around and fix things.

(also worth noting it IS just fanfiction, and the post button is not setting your words in stone. i've edited plenty of things after posting, made some major edits too! that's always okay. it's just fanfiction :) i've never had a reader get upset about me tweaking previous chapters.)

in terms of guidelines or no guidelines, it depends on you and your story! like i said, i write by the seat of my pants, so guidelines tend to confuse me. maybe you're similar. or maybe you LOVE a guideline! outlines are good because they're flexible. even if it's a simple breakdown of some basic plot points you think would be neat. for two fights for freedom, i have an outline that lists every chapter and every scene within every chapter. pretty detailed. took a long time to make it though, and i'm constantly tweaking it. for 01746, i used a physical whiteboard with random notes and diagrams, but there wasn't any structural planning until probably the last ten chapters. with 01746, canon provided a lot of substance for me, where with two fights for freedom, almost the entire story is my own, extremely canon divergent, so it's more weight for me to bear. your need for an outline or notes may depend on how much weight you can carry to make the story cohesive.

NOW don't let any of that scare you!! usually when i begin a big multichap, i don't start with an outline. i just write something. i try my idea out, if that makes sense. sometimes what i start writing becomes chapter one, or maybe it'll become part of the summary, or maybe it'll be the plot twist in chapter seventy-two. in the beginning, it doesn't matter what comes out of your hands. get cozy with your idea and let it fill you with excitement and inspiration. you can worry about organization afterwards.

sorry if this was a bit indecipherable or unclear 😅 with every story i write, i try something new! fanfic writing for me is a great way to hone my skills and experiment, so i don't have a scientific method quite yet. i just try to learn about myself as much as possible and have fun along the way! and i hope you're able to do the same!!

i'm around if you ever need more help! you can always DM or shoot me another ask, i don't mind at all! i really flung a lot of words at you here so feel free to narrow me down to a more specific concern whenever. i wish you great luck on your projects 🍀 this world always needs more added to the cora pile ♥ and feel free to hmu if you do end up posting something!! i'd love to check it out 👀

[tiredassmage]

It's that time again - update rambles time kdfnalsdfnsd. The short version is, overall, I'm really pleased with this update, but there's... at least one thing missing that did sort of derail me in the end and I'll still need to go back and play it pubside on my Trooper, which I think I might enjoy slightly more for... cohesion of a story's sake, but that's. a) getting a bit into the actual ramble and b) getting my personal blorbo feelings involved which is absolutely what I do here but, let me do it in the right place, lmao.

Mechanically, this was. a really sweet update to me. There's lots of doing in progressing through the story part. The fights are engaging, the action is selling. It doesn't play like a bunch of run to checkpoint x, do y, hand in z, which is very nice. There's. actually a few things to consider. Comparing to 7.2 in Showdown, the action isn't just in the cutscenes this time - it's definitely there, too, I have plenty of nice action shots to add to the blasters out collection, lol - but it's also in the gameplay, at least from my take, so! I've really no complaints from a gameplay perspective thus far.

I haven't worked on any of the dailies or done the little follow up with Lane or whatnot yet because I sort of had my fill with the story for the day and I wanted to check out some of the lighting changes in other parts of the game, hehe! So, might run into other things later, but we'll see.

I also love seeing locations from earlier in the game making a comeback. The little hints here and there are enough to be exciting for me - though I see some people saying missed opportunity to do things with Jorgan and Corso and I will more than likely agree with that. I'd always be a sucker for more references.

Petra's really cool. I love her. Loved meeting her and working with her. As a local Imperial Agent enjoyer, I think it's only natural to say I do love the sneak and spy elements of this update, lol.

I got a lot of what I could've ever hoped to ask for out of this update. I'm just... missing the saboteur options? Which... really threw me at the end. There's at least a place or two that it felt exactly where those sort of options should've come up, but there's at least no directly labeled sight of them around, which is... jarring given Tyr's extensive history as a double agent for the Republic.

It's... a really tricky situation to deal with on Ord though, so that's. how I'm choosing to sort of interpret that one. There are some areas that felt a little too tight on strictly Imperial loyalty for how I typically play him, so it's. It's jarring, in short. One of my disappointment areas, I have to admit. I haven't done any of the dailies, but it looks like it'll end up being interpreted as Imperial support either way - which, fair, I'm playing an impside character, I know, but the lines were very clear on Ossus for where that saboteur option was involved and they even appeared on Manaan. I'm still hoping to see that storyline go somewhere even though there feels like there's a lot of moving parts on the board at the moment.

