#its roughly mapped because there's also a story there | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cirilla-fiona-riannon · 1 year

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These translations are not intended as a replacement for the game. Please support Cybird by buying their stories. Expect grammatical errors.

While walking around town on a date with Prince Silvio, I saw a corner bustling with activity.

Silvio: "It's an event where you can enter a raffle based on the total amount you spend shopping."

Emma: "So that's what the ticket I got when I shopped earlier was for?"

Townsman: "The first prize is this one-of-a-kind gorgeous tea set!"

In the center of the crowd, a beautiful, delicately crafted, blue color tea set shone brightly.

(Wow, you can win that in the lottery!?)

Emma: "Prince Silvio, can I try?"

Silvio: "You look like you're having a lot of fun with this lottery. Go on."

Emma: "I'm going to win the first prize!"

I lined up at the back of the crowd, and after a few minutes of waiting, it was finally my turn.

Townsman: "You're next. Go ahead, draw one of these."

(Which one should I choose? This is making me nervous.)

I picked one of the tiny shells from the box offered to me.

Emma: "This one! What's the prize?"

Feeling anxious, I checked the underside of the shell and found the words "8th" written on it.

Townsman: "Ah, too bad! The 8th prize is a participation prize. Here, it's a discount coupon you can use in town."

Emma: "Thank you!"

After the drawing, I rushed over to him.

Emma: "It was a participation prize!"

Silvio: "Getting the first prize is not that easy, you know?"

Emma: "I thought I could win it since you're with me."

Silvio: "You've got a lot of guts to make me your lucky charm."

As a punishment, he roughly tousled my hair.

Silvio: "Do you want to draw again?"

Emma: "No, once is enough."

Silvio: "I thought you wanted it?"

Emma: "Of course I wanted it, but I'm more interested in the thrill of not knowing what I'm going to win."

Silvio: ".........."

Emma: "What's wrong?"

Silvio: "I just thought it was a typical thought from someone who is not materialistic."

Silvio: "Let's move on to the next store."

Emma: "Got it! Thanks for sticking with me."

Emma: "Then, let's go to..."

I spread out the map I had marked and returned to our date.

A few days later, he came to my room carrying something mysterious.

Emma: "What's that expensive-looking box?"

The excessively decorated box made it difficult to gauge its purpose just by looking at it.

Silvio: "It's a raffle. You drew it the other day, right?"

Silvio: "I thought maybe I could come up with some clever business idea using this. So go along with me."

I couldn't keep up with the sudden turn of events, but the last words reminded me of something.

(Did he make it because I mentioned I enjoy it?)

(But then again, nothing is impossible with this guy.)

I spoke up to cover up my smile.

Emma: "If that's the case, I'm happy to help!"

Seeing him smile with satisfaction made me happy, too.

Silvio: "Drawing alone would be boring, so I've also prepared some prizes."

Emma: "It's not something expensive, is it?"

Silvio: "Ha? It's not like that. You wouldn't accept it even if I prepared it for you."

Silvio: "It's something you're more likely to enjoy."

Emma: "What is it?"

Silvio: "Well... you know, things like roses, sweets... ah, something like that."

(He suddenly started slurring his words. And I feel like he's getting restless.)

(I guess I'll find out if I draw one.)

Silvio: "Tch, forget it! I changed my mind!"

Emma: "What? Why!?"

Emma: "You even prepared prizes, so at least let me draw once."

Silvio: "No. Let's do it next time."

(He's getting so agitated it's making me even more curious!)

(Is there something strange or unusual among the prizes?)

(But if he's not letting me draw even once for that reason, then perhaps the prizes aren't things in the first place.)

(Considering he knows I'm not materialistic, he'd probably choose...)

Emma: "Could it be that the prizes are somehow related to you?"

Emma: "Maybe a coupon to have a drink with you?"

Silvio: ".........."

Emma: "Or like words of love from you."

Silvio: "Hey, I said it's over already!"

(This mix of embarrassment and anger confirms it!)

Emma: "You really know what I want."

(He probably thought hard about it and made it while feeling embarrassed.)

Just the thought of it made me smile. I felt like I might even burst out laughing.

Emma: "Fufu, thank you."

I kissed his cheeks several times to express my joy and gratitude.

Silvio: "You always do things so suddenly..."

Emma: "Well, now that I know what's inside, I'll draw!"

Silvio: "When did you get the box!? Hey, give it back!"

Emma: "Nope!"

(There's no way I'd let go of it now that I know it's a box full of his love.)

I put my hand inside the box while evading Silvio.

Feeling more excited than any other previous time, I carefully selected a single seashell.

#ikemen prince #silvio ricci #ikepri jp #ikepri silvio #ikepri translations #cybird #ikepri

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circus4apsycho8 · 8 months

Note

Oh also did I request a oneshot of the reader taking care if the ninja during child's play cause my more is horrible

𝚊/𝚗: 𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎! 𝚒 𝚔𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚢𝚘𝚞 𝚜𝚞𝚋𝚖𝚒𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚛𝚎𝚚𝚞𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚊𝚋𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝟷 (𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚕, 𝚖𝚊𝚢𝚋𝚎 𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗 𝟸) 𝚢𝚎𝚊𝚛𝚜 𝚊𝚐𝚘, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗 𝚒 𝚘𝚗𝚕𝚢 𝚓𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝚗𝚘𝚠 𝚐𝚘𝚝 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚝𝚘 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑 𝚒𝚝 𝚕𝚘𝚕. 𝚋𝚎𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚗 𝚗𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚛!

𝚒 𝚖𝚒𝚐𝚑𝚝 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚙𝚊𝚛𝚝 𝟸 𝚝𝚘 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜, 𝚋𝚞𝚝 𝚒𝚍𝚔 𝚢𝚎𝚝!

child's play. | ninja & reader

There has to be a story here somewhere.

You push your way through the sea of bodies clustered on the sidewalk, eyes trying to locate a nearby street sign. Soon enough, you do, taking a moment to ensure that the street name you’re on matches the one on your phone’s map.

“The museum has to be close,” you mumble, heading down the correct sidewalk. As you do, your eyes occasionally dart to your phone to verify that you’re continuing in the correct direction.

As you round the corner of the block, you notice a few pedestrians milling around, some waiting for the phone booth to open. You pass it, not noticing the hopeful stares of four pairs of eyes looking at you.

Your mind shifts to the details you had heard concerning the break-in that had occurred within the museum early this morning: the police had caught four children red-handed with a stolen sarcophagus nearby. And although they’re in the process of investigating the museum’s security feed, something about the whole situation seems off. And it’s your job to figure out why and let the world know about it.

You’re about to cross the street when you hear someone yelling your name from behind you.

Frowning, you turn, shutting your phone off as you look around.

“Down here!”

You shift your stare down, finding four children stationed in front of you. Something about them seems...uncannily familiar, but that couldn’t be because you don’t know any children personally.

“Hi there,” you greet hesitantly. “What do you need?”

“You’ve gotta help us!” cries the redheaded boy, eyes wide as he jumps forward and gestures wildly. “We were trying to stop Lord Garmadon from resuscitating the Grundle with the Mega Weapon, but then we got caught up in its spell and it made us kids again and now we’re stuck as kids running from the Grundle but we can’t even go anywhere because we’re kids now!”

For a moment, you’re speechless as you try to process what he’s saying. You try to be polite, but all that comes out is: “What?”

The brown-haired boy shoves the redhead roughly. “You can’t just say it like that! She doesn’t even recognize us yet!”

“My apologies,” adds the white-haired child. “My friend is a bit rattled from the events of the morning. Do you recognize us?”

“...No?” you wonder, frowning. “Should I?”

“We’re the ninja!” the black-haired boy cries. “Remember? We work with you a lot during the public conferences!”

“We just got turned into kids because we were trying to stop Garmadon!” explains the brunet. “Remember? I’m Kai, that’s Jay, Cole, and this is Zane.”

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“You work as our journalist! Well, kind of!” adds the redhead – Jay? “You’re about to investigate the museum, because wherever there’s trouble, you follow! And we just happen to be there like eighty percent of the time!”

“You always help us out with the public press conferences,” Cole notes. “You give us advice on how to reply and join in on our discussions.”

“Are you kidding me?” you respond. “Wait, wait, so let me make sure I’m understanding you correctly. You’re actually the ninja, and during your fight against Garmadon, you got turned back into children?”

Kai nods. “Exactly. And now, there’s a revived Grundle preparing to hunt us all down when the sun sets. And we’re basically powerless against it!”

“Oh my stars,” you mumble, rubbing your forehead. Well...this is certainly not how you expected the day to go. But you know they have to be the ninja now, considering what they told you. “Okay...okay. Fine. What do you need me to do?”

“We managed to get in contact with a teammate,” Jay notes. “We have to meet him at Buddy’s Pizza in three hours!”

“Three hours?!” Cole exclaims. “Why so long?!”

“Because! Lloyd has to get into contact with Sensei Wu and Nya, then find a way to get down here without an adult! Which, as we now know, is much harder than we initially thought!”

Whew. A few hours with mini ninja. This should be interesting.

“Okay, so...what do you guys need me to do?” you question.

“We need a ride, for starters,” Kai answers. “We can’t get around anywhere without an adult.”

“Well, my car’s parked in a garage a few blocks away,” you note. “We could just use that.”

“That’s perfect!” Jay chirps.

“Any chance we can stop for breakfast, by the way?” Cole asks, earning an elbow to the stomach by Jay. “Oof! What was that for?! We’ve been out all night!”

“You can’t just ask her to do that! That’s rude!” Jay admonishes with a frown.

“Actually, I'm kind of hungry too,” you note. “Fine. Let’s go. You said we have about three hours, right? So, we have some time to kill.”

“See! She gets it!” Cole taunts victoriously.

“Just...just make sure you all stay close. The streets are crowded today, and I don’t want to go losing any of you,” you direct, deciding to follow behind them so you can keep an eye on the four.

“Yeah, yeah. We’re not actually kids, you know! We still remember adult stuff!” Kai announces.

You sigh, listening to their banter as the five of you start the trek back to your car. As you watch them, you give them instructions on where and when to switch direction when needed.

Thankfully, you’re able to make it to the intersection leading to the parking garage without much trouble.

“There it is!” Kai yells, taking a step towards the street. “Come on, let’s go!”

Your heart lurches as you spot an oncoming car from the right, hand immediately latching onto Kai’s shoulder before he can walk. The car speeds past, making them gasp.

“Don’t go until I say it’s okay!” you scold as you let go of his shoulder. “You guys aren’t big enough to see around the cars parked on the street! They block most of your view!”

Kai chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of his neck as he stares at the car that had passed. “Sorry. Force of habit, I guess.”

“You should still look both ways on the street, regardless of your age,” you state, watching as the pedestrian light turns to the ‘walk’ signal. You double-check that the road is clear before ushering the group across.

Now at the entrance of the parking garage, you watch as the ninja fall into a single-file line.

“We’re headed to the elevator,” you instruct, pointing towards the mentioned object just a few feet ahead.

“Elevator! Oh my gosh, can I push the button?!” Jay questions, eyes bright again as he proposes the idea.

“No way, I wanna push it!” Kai butts in, frowning.

“Not if I push it first!” Cole challenges.

“Why does it matter?” Zane wonders.

With that, you find yourself groaning as you listen to the ninja as they start bickering over who gets to push the freaking button. You wonder how to get them to stop when an idea occurs to you.

“Guys, you’re pushing my buttons!” you grumble before taking a breath. “Okay. How about this? Jay can push the first button, since he was the first to suggest it. Kai can push the floor button, then Cole can push the button that closes the door. Finally, when we get up to the level, Zane can push the button that keeps the door open. Sound good?”

Thankfully, this manages to satisfy the group as they agree and quiet down. Jay taps the up button, watching as it lights up.

“Haha! That never gets old!” he laughs, the four watching as the sign showing the elevator’s current level decreases. When it gets to the ground floor, a ding sounds.

The door opens, revealing a couple inside. You step in front of the boys, blocking them from butting their way inside first.

“Please, go ahead,” you say, smiling. The strangers thank you as they exit, the ninja filing in moments after. “Kai, press 3A.”

“Ha! My turn!” Kai shouts, aggressively pushing his designated button.

“Use your inside voice!” you remind exasperatedly, sighing as Cole closes the door with his button.

Thankfully, the group quiets down for a moment as the elevator ascends. Though, you notice that they’re sending each other knowing looks. Are they planning something?

Just as the elevator is about to stop at the target floor, the four jump in unison. You gasp as they land, causing the elevator to shake.

“We went so high!” Jay exclaims.

“It would have been better if we had waited slightly longer,” Zane notes, calmly tapping his assigned button.

You sigh, watching as they exit with excited chatter about the elevator jump.

“Okay, this way. Stay to the right, and next to me,” you instruct, leading the group to your car.

“Echo!” Jay yells. “Aw, man, it doesn’t really echo in here. Lame parking garage.”

You roll your eyes, pulling your keys out and unlocking the car. You open the back door, realizing you have another problem.

“Wait,” you say, making them all stop. “Let me see...who’s the tallest?”

“I am,” Zane states.

“Okay. You’ll sit in the passenger seat, then, because I only have three seat belts in the back.”

