#that would be necessary for the plot to function coherently...

[loveletterworm]

at risk of sounding pretentious i genuinely tend to find the low standards of others with regards to media strangely motivating, like i will see someone posting about something i think is complete slop as if it's the most serious and well-put-together thing they've ever seen and it'll be like "This is awesome people can love anything no matter what even if it sucks so bad and is just not good" However this motivation is still not enough to get me to actually do anything so it's really useless.

[gynandromorph]

Hey, as a writer of comics and such and such, do you have any advice on how to write plural characters? We're plural, and I'm dabbling in writing a plural character, but the concept feels so nebulous that I just don't know how to make the messiness of it all fit into something that's narratively cohesive. From what I've read, you seem to know what you're doing.

there IS a lot of messiness. i think that there are mutually exclusive interpretations of "plurality" that mean you will potentially piss people off no matter how you go about writing the character. there are many aspects of the phenomenon that all have highly polarized opinions among people and even the existence of the phenomenon itself is highly contested.

the word "plural," too, is deeply politicized -- i have a hard time using it in a way that is NOT tongue-in-cheek (my url for my art blog is, in fact, tongue-in-cheek). you will generally not meet many people even within this small demographic who use the word in this way. it's kind of an online dogwhistle for certain collections of beliefs. you might notice that it sidesteps any mention of dissocation; that's because part of this collection of beliefs generally sees the phenomenon as more... how do i put it. magical. no physical source as a necessary basis for its existence.

there's a cascade of logical conclusions resulting from this interpretation of "plurality," such as alters are entire people separate from each other. they can be a bunch of souls in one body, possibly even exit and enter different bodies voluntarily (called "system hopping" and kind of a more fringe belief).

this is obviously incomprehensible from a naturalist perspective; "plural" people don't have multitudes more neurons than singlets, and our observations of nature all point to the idea that consciousness entire is generated by and contained to the brain -- meaning that it's physically impossible for multiple discrete individuals to exist inside of ONE body (i won't even suggest they're just divvying up neurons because parts of the brain necessary for function and totally unconscious are not really divisible like that). from that vantage point, "plurality" MUST be explained as one brain producing discrete streams of consciousness through physical, reversible, replicable alterations in the currently poorly understood process of its production of consciousness. a lot of people of the more naturalist mindset also just point blank say it doesn't exist and this is all lies or delusion.

this seems like a really long tangent that doesn't explain how to write these kinds of characters at all. but what i'm saying is that in trying to understand how a "plural" character would function, in making it less messy and nebulous, you're going to have to pick a perspective that will malign with other perspectives on how this works.

and i can only offer you my own perspective, with its own limitations. the reason that i Know What I'm Doing to any extent is from firsthand experience, and a lot of secondhand experience with a long-term intimate partner with DID.

i'd investigate why you want to include this character or write them in this way if it doesn't naturally cohere with the narrative containing them. i'm not saying the plot has to be about being "plural"; i'm a fan of the idea of having characters like this in stories that aren't about being Like This in the same way i like that not every story with a lesbian is a romance novel. but investigate what you are hoping to inject into the story by not just defaulting to a singular identity, even with your currently limited understanding of how it works.

from there, i'd figure out what people you got these ideas you're trying to inject into the writing from. these are probably going to be the intended audience for such a character. through observation, you can kind of get a feel for how they feel about their own experiences, how they make sense of them, etc. if you're friends you can even ask, which might have to be the case, because a lot of people are simply not constantly yapping about this specific thing publicly.

i think that writing systems is probably the most thankless kind of character. the ideas of what it even is are always propped up by polarized beliefs with strong moral compulsions attached, and readers come to the table with that. it's easier to get more emotionally charged, negative feedback (although i found almost all of the feedback for felix and izzi was positive, so it really depends on how far you extend outside this intended audience). this is inherent to the topic, because regardless of how one feels about how far the label of "plural" should extend, a lot of profoundly traumatized individuals with necessarily polarized parts that have gone way beyond normal with this polarization just to maintain separate identities are included at the center of that label. that's an audience that is obviously going to have more instant, often negative reactions off the cuff, just because it's how triggers work.

but, more than that -- it's difficult, even if you know what you're doing. you have so much to keep track of, so many more "characters" to design within that character, more backstory, more symbolism, just. everything. it multiplies at not only a flat rate (9 characters instead of 1) but has an additional burden of continuity within the character.

that said, because you aren't really sure how to go about it, i'm assuming you don't have experience with being "plural," and that's good news. it means you probably are going to be writing this character from an outsider's perspective (i would recommend this), and from the outside, this stuff is not very spectacular.

in fact, most people, from the outside, don't really... "notice" without being told. they will "notice" how you seem like a liar because you say one thing and do another, how you're a hypocrite because you believe 2 clearly contradictory things and you've been loud about both of those beliefs, how you're forgetful, how you're unreliable. people naturally notice things that don't fit into patterns they see, and they also naturally find "negative" concerns more salient and important -- so my experience has been that without being told, people generally don't notice unless it's something they don't like. no one out there is thinking about what's going on in your head no matter how many people are in it, just what you as a singular physical entity can do to harm them.

you can do with that what you will, but that's a tangent. the majority of people under this category will have like 2 or 3 guys who are "at the wheel" like 90% of their life. even just one guy except for in crisis is very common. without deep exploration of their psyche, you will probably only need 2 or 3 guys for this one character who can be characterized by a somewhat different default mood with some overlap differentiated by nuance for flavor. no explanation of how it works needed. if you have two philosophies or themes competing or motivating the conflict for your story, boom. guy 1 believes side A and guy 2 believes side B. now they're somewhat enmeshed in the story. simple stuff like that.

[call-me-apple]

10, 22, 28 !!

10. What do you think c!Dream’s life was like pre-DSMP?

I wish the search function fucking worked on Tumblr because I literally had a post about this that I now can't find.

This is obviously headcanon territory, but I think he lived a life of constant danger and instability. It would explain why all his living spaces have been so frugal, and why he would walk around overprepared and consistently overestimate his opponents. He fights for peace as if he has barely known it and is desperate to regain the little slice of it that he had. So I imagine him as an orphan, vagrant or even child soldier who found a family in people with similarly disadvantaged lives and chose to build a home with them, only to have that home be taken away by war and conflict once again.

22. If you had all the time, resources, and skills to create your ideal piece of c!Dream fan content, what would it be?

Torn between two options here.

I had a vague outline for a Syndicate AU longfic but I never had the writing skill nor the commitment necessary to turn it into anything. It would have been a redemption story revolving around c!Dream adapting to post-torture disability and trying to find a new place for himself in the torn world as he realizes the path he has been so committed to is not one that will lead him anywhere. The ideal part of it would have been that I wanted c!Dream to be a bit more of a manipulative asshole w/ the Syndicate than how people usually write this kind of AU, but have it come from a place of fear rather than malice.

The second option is something that has even fewer concrete ideas, but if I was basically God capable of manifesting a perfect coherent plot of my desires, I'd write a No Nukes AU fic where c!Tommy and c!Dream go about trying to save the server while also suffering through cutting themselves on the shattered pieces of each other. I'd just really love to explore a dynamic where two characters have hurt each other terribly, with one being in a more obvious position of victim than the other, but try to work through it for the sake of something else no matter how messy and painful the process is.

28. What do you think is c!Dream’s greatest weakness?

This is something that has been said before, but the thing he suffers from the most is overestimating people's fairness (the most obvious example of this being c!Sam's betrayal). I think it's a really interesting flaw for such a character to have. Dude has a stick up his ass and is surprised everyone else doesn't. His brain works in funny ways in general but this is the first thing that comes to mind.

[melonteee]

I’d like to state that I love the One Piece live action very much. And I like it precisely because it changes stuff up a bit. I don’t need a panel for panel re-shot, I think those are boring. One Piece live action to me feels more like one of those myth retellings, same people, same key events, some themes are the same but you add a new sprinkle to make your own artistic choices or to highlight something that you feel important even if the original version didn’t.

For instance, I think pulling Garp forwards is pretty clever. It gives a more Western feel to the story by having the antagonist tell half of it. Western stories oscillate between A and B plots (or more) quite a bit and thrive off of conflict. It’s not necessary for a story to function obviously but it’s part of the new style, namely it being a Netflix show. It is for a decidedly Western audience, it’s okay to use the tools of Western story telling. It changes the pace and the urgency, there’s an external pressure looming over the whole season and I like it when shows can do that.

I also love that we get the Cory and Helmeppo story more centered. Oda had only place in the chapter covers because of how vast One Piece already is. I appreciate the change that I get to spend more time with them and be part of their budding friendship. But you need at least parts of the Garp story for this to feel coherent within the show.

The live action reminds me of why I love writing fanfiction. Not to be disrespectful towards the original artist, far from it, but because I want to experiment with the things the original has and, importantly, doesn’t have. To keep the heart of the story and its key elements - which I think they did by and large a good job at, and to change it up for the new idea this iteration is presenting. In this case: What would One Piece be like if made for Western audiences?

Another guiding question is, what would One Piece be like if as realistic as possible? It not being a drawing anymore changes the tone and perception significantly, so they have to adjust for that. The over the top humor of Oda doesn’t work in this new medium. It’s a difficult needle to thread as Oda’s humor is so integral to everything, characters, plots, world building and so on. But that’s the challenge they set and I do think they caught quite a huge portion of it.

For example, Zoro isn’t as goofy and doesn’t grin as broadly as in the manga because no one is. Ruffy is less goofy so Zoro has to adjust down as well. He still smiles and cracks jokes and is his chaotic self. To me, in this world this version fits.

Overall, I love this live action a lot. It’s the best of its kind I’ve seen. And I love all the little scenes and gifs people make from it, they make my One Piece heart beat proudly. All the details that went in to the show I appreciate, the changed by and large I respect. It’s not the same but good.

And as someone who follows your tumblr, that opinion feels sometimes a little lost in all the asks you get about it. So I wanted to let others of your followers now, who - like me - might’ve felt a little discouraged by reading some of those asks and answers: It’s great if you’ve loved this show. That’s what it was made for. 💚

I appreciate all this but I need you to know, I am in the minority here in regards to not enjoying the live action - positivity for this is everywhere. Like I really do appreciate what you're trying to do here and I appreciate you like it a lot, but if my honest opinion regarding a live action adaptation discourages people then...idk there's plenty other places to turn to, my opinion on it shouldn't be the end all be all of opinions.

All the questions you brought up are fine, but the thing is if they're gonna change it up, then that's not an adaptation - that's a reinterpretation. You change an adaptation and its fidelity to fit the medium, that is not what this live action did. Through producer interviews they even stated that's what they WANTED, they WANTED a panel for panel adaptation, and they literally failed to do so. I'm glad you wanted something different, and clearly a lot of people also seemed to want that? But I personally didn't want One Piece to be different? I didn't want it to be 'realistic'? I also couldn't care less how the west wanted to make One Piece?