SO. With that said, onto my giggles and other miscellaneous references because it seems the last several story updates have thematically been reflective and reference-pockmarked for me, lol.

I cannot tell you the way I squealed with excitement to see these two in frame and actually doing something like cooperating.

And also the way I am, once again, haunted by being an Imperial Agent girlie. Because all I can think of in this is Double agent. Triple agent. Do you even know whose lies you're telling anymore?

Primarily, of course, my own feelings about blorbo who's been in the spy business for literally about half his lifetime and a double agent for maybe half of that - now he's going to balance being a double for the Republic with working with Sa'har? Ough. Tyr, babe. I hope you know what you're doing.

He wants to help her. He's wanted to from the start. Sa'har's I'm not sure I -want- to leave, speaking to that I'm not sure I can leave a job unfinished that Tyr is so, so painfully familiar with experiencing. Maybe he's got fleece over his eyes because of his own complicated feelings about working in unseen ways, but he does believe her.

ALSO THIS GIRL. NEARLY GIVIN ME A HEART ATTACK. GIRL I LIKED YOU DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT. Anyway. I love her. I love. Again, one of the most hilarious dialogue wheels you could give this man is I'm no traitor (lie, you've been once since you were in your late twenties, and you're like, what 46ish? It's been a long time since Hutta, agent) / I don't work with traitors (another lie, you're still kissing Theron Shan [Tyr. argues that doesn't count which is the only reason this is the option I went with] / and [Attack]

And then I won't be normal about him taking option 2 and dropping "I'd like to believe I've always been fighting for something greater."

I'm fine. I'm sure I'm fine. [Girl who is constantly plagued by the emotional agonies of maining a double agent.]

ANYWAY. Or perhaps also on that note. Krovos getting a little sharp about his misplaced priorities. Nothing comes of it. Yet. But it's enough to keep my brain stew going and bubbling about the weight of it all.

And it's just. so very Tyr to throw himself in the line of fire trying to keep people he meant to keep out of overcomplicating situations safe.

And I am, overall, just a sucker for the way this update brings it back to... I guess grass roots, you could say. Grounding the story in what's actually happening to places like Ord Mantell, brushing with some of the consequences on people in general - the Hidden Chain stealing supplies, possibly moving people, even, or at least their allies might be - sells the big story in the end, I think. Otherwise, the big, vague prophetic 'the fate of the galaxy sets on your shoulder' doesn't really settle as much. This might be what you're fighting for, or it might be what you're costing along the way. And I just like having that connective tissue that is 'they're here for supplies;' they're rebuilding and moving forward with plans after Ruhnuk, and Malgus's threat that all things will still unfold according to a plan is still lingering around.

[Also, Rass people. The flirts. wtf I love it. They're adorable.]

And I really am just. Such a hopeless sucker for scenes like this. A little slice of just being people in between all the galactic turmoil and heroics.

So, I've still got a fair amount of things to be chewing on! Once I'm through this last week of finals stuff, I'll expect I'll hop on TrooperTyr and go. redamage my emotions further and play it pubside and have a whole other whirlwind of emotions about how he handles it too dlfknsadlkf;sld. For now, time to pop some screenshots into the queue! ^.^

OH. ALSO. Kessing's Landing is fucking beautiful.

[monkey-network]

Good Stuff: The Super Mario Bros Movie

A fan shouldn't always sugarcoat it. Even if you get something you never figured you'd ever want but appreciate a lot, that doesn't mean a bias should bury any deeper feelings. What I'm getting at is Illumination's Super Mario Bros Movie can be so awesome and it was worth going to the theaters to see personally, but I can't get over the crippling flaw it has to say it was as great as I could say now. Better to be honest now than get increasingly unfulfilled later. First, though, I gotta give the props where they are due.

First, Bowser was The Best in this and I want him

For real, the animation was what I waiting for this whole time, no problems here. The film is fun. If it wasn't fun, that means Disney would've made it and it'd never come out anyways because of "creative differences". Illumination I found can make animations that are really bouncy fun, and it's best shown here. Plus the characters look incredible, DK especially, and there are moments where, in the best way, it felt like a cutscene from a video game I would want to play. Not to snipe at the Sonic movies, but this is seriously what I've wanted from video game movies since... Angry Birds 2? Like enough with the hybrid live-action crap, make a cartoon if the sourced game is about a CARTOON universe. "You mean like Ratchet & Cla-"

We do not... talk about that one.