“Aw, come on!” Kai whines.

“Kai, shut up,” Cole retorts. “Just be grateful that we have a ride that we won’t have to pay for!”

“Sorry,” Kai mumbles sheepishly. You chuckle, watching as Zane makes his way to the other side. You help the smaller ninja clamber into the vehicle, making sure they’re all buckled up before you shut the door.

“Okay,” you mutter, opening the driver’s door and entering. You set all of your belongings down on the console before shoving your keys into the ignition. “Everyone’s all buckled up, right?”

They respond with a chorus of affirmations.

“Good,” you note. “Okay. Let’s go eat.”

…

After designating Zane as the car DJ and letting each of the ninja take turns picking music, you finally arrive at the agreed breakfast place. After you park, the sound of unbuckling takes over the interior before you exit with everyone else.

“I love this place!” Cole admits as you hold the door open for all of them.

“So do I,” you agree, following them inside after they enter.

“Good morning. Just five today?” the host question.

“Uh, yeah,” you reply.

“Alright,” he acknowledges, turning around to pull out the needed number of menus. You notice that he only picks out one regular menu, the other four being paper menus accompanied with packs of crayons. “Follow me, please.”

After being seated, the host distributes the menus before letting you all decide what to order.

“I remember these!” Jay says, pointing towards the black and white picture of a dinosaur next to the kid’s menu. “Man, why do they assume that just because you’re an adult means you don’t want to color?”

“Because coloring is lame,” Kai answers, glaring at his picture of Lightning McQueen.

“I kind of liked it,” Cole admits, opening his crayon pack. You notice that he was given a picture of a cartoony cat. “I bet I can do it even better now.”

“You are supposed to color the image?” Zane wonders, studying the cute, furry monster on his page. “Perhaps I will give it a try. I have never experienced this.”

“How about this?” Jay suggests. “Whoever has the best picture wins!”

“Wins what?” Kai inquires.

“The glory of being the best artist on the team,” Cole answers.

You watch in quiet amusement as they all start coloring, quietly discussing amongst themselves. You can't help but giggle upon remembering that these are the destined protectors of Ninjago – fearsome wielders of the Elements of Creation, all participating in a coloring contest at some random breakfast place. What a strange day.

After the waitress comes by to collect your orders, you elect to watch the four.

Kai seems to be scribbling in his color loosely, often going outside of the lines but not really caring. At one point, he even snaps his blue crayon in half - much to Jay’s dismay. He decides to put a pair of angry eyebrows on Lightning McQueen before declaring his masterpiece complete.

Jay appears to be taking their impromptu contest more seriously, taking his time coloring in the dinosaur but also adding some silly features – like a mustache and top hat. He draws a yellow sun with a smiley face in the corner of the paper.

Cole elects to go a more realistic route – he colors the cat slowly, taking the time to add smaller details that make the picture appear less cartoonish. He even takes the extra step to add a background, too – it appears to be an alleyway, with another cat perched atop a trash bin. You think you even see him trying to blend the colors together.

Zane seems a bit unsure of how to start, but after a brief chat with Cole, he decides on a simple design for his monster. He makes its body a gradient of green to blue before adding some yellow for the polka dots scattered about the torso. His markings are neat, calculated, and precise.

You smile softly, sipping on your drink as you observe the group. This could certainly make for an interesting story.

Eventually, the food arrives, and the drawings are forgotten. The five of you thank the waitress before tucking into your respective meals.

“Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask,” you start between bites. “You guys said that Garmadon revived a Grundle?”

“Yeah, he did!” Jay confirms. “It’s gonna hunt us down once the sun sets.”

“You sound a little less freaked out than I expected,” Kai interjects.

Jay shrugs. “At least I get to go out after a day of reliving some of my favorite childhood moments. Pushing the elevator button, jumping in it, then coming here to color and eat chicken tenders with honey mustard? It’s not a bad last day, you know.”

Kai rolls his eyes, finishing up the last few bites of his grilled cheese. “Guys, seriously. What are we going to do about this thing? Our Spinjitzu’s worthless!”

“We’d better hope that Lloyd has an idea,” Cole adds. “I mean...who would know how to stop an animal that’s supposed to be extinct?!”

“There is little research about them that I can access at the moment, which only adds to the problem,” Zane chimes in, frowning. “Hopefully Lloyd will be able to contact Sensei and Nya in time.”

“I hope so,” you mumble. “But we do know for sure that it’s nocturnal, right?”

“Yes, it is. My assumption is that it will seek shelter until dusk before continuing to track our scents,” Zane explains.

“Awesome!” you chirp sarcastically. “So, you’re basically just hoping that your friend has an idea?”

“Pretty much. We’ve gotten pretty good at getting ourselves out of messes like this,” Jay notes.

“Yeah, I know things look pretty bleak right now, but come on! Of all people, you should have at least a little faith in us!” Cole adds.

Okay. Fair point – they are good at digging themselves out of situations like this. “Alright, alright. Fine. What should we do next?”

“I know exactly where to go,” Jay states, grinning wickedly. “I’ll explain on the way!”

With that, the group finishes up eating before you pay. Before you leave, however, you sneakily collect the ninja’s drawings with a soft smile as an article idea occurs to you.

…

Jay’s secret place had turned out to be a random playground.

“Seriously, Jay?!” Cole wonders. “I thought you said that this place would be secure enough for us to talk!”

“Is it!” Jay counters. “I mean, who would suspect us to form our game plan on a playground?”

“You don’t even want to talk about the plan, you just want to go down the slide!” Kai accuses.

“Haha! And you don’t?!”

Before you can even say anything, the four are already unbuckling and sailing out of the car.

“Seriously?” you mumble, sighing. Well, since you have to wait anyway...maybe you can at least get some work done.

You grab your laptop bag, walking over to one of the picnic tables nearby. You sit down facing the ninja before pulling your computer out.

Their yells and laughter accompany the chirping of birds, only adding to the inspiration for your new article:

Tapping into our inner child: what we can learn from the saviors of Ninjago...

#ninjago x reader #ninja x reader #ninja & reader #kai & reader #kai x reader #jay & reader #jay x reader #cole x reader #cole & reader #zane x reader #zane & reader #ninjago & reader

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99corentine · 5 months

Text

How To Write Good by Corentine

THE DRAFTING PROCESS, PART 2/2

Writing guide continued! Here's PART ONE.

STEP THREE: THE START, THE END, THE BEATS

I’m of the opinion that every story should start with a bang. You could start mid-way through a notable event, as seen in GHD:

- O L H A - D - V - The words, incomprehensible, rattle around his head like the last rumbles of a great thunderstorm. Then, much like after a storm has passed, the air suddenly feels clearer, sharper. A sludgy fog he didn’t even realise he was in clears from his mind and he blinks, confused. The first thing he sees is his own hands.

If you want it to be especially punchy, you can start with a line of dialogue or a short sentence, like I did for T4T:

CHAPTER ONE: It is the end.

It’s reeeally easy to lose readers at the start, so you always want to write a strong opener. Something that grabs the reader by the collar and drags them in to read the rest of the chapter.

You don’t need to have all the details, but you should have at least a vague idea of how the story ends. If you’re writing fanfic that follows along the same plot as a game or existing story, most of the legwork is done for you – so writing GHD, I planned for it to end when Alduin was killed. As I got further into the story, I came up with a more narratively satisfying ending, because it’s okay if the ending changes. As long as you have an ending in mind, you have something to work towards.

So GHD’s original, very basic plot was:

START – the Last Dragonborn wakes up with total amnesia

???

He saves Miraak

???

They kill Alduin together – END

Now you have to map out those ??? parts by deciding the major beats of the story, i.e. notable scenes. This gives you something to work towards other than the ending. I ended up with notes like these:

START – the Last Dragonborn wakes up with total amnesia

Who is he? Don’t spend too much time on this, not important, can be answered later

Goes to Solstheim, meets Miraak

Finds a way to communicate with Miraak – sneaks into Apocrypha? Shares dreams? College of Winterhold has psijiics, use telepathy?

Finds a way to save Miraak

Go to Apocrypha, confront Hermaeus Mora, save Miraak

They look for ways to kill Alduin together

Hermaeus Mora comes for them

Prolonged recovery, tells reader that even ‘redeemed’ Miraak is still scary

They kill Alduin together

What happens after Alduin?

(Redacted for spoiler purposes) – END

The story beats should ebb and flow like the tide; high-octane scenes should be followed by periods of calm. You don’t want to do this too quickly or the story will feel like whiplash; rather this is a process that happens over many chapters. Let’s look at some examples in GHD:

⇈⇈ Miraak dominates telepathy and is really scary!! ⇊⇊ Chry wanders around Skyrim doing errands and Thinking About Life… ⇈⇈ Chry breaks Miraak out of Apocrypha!! ⇊⇊ They recover from the ordeal and have a honeymoon period… ⇈⇈ They go to Blackreach and it’s visually awesome, and also Chry gets jealous!! ⇊⇊ They do misc stuff for a while… ⇈⇈ They talk to Septimus Signus, Mora shows up, nearly kills Chry!! ⇊⇊ Miraak whisks Chry away somewhere to recover in peace…

You see what I mean?

Right, you know roughly what’s going to happen. Time to turn that into words, baby!

STEP FOUR: GOTTA START WRITING

My actual writing style is its own separate topic so I’m not going to tell you how I structure a sentence or anything, just my literal writing process.

In my chapter document, I start by making a bullet-point list of everything I want to happen in the chapter. What happens can, and probably will, change as you actually get the chapter down. That’s fine, you just need a starting point.

I very rarely write individual chapters in order, as in start to finish. Rather, I tend to write the scenes I can picture clearly in my head – then by the time I’ve written those I’m in a writing groove and the gaps in the rest of the chapter will come easier. When I’m done, I’ll stitch the individual scenes together, which sometimes requires altering the scene start or end to make the whole thing more cohesive.

There are times when the writer’s block takes me, and I have like two finished scenes and just cannot summon the words for the rest of the chapter. When this happens, to be honest, the only answer I’ve found is brute force: I sit myself in front of the computer, get rid of phone/alt tabs/other distractions, and force myself to type something. Or I hold myself hostage (i.e. ‘I am not allowed to play more Baldur’s Gate 3 until I have written GHD chapter 47’) that works too, for me anyway.

Whatever it takes to get something on paper. What’s mostly important is to get something written, even if it’s not very good. You can always edit, rephrase or even rewrite sections later. Usually I’ve found once you start writing, you get into a groove and then it’s no longer a chore.

I also aim for a certain word count / chapter length while writing. I know a chapter is exactly as long as it needs to be and blah blah, but I set myself a minimum wordcount to reach. Or if I go way over the word count it’s probably because I’ve waffled too much, so I either aim to split the chapter into two, or to ruthlessly edit it back down again.

For GHD I average 7,000 - 9,000 words, but I actually think that’s a bit too long and risks losing people’s attention span, so for T4T I aim lower, about 6,000-ish. Less is perfectly fine, but if I’m reading another fic I find a chapter length of 2,000 words or lower to be disappointingly short. That’s all personal preference of course, and certain fics will lend themselves better to shorter chapters.

Although I jump around scenes within each chapter, I make a point of writing my entire chapters in chronological order. If I’m on chapter 5, and I know something awesome happens in chapter 12, it’s imperative that I do not write chapter 12 ahead of time. If I do, I’ll reeeally struggle to write chapters 6-11, because I have already rewarded my brain by writing the cool thing. If I hold off, my enthusiasm to write chapter 12 may in fact motivate me to crank out chapters 6-11 in record time.

I do have one other thing – in my Scrivener projects I always have a document called ‘Unused’. Sometimes, usually at like 2AM when sleep has failed me, I’ll get a really good idea for some dialogue or description. I scribble it down somewhere (or it will be forgotten for sure) and later I type it into my Unused document, so it’s just filled with random bits of text like this (note, everything you see here is unused, so it's not going to feature in the last chapter of GHD):

At some point in time I’ll peruse it and think ‘yes, this line!!’ and drop it into a future chapter – again though I just write bits, not entire scenes or I’ll have written all the exciting parts already. Anything I edit out of a chapter (i.e. a paragraph I liked but didn’t quite fit) gets dropped here too, in case I can reuse it later.

STEP FIVE: FINAL EDITING

I will be honest, I’m pretty impatient. Once I’ve finished a chapter, especially if it’s one I’ve been struggling with for a long time, I want to publish it now. So I’m guilty of not editing as thoroughly as I should – but this is what I usually do and it catches at least most of my mistakes:

As a first step, I copy-paste the chapter from Scrivener into google docs. Remember I said Scriv’s word processor wasn’t the best? Yeah, it’s no good at picking up on dodgy grammar, but google docs is, so I run it through there and skim-check for wiggly blue lines, then make the changes in Scriv. You may not have this issue if you’re using Word or another more comprehensive software

In my great excitement, I publish the new chapter to AO3. As I re-read the chapter over there, I see a minimum of 5 glaring errors I somehow didn’t spot in the previous steps, and hastily correct them before anyone notices.