Making Zoro and Luffy less goofy means they are not the same characters, it shouldn't be more 'realistic' to make them more 'serious'. If anything that's just disappointing that these Netflix producers think realism means sucking the fun and humour out of characters. Those changes in characters is what bugged me the absolute most and, to speak frankly, I absolutely hated this version of Zoro. I would argue this whole adaptation does not make One Piece's heart beat loudly at all, if anything it feels embarrassed for what the original characters are meant to be and want them to be something else entirely. It feels like it needed to be 'edgier' and 'grittier' for literally no reason.

Different strokes for different folks I guess, and I'm sorry if I sound kinda miffed in this ask but it's because you will literally find positivity for all of this anywhere else. I'm sorry if I discouraged you but, again, my opinion on a piece of media shouldn't be the end of the world lmao. I'm happy people found joy in something I couldn't, but respectfully, I don't need it thrown at me when I've seen it everywhere else constantly and am just speaking honestly on my own little blog here.

We can agree to disagree and continue loving the ACTUAL thing that brought us all together, which was the original animanga!

[words-and-threads]

So I've been having this problem in BG3 where I try to port over my OCs from my freeform text roleplays. The problem is they're the kind of characters who make plot happen and they don't fit very well into a plot that's pre-written. What's more, I as a player want to see as much of the content as possible and I'm not going to do that if loose cannon Tommy over here starts blasting or wary Ioannis won't stick his neck out for the grove.

Making a new OC who facilitates my goals has also been a challenge because I just don't quite know where to start. There are parameters for such a character dictated by the dialogue options, backgrounds, and in-game consequences as well as the world itself. So I found myself thinking back to other RPGs where I created OCs and looking for the difference, and the answer was simple: narrow down the options.

In Dragon Age and Mass Effect, your backstory is either fully pre-written or there are a few canon events that ensure your character will be in the right position and have the right skills and temperament to continue the story. It's not perfect, to be sure, but it does help give one a direction if, like me, one is obsessive about characterization. Especially in a game like Baldur's Gate 3 where the other origin characters are so well fleshed out, I want my OC to at least feel coherent.

SO! I have written some more detailed character prompts with a few main criteria in mind. The character must be logically possible in the setting. They must be a reasonably functional adult with some understanding of the world's social expectations. They must have some interest in other people, team spirit, and willingness to get involved with the events around them. They must have enough combat experience not to freak out when there's blood everywhere. Finally, their background should explain the skill bonuses that background provides. This still leaves a lot of creative space but I think a character based on these prompts should generally be able to fit into the game with minimal difficulty.

I don't know if anyone else has had the same problem, maybe you're all better at this than me, but in case they're useful to someone, here they are.

I've done 3 backgrounds so far, the Charlatan, Entertainer, and Soldier.

Charlatan – you were working in the city when you were abducted.

You learned to lie and steal early out of financial necessity, as well as some other sharper skills. It started with picking pockets and crooked street games, but you eventually graduated to more elaborate cons. You’re still cautious, keenly aware of the risks of your work, and you keep your poker face steady and your cards close to your chest. Whether the people you meet are a useful resource or a threat depends entirely on how well you manage them.

You have always been the life of the party. You were so lively, in fact, that you were eventually cut off from your primary means of support. You’ve bounced from one party to the next ever since, living off your charms. It’s not your fault people like you and want to give you things, even if the “you” they’re giving them to is entirely fabricated. And if people decide they don’t like you, for instance because they caught you taking things they didn’t give you, it never hurts to have a weapon or a spell handy. Well, it doesn’t hurt you anyway.

You trade in information, saying, doing, or being whatever is necessary to get it. You’re a consummate professional and a near-perfect actor who doesn’t let their personal feelings interfere with their work. Those who know you for more than a day or two (and there aren’t many of them) would doubt you even have feelings. You do, however, know how to look at the bigger picture and will act on your own if it seems likely to bring long-term benefit. 

Entertainer – you were working in the city when you were abducted.

Early on, you developed a passion for stories that eventually drove you to an explorer’s life. Everywhere you go, you learn from the people there and share the wisdom you’ve found with them. You have a great sense of perspective and good advice for all situations, resulting in a measured and practical demeanor.  While you prefer to resolve conflict with an appropriate fable, you have learned to defend yourself with force when necessary.

You live for the adulation of the crowd. You have a big personality and a showy flair for your artistic discipline. Every movement screams “tadaa!” Your ambition for bigger crowds and new rapt faces has led you to a few dubious places, but you’ve learned to fight off would-be showstoppers with that same flair.

Your art is violence. Whether on the battlefield, in the arena, or in the middle of a bar brawl, you inflict damage with the grace of a dancer, the care of a painter, and the passion of a musician. Some find you off-putting, but those who can appreciate your skill and commitment are more than welcome to share in your glory.

You never intended to have adventures. You were happy to work away at your discipline, sharing with a small crowd, making a comfortable living. When disaster struck your community, you had no choice but to take up arms. You remain an unassuming, sensible person and a reluctant fighter, but you can hold your own and won’t hesitate to stand against those who threaten you and yours.

Soldier – you were on leave in the city when you were abducted.

You joined an army or mercenary company for a cot to yourself and maybe even a new pair of boots. You were inexperienced, but scrappy and committed to proving yourself. In time, you learned combat skills, strategy, and how to get along with 5 other people sharing a tent, all of whom snore. While you do know how to mind your business, the sense of order instilled in you by your training makes it hard to ignore larger problems in the world around you.

You joined an army or mercenary company to dodge the law, angry relatives, or some other dire consequence. You had some skills already, but you’re still a bit secretive and twitchy. Your commanders know better than to ask and your comrades, well, some of them have their own secrets. A squad at your back gives you the courage to take risks and you give the same loyalty to them that you get. You have a soft spot for people in tough situations. After all, once that was you.

You were already a strong fighter in your own right when you joined up with a mercenary company, but you saw the value of having someone to watch your back. There was an adjustment period as you got used to following orders, but your commanders find your experience useful even if they could do without your ego. Some of your comrades still see you as an outsider, but some, especially the younger ones, are awed by your tales of derring-do. Overall, you make it work.

[zorilleerrant]

so I think a lot of the problem with people not relating to women (and poc, disabled people, queer people, etc.) in fiction is a function of reading texts cooperatively. which is a natural impulse when we tell and hear stories, and often necessary to enjoying the story, depending on the story, person, and way they're enjoying it. and generally not something people do on purpose.

so the thing is, as we all know, there are certain groups and types of people who are considered default in society, which changes over time, but not as much as (or in the ways that) we want it to. and in general people have a hard time getting over that in their personal lives, especially - and I do mean especially, because statistics keep giving this answer - people who are impacted by that bigotry. not like other girls, not that type of gay, a more respectable poc, etc. but at least marginalized people are thinking about it.

what we have in mainstream fiction - almost every popular movie or TV show in the English language, and more than half of books - is white men in creative control. and they don't think about it. if they can be made to, they often with great attention to detail change how they tell stories, but who's going to make them think about it? usually no one. maybe if you're lucky one person on the team had a friend who talked to them about this, but no one else did. so they put white men, and typically neurotypical able-bodied middle class non-immigrant straight white men, front and center.

now the story is asking the audience to sympathize with a white man. that's the main character. usually, everyone does, because otherwise why would you bother engaging with that story? but it's most of the supporting characters, side characters, even background characters who are white men, too. and moreover - even when the people who don't fall into that category are interesting! even when they're engaging and fully developed and cute and fun! - the story focuses on them more. it says, let's take this character and use them as flavor for someone else's dish. those characters are a cog in another character's story, or a comment on it, or a counterpoint. the story doesn't center them, because that's not whose story it is (which isn't by itself bad, just in the aggregate).

then people take what they're used to doing to real people in real life (without knowing it, because implicit bias certainly isn't intentional or malicious) and match it to what the show is doing, and it fits, it doesn't upset the schema, so it doesn't cause any cognitive dissonance. (incidentally, this is why stories about marginalized people tend to only have marginalized characters in the main cast, or the exception is comic relief. because it will cause cognitive dissonance for there to be men around but the story is about women, or white people around but the show is about black people, or straight people around but the show is about the gay people's relationships with each other.)

now if people are used to reading works in a hostile (or at least non-cooperative) way, it becomes easier and easier to do over time. people don't tend to do hostile readings, tho. they often toss out parts they don't like and just ignore them, or try to come up with an explanation that's coherent to the story they were told in order to patch up plot holes and inconsistencies, or find alternate pathways that would fix the things they think are wrong. which is all well and good, because those are wellsprings of creativity as well, but they're still fundamentally agreeing with the text.

people have to practice saying things like: this character is not the way they present or see themselves. they are a fundamentally different person than the author thinks they are, and here is all the evidence in the text that they simply would not do the things they did, or that other people would not react that way to those things, or that they would do it and people would react that way but it's bad that's true and the hero is a fundamentally bad person. or it's good, actually, and the villain is a fundamentally good person, who did all the right things, and was punished for it. or it's morally gray in a way the text wholesale ignored. or it's actually pretty cut and dry and the text treating it like a matter of opinion is just an indication that all these characters are terrifying people.

things like: this plot was not inevitable, it was actually caused by events established in the narrative that the author thinks have nothing to do with the outcomes, even tho they can be easily read as causal. these twists are not surprising, the heroes are just incompetent, or unprepared, or think too highly of themselves and didn't do their due diligence. these obvious cause-and-effect scenarios aren't that obvious at all, and with different circumstances they might easily have panned out differently, or the fact that the heroes expected them says something terrible about their mental health, or the fact that they won/lost should have active implications in the story that are just ignored. or this plot has happened in real life, and here's when, and here's why you're wrong. or this didn't happen in real life, because here was the response to the opening circumstances instead, and how that would've gone.

things like: this world is larger and more complex than the story thinks it is. all the pieces inside it are so much more faceted; characters are so much more complex than that, physics is so much less understood than that, social structures are so much less logical than that. the narrator is wrong in ways they don't even know they're wrong. they're not unreliable reporters, they're telling you everything they know, but what they know is bullshit. all the world of the story being built on the truth of it, everyone acting on the knowledge of it - they're all wrong. they got some piece of it right, and missed everything else, and here is some - not all, never all, but some - of what they missed. maybe something so, so obvious to someone on the outside of it. maybe something that seemed impossible to learn with all the pressure to adhere to the canon.

and all this with marginalized people, too. this woman is this man's friend? no. he is her friend. this black person had to judge these white people's debate? no. this black person is watching some idiots they know argue, and trying to intervene. these abled people did something to accommodate their disabled friend? no. the disabled person was dealing with something horrible, and someone finally understood. sometimes a character can be a participant in someone else's story, and sometimes they can be the main character, even when that doesn't change the narrative, because, you know, it still changes the story even when it doesn't.

it's about disagreeing with the creators. it's about saying: I saw what you were trying to create, and I'm going to create it better. I saw what you were trying to create, and you created something wholly different, and I'm going to pull those differences out piecemeal and create a brand new text from them. I saw what you were trying to create, and I'm horrified by what you are trying to create, and I'm going to preserve those horrors in amber for all the world to see. I saw what you were trying to create, and you are wrong, and here are all the reasons why.

you have to know. then you can no.