This leads to something tricky I had in mind to discuss, and that's "faithfulness". Not long ago I watched the 1993 Mario Bros movie, a fiasco that one can argue was unfaithful to most of the source materials even with the few things they got right. Did we get something more suitable here? Well, I definitely wasn't annoyed with the fucking stupid discourse surrounding Peach's characterization and Mario's voice that's for sure. Many will cite this as having a great fuckton of references but I enjoyed the liberties they took whether or not they were references. The fact it starts out in Brooklyn made me already smile but the final act had my booty jiggle with unhinged glee. There's some corniness to it, especially with the certain musical needle drops they do, but even then it felt like they reveled in the corniness of those moments. This made me believe Nintendo and Illumination were looking to just make it excitable and enjoyable regardless of what fits where. It pains me though, knowing that there is that crippling flaw I mentioned at the beginning because while this film was fun, it went by fast. Ludicrously so... disjointedly so.

It was the Apex Cinema Speedrun, if you will

Many negative reviews claim this has a very thin plot and I honestly didn't consider that a wholly bad thing. A thin plot doesn't mean it wasn't cohesive or focused, or that there weren't any arcs to be had. The real problem comes in that certain moments don't feel earned when we barely get any time to cherish them. The pacing of this was kinda atrocious, the tight runtime truly being a detriment behind ideas for characters getting brought up well only to have shallow payoffs. Peach and Luigi especially had something about them I wanted to see more of, but before you got to see the plant blossom, they keep chugging and you're like "Ah, that's it?" They didn't need to spell everything out but let the characters breathe.

Bowser and DK felt like the exception

If this was the only movie we ever got again (knocking on wood), the fun of it all would soon subside for increased disappointment in the long run. I could say "This needs more movie" as a compliment, but that would mean I was fine with what we got. The live-action film, batshit as it was, felt consistent with everything it wanted to show and tell whether or not you saw the director's cut. That's why it became a cult hit, you remember how batshit it was. I genuinely enjoyed the film, but even with its many stand-out moments, it's gonna be hard to remember this film as much as I want to.

Except for Lumalee, I don't ever wanna forget them

I won't tout this overall as mid or "playing it safe" because they did so much right with this. When I say they stuck the landing with the Mario brothers themselves, that genuinely got to me. When we got the adventure, I relished the adventure. Like for the love of god, give me more of all this PLEASE! However, I won't give it a pass and call it perfect just because it tickled the Nintendo fan in me. Illumination's great when it comes to being in the moment, that's why I stopped hating on them, but in terms of their films having staying power this being a Mario film is carrying it hard from being a potentially forgettable one. For me, this is the movie adaptation of the Super Mario Super Show I never knew I wanted but looked forward to and felt was worth it. At the same time, my mind is fighting my heart strong knowing this Mario movie could've definitely been stronger. My final say is that it's a 6/10 movie with 10/10 moments. If you're looking for fun, this delivers no doubt, and don't let this review stop you from calling it a personal masterpiece.

What matters is that Mario finally made the Range

[staurora]

My Thoughts on Xikers debut!

(gif retrieved from @hunternity )

So Xikers recently debuted with the album House of Tricky: Doorbell Ringing and I wanted to share my thoughts! I’ve been keeping an eye on them as KQ has released more content to build hype and I think they were very easy for me to get interested in compared to many other groups. And their album did not disappoint!

I won’t go into my specific thoughts on every song but I think the entire album as a whole is very well done. Its cohesive and high energy in a way that doesn’t feel annoying or dull, due to the great musicality from the production team (Hongjoong, Edenary crew, ily). If I had to describe the concept, it’s a sort of trickster concept with a modern, youthful kind of twist. They play around a little bit with varying genres while keeping a distinct Kpop sound as the through-line. I enjoyed it very much and I’ve been listening to it often since release!

(I hear they also have lore. I’m not gonna dive into that until like. Next comeback. It looks complicated and I don’t have enough material to judge yet lol)

When you look for negative opinions of them so far, the biggest thing I’ve seen is that people think they’re too much like Ateez, that KQ is just making them Ateez junior, etc. I can see why they feel like it sounds a bit similar, but at the same time, Ateez has a particular sound that I just… don’t really hear in these tracks? Idk how to describe it, like Ateez songs tend to have a more cinematic feeling most of the time I think? I could see a comparison between this album and maybe Fever part 2, but even then its a very vague similarity and I’ve always felt that particular album kind of stuck out of Ateez’s music. I think if Xikers were under JYP, everyone would compare them to Stray Kids in the same way, right? They just sound like a kpop boy group.