Once I know the grammar is mostly fixed, I run it through a text to speech software to read it back to me (surprisingly Microsoft Edge has quite a good one built in called 'Read Aloud'). You'd be surprised how many mistakes you pick up this way. I’m looking for whatever google didn’t catch, wonky phrasing, repetition (i.e. I used the word ‘quickly’ twice in the space of two paragraphs, that sort of thing)

Sometimes I do a re-read with a fresh pair of eyes, anywhere from hours to days later. If I have the patience, of course...

I like to get at least the first 2-3 chapters of a brand new story written before I post anything to AO3. This is to make sure my enthusiasm doesn’t immediately wane and I actually stand a chance of finishing it. After that I’m rarely more than a chapter ahead of what’s been posted, because go figure I’ll post the newly-written chapter once the editing is done, then start on the next one.

Some people won’t even post a story at all until they have the first draft fully written. This is admirable, but not always realistic – GHD is like 375,000 words, you think I would’ve sat down and written all that before posting chapter one and even knowing if anyone would read it? Hell no.

But while you don’t need a story to be fully written, you do need it to be decently mapped-out. I used to start fics with absolutely no idea where they were going to go; I’d finish 1 or 2 chapters, get really excited at writing that much and hungry for feedback, then post something that I would inevitably lose all enthusiasm for and leave unfinished.

So, know how it starts, know how it ends, and know the story beats in between so you always have a goal to write towards. There will inevitably be fics that you never finish and that’s fine – it’s all writing practice – but readers don’t like to be left hanging, so try your best to finish! Even if it takes ahem four years or so.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐

And there you go, that’s my writing process! I’m not sure how useful that really is, but if it was I could write more guides in future? I have…

A guide to my writing style (this one might be hard to put into a guide but people like my turn of phrase so, maybe useful?)

How I write a sex scene

How I write a fight scene.

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trainsinanime · 9 months

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LIMAX

I’m tired, I’m bored, let’s talk about the RE18, also sometimes known as LiMAX or Drielandentrein (three countries train).

Euregio

This international regional train connects the region known as Euregio Maas-Rhine, the area around the point where Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet. The region has a long shared and sometimes weird history. The main cities are Aachen (Germany, about 260,000 inhabitants), Liège (Belgium, about 200,000 people) and Maastricht (Netherlands, about 120,000 folks). A cluster of smaller towns around Heerlen (Netherlands, 86,000 citizens) forms a fourth major pole. Each of the regions gets roughly around half a million inhabitants each, but with a lot of green space in between. Here's a very crude map:

Blue are borders, black are relevant passenger rail lines, red is the one high speed line I'll talk about later.

This region is either right in the centre of Europe, or at the periphery of each of its respective countries, depending on what aspect you look at. Centre of Europe is undeniably better, but it requires international cooperation to work out. For me, living in Aachen, it’s great. My nearest Ikea is in the Netherlands, and I can watch French movies in cinemas in Liège.

But a lot of things aren't perfect, and the regional rail connections are a good example. Differing ticketing systems mean that it's not only expensive to cross the border, it's often very difficult to figure out what it costs at all. In a lot of places, trains only did short hops over the border, and then you had to change to a different train to get anywhere interesting. Some lines weren't even electrified yet. But in 2018, that was all about to change.

LIMAX

The Liège-Maastricht-Aachen express, in short LIMAX, was meant to change all that. The train is officially known as RE 18, which comes from the numbering scheme in the German state of Northrhine-Westphalia but is used for the entire route. It was supposed to run from Liège via Maastricht and Heerlen to Aachen, connecting all the major cities of the Euregio.

This particular train is a dutch project, and connecting Aachen with Liège only happens incidentally. There is a direct Aachen-Liège railway line, actually the oldest international line that’s still in use, including the oldest surviving German railway tunnel, and there is even a high-speed line that bypasses around 90% of the historic line. You can get from Aachen to Liège in less than half an hour on high speed trains (though regional trains are weird and impractical at the moment). This train line is really more about getting people in Heerlen a direct link to Liège, and people in Maastricht a direct link to Aachen.

The train

The train is operated by Arriva Netherlands Limburg, an independent subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, who also operate all other rail and bus lines in the southern half of the dutch province of Limburg. They were actually placed second in the tender for this, but got promoted after it turned out that the actual winner Abellio (a daughter of the dutch state railroads NS) had illegal access to internal documents of previous operator and third-place scorer Veolia from France. To their credit, this came out because Abellio management learned of it and made it public, but rules are rules, so they still got disqualified. This is barely in the top three most interesting stories with Abellio, but we don’t have time for that here.

The service uses Stadler FLIRT 3 electric multiple units. FLIRT is an abbreviation, but nobody bothers remembering what it stands for. The manufacturer also offers or used to offer the TANGO (streetcar), the WINK (smaller version of the FLIRT), KISS (double-decker) and their newest high-speed train, the… SMILE. Cowards.

The FLIRTs for this service are specially equipped for the line, supporting all the different voltages in the overhead lines and all the other necessary support systems… almost. That’s going to become important later.

(Arriva Nederland Limburgs also has other trains, including other FLIRTs, that are only equipped for the Netherlands. I'll ignore them here.)

Services started in December 2018, theoretically. In practice the German leg of the service didn’t work yet. The problem was that the line from Heerlen to Herzogenrath (and then further to Aachen) used to be one of the few non-electrified lines in the region. It was electrified specifically for the RE18, and the work wasn’t quite finished yet. That got resolved, though, and the train is now working mostly well between Germany and the Netherlands. There are still some issues, like how it consistently announces that the doors will open on the left when they will open on the right and vice versa, but those are minor issues. The main problem for me is that it bypasses the Ikea station instead of stopping there.

The much bigger problem was the Belgian line, from (south of) Maastricht to Liège. The Belgian railway authorities were never that enthusiastic about the project to begin with, seeing how it was a private dutch company (though owned by the German government), and the platforms in the intermediate station of Visé were too low for step-free access and needed to be rebuilt. But the real main issue lay elsewhere: The new trains did not have ETCS.

Train control systems

We need a detour here about train control systems. Trains are controlled by signals. If a train passes a red signal, an accident usually follows, so over time every country developed different systems to make sure that doesn’t happen. The specific features of these vary widely. Some just warn the engineer that a red signal is ahead, and stop the train if the engineer doesn’t react. Some activate the emergency brake when the engineer passes a red signal, or when they don’t brake enough. More advanced ones for high speed lines tell the engineer the current allowed speed, upcoming speed changes and how far away they are, like a mini-GPS system, and constantly check that the engineer is driving within these limits. Many systems do a combination of different things.

Almost every country has its own of these systems, generally known by a cryptic abbrevation, and many countries have several. For example, Germany has PZB for all lines and additionally LZB for high-speed lines. The Netherlands have different versions of ATB, Belgium has TBL1+ and so on. The differences between them aren’t relevant for this post, but they’re all very different in what they do and how they do it. The RE 18 trains support all of them, except LZB because they’re not used on lines that make it necessary.

That’s expensive and annoying, so the European Union and European rail industries have developed a new system to replace all of them, the European Train Control System or ETCS. You will also hear the term ERTMS (European rail traffic management system), which includes ETCS and some other things, but in common parlance it usually means the same thing. Despite the name, it is also heavily used outside of Europe, e.g. on China’s high speed rail network.

And yes, that is very much a situation like the classic XKCD comic:

Source: XKCD 927, CC-BY-NC 2.5

(For americans reading this and wondering about PTC: That is a whole mess and almost everyone, including Wikipedia, explains it wrong, but for the purposes of this post we can just say that these systems and in particular ETCS are all something „like“ PTC.)

ETCS will only make sense once all European mainlines are equipped with it, which is still several decades away. But some countries are working harder than others to implement it. In particular, Belgium demands that all new trains since about 2015 have ETCS. Including the Stadler FLIRT for the RE 18.

In this case

The operator protested, because that requirement apparently came in while the trains were in production, and the line in question didn’t even have ETCS at the time (according to the latest Belgian maps it does now). To this day, the trains actually running there, as a Liège-Maastricht shuttle, do not have ETCS. So clearly it's not that essential… yet. Still, Belgian authorities refused to budge, so the trains had to be sent back to the manufacturer to get ETCS installed.

(Aside: ETCS is an open standard, and you can get ETCS equipment both for the tracks and for the trains from many different companies. Stadler, the manufacturer of these trains, only recently got into making ETCS equipment. Before that they had to buy it from competing train makers. These trains are among the first equipped with Stadler’s ETCS solution.)

The first train got it installed, returned to the line, and started tests. It worked well in the Netherlands, it worked well in Germany, it ran into Aachen station and worked well there, it ran back out of Aachen station and it stopped. Full emergency stop. After some testing it was determined that it always does an emergency stop when running out of Aachen station. And nobody is really sure why.

The low-down

We can make some vague guesses, though, because Aachen main station does have some ETCS equipment.

ETCS works partially with radio, but also with what are functionally giant RFID tags, the same basic concept like what you’ll find on a wireless credit card. They’re working at different frequencies and they’re designed for reliable reading at 450 km/h, but the basic idea is pretty much the same. These tags, known as „Balise“ (French for beacon) or Eurobalise, are mounted in the middle of the track, and are often yellow, at least when new. They can either send the same data every time, or be controlled with a cable from a computer.

Not everybody loves ETCS, but everybody seems to like the Eurobalise. It’s simple technology that can transmit a lot of information, and so there are a number of non-ETCS uses for it.

One such use case is transmitting the information of an older train control system. That is what the Belgians do with their TBL1+ system. It’s the same system as TBL1 (there is also a TBL2, but that was a bad idea and is gone now), but it transmits its information with Eurobalises. The idea is that you update these balises later to also transmit ETCS signals. Older trains can just get a balise reader, newer trains can just get ETCS, and you have only a single type of thing in the track instead of two. Switzerland is the first country that is fully ETCS equipped thanks to such a strategy, and Belgium is following suit.

The other use case is the "ETCS-based class B transition". Sounds tough but really isn’t: ETCS has a mechanism to tell the train, "hey, ETCS is ending, switch to ATB/PZB/TBL/…". In this context "Class B" means any system that isn’t ETCS (and that is on the list of things that ETCS knows about, for this purpose). The system ensures that the train really does switch to the other system, and that it stops if the switch doesn’t work. That is very useful and so most border crossings at least in Germany use it these days, even if no other part of ETCS is seen anywhere.

Both of these use cases are well established and ETCS specifically allows for them. Aachen central station is particularly fun because here you will find both of them combined. It is the border station for (passenger) trains to Belgium, so several tracks can be switched to Belgium mode, with Belgian electricity, and with Belgian TBL1+ train control system. The Eurobalises in these tracks pull double duty: They tell trains whether to switch to Belgian or German train control systems, depending on where the route is set, and if the Belgian system is to be used, they also transmit the information from that.

This isn’t new, and has worked well for years. The only other two types of passenger trains approved for the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany (and in one case also France), the Thalys PBKA and the ICE 3M high speed trains, also run through this station and they also have ETCS equipment and it all works.

But something about the combination together with the ETCS equipment in the new trains just doesn’t mesh well. It’s possible that there’s a bug in the software of the train. It’s possible that there’s a bug in the coding of the balises. Maybe it's something else; ETCS is a complex standard with a lot of updates, and the equipment in Aachen hasn't been touched in a while.

A theory I read on a dutch forum said that these balises tell the train to switch to combined PZB+LZB mode, but the train only has PZB mode and gets confused. I don’t know enough about ETCS to know whether this is plausible (and I know way too much about this stupid system already). All we really know for sure is that there are people working on this, and they're not telling us any of the details.

But after a few days where the train just didn’t run to Aachen at all, they found a solution. You know how I said that some tracks can be switched to Belgium mode? The others can’t, so why not just run the train into those?

That was actually easier said than done. Aachen has a lot of tracks, but most of them are used for parking trains. Most German regional trains to Aachen end in Aachen, and then wait here for half an hour or so until they return to where they came from. This isn’t required by the track layout or anything, it’s just convenient because that way, delays don’t build up quite as much. And the best location for that pause is, of course, right at the edge of the country. Centre of Europe? Yeah, sure, whatever…

So the solution is now that the RE18 runs into track 3 and stops in the middle of the platform, where it unloads all passengers. Then it drives forward to the end of the platform, and stays there. Another train, the RB33, pulls in behind it (there’s a red signal between them, don’t worry), and waits for its time to depart. Eventually it does, and shortly thereafter, the RE18 runs back to the middle of the platform, and then a few minutes later, back out again. It’s a silly little dance, but so far nobody has found a better solution.

(Before you start, the end of platform 3 is very narrow and at a non-accessible height, so the train can't just load and unload there.)

As for the Belgian side of things, through-services to Liège will start this December! Woohoo! It seems this thing is finally working.

The Future

The long-term hope is to turn this from an hourly to a half-hourly service. It already is for most of its length, but right now the trains stop in Herzogenrath, just after the German border, because there is no space in the schedule to run them to Aachen yet.

Another hope is to create a completely new service from Aachen to Eindhoven, also using the same trains. Eindhoven wants to be connected to the German ICE network, Aachen wants to be connected to the dutch train network, so this sounds all great. Personally, I have doubt that these trains have enough capacity, but they are currently the only ones that would work. An issue with that is the actual line over the border. This used to be double-tracked, then got single-tracked. Now they want to double-track it again, but when it was electrified, they put the power poles right where the second track used to be. Not sure what they were thinking there.