[number5theboy]

Please elaborate on how Five could've turned into the most insufferable character to watch

Thanks for asking me to elaborate on this text post:

@tessapercygranger​, @waywardd1​ and @margarita-umbrella​ also wanted to see a more detailed version of it, and I ended up writing an essay that’s longer than some of my actual academic essays. So buckle up.

WHY NUMBER FIVE SHOULD BE THE MOST OBNOXIOUS CHARACTER IN TV HISTORY, AND HOW HE MANAGES NOT TO BE

Number Five: The Concept That Could Go Horribly Wrong

Alright, let’s first look at Five in theory in an overarching way, without taking into account the execution of the show. The basic set-up of the character, of course, is being a 58-year-old consciousness in a teenager’s body, due to a miscalculation in time travel. Right off the bat, Five is bar none the most overpowered of the siblings; by the end of Season 2, no one has yet been able to defeat him in a fight. He is a master assassin – and not just any master assassin, but the best one there is – and a survival expert, able to do complex maths and physics without the aid of a calculator, shown to have knowledge of half a dozen languages, has very developed observational skills and, to top that all off, he can manipulate time and space to the point where he can literally erase events that happened and change the course of history. And Five knows how skilled he is; he is arrogant, self-assured and sarcastic, and his streak of goodness is buried deep inside. David Castañeda once described Five in an interview as 90% chocolate with a cherry in the middle, meaning that you have to get through a lot of darkness and bitterness before knowing there is a good core, and I think it’s an excellent metaphor. However, Five is also incredibly, fundamentally terrible at communicating with anyone, and, because he is the only one with time travel abilities, the character a lot of the actual plot - and the moving forward of it - centres around. Also he’s earnestly in love with a mannequin, who is pretty much a projection of his own consciousness that functions as a coping mechanism for all the trauma he has endured. All in all, this gives you a character who looks like a teenager, but with the smug superiority of a fifty-something, who a) is extremely skilled in many different things, b) has a superiority complex, is arrogant and vocal about it, and most of the superiority is expressed through cutting sarcasm, c) has one very hidden ounce of goodness that he is literally the worst at communicating to other human beings, d) is what moves the plot along but is also bad at talking to anyone else, meaning that the plot largely remains with him, and e) his love interest is essentially a projection of himself. Tell me that’s not a character who is destined to be just…obnoxious, annoying, egocentric, a necessary evil that one has to put up with to get through this show. There are so many elements of this characterisation that can and should easily make Five beyond insufferable, but the show manages to avoid it, and I’m putting this down to three aspects.

That Trick of Age and Appearance

Bluntly put, Five as a character would not work if he was anything else than an old man in a 13-year-old body. Imagine this character and all his skills and knowledge, but actually just…a teenager. Immediately insufferable. Same goes for him being around 30, like his siblings, all of which are stunted and traumatised by their father’s abuse. If Five, being comparatively unscathed by Reginald to the point where he explicitly does not want to be defined by his association with his father, were 30 like his siblings, it would just take the bite out of that plot point and also give him a lot less time in the apocalypse, reducing the impact it had on him as a person. And making Five his actual 58-year-old self would make him very similar to Reginald, at least on surface level, with the appearance and attitude. Five and Reginald are two fundamentally different people, but having one of the siblings being a senior citizen that’s dressed to the nines and bosses his siblings around in a relatively self-centred way does open up that parallel, and would take away from Five’s charm as a character. Because pairing the life experience of a 58-year-old with the appearance of a teenager gives you the best of both worlds. You get the other siblings (and a lot of the audience, from a glance in the tags of my gifsets) feeling protective and paternal about Five, but his age and experience also give the justifications for his many skills, his arrogance, in a way, and his ability to decimate a room full of people. It’s the very interesting and not new concept of someone dangerous with the appearance of something harmless, a child. This is also where Five’s singular outfit comes in. I know we like to clown on Five to get a new outfit, but I think what gets forgotten often is how effective this outfit is at making the viewer take him seriously. The preppy school uniform is the perfect encapsulation of the tension between old man in spirit and young teenager in appearance. The blazer, vest and especially the shirt and tie are quite formal, relatively grown up. They’re not something we, the audience, usually associate with a teenage boy wearing; it makes Five just a little bit more grown up. But there is also a reason characters in this show keep bringing up Five’s shorts and his socks, because those are not things that we associate with grown men wearing; they’re the unmistakably childish part of his school uniform. Take a moment and imagine Five wearing a hoodie or a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers; would that outfit work for him as well as the uniform does? Would he be able to command the same kind of respect or seriousness as a character? I don’t think so; the outfit is a lot more pivotal in making Five believable than a lot of people give it credit for.

Writing Nuance

The other big building block in not making Five incredibly insufferable is the writing. Objectively speaking, I think Five is the most well-written, and, more importantly, most coherently written character on the show (which does have to do with the fact that the show’s events are all sequential for him), and his arc and personality remain relatively intact over the course of the two seasons. More to the point, a giant part of what makes Five bearable as a character is that he is allowed to fail. He is written to have high highs and low lows, big victories through his skills and his intelligence, but also catastrophic failures and the freedom to be wrong. His superior intellect and skillset are not the be-all end-all of the plot or his character, just something that influences both. His inability for communication has not (yet) been used to fabricate a contrived misunderstanding that derails the plot and left all of us seething; instead, it’s a characteristic that makes him fail to reconnect with the people he loves. This is a bit simplified, as he does find common ground with Luther, for example, but in general, a lot of the rift between Five and his siblings is that they can’t relate to his traumas and he does not understand the depth of Reginald’s abuse, which is an interesting conflict worth exploring. Another thing that really works in Five’s favour is that he is definitely written to be mean and sarcastic, but it is never driven to the point of complete unlikability, and a lot of the time, the context makes it understandable why he reacts the way he does. Most of the sarcastic lines he gets are actually funny, that certainly helps, but in general, Five is a good example of a bearable character whose default personality is sharp and relatively cold, because it is balanced out with many moments of vulnerability. Delores is incredibly important for this in the first season, she is the main focus of Five’s humanising moments, and well-written as she totes the line between clearly being a coping mechanism for an extremely traumatised man and still coming across to the viewer as the human contact Five needs her to be. In the second season, the vulnerability is about his guilt for his siblings, it’s about Five connecting a little bit better to them. There’s also his relationship with the Commission and the Handler specifically – which honestly could be an essay on its own – that deserves a mention, because the Handler is why Five became the man he is, and this dynamic between creator and creation is explored in a very interesting way – their scenes are some of the most well-written in the entire show. And TUA never falls into the trap of making Five a hero, he is always morally ambiguous at best, and it just makes for an interesting, multi-faceted character, well-written character, and none of the characteristics that should make him unlikeable are allowed to take centre-stage for long enough to be defining on their own. I know a lot of people especially champion the scenes where Five goes apeshit, but without his more nuanced characterisation, if he was like that all the time, those scenes would not hit as hard.

Aidan Gallagher’s Performance is Underrated

But honestly, none of the above would matter that much if the Umbrella Academy didn’t luck out hard with the casting of Aidan Gallagher. I think what he achieves as an actor in this show is genuinely underappreciated. Like, the first season set out to cast six adults having to deal with various ramifications of childhood trauma, and a literal child that had to be able to act smart and wise beyond his years, seamlessly integrate into a family of adults while seeming like an adult, traumatised by the literal end of the world, AND had to be able to create the romantic chemistry of a thirty-year-long marriage with a lifeless department store doll. The only role I could think of to compare is Kirsten Dunst in Interview with a Vampire, where she plays a vampire child who, because she is undead, doesn’t age physically, but does mentally, so she’s 400 in a child’s body. And Kirsten Dunst had to do that for a two-hour movie. Five is a main character in a show that spans 20 episodes now. That’s insane, and it’s a risk. Five is a character that can’t be allowed to go wrong; if you don’t buy Five as a character, the entire first season loses believability. And they found someone who could do that not only convincingly, but also likeably. As I said, he is incredibly helped by the costuming department and the script, but Aidan Gallager’s Five has so much personality, he’s threatening and funny and charming and arrogant and heartbreaking. He has the range to be convincing in the quiet moments where Five’s humanity comes to show and in the moments where Five goes completely off the rails. Most child actors act with other children, but he is the only child in the main cast, and holds his own in scenes with adults not as a child, but as an adult on equal footing with the other adult characters. That’s not something to be taken for granted. But even apart from the fact that it’s a child actor who carries a lot of the plot and the drama of a series for adults, Aidan Gallagher’s portrayal of Five is also just so much fun. The comedic timing is on point, he has the dramatic chops for the serious scenes, the mannerisms and visual ticks add to the character rather than distract from him, and his line deliveries, paired with his physical acting, make Five arrogant and smug but never outright malicious and unlikeable. It’s just some terrific acting that really does justice to the character as he is written, but the writing would not be as strong if it wasn’t delivered and acted out the way Aidan Gallagher does. He is an incredible asset for this show.

Alright, onto concluding this rambling. If you made it this far, I commend you, and thank you for it. The point of all of this is that Five, as a character, could have been an unmitigated disaster of a TV character. He is overpowered, arrogant, uncommunicative and could so easily have been either unconvincing or completely unlikeable, but he turned out to be neither. It’s a combination of choices in the costume department, decisions in the writing room, and Aidan Gallagher’s acting skills that make the things that should make him obnoxious and annoying incredibly entertaining, and I hope you liked my long-winded exploration of these. Some nuance was lost along the way, but if I had not stopped myself, this would’ve become a full-blown thesis.