Also… yeah I’m sure KQ is trying to make a follow up to Ateez, one of their most profitable business moves to date (come on, KQ fellaz and then KQ fellaz 2? It’s pretty clear). But the members of Xikers are distinct individuals, and their personalities will naturally influence the direction of their music and performances. They will eventually move out from the shadows of senior performers. Hopefully they can bring something very new or innovative to their second comeback, make a wave like hala hala did but in a whole new way.

Anyway, to close on a positive note, here are some of my favorite things I’ve noticed from Xikers thus far!

Sumin! He’s probably my bias, along with Hunter? Hunter’s dance skills are CRAZY (and he did that one performance to all time hit Juggernaut by my fav Tyler the Creator so I’m. Biased.) Sumin kinda snuck up on me tho, for some reason he reminded me a bit of Changbin? But distinctly different, he has this particular kind of coolness yknow? I’m always rapper biased😔.

In Xikey, Minjae’s shout of “Xikers” rly gave me goosebumps! So powerful, he went all in and it paid off!

Edenary, HJ i am Kissing u deeply for Dynamic, that track fucks severely

Yechan… that kid has some crazy potential and I think everyone knows it. With him as well as the other members, I look forward to learning more about them as individuals and seeing those traits shine through in their music.

[these-godforsaken-halls]

Save me quality entertainment….quality entertainment….save me

HI AHSJDKDHHDHSHD i have no idea when this was sent but its making me giggle so much

chapter 3 has been sitting at like 7k for awhile, but there are a few tricky bits i need to tie together for it to feel cohesive and be ready to publish... i appreciate all the kind comments and stuff ive gotten in the meantime 😭 they r my lifeblood 😭😭😭 ITS COMING I AM CLOSE I MIGHT GET IT OUT THIS WEEKEND EVEN!!!

[the-marron]

Fic stats game

Rules: Give us the links to your fics with the most hits, second most kudos, third most bookmarks, fourth most comments, fifth most words, and your fic with the least amount of words.

Tagged by @forerussake, thank you!

Hah, I am steering clear off Ao3 lately, but out of sheer curiosity, why not.

Most hits: When I Look At You, When I Look At Us, written for All For The Game book series. No idea why to be fair, I wouldn't say it was especially riveting, it's more of a character study than anything else.

Second most kudos: So Many Chances Unseen, Grindeldore. I loved writing this one and I am so glad people are still enjoying it even now <3

Third most bookmarks: It's Not a Safe World For Kids, BatCat from DC Comics. I enjoyed writing this one too, an interesting excercise in fitting a lot of comic canons into one cohesive story of joining a family of misfits.

Fourth most comments & Fifth most words: : Heaven's a Heartbreak Away, Haikyuu, Bokuaka. A silly dancing reality show au that I am still a bit embarrassed about.

Least amount of words: Nothing I have ever known, Weilan derviatives, Qi Heng/Xun Xu. I don't publish anything shorter than 1000 words and this one is the closest I got to that low limit but making it longer would not work either. And so it vibes here, on thin ice.

I am not tagging anyone this time, since stats checking is a tricky thing and can either make someone's day or destroy it, but if anyone feels inspired to do it after seeing this post, please do and tag me in it 😊

[psywebcomic]

Melody!!!!! Do you have any make-up tips?! Love you sm girlie<333

MELODY: AWWW love u too!!!! ^w^ hrrmm that depends on what kinda makeup tips youre looking for! like, i dont actually wear all that much makeup except for lipstick and the occasional artful eye tbh!! the only time i break out the foundation and actually do a full face is when i'm cosplaying or some other super special occasion :3 

what you really wanna focus on is skincare! getting a good combo of products that work for you is tricky and really trial and error, since everyones skin is different! soooo im afraid i cant be super helpful with THAT....

BUT!!! overall, a major tip i have for u is to get urself educated on color theory!! coordinating the colors of ur eyes, lips, and outfit  is soooo important to bringing a cohesiveness to ur overall look. it's not JUST about the makeup, but the overall LOOK! yknow?? 

also!!!!! it's SO important to remember that makeup is a SKILL, and youre probly not gonna be great at it right away. practice makes perfect as always!!! when i was first starting out, youtube and tiktok tutorials were EVERYTHING so DONT be afraid to use those and to look at other ppls makeup for inspiration!!!!!

most of this stuff is pretty ingrained in me by now so im not so sure whats helpful and whats not sooo i hope that at least had SOME helpfulness to it ^u^;; 

i leave you with this silly cosplay selfie cuz i was so proud of this look X3 

XOXO MELODY <3333