All of these projects will take years, if not decades, and have in fact already taken years or decades. I’ve been in Aachen since 2007, and things like electrifying the line over the german-dutch border or creating a direct train from Aachen to the center of the Netherlands (or at least Eindhoven) have been in discussion for at least since then. On the one hand, it’s frustrating how slowly all these things are going. On the other, they are happening at all, and looking back ten years or so, it’s quite nice to see what has been accomplished.

I guess my one wish is that they’d finally let the train stop in Heerlen Woonboulevard, I’m tired of changing trains to get to Ikea.

#trains #railroads #aachen #maastricht #liege #arriva #etcs #stadler #guardia #flirt

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aquadestinyswriting · 4 months

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Ayyyy, Aqua! :D Happy STS! So I'm making my way through Titan Modern AU, and . . . actually, take two questions on it. 8)

I have legitimately looked everywhere, and I am severely curious. :') Have you thought of a title for this one, or is its title literally just Titan Modern AU?

More importantly, tho, how much did you have to change to make the world of Fangthane's Folly fit the modern day? (And what did you end up keeping? I notice there's magic and dwarves, but how different are these bits compared to their DnD roots?)

Hope this ask finds you well! :D o/

Hi Jax, this is technically a day late, but not really because time zones are a thing :P. I am very well, thank you. I am enjoying the fact that the words seem to be flowing quite easily for the time being and taking advantage of that to write a lot for all my ongoing series and creating new ones. Thanks very much for the questions, I have a lot to talk about with this AU :D. Answers are under a cut because the second one is going to get quite long.

Question 1

I don't currently have an actual title for this one yet. I have a tendency to title WIPs towards the end of writing them and this one is no exception. I have some vague ideas, but I'm not too concerned about it just yet. Especially since there's a high possibility that this one is going to throw some major curveballs my way once I get into the thick of the plot that might well change the kind of title I want to give it.

Question 2

Ah, the dwarves are technically not a thing for this one. Everyone is more or less human, unless it's directly stated otherwise. The reason Fangthanian women can have beards at all is down to a slight genetic quirk which means they are pre-disposed to much higher testosterone levels than average. The Throffite community, in particular, is very insular and tend to inter-marry within themselves due to a history of discrimination against them.

As to how I changed the setting to fit with the modern aesthetic:

I've modelled Fangthane city a little bit after towns like Fort William, since the location of Fangthane in Allansia has a relatively similar geography to that of the Scottish Highlands. So Fangthane city is no longer built into the mountain, but is a city that was built very close to the mountain (which is now called Ben Oir). Extrapolating from there, and taking into account the maps that exist of Allansia, it was a a matter of figuring out how and why there would be outposts for the kingdom that are so far away from the capital. In that case, an old empire made a lot of sense, and taking into account the relative time period this AU is set in (roughly the 90s to early 2000s), it also made sense that said empire had been disbanded, but that communities deriving from it still exist (hence why Stonebridge and Firetop are still mainly natively Fangthanian). So, yeah, culturally speaking Fangthane is basically the UK transplanted into Allansia at this point.

I wanted some of the history of Toreguarde to remain intact because there are plot things related to that that will pop up later in the story. The city was almost destroyed, officially, by what is considered to have been a terrorist organisation that was working on behalf of another state and/or one of the ruling council of Toreguarde of the time who went just teeny bit mad with power (Greydown was an absolute ass in canon, and is in this AU too).

As the setting, rather purposefully, appears to be lacking in magic, no mentions are made of demons, portals or the breaking of reality, even by those who were present at the time. The remaining Heroes still exist, but I'm working out what their exact roles in all that were. Egrim is still a priest, so that's him covered. Alexis, upon talking to Dru about it, was probably a sniper that was a part of the military forces of Toreguarde at the time, while Selene was probably some sort of science-y nerd person brought in to help explain some of the weirder stuff that went on that was kind of acknowledged and then later given plausible and sensible scientific explanations. She just happened to be somewhat decent at this diplomacy lark when communication with the reinforcements from Fangthane started going south, hence her current role in the story. She probably worked quite closely with Ivan, who I have yet to figure out the details of, with regards to that. I also need to figure out what Fai did and what happened to him...

I am doing a lot of this worldbuilding and adjusting Fantasy canon on the fly, to be quite honest, so not a lot of it is set in stone just yet. However, I have given some thought to the Throffite community both in Fangthane and in Toreguarde and some of their history and culture, drawing a lot on what I established about Throffism in the fantasy canon and doing some major research into the irl history of such things to make sure that anything I write about it is handled as sensitively as possible. I have also written copious notes on the hows and whys of the fractious relationship between Fangthane and Toreguarde that would fit in with more modern (Western, as that is what I'm familiar with) political norms.

#writeblr asks #storyteller saturday #answered ask #aquadestinyswriting #titan fighting fantasy #titan fighting fantasy modern au

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secretsofthestorymakers · 6 months

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Appearances of Secrets of the Magic Makers throughout Frozen Stories

One of my favorite tiny details in Frozen is the book Secrets of the Magic Makers (which is also where my username comes from 😂). It is never mentioned directly in the movies or shorts, although it is briefly shown in F1. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) It is mentioned in two of the three major Frozen books, but Forest of Shadows has the most about it.

Dangerous Secrets mentions SOTMM a few times, but never by name. Iduna and Agnarr choose a random map from the secret room to follow to the Valley of the Living Rock. I believe this is the map tucked into SOTMM in F1 because DS says on the night Anna got hurt, Agnarr runs straight for the secret room and pulls out the same map from “the old folklore book” where he’d hidden it after his and Iduna’s adventure. It also says that the map belonged to Rita. I’m not sure if it belonged to her necessarily, but I guess she must have known about it. Later, after Elsa and Anna were separated, Iduna spent many hours in the secret room searching for answers about Elsa’s magic. She translated many of the “old books and scrolls” she found in the secret room, one of which was definitely SOTMM, because when Anna finds it in FoS, she recognizes her mother’s handwriting in the translations in the margins.

FoS definitely has the most SOTMM mentions by far. In fact, it is the only thing in all of Frozen that ever mentions its name. In FoS, Anna finds it in the secret room. (and she definitely can’t read the runes, she thinks of them as “indecipherable symbols”). The book itself is described as “beautiful brown with black lettering,” which perfectly matches what we see in the movie. The most thorough description is soon after she finds the book. It says: “Secrets of the Magic Makers seemed to be a book of old tales, brief histories, and maps showing the way to the Valley of the Living Rock, but also a glossary of sorts, naming all kinds of creatures that only existed in lore. Spirits of wind, water, and fire. Earth Giants.” It also says that Anna remembers these “bedtime-story words” and that she has vague memories of her mother telling her stories and reading, possibly from this book. In the next couple of chapters it also says SOTMM contains “scraps of research that had not yet been bound in,” a map of Arendelle and the surrounding area with the Black Beach circled, and tales of “shape-shifters who lived with herds of reindeer; talking trees; draug; and boys who were no larger than a thumb. There were pages and pages of the unknown language, and every so often an illustration accompanied the symbols.” It also says that Iduna “skipped translating the pages with the more creepy-looking sketches.” There is also a section that details the Saga of Aren with sketches of some of his deeds. And SOTMM obviously also contains the spell that is said to release the Nattmara in the first place.

Now, back to the mention in F1. After Anna gets hurt, we see Agnarr’s hands as he searches for a specific book. When he pulls it out, we can see the title and one page inside, all written in Younger Futhark runes.

The title of the book he pulls out translates roughly to Runes of Knowledge. (Source: https://lingaspect.wordpress.com/2014/03/13/deciphering-the-runes-book-in-frozen/) BUT I believe it is intended to be the same book, and SOTMM is just the English title because of this image:

This is from the inside jacket of a book(?) the directors gave to the crew after production of F2. It has the exact same runic title as the book Agnarr pulls out and it also has the English title as SOTMM. (Obviously I know this gift isn’t canon-worthy, but I think it shows the INTENTIONS of the directors well enough to confirm that it is the same book.)

So yeah, this was every mention I could find of SOTMM in official Frozen media! If you notice I missed any, please let me know, as it’s been a while since I read the books all the way through. SOTMM is one of the things I have a strange obsession with and I wish SO MUCH that I could actually read it. I’ll post an analysis of the runes in SOTMM soon too, as they are also VERY interesting and a personal fascination of mine!

#frozen #frozen 2 #frozen analysis #arendelle history

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aeridanus · 2 years

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Anonym hat gefragt:

that map you made is stunning! do you have any tips/programs on how to properly make one? i really love looking at these but i never know how to make them myself

Hello there, happy to help! :)

So if you’re interested in making a map, you have several ways of doing that. Ask yourself some questions first:

What is the purpose of the map? Do you want/need a scientific representation of a region or planet (example: Satellite map of the Earth), or is it a highly stylized storytelling tool (example: Map of Middle Earth)? Something in between? Think about what you want to communicate with your map and decide on its setup. As you asked about the map I uploaded, I’ll talk about my approach to satellite/physical maps :)

My personal approach to those maps is pretty scientific because I like hard worldbuilding with a lot of logical thought behind it. The satellite map from yesterday functions both as a physical map for the setup of the planet, but it’s also a base for other maps. For example, the climate chart I worked out uses the physical map as its foundation.

There are some pitfalls when it comes to map projections because we’re dealing with the problem of unwrapping a 3D globe onto a flat, 2D surface. With the standard maps we’re seeing today, areas closer to the poles get increasingly distorted. Just look at how huge Greenland appears on world maps - in real life, it’s pretty small. This is important to consider and I didn’t catch my own mistake until yesterday. If you want to be 100% sure, the best way to do it is to use a 3D program and paint your map directly onto the globe. Unwrapping the texture later gives you the correct distortions. If this is a concern for you, I’m happy to elaborate more, but I’ll stick to the visual side for now :) It’s all done in Photoshop, nothing else required. Screenshots are in German, but I added explanations.

The start of it all is a rough sketch of land and sea areas. It doesn’t need to be perfect or final at this point, just draw shapes you like. You can also add a bit of thought to it - maybe a landmass broke in several parts not too long ago and you still see the puzzle-piece shapes, but that’s another story entirely :) If it’s just about making a nice-looking map, go with what pleases you.

For surface details, I used satellite images and photobashed them onto my surfaces. I had worked out plate tectonics to have an explanation for the location of mountains and plains, but that’s also another story. If you want a mountain range somewhere just because, then put it there :) Collect aerial images which fit what you have in mind. Leave vegetation out for now, it’s just about highs and lows.

Then, roughly lay them over your landmass. I recommend keeping the landmasses on their own layer, separate from the sea, because you can “clip” the satellite image to the landmass layer by hovering your cursor between the layers and pressing alt:

Do this with plains and mountains (no vegation just yet), mix and match and blend until you get a setup you like. Also take a look at satellite images of coastlines so you can use them as a reference for your own. Give your landmass layer a mask on which you can draw to refine your coastline. To add a mask to your layer, select it and then press the button which has a rectangle with a circle on it. Drawing with black subtracts from your image, drawing with white adds to your image. You don’t destroy your base layer by using masks, and if you want to deactivate or delete that mask, right-click it for its context menu.

So now we landed on something similar to this. If you’re having trouble with coastlines, also search for aerial images and use them as references for your own. Where are flat beaches, rugged coastlines, fjords, islands? You can go with science (example: Fjords are valleys of former glaciers, so they’re unlikely to form in warm climates. Rugged coasts in warm areas probably have a different origin) or just do your thing.

I added the seafloor, basically the borders of continental plates, and a soft edge glow to the continents to simulate shallow water around them.

Now, placing vegetation can be a nightmare or ridiculously easy. For a first pass which you can modify later on by using layer masks again, do the following: Duplicate your landmass layer and switch off the layer style if you have one. Now, go to Image > Corrections > Replace color. Use the picker to select a color you want to replace with green. In my case here, I want to have vegetation closer to the mountains, so I pick a slightly darkened brown from my map.

It’s time for the magic :) Now use the three sliders at the bottom of the window to change the picked color to your target color, green in my example. Ho-lee sheeet! :D Use the tolerance slider at the top to narrow or widen the picker’s range, and just go with what you like.

Now you can play around with your vegetation layer as you wish. Add or substract from your layer and/or overlay it with some color variance. Do a second vegetation layer and pick a different color base, maybe the lighter deserts or the darker mountains. Set a different tolerance and color to it... and that’s basically it! Play around with those methods and have fun making maps! :)

#anon asks #maps #mapmaking #photoshop #tutorial

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mamaz00m · 15 days

Text

So. Plans for the future. Let’s talk about it.

Going back through this fic and finally writing the last chapter opened the floodgates for me, in a way. As I said in my last post, I’d been wondering about what Gabe and Eli in the future would be like, what their lives would look like. I wrote a glimpse into their future back in 2019 in A Name of My Own. But I still feel like there’s more to uncover, more to learn, to discover.