[i-like-gay-books]

some (slightly) more coherent thoughts on awtwb cause i was thinking about it in the shower

i loved it. i loved the book to pieces, i mean snowbaz was so soft and actually functional most of the way through and agatha found her calling and simon found his family and penny and shepard are just precious and it was really a fantastic way of wrapping up the trilogy all in all

however

thinking back on it the morning after finishing theres something that rubs me the wrong way about one aspect of the book. first it was just the agatha niamh thing but then i got to thinking and its bigger than that

in awtwb there’s kind of an underlying message of you can’t be happy unless you’ve found your person/ are in a relationship

agatha and niamh for example. i loved loved loved the agatha storyline i mean i think it really makes sense that she would want to be a vet and that shed like animals better than humans and somebody needed to take ebbs place but

was the kiss even necessary?

idk i mean i can see how niamh was helpful to the plot in getting agatha to go back to watford and all but i just dont see why the pair the spare was necessary here. i just dont see why agatha couldnt be happy single and why it couldnt have just been an amazing thing for her to make a friend which, historically, she has trouble with. idk.

and then theres snowbaz obviously. i mean they belong together dont get me wrong. but they lasted barely 24 hours apart before they decided that wasn’t gonna fly because they feel so absolutely dreadful without each other. ok i seriously think thats some attachment issues stuff right there like yeah fine its romantic or whatever that they miss each other so much and its natural for people to wallow after a breakup, but the healthiest way of addressing that isn’t to avoid it altogether by just getting back together. i mean after that they barely spend a minute apart for the rest of the book. i love snowbaz as a couple to pieces but im just saying i dont think their level of attachment to each other is the healthiest and it adds to this feeling im getting from the book of much be in a relationship or else never happy

penny and shepard next. they’re cute oh my god. i cant believe how cute they are. i didnt get it after wayward son but i get it now. theyre perfect.

that doesnt mean i canst still think that it seems a bit like penny doesnt know how to be happy on her own and she didnt get much of a chance to figure that out. wayward son takes place over what, a week? and then so does awtwb. so thats like a week and a half of her being single, or at least knowing she is. i know she wasnt all sad over losing micah and didn't miss him but she definitely was pretty lost being on her own. i love penny and shepard! so much! im just saying...

after that its side characters. fiona and nico somehow ending up together?? getting married?? cause why, we needed a plot device (the ring) to get the gang back to england? and she's SO HAPPY with him, like she wasnt happy before? idkkkkkkk

and then also bay’s parents. i mean i get that one kinda because daphne did just up and leaver her whole ass family but like. in the end when she came back they didnt even question her. they were just automatically the big happy family again because she was home. like being in a relationship with daphne was the only reason baz’s dad is happy

writing it out these are all just like minor issues but they add up. i know rainbow is really here to write romance like thats her whole thing. i guess it just felt a bit too much like tying up the loose ends in this book, pairing the spares. and as an aroace its kind of uncomfy feeling to me. idk. again. 

i really really loved the book otherwise, flimsy plot and all (we know its really all about the character development, its ok rainbow) i just found this aspect kinda bugged me throughout.

[yewstronaut]

in the vein of competitions maybe you can earn awards/official rankings or OH!!!! MAYBE THAT'S THE PLOT (plain text: oh! maybe that's the plot) maybe you inherit(? Stardew-coded) the land/shelter and in-order to get goverment/local funding you have to, we'll first you have to pass base requirement for a shelter of this type (type dependant on starting location?) then once you've done that you can apply to be named as an official shelter, if you're named as an official shelter you don't have to pay utilities and everything you buy for the shelter is now at a discount (non-profits bay bee), in addition you can participate in the before mentioned parade or other shelter-sponsoring activities (outside of like maybe flyers but like basically you'd unlock the ability to use your shelter name in an "official" capacity). maybe you also have to take "classes" which teach you the basics of running the shelter as well as the basics of pokemon types (starting with your chosen shelter-type and the a adding classes as more types are unlocked and their habitats installed). once you're an official basic shelter you can partnerwith a dr/vet/whatever and start taking in injured cases, basically slowly working your way up to whatever shelter rank is necessary to meet the requirements for your local government then something from there maybe?

I think you'd show up the shelter and it's obviously loved but has worn down with age and the prevolious owner either not being able to tend to it themselves and/or being able to afford to hire someone to help them it's in a bit of disrepair (functional but like stuff needs to be updated and a few superficial holes need to be patched kind of deal) there'd also be the mons that were working for the shelter in verious capacities that are still there (the previous shelter tenant moved to other shelters maybe?) and it kind of goes from there? oh maybe you can chose a starting personality/job/type that determines how you got the shelter as well as starting stats for various shelter/infirmary(that's the damned word) related aspects

If I could write this out the wsy I want yall would be seeing soooo may arrows and add-ins and margins noted and maybe with different color ink but it's not discernible if the colours mean anything so be grateful for what little coherence there is here

late-game stuff might have something to do with legendaries maybe? if you get your shelter to a high enough rep/level word gets around enough that legendaries (first the local ones) start to bring either themselves of their friends or 'who know where they found that' pokemon to you to either be treated or to find a friend or xyz

mentorship mechanic where you can "train" someone (maybe a few placed npcs you cna befriend that express an interest maybe the Dr maybe a volunteer turned owner) to take over the shelter in your stead and then you go open/rehab a shelter in another region/location in this region? if doing the rehab route it could be the word gets around thing again and you get a letter from the locals/local leaders of an area asking if you'd please come help them revitalise their old shelter

done that way it doesn't stretch suspensión of disbelief so much as to why certain pokemon are encountered in areas they have absolutely no business being while still allowing the ability to do a pokedex that gets filled fully

oh! oh!! regional illnesses and diseases!! and parasites!! aisugfhdkkx ough I want this game so bad Im like half tempted to learn how to make games (I say as if I wouldn't also have to art)

maybe character cameos from the other games/shows some how (could be obky pokemon Center in the region, could be curiosity, maybe one of the mons is missing and theyre checking with you cause tbh that happens a lot in the show, etc)

ok I think my brain has released its death drip on this topic

I want a pokemon shelter game, where you run a pokemon rescue shelter

[empiredesimparte]

Tips for building your palaces

Astuces pour la construction de vos palais

I have a lot of questions about that. I thought it would be nice to share my experience (I'm clearly not the best palace designer... but if it helps). All the more so as I myself have been looking for tricks at the time, without much success. It’s a very long post, and moreover it’s not exhaustive. But I think it's a good basis! Feel free to fill in the comments or ask questions, so that I can edit the post as I go along.

Getting Started

1. We all start at level 1. There is no shame in learning! 2. I will recommend some CCs, but the essentials. They are optional, it just adds comfort to the construction. 3. I'm speaking as a royalsimblr, maybe that's less useful for other simmers...

Before building

1. It may seem a bit painful... But it is absolutely necessary to find out about architectural styles and artistic trends. Palaces always respond to arts, political ambitions depending on the period. All the more so if it’s your main palace. It's not just a question of making it look nice! If you make it coherent, your structure will radiate all the more! 2. Your main palace, if your dynasty is ancient, will inevitably have several rooms erected in different eras, and having undergone several transformations. You can even imagine stories for some of the main or outdoor rooms! 3. Take about ten reference pictures (minimum). For both exteriors and interiors. You can go on Google, Pinterest, Wikipedia, make screenshots of films, documentaries, books... It will never entirely resemble the image taken in reference, but it is also the charm of the Sims :) And it allows you to add your own personal touches

4. Take a BETTER look at the constructions of other simmers (royalsimblr, Youtube...). Let me explain: don't skip quickly over the pictures and comment "wow it's beautiful" if you want to learn from them! Observe the ingenuity of the creators. Look at the objects they have chosen, how they have stacked the objects, what sets of colours, what furniture choices they have made... Don't hesitate to ask them for plans! Or ask them for tips :)

You have to ask yourself about the techniques used, all the time!

5. Choosing the right land for your palace. Look around the land to see if it is marine, urban, rural... They should inspire you. Nothing should be left to chance. For your main palace, I recommend a 64x64 plot anyway.   There are no rules! For example, my palaces extend over several 64x64... But one can be enough, just like a 50x50. It all depends on whether you want a palace for : - Screenshots - Gameplay - Or both ! For screenshots, the palaces may be artificial (no bathrooms, protruding ceilings in the roofs, rooms that lead nowhere)... For the gameplay, it is better to arrange it so that your sims have access to all the rooms, and can meet all its needs. The gameplay inevitably takes away a bit of grandeur from the palaces. 6. The more you choose to take a large plot of land, or even several, the more time you will spend on it :) Patience is the key! The more you progress, the faster it will go on the one hand, and on the other hand the more you will like to spend time there without it being a suffering

Let's start building!

1. First of all, you have to know all the possibilities offered by The Sims 4 :)  Open the cheat console by doing Ctrl + Shift + C and type these codes before you start building. List of building codes : bb.moveobjects on, allows you to place objects on top of each other as you wish. With this code you can use: key 9 and 0 to raise or lower an object. Pressing the Alt key allows you to move your objects more precisely. bb.ignoregameplayunlocksentitlement,  bb.showliveeditobjects, bb.showhiddenobjects These three codes unlock and reveal hidden objects. In the search function of the buy/build mode, type **DEBOGAGE**. And you will see how many items are available for your creations! Even without CC, it's gigantic!

Try to get to know the contents of each pack so that you can quickly find themed items. Don't hesitate to use the game's filters, which are often overlooked. For example, I use the colour filter a lot.

2. Here are the two CCs that I use a lot. There are others for the construction mode, but these are the two main ones : Tool Mod and Buildmode Freecam by TwistedMexi. The camera mode allows you to walk around your palace during construction. Immersion allows you to see the effect on the screenshots! And the Tool Mod is also very useful for the poses of your sims! 3. Be curious! There are a lot of tools in sims 4. Use them all, you can go back if you don't like it! Try to learn little by little the keyboard shortcuts of the tools, so that your constructions are not disturbed by the interface and remain immersed. Also, there's no point in downloading mods that add construction tools if you don't master the basic ones : you risk getting tangled up!

4. If you have a specific idea in mind but can't make it come true, don't panic! There are a lot of very specialised tutorials for specific objects (ex. balconies) on forums and Youtube. Feel free to show friends or simblr where you are stuck for advice!

5. Go back to the reference image if you are in doubt, that's what it's there for. This advice may seem silly, but when you've been at it for hours or even days, sometimes you don't think to take a fresh look at an image you think you have in your head.

6. For those who are not afraid of recolouring (or even creating an object) don't hesitate to add some personal creations, it will please you all the more! Whether it's a wall, a piece of furniture or a painting.

7. For more concrete tips. Think of your palace as a big block of stone. You are the sculptor: you will have to gradually roughen it up so that it takes shape! What matters is the relief. The more relief you put on an architect or a room, the more depth there is, the more realistic it will seem! Depth of field is the key to creating impressive rooms or corridors. This is what Renaissance painters discovered. Behind the portraits of nobles, there is always a door open to an infinite corridor, or to a ceiling that seems impossible to reach.  Feel free to use all floors to make this ceiling height effect. If you take screenshots, don't hesitate to learn how to use the sims camera, which can also create depth by moving back the mouse wheel for example. 

Other tips

1. Don't hesitate to download palaces you like from the gallery, and dissect them! See how the creators placed the objects, created this roof, etc. That's what taught me the most... 

2.  That may sound like a bit of a lame trick... But if you're really interested in architecture, you'll have to read more than just styles! I'm far from being an architect, but being aware of some architectural problems helps to make your structures realistic (strength of the walls, the foundations....)