Finishing Raise Hell felt monumental for me. When I completed the last chapter, I sat staring at the final line for fifteen minutes, asking myself if I could do this—if I could finally publish it. If I was ready for this all to be over. Because this fic had started out as a coping mechanism for me. When I’d began writing it, I identified pretty heavily with Eli—like I wanted so desperately to have someone come rescue me. Someone who knew how to care for me while also pushing me to be my best in ways that felt challenging, but not scary. Weirdly, it felt difficult to essentially ‘let go’ of that time in my life, that version of me.

Weirder, still, is the fact that just like Eli, I essentially got exactly what I wanted. I moved in with my best friend. We’ve built a life together. I’m happy, and I’m finally beginning to thrive instead of just survive. I clicked publish. I decided to let go of the 24 year old version of me.

And by the next day, (nearly) 34 year old me had an idea for a second Gabeli story—a road map unfurled in my mind, the journey these two men could take stretching out before me. I have the notes written down for a second story, ready to begin writing.

What does this mean for RH?

For Raise Hell as it currently exists? Probably nothing.

In its current form, Raise Hell has a few problems—tense-shifting, for one, a couple Boosh/Mint Royale references that would need changed if I were to publish it. I have copy/pasted the whole of the fic into my favorite writing program and am slowly combing through it, fixing the problems with tenses, formatting it, etc. I do have plans to eventually get it up for sale in its new form (with a couple extra scenes included), but that’s in the future. If you loved it, I’d download it now so that you’ll always have access to it in its original form because it might not remain forever on AO3.

What is Heaven & Earth?

The sequel I’m planning for Raise Hell. It will be set roughly two years after the conclusion of RH and will follow one major plot and two minor subplots as we follow the boys further into their relationship.

We’ll see how Jen, Ben, and Kat are doing and we’ll find out more about Spuds, James, and Alan, too.

We’ll uncover more insights about Gabe’s past and his parents, and we’ll see some things from Eli’s past get wrapped up as well.

Will you be posting H&E to AO3?

Yes! Any Gabeli stuff I work on will be posted to AO3 first and then be made available in other formats, reconfigured, improved, etc. later.

What is Hereafter?

The long and short of it is I don’t know yet! Coming back to finish a fic (and then go on to continue it) for what appears to be a dead fandom is a…weird experience, to say the least. I’m convinced at this point that I’m only continuing this for my own benefit at this point, but I think I’m fine with that.

I think once I’ve finished with H&E, the picture will become clearer for Hereafter. Or Hereafter may become just a collection of oneshots only on AO3—random snapshots of Gabe and Eli’s lives at different points. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out when the time comes.

So. That’s it for the updates for now.

Thanks again.

#gabeli #raise hell #julian barratt #mint royale #the mighty boosh #noel fielding #noelian #mighty boosh

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mistresslrigtar · 2 months

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I’ve been trying to word this correctly all day but - I enjoyed I Belong to You a ton. I was a radio DJ in undergrad/grad school and even though it was half a million years ago, the whole thing was a perfect capture of that vibe.

Im curious - was the band based on an actual band? I know lyrically they leaned on a lot of Muse but I’m not familiar with the dynamics of its members.

Also- the spicy stuff was really, really well done and fantastic as first time smut writing. Was there anything you read to help inspire you style wise? I’m asking this from a technical aspect as good smut writing can be really tricky and I’m interested in the process from anyone who does it well.

(Like- my approach to smut is identical to how I approach combat- does this make sense without coming off weird?)

(And did I see there’s a sequel on the way???)

Tysm for the ask! So cool that you were a DJ!

First of all - yay! I was really hoping to capture the college vibe of the late 90s. It’s loosely based on my own experiences in grad school (I studied opera/music theater performance), so I’m glad that came through in the writing. ☺️

The band started as a ‘what if’ there was a band with Ganon on keyboards (a la OOT), Link guitar, Daruk drums, and Revali the lead singer. I didn’t have a plot. It was supposed to be a one-shot where Link and Zelda hook up. But I brainstormed while on vacation, listened to hours of different alt rock bands (at first I thought I’d use Radiohead) on the road trip and discovered Muse. I wasn’t familiar with their music until last summer, but nearly every song I heard sounded zelink coded so, there you go. Muse became Hyrule Warriors.

As for the smutty parts, (tysm for the compliment 🫣) I approached those scenes similar to what you said you do - they’re choreographed just like a fight scene. I start with A and map out how I want to get to B. Then I fill in the rest - thoughts, feelings, sights, sounds, tastes, etc. I also write my dialogue first for any scene throughout my stories. It helps me stay on track, and I really like writing conversations. I think sprinkling it in, even during a sex scene is important, because it’s natural if you’re comfortable with your partner. Obviously, I’ve read quite a bit of smut, too and I also researched and read a few articles on how to make it believable and titillating. After all, that’s the goal, right? 😳

I’m working on the sequel as we speak, and have three chapters roughly written! It’s tentatively called Love is Forever (cheesy, I know) and the soundtrack will be a mix of Muse and Radiohead songs this time around. I have a snippet scheduled to post this Wednesday for WIP Wednesday 😉

For anyone who’s interested here’s a link to I Belong to You.

#asks answered #legend of zelda #zelink #the legend of zelda #modern au #alternative rock music #tears of the kingdom #breath of the wild #muse #Hyrule warriors #lemon

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zemantler · 8 months

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Hey Mac! I just saw the new video you made about episode 4 and 5 of Our Flag Means Death and wanted to share with you a perspective I thought might be interesting to you.

(p.s sorry its so long and wordy! I tried to condense my thoughts as much as possible😅)

I read an article recently by Screen Rant (https://screenrant.com/our-flag-means-death-season-3-release-date-cast-story-everything-we-know/) which says that our boy David Jenkins himself mentioned that if the show gets renewed for a third season then season 3 would be the final. He apparently also said that he has the entirety of the show beginning to end already mapped out, and this information kind of changed everything for me in terms of how I view the show and the way it is being created.

Shows that go for 5 to 10 seasons (roughly) are shows MADE for streaming, that being said their formula is usually to follow a storyline that can be started and ended every season and it's the characters that keep us coming back. OFMD isn't like that, I think the key is to think of it more like a long movie. and what we know about movies, or just classic storytelling in general (literally one of the first things you learn in elementary or middle school) is that a story has a beginning, a middle and an end. If you think about the seasons of the show like this-season 1 beginning, season 2 middle, and season 3 end-it kinda makes all the pacing issues and the ‘Ed problem’ make sense (or just seem more intentional-again David says he has this all planned out) and you can follow the trajectory of the show actually pretty clearly from there. Take for instance season 1, you said it yourself it's like season 1 (baring the last two episodes) is like setting up the story (love story) with rose coloured glasses on. That being said the show also lines up with a rough outline of what your classic hero's journey looks like-call to adventure (the opening of Stede and the crew in ep01s01 and the flashbacks of Stede and Mary's unhappy marriage), meeting with the mentor (Ed-who is also the love interest-and the whole 'teach me how to pirate i'll teach you how to etiquette' deal). You can think of the last two episodes of season 1 as like the crossing of the threshold (aka glasses come off) cause not only does Stede realize he wants to be a pirate indefinitely and leave Barbados for good, but also because season 2 opens with the next part of the hero's journey which is meeting new enemies and allies (Zheng Yi Sao, Archie, Richard Banes,etc.(Does Izzy count as a new ally?)).

Again, it's all very classic in format, but usually just not how tv shows made for streaming choose to operate-cause most of the time network execs are literally just trying to make the most money by keeping a concept going probably longer than they should-but I digress. Also again, if you factor in the part where season 3 would be the last season it's not unusual at all.That being said I think the reason they decided to have the crews trauma and ESPECIALLY Eds issues only start being addressed in the 5th episode is because they are hoping to have this be one of the plot points that drifts its way into season three and subsequently have resolution occur at that time as well, instead of forcing hollow resolution in the final three episodes of s02 and then have nothing to work with in season 3-this is another point that Screen Rant made in their article.

Using the three acts/hero's journey formula, we can start making really rough guesses as to how season three might pan out and given the circumstances of season 2, it kind of feels more right to me. Not to mention our dude Taika is the guy who wrote the initial screenplay of Moana which focused more on family than the screenplay which actually got made into the Disney film, so I can't imagine him and David of all people just glossing over all of the emotional reconciling parts of the core relationships. Anyways I thought this was interesting to think about and might also help in easing the nerves over the last 3 episodes of this season, again there is always the possibility this might not be true, or work out this way, but I thought it clicked too perfectly in my own head just to not talk about it. Like seriously the hunch is hunching right now!

Anyways Mac, loved the video and hope you have a great night! 😊

Hi!! First of all, thank you, I'm really glad you enjoyed it. Hope you'll have a good day too. Wow thats a lot of text, sorry if I misunderstood something.

While I understand what you mean, series dont really work like that. There are lots of "series like long movies" -plot based, not too stretched out, character dynamic focused, few series long, etc. For example, Good Omens, Sherlock, Hannibal (i think, never seen it) and more...

Movies start plotline in the beginning and have to resolve them in the end. BUT that doesnt mean there cant be a cliffhanger at the end, to help a sequel continue the story. And thats how (good) movie franchises are born- multiple movies are made to elaborate on the first original story, because there simply wasnt enough time to tell it in its entirety in one movie.

Series like ofmd go hannibal etc.. Were made to be series, because they couldnt possibly fit the entire story in a movie format. But when you make the decision to make a series, you also have to comply to the series format. So if its not a limited series, it will probably have multiple seasons, overall theme and will start a plot in first season that will to some extent, continue until the last one, while at the same time having multiple sub plots that will end with each season. They have to end at the end of the season, otherwise the overall season experience wont be satisfying. You watched all that and for what? Just to wait another year to actually see anything happen?

Now i can finally explain what I meant by all this :D OFMD in its entirety cant be like a movie, for its a series. They are formatted differently. If we wanted to compare it to a film, then the only way to do so is to make each season a new movie in a franchise. Each season has to have a satisfying experience on its own while ending in a way that leaves stuff that the next season can work with.

You cant make a bad season and then try to excuse it with "Its only a filler between act one and three" because while that would be excusable in movie, it's not really in series. because then youre just left with a second season that feels unfinished and rushed.

But even story wise, it just doesnt make sense to start redemption arc of the protagonist in act 2, get him together with the love interest and then actually redeem him in act 3. Its weird idk

I'm not saying that this season is bad when it hasnt dropped in its entirety yet tho. Dont quote me on that. I love ofmd and i really am enjoying this season. It just has more flaws than the first one.

Sorry that i rambled a bit and also sorry if it doesnt make sense. Im in school rn its hard to write something sensible while trying to pay attention to geometry or whatever we're doing

#yt #ofmd

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rallamajoop · 11 months

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Theme, character, and a few more thoughts on the RE4 Remake

So, having played the Resident Evil 4 remake, I had a ton of fun – but in the end, I think it worked better for me when they remade this game as Resident Evil Village instead.

As every gaming outlet on the net has already told you, there’s a lot to recommend this title. The gameplay is terrific, new!Leon is still stupidly endearing to me, and there are so many little details in his character animation that I love to bits (seriously, he and Ashley actually managed to make me feel guilty about making them run back through the pouring rain hunting that one treasure on the map I’d missed – it’s that good).

But story-wise, I can only wish they’d had the guts to remake this thing a little harder. And while I have sunk a truly stupid number of hours into getting every achievement in RE8, RE4 seems to have tailored its own post-game ecosystem specifically to turn me away. And that's just a little disappointing.

The full RE4 experience is roughly twice as long as Village, but it feels like it has about half the actual plot. Most of what happens once you leave the village area feels like padding, the game spinning its wheels to fill in time. The lore makes less sense the more I try to get my head around it. Parts like Ada’s role feel so unfinished I can only hope there’s more coming in DLC. And despite token attempts to link events thematically to RE2, the result probably works better if you haven’t actually played the RE2 remake lately.

And while you can always say, “C’mon, it’s RE4! No-one remembers that game for the plot!” I’m left going, well, sure, but they remade Leon’s story in RE2 so well! And everything that left me wanting here was stuff they did just as well in RE8 – which was already basically a stealth remake of RE4. Was it so unreasonable to hope they could pull off the same here?

But enough hand waving. Let’s talk specifics. I’ve already talked Luis. So it’s time to talk Leon and Ashley.

I have so many mixed feelings about RE4-remake!Leon. So many.

In so many ways, he just works. He’s not the same Leon of RE2, but he’s changed in ways that make sense given several years of special ops training. He's taken several levels in badass and he's a lot more jaded, but at heart, he’s still a sweetheart who does this work because he wants to help people. And yet people who know him still call him ‘rookie’, still insinuate he hasn’t changed, and it’d be nice if that was something the game was more interested in exploring.

But while RE2 was inarguably the biggest day of his life to date, RE4 ultimately feels like just another day at the office for new!Leon: beat the bad guy, save the girl, fail to figure out what the fuck Ada’s deal is, go home. Nothing that happens to him in RE4 feels personal. Everything that’s changed him between RE2 and here has already happened, off-screen, and I can’t help but wish we were telling one of those stories instead.

It's not for lack of trying. RE4 opens on a heck of a thesis-statement about Leon: what he’s been through since RE2, hints of conflict with his current employer (“I was ‘asked’ later to join a top-secret government program. Not that I had a choice. The training, the punishing missions, almost killed me.”) There’s also one hell of a mission-statement about his feelings on the Raccoon City incident: “If I could just forget what happened that night, the pain, even for a second, this time, it can be different.”

That’s great as an opener! First question: different how?

What difference here is worth celebrating? This time Ada got away, blatantly alive and with the prize in hand, not even pretending she wasn’t using you? This time you got to save the little-infected-blonde-girl (who-was-only-involved-because-of-her-parents’-career-choices) yourself, instead of Claire doing all the real work? This time you rode out the explosion with only one other survivor for company instead of two? You still saw more people die than you saved! You still left a whole infected-and-dying population behind when you left! Seriously, what’s supposed to be different here?

The game seems to want us to believe that saving Ashley is enough to make it "different." On my second playthrough, I even caught Leon repeating that line, ‘it has to be different this time!’ as he carries her into Luis’ lab. But this doesn’t land for me, because – again – Leon got out of Raccoon City with Claire and Sherry. Claire didn’t need a whole lot of rescuing (much as I gripe about her story, she objectively achieved a whole lot more than Leon did), but she certainly appreciated his help. RE4 even shows us a shot of them all walking off into the sunrise together in its Raccoon City flashback.

The lore surrounding this franchise suggests that post RE2, Leon becomes almost family to Sherry ‒ you'd really think she'd count. I’m sure there’s an angle you can find somewhere where Leon would feel like saving Ashley is ‘different’ enough ‒ guilt isn’t a highly logical emotion ‒ but it’s really not coming through for me. And that makes the game's whole thesis statement feel awfully hollow.

Some other token thematic attempts are made: on the boat with Ada, Leon says, “you try to save one person, you get a hundred more killed.” Well, in the process of saving Ashley, they got Luis, Mike, and both those Spanish cops from the opening sequence killed. Saddler and his cult do get wiped out in a way more definitive way than Umbrella did in RE2 ‒ and that surely saves more lives in the long run than saving just Ashley ever could ‒ but that doesn’t seem to be what "has to be different" is going for. This is a lot like my issues with how Jill’s PTSD was dealt with in RE3 – we’re just vaguely waving at a past conflict as a way to lend nebulous weight to the present, and hoping the audience will fill in the blanks without further prompting. This is not how successful theming works!

Really, what makes this so disappointing to me is that it’s not like Capcom has never done PTSD-backstory well. See, as exhibit A: Resident Evil 8. Game opens with multiple reminders that Ethan is still dealing with trauma from RE7, the feeling that he ‘never really left the Baker’s basement’ – and as the story progresses, we learn that in a very real sense, he never did.

The reveal is the answer to a mystery that's been teased repeatedly since RE7, and coming to terms with it is a vital part of Ethan’s character arc. Though plenty is still left to the audience’s imagination, the pieces are all there. Ethan’s no longer in denial about how much his experience has changed him, but what matters to him hasn’t changed. If he’d come out of the Baker’s basement still human, he’d never have survived long enough to save Rose ‒ hell, there'd have been no Rose at all. There’s no going home again for Ethan, but he’s at peace with that. It’s really that simple: give us specifics, and specifics that make sense.

Ultimately, I think trying to frame RE4 as RE2-but-different was a mistake. The original RE4 wasn’t conceived that way, and the remake hasn’t been remade hard enough to make it so.

That doesn’t mean there’s no Leon-centric thematic material to explore. That opening also sets out a wealth of great potential surrounding Leon’s ‘not that I had a choice’ position. Build on the conflict between the Leon who’s out here trying to save a girl’s life, vs the Leon who’s out here trying to protect US political interests. Play with the idea that he’s still being used by the US, just as Ada was using him back in RE2! Let the enemies point out that Leon is as much a puppet of the US administration as the ganados are puppets of Saddler! Fucking do something with Krauser: one of the very same people who put Leon through all that ‘training that almost killed him’ has turned around and decided that their job is a sucker’s bet ‒ that should be a thematic goldmine! And then let Leon turn around and tell them all to go to hell. It’s all right there, c’mon!

The game toys with the question of whether Leon’s changed since RE2 – Krauser says he hasn’t, Ada says he hasn’t – heck, even Luis’ final words, a guy can change, right? are poking around the edges of similar themes. Leon’s problem back in RE2 was never a failure to save people, it’s getting too caught up in other people’s power plays to make any real difference himself. Is that still true here? It's really not clear.

Similarly, it’s so easy to imagine Leon was chosen for the job in RE4 because he’s got such a hero-complex he’s obviously going to work hardest to keep Ashley safe – because no, Leon may have taken a dozen levels in badass, but at his core, he hasn’t changed. But I’m pretty sure he’s going to be okay with that, just as long as he’s changed enough to be able to get the job done.

And think how much more it should give Leon and Ashley to bond over too, when… oh, right. Time to talk about Ashley.

The general buzz about remake!Ashley has been overwhelmingly positive. She’s so much better than the infamously-annoying original!Ashley, she feels like a real person now, people legitimately care about protecting her, and so on. And I sure as hell don’t want to tell anyone they shouldn’t like new-Ashley. She’s not annoying. I didn’t dislike her as a character. But the longer I spent with her in this game (and you spend more time with her than another other non-Leon character), the less she felt like an actual person to me, and the more glaring it was just how little I knew about her.

Here’s what we do learn about Ashley. She’s a college student, apparently 20 years old (she doesn’t really look that old, but what the hell, there are 20yos who look like Ashley, let’s not get stuck on this one). Her father is the president of the United States. She develops quite the crush on Leon over the course of the game (and who can blame her?) Leon handles this as deftly as you could ask for under the circumstances – he doesn’t want to lead her on, but he also doesn’t want to shut her down any harder than he has to. Ashley is understandably terrified, but coping with it with enough composure to keep her head most of the time, and the one time she does freak out and run off, it leads to one of my favourite scenes in the game – where Leon comforts her, and gets to show his gentler side.

Over the course of the game, she gains a certain level of confidence – in herself, and in Leon’s ability to protect her. All that talk about being his partner and wanting to become an agent like him is probably just her crush showing, but again, Leon treads a careful line to validate her as much as possible without ever really saying yes.

And this is all fine, but nothing really changes in Leon’s feelings about Ashley as they spend more time together. He’s 100% there to protect her before they met, and after spending all that time with her, sure, same deal. That’s his job. Nor does Ashley herself really get to change much. In her early chapters, she's already capable of smashing a window to save Leon from a burning building. By the end, she's... still completely helpless to save herself without him. Nothing really pays off.

Alright, now let me tell you about Ashley.

Ashley is a fucking political prisoner, a pawn to people who see her only as a means to an end, and yet the notion she’s in a situation any bigger than herself never enters the picture. At an age when a girl should be earning some independence, she’s going to be officially pigeonholed as her father’s daughter in the minds of the entire world. For four to eight years of the past and/or future, she’s going to be one of the most important and over-protected people on the planet. And yet, within the last day or two, all that security failed. People she and her father trusted – heck, that the whole US government administration trusted – betrayed them. She’s been kidnapped out of the blue, presumably bundled into a plane and flown across the world to some hick-village in rural Spain.

Surely Ashley should have some kind of opinion on all that, right?

There are all sorts of plausible reactions someone might have to this kind of situation. She could blame herself for not taking security more seriously. She could blame her security team for letting her down; her dad for putting her in this position, the possibilities go on. The game does vaguely wave in the direction of Ashley having (reasonable) trust issues when Leon first appears, given she attacks him with a candlestick and runs off, but then she, well, sees some ganados out the window, and everything is forgotten? It’s all over very quickly. Her only opinion on her situation is that she doesn't want to be taken over by a parasite. Such character!

Later in the game, we discover that Krauser was personally involved in her abduction. Ashley never gets to have an opinion on this. Did she know Krauser personally, or was he just pulling strings from a distance? Wouldn’t she have questions for Leon about his relationship with Krauser? Wouldn’t this have been a great opportunity to expand on Leon’s barely-a-footnote history with Krauser and that whole messed up political conspiracy ‒ even to talk about why Leon was trusted enough to be sent on this mission alone? Well, too bad – we’re on the back foot of the Ashley-two-step throughout both Krauser’s appearances, so Ashley’s not around. And Krauser’s own motivations are apparently no more complicated than "wants to be more macho than everyone else." What a damn waste.

Beyond the initial section set in the village itself, it’s disappointing how much of the plot of RE4 basically comes down to: Ashley gets captured, Leon rescues her, rinse and repeat. There are variations, sure (Ashley freaks out and runs off, Leon has to find her, Leon gets trapped, Ashley has to free him) – but the overall pattern gets pretty monotonous. Ashley frees Leon, then immediately gets captured. Leon tries to rescue her, but fails, and is thrown down a hole. Leon almost catches up with Ashley, but she’s being moved to the island. Leon finds Ashley on the island and rescues her, finally! Ashley swiftly gets captured again. Leon rescues her, again. But don’t you dare let Ashley get carried off by one of those goons out of sequence, that’s an insta-fail state. What, you think this is a situation where the bad guys can just carry Ashley away with impunity? Ha.

This is what I really mean when I say it feels like this game is just spinning its wheels for so much of its runtime. There is some additional plot surrounding Luis to break things up a bit, and a few allusions to the idea Ada’s up to something, somewhere, with a grand total of 4 named boss-villains popping up to monologue and/or fight you. But they're all kept pretty rigorously segregated from one another, like cast members who will no longer appear in the same scenes for contractual reasons. 'Wants power' or 'is under mind control' is as complex as the villainous motivations get.

The villains of RE2, 7 and 8 all had their own relationships, conflicts and internal power struggles, all presented for you in cutscenes and dialogue, and the result created some of the most memorable characters of the whole franchise. In RE4, you're lucky if you glimpse a vague hint of history in a document somewhere. C’mon, game, you’ve put Sargent Rambo and Midget Napoleon on the same team, and I don’t even get to see how much they must hate each other? That’s just not fair!

Ada’s role in this game feels like such a missed opportunity too. The final note she and Leon end on in RE2 could have gone in so many directions (how much did she genuinely care about him? Was she just bluffing by lowering her gun?) if they’d only had the sense to play into it. But RE4 seems to have picked up the tune a few verses earlier, back at ‘Ada’s evil and using Leon without a care’, and just keeps on repeating that until the scene fades out. Leon gets no answers. Maybe Ada sees him as slightly more than a useful tool, but who’d know? Ada’s just… there. Remember Ada? She’s a thing that happens to Leon sometimes.

But there was still the potential to do so much more. Tell me more about Ashley, to begin with! What’s her relationship with her father like? What’s she studying at uni? How well did she know her security team? Does she even know what country she’s in? Let her and Leon bond over their positions as human pawns in political schemes so much bigger than them as people. Let someone wonder if it’s better Ashley dies than comes home infected. Let the goal of saving-Ashley come into conflict with the goal of defeating-Saddler! Let Leon question his superiors' priorities! It's all right there to play with, I promise you!

Heck, let Hunnigan (or some other official voice in Leon’s earpiece) disagree with him at some point. Delve deeper into the scale and implications of Krauser’s betrayal! Contrast him with Luis – they’re on virtually opposite tracks as people who’ve switched sides, but they’ve both made more meaningful decisions about who to work for than Leon ever has. Let me feel all the different interests at conflict here – between Luis, Ada, the US government, Krauser’s rebellion, and Saddler’s cult, there should be enough of them. Let Leon question what he’s doing there – saving one girl or saving the whole US administration, but ultimately just saving one girl. And if you still want to tie it to RE2, it doesn’t have to be about it being different, it can be about Leon feeling like he’s made a difference this time. There’s got to be something you can find here that’ll resonate.

Going by the general reception to the game, these don’t seem to be issues that have bothered the masses. Given how revered RE4 is in gaming history, I can well believe there was real resistance at Capcom HQ about to trying to rework it more than a relative minimum, without trying to build any real thematic weight into what originally worked as a fairly cartoony rescue-the-princess caper. It’s still got great gameplay and some lovely character moments – I wouldn’t dream of debating that. But as a whole, RE4 felt thematically empty in a way I didn’t get from RE’s 7, 8 or Leon’s story from the remake of 2. If anything, it reminded me more of my problems with RE3 or Claire’s story in 2 – there are ideas here, but what they add up to is less than the sum of its parts. And that’s a disappointing feeling to come away with.

The remake still has a lot going for it. But remade a little harder, I can’t help but feel it could’ve been so much more.

#Resident Evil 4 #Leon Kennedy #Ashley Graham #Ada Wong #Resident Evil 2 #Resident Evil #meta #RE reviews

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agender-witchery · 1 year

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I'm having rambly thoughts about Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and it's too long for a tweet so I guess this is where I put it.

A lot of people criticized the game's open world structure as not being "really" open world because while you technically could go anywhere, you'd get your ass handed to you if you went too out of order too early.

This is not an issue in open world game design, in my opinion. It's... fine, I guess, if an open world game provides a world that scales with you, but my personal preference is a "You can go this way, and you can also die" approach. There are two glaring issues with the way Pokemon handles this before I even get into the 3 story routes.

The first issue is that, in order for this sort of design to work, you need to have leveled zones. Encounters in areas such as main roads should generally be easier to handle. The further you fuck off into the wilderness, the more difficult the encounters become.