[nonasuch]

how I would fix star wars

inevitably, I have been thinking about How I Would Fix Star Wars, and make the parts of TRoS that displeased me into a more coherent story. 

unfortunately, to do so will require the use of a time machine and veto power over the Lucasfilm Story Group. but IF I had those things here is what I would do:

I actually would not make a lot of changes to TFA. The main ones would be:

toning down Starkiller a bit as a threat, to a one-shot-per-planet deal but with a faster recharge time

slightly more stormtrooper stuff -- establish what Finn’s leaving behind and give Phasma a little depth. 

if possible, put some kind of distinguishing visual marker on the trooper who marked Finn’s helmet.

a small background detail that isn't important yet: after the village massacre at the beginning, show stormtroopers collecting the bodies, trooper and villager alike. if possible, do this after every scene with a significant body count, throughout all three movies.

either give the knights of ren some actual stuff to do or cut them out entirely

show kyle chafing at snoke’s leash, maybe demanding to know more about some of snoke’s various Secret Projects, and being dismissed

give rey a little time to settle in with the Resistance before leaving to find Luke. we don't have to show it much, just make it clear that she’s making a home there and has bonded strongly with Leia

clean up some weird pacing and make the travel times/distances between planets more consistent

honestly other than that I wouldn't change much. I genuinely like TFA a lot and its strength is in how well it establishes the new characters.

for TLJ, some bigger changes but the bones of it I'd leave alone:

make it more clear why the tracking through hyperspace is a big deal and make the solution less of a fetch quest

I really like parts of the Canto Bight plot but I would probably swap it out for something with more stormtroopers in it -- let Finn interact with other troopers and remind us that there are individuals under those helmets

(a recurring joke: Finn can always tell troopers apart when they’re in uniform, and Rose can never figure out how. he thinks it’s because he was a trooper, but no, it's because he’s Force sensitive)

maybe get close to convincing some of them to desert, but either they fail last-minute or the deserters get caught and killed

Finn and Rose escape by the skin of their teeth thanks to a trooper who helps them, letting them know that even if they aren't brave enough to leave, there are plenty of troopers who aren't all-in with the First Order

again, after any major fight show the body cleanup. troopers carrying and stacking the dead in neat rows. start hinting that there is something more ominous here than fanatical tidiness

the Snoke stuff -- make it more obvious that Snoke is orchestrating stuff other than just running the First Order. maybe have Hux ask about the cargo ships they're sending to the Unknown Regions, and get shot down

make part of Kyle’s refusal to leave w Rey due to his burning need to Know All The Secrets, and conviction that as Supreme Leader he could really clean up the joint

once Snoke is dead, show Kyle getting access to his secret files/vaults; do NOT show what he finds there

I'd also want to clean up some wonky pacing and timeline/travel distance stuff, probably, but again I really like most of the movie so it’s nothing major

also keep Phasma around for the next movie! what the fuck, she rules, why would you not

okay so that brings us to TRoS, which… would need a pretty major overhaul. 

First of all, we are working under the assumption that I have a time machine, so I made Carrie Fisher go to the cardiologist on the reg starting on day 1 of TFA rehearsals, and she’s fine and able to play the part as she was meant to.

with that in place, here’s how I would restructure:

we keep the Hammer Horror opening scene, but tweak the Emperor’s reveal. he’s much more corpse-y, without the tech umbilical keeping him alive -- a wraith animated by Dark power. 

lots of grandiose claims about his unstoppable army and his impending dominion over the galaxy, ultimate triumph over the Light, etc

don't show the armada yet -- just kyle’s reaction, which is genuine fear.

news of the Emperor’s return isn't a broadcast, but a whisper. a transmission from a terrified First Order cargo pilot, who’s learned the truth about his one-way trip to the Unknown Regions. passed through the lower ranks by rumor and hearsay. eventually leaked to the Resistance by an unknown First Order source

I like the idea from the beginning of the movie, that Rey’s trying to speak to dead Jedi through the Force. but it’s not working, and she shares her frustration with Leia

make it clear that she and Leia have a deep, strong bond.

give Rey a Jedi artifact to hunt for. maybe there’s a place or a thing that she thinks will let her commune with fallen Jedi, and that’s what they go looking for.

that lets us keep some of the fetch quest, but the First Order’s not as actively on their tail. 

they keep crossing paths anyway, and every time there are troopers doing something worse. maybe at one point they see troopers refuse to massacre civilians, and being killed themselves instead.

also they take Rose with them, because this movie needs more Rose

still have those post-battle scenes of body cleanup. now the cleanup crews are being killed once they’re done

this could be a good use for the Knights of Ren, actually. whatever is happening, they're part of it

Leia is more active throughout: she's on the move, recruiting allies for the Resistance, trying to figure out what's happening in the Unknown Regions

she has an actual scene with Lando, and he goes to Rey on her orders

tweak Poe’s backstory with Zorii. he worked with her while undercover for the Resistance, and left them in the lurch when the General needed him back. 

he’d have recruited her, if there had been time, but now he's glad he didn't: most everyone Poe recruited to the Resistance died at Crait.

when Rey crosses paths with Kyle, he’s obviously rattled. he Knows Something that he won't or can't tell her and he's even more fatalistic than usual.

lean harder on the unease/whispers of dissent in the First Order as they're told to do more and more awful things. maybe a scene where someone -- not Hux -- disagrees openly, and Kyle says something that implies that he's getting orders from someone above his head.

this gives Hux a chance to snark at Kyle -- isn't he supposed to be the Supreme Leader, now? who's telling him what to do?

off Kyle’s reaction -- someone is telling him what to do, and he's terrified of them in a way he never was of Snoke.

(keep Hux-as-informant, that was done perfectly)

Rey’s artifact hunt still takes her to the Death Star wreckage, off rumors that Palpatine hoarded Jedi artifacts. 

we meet Janna &co. Finn is so relieved and happy to meet other troopers who survived defecting. Janna tells him that there used to be more, that it used to be easier to get out, but more and more troopers have been killed in the attempt, without escaping.

by now it’s clear: there is Something Wrong With The First Order, beyond the obvious.

Rey fights Kyle in the Death Star ruins. Kyle tells her the Emperor wants to turn her to the Dark Side, that he can’t be refused or stopped, that even death won’t let her escape from him.

the fight plays out similarly, but Leia’s distraction doesn't kill her. 

after Rey heals him, Kyle faces his fear and talks to Leia via Force bond. He tells her what the Emperor is planning, and it’s Ben Solo who leaves the ruins.

he can give Leia files or some other concrete proof via the same trick he uses with Rey in the movie, because that’s honestly very cool and it was used really well, so we’re keeping that

when Rey talks to Luke on Ach-To, he tells her that Palpatine used the Empire to sow chaos and fear, because that made the Dark Side stronger and gave him more power to tap into.

Luke says: “I think he would have been happy to burn the whole galaxy down, as long as he could rule over the ashes.”

Rey realizes she can’t hide from the Emperor, and knows he’ll never turn her to the Dark. she goes after him.

Leia sends the Resistance to back Rey up and sets out to rally the galaxy with Lando and Chewie

finally, it’s confrontation time! Rey faces Zombie Palpatine, and he reveals his plan in all its glory:

he’s built an army of the dead. ghost ships, crewed by all those bodies we've been watching the First Order collect for three movies.

some of them we recognize, if we’re paying attention: the trooper who marked Finn’s helmet, Lor San Tekka, Hux. there are long-dead clone troopers, little more than skeletons in filthy white armor. half-functional Separatist droids. Resistance fighters and First Order officers killed on Crait. countless civilians. 

they’re all dead, all animated by Palaptine’s Dark Side powers, fueled by the strife and chaos he continues to sow throughout the galaxy

he doesn’t want to blow up any more planets. he wants to kill the shit out of absolutely everyone: the end of all life, and all Light. everyone in the galaxy a soldier in his undead army

he wants Rey to strike him down and become the new Sith Empress, ruling over an empire of ashes.

but we are discarding the granddaughter shit, because frankly it is not necessary and makes no sense. 

he can just be like ‘ah yes, a feral desert child, powerful in the Force, with no inconvenient ties to hold her back. I've had good luck with those, mostly.’

now, a brief side trip: what is the First Order doing, in the midst of all this?

well, the rank and file are actually not super down with the ‘join the glorious army of the dead’ plan. half of them are in open revolt; some try to run, some seize control of their ships and decide to fight for the living

Phasma leads Team Living. yeah, I kept her for a reason! Gwendoline Christie is great at this!

Ben shows up as before, fights the Knights, does the cool lightsaber trick with Rey. he fights with Leia’s saber.

when Palpatine drains their life force to restore himself, though, something happens differently:

it’s actually Leia’s life force. she gives up her life for her son and for the daughter of her heart, willingly and gladly, knowing she has rallied the galaxy to their aid. she tells them, before she goes, that help is on the way

the giant fleet that arrives to fight Palpatine has First Order ships in it. finally, everyone is on the same side. Palpatine has been playing both sides against each other since Episode 1, but it won't work anymore, now that they know what he wants. the long con is over. they're united against him.

Rey beats Palpatine the same way, Ben revives her the same way, but Leia’s sacrifice means he has enough juice left to survive it. 

idk about the kiss; I am Reylo-agnostic

but he’s going to try to shepherd the First Order into something that builds and protects, instead of destroying. 

people like Janna and Finn, who got out, and Rose, who lived under their heel, will show him how.

Finn is Force sensitive, and so are some of the other former troopers. 

some of them want to become Jedi

Finn wants to follow Leia’s path: do the training so he understands how to use the Force, but he's not meant to be a Jedi. he's going to be a leader -- not a general, hopefully, but a leader for peacetime.

so like. they won! hooray.

Rey takes the name Skywalker, still. Ben is fine with this: he’s a Solo-Organa. 

there can be a touching Force ghost reconciliation, or not, whatever

so. that is how to fix star wars. you’re welcome. if anyone out there has a time machine and an in with Lucasfilm, hit me up I guess?

[deepwaterwritingprompts]

do you have any advice for plotting out stories? I never seem to know where to go and end up abandoning projects a lot

Okay, let's do this. Plot. You'd think as someone who's written almost two thousand one line excerpts, plot wouldn't be my strong point. But, in my serious work, there's actually nothing I like better than a horribly complex plot. Here's my advice for plotting in general, and, specifically, how *I* plot something a little more complex. Fair warning this answer is INCREDIBLY LONG SORRY

General Advice

First and foremost, don't expect any plotting process to go fast. Very rarely does anyone sit down and bang out an entire plot that A: makes sense, or B: functions at all. There will be issues  that can only be solved by sitting with them for a while. You can keep writing while you wait, and who knows, may write the solution without even trying. Write the easy parts first, whatever those happen to be for you. That's allowed.

Second, get a piece of paper and, if you can, physically write out any plot points you already have. Your own unofficial, scrap paper timeline. Its really helpful to be able to add things and cross them out without it feeling too "important." Add question marks. Write stupid notes. Doodle. Its fun. 

Third, I'm not saying this is always strictly necessary, but please, figure out at least VAGUELY how you would like it to end first. Maybe you change it later. That's fine. Its very difficult to write a functioning plot if you don't know what its actually heading towards. 

Further to this point, have a list of things that NEED to happen for the story work, and another of things you WANT to happen because they are cool, or they fit the mood, etc. You can edit these as you go, and drop them in and out of your scribbled plot timeline. I want to make it clear that I think both lists are equally important. "My MC needs to win the big battle so there can be a happy ending." Is just as important as: "I think it would be cool if someone, at some point, got poisoned." Your Need list creates a functioning plot, but you can use the list of stuff you Want to make the need elements happen in a way that makes the story... you know. Good.

My last general advice is: don't be afraid to make changes. This goes for every aspect of the story. Change is good, and I promise absolutely no one gets it 100% right the first time. You can save that draft. Mess it up, take out characters, cut chapters. You will know, even if you don't want to admit it, when something isn't working. Don't worry, you'll figure it out. 

Complex Plots

Complex plots. I'm talking red herrings, multiple plot bunnies, purposeful loose ends, (actually good) twist endings, puzzles, mysteries, etc. First, take everything I've already said and multiply it by ten. It's going to take a long long time. There will be problems that require time and space to think. You must make notes, write things down, and be very ready to cross them right out again. 

When you read a really good, tight plot, it can feel like the author wrote it down one point after another in a 12 pt font, bulleted, perfect set of pre-planned directions for how to write the story. Maybe some people do it this way. I can't.  Instead, I let the story tell itself, and importantly, I don't worry about the details until the end. 

Here is a real example of how I work through a big scary plot, from the second novel in a series (I'm currently querying the first. Send good vibes). Let's look at some examples from my Need and Want lists:

Need:- Characters A and B need to make it to the end of the book alive. Want:- I want Character A to heroically save Character B near the end.- I want to give Character C some character development, in the form of anxiety about their role as a teacher. 

These were all things I knew pretty much right away. They didn't connect, and I didn't try to make them connect at the time. Then, months later, I was writing (out of order) the scene where Character C talks about their anxiety surrounding teaching.  Me: Oh. Character A can try to make them feel better by asking to be taught a random skill. Character C can teach them that skill, which can be used to save Character B at the end. 

Bam. A random Want for Character C's development has become an integral part of the plot, tying right into the very climax of the novel. "But wait!" you say, "Random life saving skill? Isn't that too convenient?" Well, yes, at first. But I don't worry about that, because two months later, I'll realize there needs to be an early scene where someone ends up in mortal peril, to demonstrate just how dangerous the situation is. Standard adventure plot stuff.

Me: Oh, the person in mortal peril can be saved. Character A can see this and be impressed. Then later, when trying to think of something Character C can teach them, it only makes sense to remember that dangerous incident, and ask: "Can you teach me CPR?"

Now, I know I want that early, danger establishing scene to involve someone almost drowning, which means I know that they need to end up by a body of water. I know who needs to go in, and what needs to go wrong for that to happen, and which character needs to be there to save them, and before you know it I've got at least half a chapter.

That half a chapter is no longer just a random, danger establishing scene. It affects a scene in the middle, which in turn affects the climax, and in turn the end of the novel itself. It's part of the plot.

In this way, I let the story tell itself. I make one decision, and use it to affect the next one, and the previous one, and so forth. It's like doing a puzzle, but the pieces are all inside my brain, which is a black bag I'm just kind of groping around in. I take out a piece, I put it where i think it's probably going to end up, and fish around for the next one. Eventually, I promise, you WILL find those matching pieces, especially if you have a solid NEED and WANT list. And the further you get, the easier it becomes! Magic. 

Which isn't to say it's ever going to be easy. It's not. But it is, I think, less difficult than expecting yourself to just *bam!* come up with a functioning plot all at once. How many times did I say Bam! in this advice post? I'm Emeril Lagasse now, I don't know. Hope this was halfway coherent. Happy plotting.

[script-a-world]

How do I keep my worldbuilding consistent when I have multiple timelines and alternate universes? Especially when memories can bleed over too.

Constablewrites: Really, really good notes. You’re gonna need something that allows for a high level of organization and categorization. That might be a tool like Scrivener or Evernote that lets you create folders and tags, or if you prefer physical notes you can use different colored pens, sticky notes, or even multiple notebooks. (There are probably tools out there specifically designed for such a purpose, but I’m not personally familiar with any.)

However you keep your lists, you’ll want to have one set of notes for each timeline and universe that impacts the story. If you have characters hopping around, you’ll also want to have notes for each character’s personal timeline (so the order in which they experience events, which timelines/universes they travel between, what they remember when, etc.). These lists don’t have to be super long or involved--just a brief phrase describing the scene or event can be enough to keep it straight.

Even for writers only working with a single timeline, it can be useful to have a calendar of events. You can call your start point Day 1 and go from there, assign events to arbitrary dates on our calendar, or go into detail with your own system, whatever works for you. The key is just to have a way to be sure of how much time has passed, so you don’t have something like characters saying they’ve only known each other a couple of days when it’s established elsewhere that it’s been a month.

Also, this doesn’t have to be done in advance. Doing it as you go is fine, and so is assembling the lists as you’re preparing to edit and untangle everything. You might save yourself some effort down the line if you sort that stuff out before writing, but not everyone’s brain works like that and that’s okay.

Tex: It’s difficult to make lists and notes if you don’t know what information to put in them. This is a fairly common issue, since the plethora of information available to particularly worldbuilders can easily become a sensory overload.

A calendar of events is an excellent idea, if you’ve got events to catalogue (and dates to go along with them!). Unfortunately that won’t cover the rest of a world, so you’ll need to be careful in how your organize your notes. Please note that both of our suggestions are but one of many methods to arranging worldbuilding notes, especially when it comes to multiple timelines.

Scrivener, Evernote, OneNote, or even a set of notebooks or word documents can be very versatile depending on your style of note-taking. I deeply prefer an iterative process to worldbuilding, wherein I slowly collate and organize scraps of notes into a polished whole that functions as an archive. Usually I keep multiple versions, in case I need to roll back to certain timelines of development and branch off in a different direction, and keep the discarded versions in case there’s a new way to incorporate the research and ideas.

There’s a lot of debate about digital vs physical copies. For digital, the pros are that you can easily edit and transmit files to a high volume capacity, as well as store them in a comparatively small container or even purely online. Its cons, however, are that they’re easily lost, corrupted, or stolen.

For physical, the pros are that the copies are tangible, easy to visually reference in large volumes, and can usually withstand long-term storage without corruption issues. Its cons, however, are that they have a physical weight, can be cumbersome to carry around, and are difficult to edit while retaining coherency.

One of the most successful note-taking styles I’ve seen is a blend of digital and physical. When you’re still developing an idea, a digital format is very useful until you’ve gotten some concrete decisions down. You can do this with some throwaway notebooks or loose paper, too! Just make sure it’s collected in the same place, or at least is annotated in a way that’s easy to identify (e.g. headers of the same colour, washi tape, dedicated ink colours, dedicated folders, etc).

The intermediary point is usually the difficult part, because transitioning into firm decisions about your worldbuilding is where packrat tendencies kick in. “But what if I need this?” is a very common refrain. However, if you’ve isolated your first step, you’ll still have all of your sketches and ideas and notes!

A basic sorting process of “I’ll keep working on this” versus “I’ll set this aside in case I still need this” will tamp down on a lot of that inevitable anxiety. This will give you control over the flow of development, and you’ll always be able to incorporate things from that second pile if necessary.

The main characteristic of the intermediary point is the filing system, and is incredibly useful even when dividing a world into multiple timelines.

The best method that I’ve found for working on multiple timelines is to start from the most common details. Since these notes are likely to be stored with other stories, the first order is fandom vs original work. If you only write original work, it may be helpful to arrange things by title and/or genre.

I’ve made a sample worldbuilding folder on Google Drive (available here) that can be downloaded locally or into your own Drive, and am narrating the main path way; any additional folders you see will largely be blank in order to allow others to learn the overall structure. You can always copy the folders and files I mention into the additional folders, and rearrange as best suits you!

Since I made this for primarily fandom (re-title as necessary for original work), this means choosing Fandom 1 and then World Name 1. Traditionally the first world is the “canon” world, or the original seed, so it gets first pick.

I have in World Name 1 some things pre-seeded:

Timeline 1

Timeline 2

Unsorted

World Name 1 - Meta Info.txt

All of the individual files in there - usually .txt or .docx - have information on them regarding suggestions how to use them. If you already have a method, then disregard and populate as you prefer.

The Unsorted folder acts as a catch-all, and there’s going to be one of these at roughly each level. For the Timeline level, this means working in conjunction with the Meta Info text file - usually discarded snippets and/or research. While you can definitely create subfolders in this one, I would recommend keeping it loose so you don’t create a stressful, nitpicking situation that loses focus on your main goals.

If you have a main timeline, then that’s going to be Timeline 1. However you choose to prioritize the other ones, just make sure you’re consistent with it, and clearly label everything.

Within Timeline 1, you’re going to have the following items:

Story folder

Plot folder

Unsorted folder

Culture folder

World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - To Do List.txt

You already know how the Unsorted folder functions, so pass that one by. I’ll cover the file before delving into the folders. It’s a text file (that’s a bit oddly sized, apologies for that - it can be resized upon opening with Notepad or a similar program), and left without any instructions or suggestions. World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - To Do List is, as it says on the tin, meant to keep track of things that need doing for this timeline. Be it items that need updating, necessary tweaks, reminders for other things, it’s a relatively isolated way to keep track of this timeline on a meta scale.

Moving on to the rest, the Story folder contains two of its own - Chapters and Master Story. I’ve found this method useful, since it’s dumping drafts into a virtual outbox on an as-completed basis. Master Story has a preseeded doc, while Chapters is meant to contain each chapter unto its own folder (Chapter 1 has its own preseeded doc, as well). The guide docs are colour-coded and contain notes for both fanfiction and original work.

The next folder in Timeline 1, Plot, comes with three pre-seeded guide docs of its own:

World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - Characters.docx

World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - Plot Unsorted.docx

World Name 1 - Timeline 1 - Plot.docx

You see how there’s still an Unsorted folder, albeit in file form? That’s for information that can’t be put into Characters.docx or Plot.docx. All three have notes and some sort of sorting and colour-coding applied to them, with some modularity for copying and pasting. Plot.docx functions a lot like programs like OneNote and Scrivener, so the formatting can be ported over if you prefer a more literal digital notebook style.