Using Breath of the Wild as an example, because Zelda fucking knocked open world as a format out of the park on the first try, the area forming the perimeter of Hyrule Field is where you encounter the easiest enemies. Not much more than Bokoblins and Chuchus if you stick to that route. This is also the area you'll find yourself in immediately upon leaving the Great Plateau. Now, if you head too far toward the center of Hyrule Field, you get Guardians. Too far north, also Guardians. But in every other direction you can take, the variety and difficulty of enemies gently scales up, introducing enemies like Moblins and Lizalfos gradually, while at the same time introducing environments that try to murder you. If you head East toward Kakariko Village as the game gently pushes you to do, you will reach a region that does not try to murder you, have time to gear up to tackle the regions that do, and still get that gentle difficulty scaling. And, as long as you stick to the main roads, you're not facing anything more difficult than a Moblin until you delve deep into Lanayru on your way to Zora's Domain.

Pokemon, on the other hand, decides simply that the further north you go, the further fucked you are. This WOULD be fine... if it weren't for the story routes.

The second issue is that... the map's too small. This appears largely due to massive development mistakes where they just decide to render unseen portions of the map for whatever reason. Compare it to Breath of the Wild, a game initially designed and released on the PREVIOUS console, and it's painful how small the Pokemon map is. Whatever the reason, this forces areas that would have otherwise been perfect "This area will be a bit tougher than you're used to, but you gotta cross it" spots far closer to the school than they had to be. The rocky area right outside the east gate comes to mind.

And then there's the way the map interacts with the story routes. Sure you CAN tackle things in any order... but the gyms don't scale. This, I feel, is a mistake. Since the Pokemon League is an organization, and its been shown in other Pokemon media like the manga that gym leaders can pull out different teams depending on how many badges the challenger already has.

And because gyms don't scale, and because the further north you go the further fucked you are, and because the map is a donut with a forbidden zone in the center, you are forced into an awkward zigzag pattern when taking on the story that forces you to fast travel after every few major fights if you don't want to be completely outclassed too quickly.

So if Pokemon wanted to be open world, I don't think the world necessarily had to scale, but I do think that gym leaders should've scaled, each titan should've been roughly the same level as each other, and Team Star would be fine as is, which would additionally make each story path feel a bit more distinct. Victory Road would always be appropriate for where you were, each titan would be roughly on par with one another, and Team Star would do whatever they could to get in your way no matter what because they're Team Star.

BUT ALSO?

Pokemon never needed to be open world. Pokemon never should've been open world, open world is a fun thing when done correctly, but you also need the property to accommodate open world! For Pokemon, this would require restructuring what were previously the game's core mechanics from the ground up, like they did with Breath of the Wild being a HUGE departure from Zelda games before it, or like they did with... Pokemon Legends Arceus. Pokemon keeps wanting to reinvent their formula, but they need to give up the existing formula if they're gonna reinvent it. You could make a Pokemon game that is open world, but just like Breath of the Wild, you'd need to just throw everything out the window and keep only the essence of Pokemon.

And they'll never do that, because The Pokemon Company are cowards, and they do not let those games cook long enough.

#pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon #rambly thoughts #im tiny puppy

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charmquarkstrangequark · 1 year

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Lockwood & Co: the Impact of Society

I've been really wanting to write character analyses about the L&Co characters, but I think that first I have to recognize the impact of the world they live in. Because we can't really judge their actions & choices by what our own would have been at that age or in that situation; it's truly a different world. Here's what we know, and what I think it means.

-The Problem started around 50 years before the start of the series (roughly 1960s for the books and 1970s for the show).

-The Problem started in Kent and spread outward. Kent (I looked it up on a map) is in southeast England. So it can be assumed it spread through London much earlier than it reached northern England, where Lucy is from. Still, for the children in our story, it is widespread & has always been a part of their reality.

-The Problem resulted in many unexplained deaths, which caused fear, panic, and rioting. There was a pivot in R&D away from consumer tech and into ways to guard against deadly ghosts. There was an economic crash; even if tech is being developed in other countries, England doesn't have the buying power to trade for it. A curfew was placed on adults to keep them in after dark, further cutting into the economy.

-Burial practices had to change. It was no longer safe for people to visit the graves of their loved ones, to show respect for them in the way we accept doing so now. Graveyards were closed off, ringed in iron fencing, etc. This one is huge, to me. We learn so much about cultures by their funeral rights. What does it mean when the dead have to be swept away and ignored, forgotten, feared, avoided? With the loss of that memento mori, what impact does that have on one's respect for their own life or its impact & importance?

-Children, as virtually the last defense against ghosts, see a huge shift in their treatment. In the books, kids can start training as agents at the age of eight. This means that around what would be in the US grade 2, kids quit formal schooling. Now I admit I don't know much about how schooling works in England, but in the US, 2nd grade is when kids learn to comprehend text at the paragraph level independently, and longer texts with support from adults. They learn time and money, how to add and subtract multi-digit numbers and solve word problems, etc. Kids at this age are still mostly only able to comprehend literally; they won't learn how to make inferences until later. Imagine stopping your formal education at this point. I doubt the agencies take the time to teach them literature, social studies, and the natural sciences, except how those things interact with ghost hunting and psychical investigation. This will create entire generations of what are essentially child soldiers without critical thinking skills, who at some point will lose their Talents and also have no education to fall back upon, assuming they LIVE to adulthood. The depth and breadth of their knowledge will be whatever they learn researching a specific case, creating snippets of knowledge that aren't ever integrated into a whole except by kids who are independently able to do so.

-Adults both respect and resent child agents and night watch. They appreciate the service these children provide, but hate what it represents. As they tuck themselves into their protected houses, the child laborers are sent out into the night, rarely seeing sunlight. The more Talented ones get rapiers and flare. The less Talented get an iron tipped wooden staff. They are all cannon fodder and the last hope of survival. And at the point that our story starts, they are losing the war.

#lockwood & co #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #george karim #l&co character analysis

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raxistaicho · 11 months

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Ronan the Philosopher! Edelgard in Thracia, chapter two

On to chapter two, my fellow Red Lady fans!

It gets worse.

Before we start,

DO NOT FUCKING GO PESTER REYNA IN HER COMMENTS SECTION. I DON'T WANNA SEE PEOPLE COPY-PASTING MY ARGUMENTS HERE IN COMMENTS TO HER EVER AGAIN.

Anyways, I figured it'd be useful to give a brief rundown on the setting in which this story takes place, because not a lot of people will have played Thracia 776, I imagine.

So, first, the story takes place on the Thracian peninsula:

It's split between the north and the south.

North, once an independent coalition of kingdoms known as the Munster District, was subjugated years before this story began and is now under occupation by the Granvalle Empire and has been renamed the Kingdom of North Thracia. Duke Bloom of the Granvalle ducal family Friege is the appointed governor of the Imperial territory, making him king of the northern half of the peninsula. The north used to be a federation of smaller kingdoms, including Leonster (the former head kingdom, and the one which Leif is the heir of), Munster, Ulster, and Connacht. Ulster now serves as king Bloom's capital.

South, AKA the Kingdom of Thracia, ruled by king Travant. A mountainous, barren country inhabitated by wyverns, which the Thracians fly into combat. Formally they're independent of and at peace with the Granvalle Empire, but Travant is ambitious and desperate to save his starving kingdom by conquering the fertile north. Its capital is also called Thracia.

The border between the north and south is a roughly diagonal line that slithers between Tahra and Meace on the map above (Tahra in the north, Meace in the south). Though the peninsula is collectively called Thracia, usually anyone called a Thracian is specifically a southerner.

Now that we got that out of the way, on to the chapter itself:

Edelgard's helping out around Iz to keep her mind off of things. For some reason they're calling her Edie, even though that's... a very weird nickname for a bunch of peasants to call someone. It's explicitly the same nickname as the one Dorothea uses.

Because of her Crest she's super strong, as she herself says:

But everyone was treated that way; she simply stood out more because of her strength. (Serios's strength, that – that beast's strength, not hers. Not her family's-)

Edelgard never considered herself inhuman or beastly because of her Crest, Reyna. Definitely not her Crest of Seiros, in any case.

We then get a moment of Reyna trying to portray Edelgard as out of touch:

And the labor was ceaseless in Iz. In the weeks she'd first arrived in this strange place after her death(?), while she'd been recovering, Edelgard had thought it a little odd that she almost never saw Ronan and his mother sitting down to play a board game, have a snack and talk about something frivolous, read a book or play games with the locals.

Because it makes total sense for the woman who started a rebellion to give the lower class the same opportunities the nobility enjoyed to expect peasants to live a life like that of nobles.

Oh, and, this is coming from the canonical workaholic whose most furtive desire is to just be able to enjoy a day off.

That said, Reyna does a really nice job painting the kind of bleak and toil-filled life a medieval peasant would endure:

There was never time to be sitting idle; there were always repairs that needed to be done, always food that needed to change hands, always wood that had to be collected to keep the houses warm, animals that needed to be wrangled, baskets that needed weaving, fish to be caught, and that was just the more important chores. Edelgard had lost count of how many times she'd had to trek to the wells and draw up buckets of water over the past few months; there wasn't a single house in the village, including the church, that had a running water system. Washing clothes for the house was another hours-long chore that started before the sun rose and ended late in the afternoon at best; without the soaps and wheels Garreg Mach had, it stunned her how much more effort such a basic and necessary chore took. The town hadn't known anything about the relation between keeping their streets clean and keeping sicknesses away; when Edelgard had impressed the importance of it on them, she'd created another job that caught her flat footed with the time and energy it demanded. She would return to the guest room that belonged to her now and crash into it, unable to think, and fall asleep knowing she would have to do much of it again the next day. Food was always in short supply. The villagers all took a tough man attitude on the matter when she asked why they had so little, about how they were no nobles who would die of starvation if they didn't have three course dinners with cake included; but Edelgard had gotten alarmingly used to skipping her morning meal so Ronan and Contessa always had even the crumbs of a meal in their too-bare cupboard.

Unfortunately, this is not leading to, "I was right that we should have improved society somewhat," but, "this is only because of Arvis's occupation and I did the same thing to Fodlan :(((("

How was it that she was living a rougher life here, in a town where she was welcome and accepted, than when she'd been reduced to an exile living on King Lambert's charity by her bitter stepmothers? How? How was that possible?

So much to unpack in one little paragraph.

First off, "living on King Lambert's charity." She wasn't mooching in Faerghus, she was kidnapped (it's implied Arundel did it to keep her safe during the Insurrection, but still) and living there against her will.

Secondly, there's nothing to support the assertion that she was living in Faerghus because of Ionius's concubines.

Thirdly, no, Edelgard's time in captivity underneath Enbarr is not going to be mentioned, why the fuck would it be, Reyna has a narrative to push!

She wants to make us think of Edelgard as some spoiled little princess who doesn't know anything about a hard life. Because Edelgard detractors have this notion in their heads that Edelgard knows nothing about the lives of the commoner-class so as to convince themselves that her ideals are built on shifting sand.

We're skipping ahead a little bit in which Edelgard delivers some wheat to the local baker, and she pauses a moment to worry about,

what the village might think of her if they found out she was a born and bred noble.

I'm sure this is leading up to some shocking twist in which they're fine with nobility, so that Edelgard can look foolish and ignorant again. Anyways,

She'd tried to learn about the history and geography of this country, Thracia. Oh, she'd tried. But the village's lack of means had stumped her at every turn

It shouldn't, you're in a fishing village out in the sticks, probably everyone here is illiterate. Much like in Fodlan, which Edelgard would be aware of. Hell, Christopher fucking Paolini got this right, Reyna!

only the church had a map or two along with anything resembling historical texts, and the priest had ruefully explained he'd been forced to bury books that were less than complimentary to the current regime.

...Why? Iz is in Thracia (as in, the Kingdom under Travant) judging from FE4's map, and there wouldn't be any kind of new big shakedown by Travant's soldiers.

But anyways, the reason why is Reyna's gonna paint the picture of an authoritarian anti-book regime and then probably suggest the same thing was happening in Fodlan under Edelgard. Even though. You know. The church was doing that themselves. They were literally burying the books, when you consider that the Shadow Library is underground!

Thracia was a land divided by the tragedy of the crusaders Nojurn and Dain

Njörun and Dáinn, Reyna. Look, I know Jugdral has big Spell My Name With an S problems, but the wiki is right there! All these names are official now! (Njörun and Dáinn were the crusader siblings - think the Ten Elites but genuinely heroic - who founded Leonster and the Kingdom of Thracia, respectively.)

Nojurn wasn't even a past fan translation of her name!

sister and brother who's conflict had accidentally resulted in the death of Nojurn's husband and the splintering of their people along that bloody line

Njörun's husband was fighting Dáinn, Reyna. Njörun herself was not said to be part of the conflict. Njörun accidentally killed her husband while trying to stop the fight, killed herself out of grief, and then Dáinn died mysteriously a few years later. The whole tragedy of Gáe Bolg was because Njörun used it (it being the weapon tied to her bloodline) to strike her husband down accidentally.