The last folder in Timeline 1 is Culture. I’ve divided this into Non-Physical and Physical. There’s a readme text file in both detailing the types of things would go into each folder, though otherwise both left blank so you can dive right into creating sub-folder systems of your own. As with the higher-level folders, you can always duplicate the methods of unsorted folders and meta docs!

[smokeybrandreviews]

Tomorrow Should Have Died

So i was planning on reviewing The Tomorrow War because it’s a new film and i like new films i can watch without having to brave the plague. I saw a preview for this thing a while back and had real low expectations for it, figured it’d be dumb fun like Independence Day. Imagine my abject horror when it turned out to be so much worse. Okay, first things first, the good stuff. Chris Pratt is good and so is J.K. Simmons. Betty Gilpin and Yvonne Strahovski work miracles with what little they have. The sound design is exceptional, probably the best thing about this sh*t flick, and the actual effects are on point. The problem with the movie is the script. It’s f*cking terrible. Oh my god, so much dumb! Here’s a list of sh*t that made me irrationally angry, in order of plot progression.

Eleven minutes in and i hate it. How are you losing a war to anything if you have mastered the ability to traverse space-time? How the f*ck is your technology so advanced, that you have found a way to exceed the light speed limit and literally break physics, but lose to a bunch of rabid, interstellar, komodo dragons? This is the dumbest f*cking contradiction I have seen all year and i am offended that whoever decided to make this film, is asking this of their audience. Sh*t is patently absurd. These f*cking things don't even have written language, man, and you really expect me to believe they have pushed a human race that has harnessed the power of time, to the brink of extinction?

Eleven minutes, bro. Eleven f*cking minutes.

Seriously, you can create a time machine, you should conceivably have the ability to harness gravity or one of the other fundamental interactions. Why the f*ck haven't you designed a miniaturized rail gun that uses modern tech or materials to build? You have worked out the science in the future, go back to the past and build miniature or handheld doomsday devices for use in the field. Why isn’t everyone running around with f*cking Megatron fusion cannons on their arms? Why the f*ck am i fighting aliens with ARs and Glocks?? The fact that there is an active time machine built from tech on hand from thirty years into the future, means cats could have spent their time building actual weapons to kill these f*cking things instead of betting the literal human race on a time displaced draft. This movie is dumb as rocks.

The way they describe how their time travel works is dumb. I mean, it isn’t, but i can guarantee this sh*t is going to be a problem later. I can feel it in my bones. They are definitely going to contradict this sh*t because multiverse theory is the only way to make movie time travel work and they are trying their damnedest to not do that.

This f*cking thing is over two hours long and the first drags. I hate when cats attempt to develop characters and they just fail at it. I'm sitting here trying to figure out why I should care about any of these people and i still don't have an answer after half the goddamn movie is over. Like, why should i care about Chris Pratt? He’s the main character and the writing has done nothing to endear him to the audience in a whole ass hour.

Also, the reason he’s so mad at his dad is stupid. Dude did right by his kid by bailing because he would have been a terrible father. Pratt’s character would have known that as a father himself. He didn’t have to like it and, of course there’s animosity there, but you’re an adult. Your dad knew he was lousy. He did you a favor by walking out. It wasn’t like he didn’t help support you or make sure you went without. As far as i can tell, dude was there in every way by physically. Because he couldn’t. Because he was f*cking shell-shocked from fighting in Vietnam. Where they raped innocent women and set babies on fire. Holy sh*t, this cat is an unlikable protagonist after this one scene. Which brings me to my next thing...

Pratt f*cking abandons his family?? Word? After that entire scene with his dad and the very obvious trauma he has suffered, he turns around and abandons his own kid because he lost his job?? Word? Like, for real? You expect me to believe that the Chris Pratt who cussed out his pops, was willing to go on the run from his future conscription, abandoned his own family because he lost a teaching job?? What the f*ck, movie? Do you want me to like this asshole or not? More than that, how the f*ck you mess up your character so bad in what i imagine is just five pages of actual script? Nothing we know about this character would ever even hint at him doing this to his family, to his daughter, so why the f*ck would he? Why the f*ck would you, as a write, believe we, as the audience, would just accept that sh*t as a forgone conclusion?

You got ropes on a Queen and you don't kill it? How the f*ck you make it that deep into the hive to even do-si-do the b*tch to the surface? We just watched these things tear through Miami to the point that they needed a whole ass bombardment just to survive and you not only go into their hive, their home, with no heavy ammo, but you somehow lasso a queen and drag her to the surface. Alive. If you can do all of that why not just drop a nuke down there and blow them the f*ck up? Why do you need a live Queen for your science? Shoot the b*tch, take the juice of her corpse, and end this sh*t! Why is all of this stupid recklessness necessary??

Okay. Okay... F*ck everything i just said, right? Why the f*k did you bring this Queen b*tch back to your base? You don’t have a different offsite lab to do this sh*t? You gotta bring her to your stronghold? Isn’t this a military operation? Why aren't their security protocols and sh*t in place to stop this stupidity? You don’t bring the enemy home. You take them to black sites for sh*t like this, not to the goddamn Pentagon!

All of a sudden, the aliens understand science? We spent this entire movie establishing that they are mindless beasts with teeth, eating the human race into extinction but now, because the plot demands it, the Queen one understands what the people are doing? That the green sh*t they made is plague that can murder them all? How the f*ck she even know what science is? They don’t even have language, dude! How the hell she know they made a death plague for her people?! F*ck it, whatever, bro. Next you're going to tell me she let them capture her just to get inside the lab or some sh*t because these rabid f*cking animals, who have demonstrated no military command abilities or even the barest of higher cognitive functions, are tactical geniuses.

Okay, so the Queen b*tch is a tactical genius. So, in the initial future drop, the team was murdered by a bunch of these things because they were sent to a lab where they were trying to make the death plague. Now, hat i am about to say is all assumption on my part because none of this, and i men NONE of it, is ever confirmed by the movie. So, they get to the lab and everyone is dead but the green per-plague is still there. That mean they had a Queen there. It’s established after this that Queens can call for backup and the Males will lemming their way to her. I deduce that’s how this lab got overrun; Queen got loose, called for her boys, and they ate everyone. That happened. That was the first thing we see in the future. This b*tch does the same f*cking thing on the home base lab so now the males are overrunning The Pentagon. You motherf*ckers knew this was a thing because it literally already happens. Why the f*ck would you do it again? AND it gets worse... Home base, The Pentagon, is the f*cking rig where they house the goddamn time machine! You brought a hostile enemy leader, still alive and coherent, to the heart of your resistance operation, to the core of your time travel operation, knowing that at any time this b*tch can scream and have your whole ass base overrun with teeth and poison darts? Look, if the future is this stupid, they deserve to die, okay?

At least they commit to multiverse theory, even if it contradicts the entirety of their already established time travel rules.

Okay. Okay... So they create this toxin to kill all the monster things and send it back in time to be mass produced  Put that sh*t in bullets and send it back to the future or whatever. But, because of the aforementioned stupid, that plan is bunk. Time machine go kablooey. And now we are at the "all is lost" moment at the end of the second act." Solution to the problem in hand, no way to save the future because the only way back to the future was a casualty of idiocy. Right. So... just wait. F*cking just wait. You know when these assholes show up, you know how to kill them all, you even have a plague ready to be mass produced right now. You have thirty f*cking years to refine that formula, to make it cheaper to mass produced and develop variants just in case immunities start to crop up or something. There are people from the future, stuck in the past, because of the egregious future error. They have all of that intel and they are just alive. The second this dude got back to the past with that antidote, the future was saved. The war is over. Like, even if you don’t know where the ship is, you have a sure thing that will murder these white f*cks and three decades to produce, weaponize, and store that sh*t. The war is won. The Prime timeline is absolutely safe at this point. Because that's how time travel works. You have the nuclear option, right now, to averting the end of the human race, ready to be mass produced. Yo have the knowledge from the future on where these things will first appear. You still have all the future tech brought over from the beta timeline ripe for reverse engineering in order to improve the weapons of the present. There is no scenarios where we lose this war, the second Chris Pratt plops back into the present with that plague. None.

Why is everyone so dejected?? Why are there f*cking riots all over the world?? None of this makes sense. How can you assume the world ends and the war is lost just because the communication with that version of the past is cut? Wouldn’t you expect that sh*t? You just altered the entire timeline by sending Pratt back with the antidote. That future is effectively gone. How can you communicate with a place in space-time that doesn’t exist anymore? Hell, even if it’s because the time machine broke and everyone over there is dead, you have the f*cking antidote now! Multiverse theory, bud. The fact that those time displaced assholes didn’t disappear, means multiverse theory is real and you have the opportunity to Future Trunks this sh*t so why panic? Why are there no leaders n television assuring their people that this is a thing? Why are there no scientists publishing papers about how sh*t is going to be fine? Bro, I'm just so tired...

How these cats just fly into Russia on a big ass cargo plane and not get shot down? This is 2022. Putin still hates us. This sh*t would cause a World War.

So you find this ship and you don’t tell anyone where it is? You decide to just kill them all yourself? Motherf*cker, what happens if you die? Did you back up the enzyme formula somewhere or did you bring all of it with you on this stupid f*cking mission? Did you leave notes or even text your location to anyone in authority, just in case haphazard attempt goes sideways so someone else can make a more organized attempt? Or just drop a nuke on the site from orbit? If one asshole denied you funding for your mission, why didn’t you ask someone else? Why didn’t you ask f*cking Putin? Because governments are bloated down with bureaucracy? My dude, people from the future came back and interrupted the world cup to tell you that aliens are going to exterminate the human race in three decades. If you tell anyone in a position of power that you know where these little sh*ts are, they’re going to listen. Especially since everyone decided to riot because the future changed/we lost the time war/ the timeline imploded.

Why would a terrestrial saw work on an intergalactic star ship? That doesn't make any sense. This f*cking thing survived a crash landing into earth intact and a goddamn circular saw cuts it open? Fine, whatever. On to the next stupid thing.

Bro. Bro, they just blow the f*cking thing up. Motherf*cker spent the entire movie, time jumping form the past to to the future and back to the past, just to get this plague to kill them all, and a bunch of C4 just blows them all up while they sleep. Why the f*ck was everything even f*cking necessary? At this point, when the dude comes back with that claw the first time, the future is saved. Analysis on that one claw gave up the location of the hidden spaceship where these things had been in stasis for millennia. Which was blown up with C4. No plague needed. No goddamn time draft needed. No casualties needed after that first wave. The second that dude brought back that claw, it should have been  under a forensic microscope so actual f*cking scientists could figure out what a high school kid id in a matter of minutes. I hate this movie so goddamn much.

I hated this goddamn movie so much. It’s f*cking boring and the dumbest thing I've seen all year and i watched Army of the Dead. It’s pretty and the performances are decent, but there is absolutely no substance to any of this sh*t. It wants to be Independence Day and Edge of Tomorrow and The Great Wall. all in one, while infusing time travel family drama but it’s so f*cking confused trying to juggle all of that, it drops the ball on the most important part; The script. This thing must read like a fever dream induced by peyote because, in execution, it’s a wet fart. This f*cking thing is all over the place with no regard for any insular universe logic. It contradicts itself from one scene to the next and it’s goddamn offensive. I’m sure there is someone saying that i am overthinking this sh*t and that it’s just supposed to be dumb popcorn fun. I get that. However, i can’t just turn my f*cking brain off and mindlessly drool over sh*t that insults my intelligence the way this movie does. It’s dumb as f*cking rocks, man, and i want those two hours of my life back!

[tuz-on-ao3]

Process/Organizational post for writing for KakuSaku month(and in general)

So, to provide some context here. When I started writing fanfiction one of the things I hit into was my lack of an organizational process and a lack of a coherent understanding of my own personal writing process. So I started doing research into other authors, both fanfiction and published. 

I learned a lot from the Deadline City podcast , hosted by two women of color who have published a lot of works between the two of them. Story Grid the podcast helped out a lot as well. I also started reading with more intent. I re-read some of my favorite fanfiction and tried to identify what the authors did really well, and what I could do better. 

I pay special attention to dialogue because I am bad at it. I pay attention to worldbuilding because I love it. I pay attention to characterization because it is hard as shit. I also reached out to some fanfic authors as well, I became friends with @pandorasbox014​ , who is such a lovely and funny person as well as a brilliant writer of Running Out of Reasons. It is a KakuSaku fic and one for the defining works of the fandom and a study in how to write the Naruto characters in a modern setting. Also adorable, adorable romance *internal flailing and squealing*. 

Anyway, through the process of this researching and reading I notice several things. One the more you read and write the easier it is to find your own voice and not just copy your favorite, which is especially hard for me because my current posted fic, Maybe I’m Paying for the Things I’ve Done is inspired by the wonderful @weialala-leia​ fic In Good Company. My fic has a completely different pairing though. 

So researching also led me to teh same conclusion I figured out while in my first year of college. I hate outlining, but sometimes it is necessary and there are ways of outlining that don’t mean outlining every part of my fic. It’s absolutely fine if I don’t outline in that way, but it is necessary to keep track of my timeline, and I can do this tracking after I actually write the ting, but before I post. Naruto as a fandom has great potential for an ensemble cast, regardless of how it was actually written. Word count goals help me personally, I don’t ever want to write a chapter less than 10,000 words. I have too much to say and I need room to grow and follow up on instant ideas I have while writing. Having a synopsis of the fic is also helpful, because it reminds me to not stray to far from the original idea, it creates a disconnect. I also found out, that I fucking love spreadsheets. They are great, they are versatile, they can be colorful if you are really committed, and they can function for you even if you are bad with them. It’s great. So let’s talk about the spreadsheets. 

Hopefully it’s not too blurry, I am new to actually posting stuff on tumblr so fingers crossed. There are two pictures below. The first spreadsheet has seven rows all in different colors. It’s split up by week, coordinated by color. Since KakuSaku prompts are going to be posted starting May 3rd, we have about seven weeks to prepare. I plan on creating spreadsheets and doing synopsis’s. Week two is in yellow, and I have to go through the Five commandments of story telling or situational scenes for my fics. The Five Commandments of story are 

1. inciting incident 

2. progressive complications 

3. crisis 

4. climax 

5. resolution 

and these are from Story Grid. I will not always follow this process completely through, that tis not the point. I may not be the best writer, and I may still be growing into the kind of writer I want to be, but I know how to write for joy. And it usually works even if I hit stumbling blocks or have to go on a mini hiatus. Even if I don’t follow the five commandments it at least helps me figure out what not to do. I am doing a lot of planning for my current fic (linked earlier in this post). And it’s still a very messy process because I want to talk about so many different things, and also holy shit, incorporating romance into a very plot heavy story is hard. However, this process helped me figure out a couple of things 

1. it’s going to be way longer than I thought. 

2. I want some good old fashioned romantic angst 

3. I need to be better at pacing which is why it’s going to be longer because too much is happening in too few chapters. The reader, the author, and the characters in my fic are all going to be very confused. I don’t want that. This process also helps me figure out important questions to ask in the first place. 

I also would like to start a concept doc which is just a brainstorming dump for a specific fic or characters, I got this from Isabel Cañas’s newsletter that comes out every month. After that it is just executing my ideas and planning into actually writing the fics. There is also space for me to track what I do everyday. Will I actually do it? I’m going to try my best folks but sometimes my best means taking care of myself and letting things go even if I want them. I do this for joy, so there is a lot of wiggle room that I allow myself in this process. The second spreadsheet is for KakuSaku month, this is for the synopsis, the commandments or situational story telling. I split it up by prompts for KakuSaku month and colors. It’s not the most sophisticated spreadsheet  but it works for me, so I thought I would share. Thanks for listening to me ramble. 

[angieschiffahoi]

congrats on finishing? lol. personally still on depressionville over them. rebecca? deserved to live and be a lawyer(?). hannah? deserved to lived. in france with owen helping with a batter place and rolling her eyes at the name. dani? i cant even. dani and jamie lol i can't even. peter deserves to go somewhere worse than hell. so yea, what're ur thoughts?

I am broken. I honestly haven’t stopped thinking about it all since I finished it last night. 

“Dani would never”. HOW DARE YOU.  I didn’t even have nightmares with ghosts! I was just really, really sad. I feel like, in the end, this was a happy ending. Just not for everyone, and that’s the strenght of the Haunting series. Not everyone can live happily ever after, but they contribute to the other’s happily ever after. No death is cheap or played for shock, even though they are shocking and are revealed through twists. The journey to one’s death is the character’s and, even if it does serve the plot and functions a self-sacrificing catalyst to set the happy endings of the other characters in motion, it never serves just to further the story of a single other character and it’s never just for shock value. Death, even when violent, sudden, unburied, is always respectful and somewhat “sacred”. 

At first I thought it was weaker than Hill House, because I felt the Crains’ dynamic was compelling and kind of made the narrative (in the first five episodes, it litterally did). Then I realized that while this started as a “strangers happen to live together in a haunted house” it soon turned into a found family story and it was beautiful.

I still think The Bent Neck Lady twist, even though predictable, was executed in such a beautiful way, and that episode remains the most emotional, tied with Two Storms, which remains my favorite of the series. But DAMN. The Altar of the Dead was so, so good! I knew Hannah was going to be my favorite from the moment she showed up and I had a feeling there was something wrong with her (the fact that she could dream up new clothes was clever, because I was checking those from the start to see if she was a ghost), but how it all tied with the beginning of the story? Wow.

I’m not sure I liked the twist at the end, using completely different actors, but I did love Carla slipping into a bit of cockney while she’s talking to Bride!Flora, as if to try and test if she was going to remember. The kids deserved that ending, honestly, and it’s coherent with what we’ve seen on Hill House (those kids left their demons in the mansion and so they were haunted forever, these kids were able to destroy them and live happily ever after), but I kind of wished they’d remember something. 

Rebecca Jessel coming through in the end was beautiful How she understood Peter was asking too much of the children. How she was willing to live through drowning again for Flora. I wish she had bonded more with Dani, over their love for the children. Also the scene by the lake, with Rebecca’s body, her ghost, Flora and Hannah watching had me sobbing. As for Peter, I hope he’s still in that memory with his mom. He was probably abused as a child and that is terrible, but he killed two people out of selfishness and was willing to kill three more, to have his happily ever after. He was controlling, abusive and manipulative and I wished the show had tried to make him a bit more relatable, to show us his anguish better (Oliver did an amazing job, though), so that by the end I would be torn between him getting peace or justice. But they didn’t and he should burn. 

Anyway, I could talk about this all day. Overall, I loved it. In a world where it came before Hill House, I feel like I would’ve loved it more (even though I’m not sure I would’ve loved Dani as much, hadn’t she played Nell Crain in HH). The ghosts weren’t as scary, and I missed some of that suspance (even though I am glad I will be able to maybe sleep this time); they explained a little bit too much, while HH left some things to the viewer to figure out, and some of the twists were very predictable; the nods to HH were placed well, but I wish they stopped referencing it after the first two or three episodes - it seems to live in reference to the success of its precedessor in a way (also in the way they use the soundtrack); the ending was bittersweet (like HH’s) but borderline cheesy, which kind of killed the vibe a bit (I love romance, especially wlw romance, but it has to be subtle, and the “it’s not a ghost story, it’s a love story” felt a bit too... yeah, cheesy. But that’s just my preference). 

Small structure-complaints under the cut:

I only have two complaints:

- I feel like they wasted an entire episode on Viola, Perdita & Arthur, because all those explanations could’ve easily been shown in another way and the scenes spoke for themselves. Later I started to think the narration had been necessary, because when Dani became the lady in the lake, older Jamie would start reciting “and then she slept, she woke, she walked, she forgot, she faded away”. But there was no parallel and so, I feel, like that story could’ve been told without voiceovers, leaving something to the imagination, and in flashbacks during the finale, making it a two part. I felt a bit cheated into binging the last two episodes, because of that same cliffhanger. I actually wanted to give it more time and watch it today. I also did NOT like the B&W. It was probably shot in color and then colored in post and the coloring was terrible. It felt like a pre-made filter in Premiere. I think the could’ve easily used the HH flashback coloring, which is colorful, warm, bright and eerie. I loved Kate as Theo, but in this one she did nothing for me. Viola felt like a caricature and, in the end, I never ‘felt’ for her.  

- I didn’t completely feel the epicness of Jamie & Dani. While I feel they were a beautiful, beautiful couple and very refreshing to see on TV, I didn’t actually feel them love each other until Jamie dove into the lake. But maybe that’s just me. I was so focused on all the storylines, I might’ve missed something about them. In some ways, they developed Hannah & Owen more, even though we never saw them together (and maybe that’s why Owen caring for Hannah’s body and how she disappeard so suddenly without even finishing ‘the rest is just...’ hit worse than the second part of the finale). 

There’s also I couple of things I didn’t understand (why did Viola never hurt Dominic & Charlotte? They must’ve walked at night! And they were sleeping in the bed she went to! How did Henry’s doppleganger work? Why was he haunted so vividly by himself? This ‘ghost’ felt a lot like Eddie’s - born of guilt - but at least there was a dead person in the Dani/Edmund haunting dynamic; was he haunted by evil!Henry because Dominic wished it so before he died?; also, why is no one freaking out about the inevitable incest of Peter/Rebecca in the kids bodies?! I love you Becks, but yikes!). 

I need to rewatch both Hill House and Bly Manor. I wish I had done a PhD in cinema, just so I could do a dissertation on these two, honestly.