Several years ago, this historical tragedy had repeated itself when King Travant of Thracia, descendant of Dain, hunted down Prince Quan and Lady Ethlyn of Leonster – son of Nojurn and his wife – and slaughtered them in a brutal ambush, stealing their lands for one shining moment… only to be promptly subjugated by the Empire of Granvelle with barely a few months to enjoy his ill-gotten gains.

There was a lot more to the Munster District's (the northern half of the Thracian peninsula) downfall at Travant's hands, but that's more or less the long and short of it. Reyna's retelling implies Grannvale also took over the Kingdom of Thracia but they most certainly did not. Thracia is one of the few countries to remain independent throughout Arvis's reign, up until Seliph rolls on in.

“I hear Travant spoke a lot of pretty words about giving us food and honey that Leonster were hoarding from us in their lush and fruitful lands,” She told Edelgard over dinner when she'd asked about it.

I'll take, "something Travant would never do," for 500, Alex!

Now to give some credit, Thracia 776 smoothed out a lot of Travant's... unsavory portrayal from Genealogy of the Holy War, and his motive is really just to re-unify the peninsula to end the starvation in the south, but I just can not see him going to the commoners and pretending he's going to make everyone's lives better.

This is just a bit of mischaracterization so Edelgard can be erroneously compared to Travant.

“Well, I lived through that war and the Empire's arrival and I and my boy are still struggling. I'd say nothing has changed, but it has – for the worse." The densely populated land that she was introduced to were nominally under the control of a single ruler – the Emperor of Granvelle, Arvis.

It'd be under Bloom's rule, technically, though Arvis is obviously Bloom's superior. Yeah, don't expect much acknowledgement of Bloom, since he's not useful for the narrative Reyna wants to push in which she'll be comparing Edelgard and Arvis (and he doesn't appear in person in Thracia ever so she might genuinely have forgotten about him).

Edelgard committed the former kingdom names to memory – Chalphy, Yngvi,

Those are dutchies, not kingdoms. Houses Chalphy and Yngvi (for fucks' sake, she gets Njörun wrong but she gets Jungby's fucked up official translation right???) are two ducal houses of the former kingdom (now empire) of Grannvale. Sigurd hailed from House Chalphy.

Leonster, Augustria, Silesse, Verdanne, Issach,

Those are (or rather, were, thanks to Grannvale invasion) all kingdoms. Of them, only Leonster should be important to this story.

along with a few minor principalities like Darna.

Dahna's just a fortress city in the Aed Desert, there's no known prince there. These words have meaning, Reyna.

Then there was the Loptous Religion – cult, it was a cult, the priest told her not to confuse them with a normal religion. He told Edelgard that the head of the cult, a man named Manfroy, had taken advantage of the crown prince going mad after his mother's murder to become emperor in all but name, pushing Arvis to the side. Then he'd plunged Jugdral into horror and darkness the likes of which was only spoken in legend, of the time before the Crusaders.

This is gonna be compared to the Agarthans later on, even though Edelgard canonically had a much tighter lid on Thales than we ever see from Arvis with Manfroy.

I also can't imagine rando people out in the middle of nowhere knowing much about Manfroy.

Is it gall, that she still feels righteously outraged at the stories of a cult with a dead dragon at the helm bringing harm to humans?

I'm pretty sure the people of Jugdral didn't know that Naga, her companions, and Loptous were all dragons. They would have just viewed them as gods, much like how the people of Archanea ended up warping Naga into a giant human warrior.

And in any case, as I've said before, the word "dragon" does not appear to exist in Fodlan, so these commoners calling Loptous a dragon would have about as much impact on Edelgard as someone calling Satan a Smyrp would have for us.

I mean I know what Reyna is doing, Edelgard needs to have her Come to Seiros moment in this fic and part of that involves her realizing Dragons Good, Actually, but that Reyna has to warp Jugdral and Fodlan's established setting to get her message across demonstrates how poorly-applied it is.

Oh, but anyways, no that is not gall, Edelgard, it is normal.

She'd been so confident that she could be a hero and bullrushed head long into being that cult's pawn.

She was not anyone's pawn but yours, Reyna.

Why is she clenching her fists in rage and planning how she'd defend the town if minions of Loptous came calling?

Because Edelgard just kinda be like that: a protective, compassionate woman who can't stand to see innocents victimized. Anyways, Edelgard catches up with Ronan, who was out hunting. She ponders going to the closest village - implied to be Fiana, where Leif is secretly living in hiding - but Ronan tries to warn her off going.

The naked care for her, audible in his voice, makes Edelgard wince a little. It had been like this ever since they'd met months ago, and she's still not used to it.

Edelgard's just so unused to people being nice for the sake of it! In the hands of a better writer this could be a sad demonstration of Edelgard having lost the ability to trust thanks to all the suffering and betrayals she's endured in her short life, but since this is Reyna this is probably just her not being familiar with the concept of compassion in general.

There's so much I haven't told you about me. If you knew, you would reject me like you reject Travant and Manfroy. ...How she would even tell him, she doesn't know, but... the knowledge that Ronan thinks she's something she's not...

Oh, Edelgard, you siwwy, these people love the Good Nobles! Ronan suggests they go skip stones, which they've evidently done enough times that Edelgard has a reputation for being better than him. I thought these people had no time for leisure, Reyna? You wrote several paragraphs about that earlier in this same chapter!

Anyways, Edelgard asks whether Ronan's ever considered leaving in search of a better life, and we get this:

Ronan hesitated for a moment; Edelgard stood up and tossed her rock out. It skipped several times before vanishing beneath the water. “I do want better for us,” he confessed. “But… I mean, even if we managed to make the trip across all that water, there's no guarantee that things will be better wherever we land. Isn't it better to fight for the home you have than run away and just hope for the best?”

We did it, boiz!!!

This is literally just, "we can't risk making things worse in our attempts to make them better," liberalism. And it doesn't even work within the context of either Thracia 776 (because Lief... you know... he starts conflict to better the lives of his people...) or Three Houses (because Edelgard was literally fighting for her home, that home being Fodlan itself and not just Adrestia).

Edelgard points out how nobody seems to have the guts to fight with Ronan. Ronan then gets distinctly un-provincial.

“Yeah. It's true a lot of people are too scared to fight… or don't have the balls to.” He grimaced, glaring at the horizon. “But it can't stay like that forever. At some point we're either going to stand up in fight, or lie down and die. There's no point in surviving under the boot of monsters like this, with no one willing to uphold justice.”

Yeah, that's how a medieval peasant talks, dipping into abstract concepts like justice!

Then we get,

“Didn't the Emperor Arvis call creating this very Empire justice?” Edelgard prodded pointedly. Ronan snorted like a bull. “Of course he did; he had to pretend it was, after massacring Lord Sigurd and every other heir to Judgral who was in his army. And what was his 'justice'? Handing all of us over to the cult of Loptous, who he cozied up to in the first place to even get the crown.”

Who the hell handed Ronan the Genealogy of the Holy War game script? How would he know all this? I've mentioned he lives out in the sticks, now it's time to show how far away he is:

Ronan would be living right around where I circled there. Unlike Fiana, where Leif lived, Iz doesn't even have walls:

Like seriously? How does he know all this? Traveling bards spreading the word? Reyna's just twisting the world this story takes place in so she can have Ronan unknowingly blame Edelgard for unleashing terrible wrongs upon Fodlan.

“Justice to me is the food being hoarded at Belhalla and Travant's palace being distributed among people who actually need it.

I very much doubt Travant is hoarding food, at least not for himself. Famine is Thracia's biggest problem. Also, again, Ronan would probably be more likely to complain about Bloom hoarding food at Ulster, not Arvis at Belhalla (the capital city of the both the Kingdom of Granvalle and the Granvalle Empire).

Here's the thing. Arvis is so far removed from the wrongdoing at Thracia. In Thracia 776, the vast majority of the Imperial forces you fight are specifically the armies of House Friege, which, as I mentioned, is Bloom's ducal house. But that doesn't work for Reyna's narrative, because Arvis has several comparisons to draw with Edelgard and Bloom has none.

Justice is the children being taken by the hunts being returned home unharmed and the monsters participating in those sick games all being hung.

This sure does sound like something a medieval peasant would say. Also notice how Ronan's grammar and punctuation got a lot better?

By the way, this is how Ronan's dialogue is written in the newer fan translation:

Ma, I can't stay outta this any longer. I'll go and fight alongside— Oh, you must be with the Freeblades! I want to join y'all! I'm good enough with a bow and I can get around pretty fast. I won't hold you back none. That don't matter none! Every battle is somebody's first, right? Guess this'll be mine. I mean, maybe you can stand holing up in here an' waiting to die, but I sure can't!

Anyways, getting back to the more inexplicably well-read Ronan:

Justice is us actually getting all those pretty things Arvis promised us; education and safety nets and better roads and soldiers who aren't just thugs in armour protecting us.

Whatever Arvis actually promised is really vague - text limitations from the SNES days n'all - but this is so comically twisted to be similar to what Edelgard might've talked about that it's funny. Reyna has all the subtlety of a flying hammer.

Justice is getting back the families that actually cared for us and kept us safe, like Leonster and Chalphy.

"We want our good nobles back, please >:("

Dimitri needs to be validated in his belief that both sides have a point in the commoner vs noble divide. Now, obviously it does make sense that Ronan would want the families that didn't cause chaos back, but it's still such an unsubtle dig at Edelgard's "let's remove the nobility!" ideals.

Edelgard brings up the rumors that Leif's still alive, and Ronan remarks he'd join up with him in a heartbeat. Edelgard tries to warn him off jumping into war so eagerly - this is supposed to be her having second thoughts about war, guys! :D - but before the conversation can go very far, Lifis's pirates appear over the horizon to raid Iz.

This is very likely going to coincide with the events of Thracia 776's second chapter, in which the Fiana Freeblades - which Leif is not the leader of by the way, we'll see if Reyna gets that right - while marching to Munster to rescue the kidnapped Mareeta and Nanna, reach Iz as it comes under a raid by Lifis's pirates.

I'm not sure I'm ready to see what Reyna does with Leif, folks.

Anyways, that's the end of the chapter, so on to the author's notes!

Edelgard is interesting to write here at the beginning; I think that in a world where she survived past losing, she is very very subdued in the best case scenario.

There's a very good reason she asks for death, by word or by knife, in all three routes where she loses.

...

Please tell me Reyna doesn't think Edelgard was trying to kill Dimitri when she threw the knife at the end of AM.

Her ideals ruled her, and if they were broken by her war being a mistake and a failure,

Failure yes, mistake no.

she doesn't have much else at all. This is a broken Edelgard, who's going to rebuild herself upon being attached to a new cause.

The cause of coming to Seiros!

That process shall be…interesting.

I say "painful", but that's just me.

And to conclude, here's a couple choice takes from the comments.

From someone other than Reyna:

I really like the detail of Edelgard slowly learning how starkly different "a hard day's work" means for noble vs commoners: Garreg Mach gave a taste of that through chores, but it could never really replicate what it means to have to work day-in and day-out to scrap by during hard times.

"Hard times", being "all the time" when you're a medieval peasant.

Plus, her using her Crest enhanced strength for everyday labor is really great! It really lets her get a feel for just how helpful a power like that would be for commoners, while also letting her help the little guy out directly.

Yuuuuuup, you know where this is leading! "Crests good, actually!"

Reyna herself replies:

I'm glad you like it!; there really is no comparison. It always annoyed me how Edelgard claims in 3H proper that she's saving the 'oppressed' when it becomes so incredibly clear she has no idea what their lives are like -

"But Dimitri knows! Dimitri knows!" Except not Reyna's Dimitri because he never had that arc, but it's okay: he evidently just wanders around Faerghus, helping people with his super duper Crest strength. Because the sole living heir who almost died once when the king was murdered would be permitted to do that.

she hadn't even considered making free education available to them, given how startled she is when Ferdinand suggests it in their supports.

(weak laughter)

Of course Reyna buys into the "Edelgard didn't think of something that didn't exist until around the 1800's IRL, stupid girl!" argument.

And yes, her Crest strength is incredibly useful for things like this!

Edelgard didn't even CONSIDER the value of Crested laborers! What a foolish, short-sighted girl!

There is a reason that the exultation of Crests lasted for a thousand years; they have a tangible affect on people's lives.

Dimitri's criticized for being out of touch when he says this for a reason, Reyna.

Also the reason Crests were exalted for a thousand years is because the church decreed it so. The vast majority of Crested nobles would never use their Crest powers to directly better the lives of the people.

From another non-Reyna:

Regarding my stance on Edelgard, I like her, same with all the Lords and Rhea, but unfortunately, her stans who keep on white-washing the bad stuff she does on all the routes ruined her and her routes for me, like, I prefer those who straight up admit "yeah, my white-haired gurlboss is a war criminal, whatcha gonna do?" instead of the "my female anime waifu will never do anything bad.", despite the devs and the game itself stating that non of the lords are literal saints.

I love the ones who are all "I like her as a villain, why can't her stans admit she's a war criminal? :)"

Yeah, get back to me when Dimitri fans stop having a chronic issue with trying to excuse or downplay literal torture.

That's all for today! Later people!

#fire emblem three houses #edelgard discourse #edelgard von hresvelg #edelgard positive #thracia 776 #reynaattheend #sporking Reyna's fic #fanfic

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