#the worldbuilding in that series left a lot to be desired

[catcatb0y]

I'm procrastinating fuck

[syoddeye]

sy's reading recs

hi. i read a lot of fanfiction for COD and i love spreadsheets. i try to track my reads, and thought i'd make two reading rec lists. you are currently viewing the non-darkfic list. i've included blurbs from yours truly. the blurbs are short because there are a LOT of recs below the cut. now then.

beyond the read more, you are responsible for reading tags, warnings, and summaries.

pairings are indicated where applicable, although these may change or may not be established yet.

similarly fic ratings may change! again, it's your responsibility to read tags and warnings.

i've checked all the links, but if they're broken, i blame tumblr. there's enough info to find the fic if need be.

do not harass authors with "next part when" bullshit. it's tacky and i hate you.

previous lists: one, two | banner by @/cafekitsune

gaz x reader

Lavender Skies by @yeyinde

Late to the party but gd if you haven't read this, put it at the top of your list. Kebabs, back-up shoes, the feeling of someone knowing you, the pain and sublimity of being in your late 20s...Chef's kiss.

childfree!reader thoughts by @pfhwrittes

Tooth-rottingly sweet bit about finding someone with the same priorities and not being made to feel bad about it. Love it when the boys match-make a lil bit.

The Gym by @secretsynthetic

Very cute piece about meeting trainer!Gaz at a workout class. Kudos to Reader for making it through the class because I would've had to bail if Gaz perceived me for half a second. Love how observant and sweet he is in this.

Pluto by @groguspicklejar

Late to yet another party, but I got sucked in by the premise: 'vampire!Gaz is smitten with a girl who has no desire to be around his kind'. I love how the relationship progresses, the later chapters had me gigglin'. Except for that last chap. I got GOT.

ghost x reader

child free @391780

I tag it from time to time but one of my favorite things to see in fanfic is the love and intimacy of caring for someone. And that's what this is. Among my favorite oneshots I've seen shared in this fandom.

Roommate Simon by @tacticalgirlboss

Roommate Simon could go in so many directions, but I love this particular take. The slow evolution of the relationship from roommate to something else. Made me feel mushy as hell by the end.

Through Me (The Flood) by @peachesofteal

Another drop everything to read fic. Seeing Simon embrace a role he was not expecting to ever fulfill is both heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. Me with every installment.

soap x reader

mic work by @glossysoap

I have four words for you: Erotic audio artist Soap. Soap's hard at work (🥁), imagining best friend!Reader as the subject of his latest scripts. He is COMMITTED to his job. submissive Soap by @doeidawn

Dizzying. Schedule time to take a lap after reader. Something about that man begging. It needs to be studied and somehow distilled. Into what? I don't know, don't ask me, I can't think straight after re-reading this. bad reservation by @the-californicationist

I think I summed up my reaction to this in my tags: "reader's getting that michelin star dick". A prompt filled by Cali that made me giggle furiously for a smooth ten minutes after reading.

price x reader

Storm Chaser by @/the-californicationist

Save me, biker!Price...save me... Caution: You may need to lie down after reading. Truthfully, I'm terrified of motorcycles. But I would reconsider for this Price.

A Case of You by @alittleposhtoad

One of my favorite new series. A zombie apocalypse where you're hiding out on a remote island in Canada, and who finds you? Just my favorite man. Really enjoy the pieces of worldbuilding and seeing Price interact with what's left of Reader's community.

Words Like Violence by @deadbranch

BodyguardxBodyguard. Two professionals wanting one another and their jobs kind of getting in the way. Suits. Gear. Gloves. Pure catnip. An appearance from Simon that made me laugh, re-read, then rub my hands together like a raccoon.

141 x reader and other pairings

GhostGaz Week by @dragonnarrative-writes - gaz x ghost

Dragon knocked it out of the park on GhostGaz week. I love all of them, but 'afraid of the dark' and 'sweet talk' are two of my favorites.

An Offer You Won't Refuse by @lovifie - gaz x price

You know that clip of Kylo Ren screaming more? That's me, because this makes me want more GazPrice in my life. Delectable. Mean!Price and Gaz calling in a victory.

SCP!141 by @ghouljams - gen tf 141

Incredibly fun and freaky AU that I think has half of my lil circle of friends on here willing to overlook their personal safety to get at SCP-141....I may or may not be among them.

Fancy by @swordsandholly - 141 x reader

Subtle delicious morsels of worldbuilding and bleak, dystopian vibes with vampires. That should be enough to get you started. Had me at the Reba reference.

Tradie 141 by @/pfhwrittes - mix

The way I would be quickly banned from any worksite if they were real. The Tradie!verse is very, very important to me and I eat up every piece that comes out of P's big brain.

Autumn Embers by @/dragonnarrative-writes - 141 x reader

One of the most nuanced takes on the omegaverse paired with some of the hottest smut. The meta is a good place to start, imho, as it underpins the fic and bolsters the plot.

Mission Shenanigans by @kyletogaz - gazsoap x reader

Here's a taste: “You’ve got your tongue shoved in my pussy and you expect for me to be quiet?” Got it? Scurry on over for the oneshot that made me bluescreen at the end.

Service Dog Johnny by @void-my-warranty - ghoap x reader

Interesting spin on Ghoap x Reader that shows a level of intimacy between Simon x Reader (and by extension, Ghoap x Reader), that goes beyond the sex. Yes, the smut is fantastic, but the relationship dynamic hooked me.

Cool Girl x @/peachesofteal - ghoap x reader

As a former 'Cool Girl', reading this is both therapeutic and painful, and fuck me if I don't run to read every update. You will cry, laugh, tear your hair out, and enjoy it.

Fuck-ass mohawk by @sentientcave - ghoap x reader

Reader finally saying what I'm thinking. Fuck-ass mohawk. Hilarious piece. I definitely didn't finish this and think "oh dang I want Reader to be mean to ME". 👀

"romance" in the age of technology by @/pfhwrittes - soap x gaz

Let it be known that Johnny MacTavish is a giver. A good friend. So thoughtful of others. So while Gaz recovers from top surgery, obviously our Scottish saint takes it upon himself (literally?) to cheer him up. Funny and WHEW.

[warsofasoiaf]

Have you watched the Fallout show on Prime and if so, what did you think of it?

I watched it. For the most part, it was good - well-shot and well-executed. Walton Goggins stole the show as our favorite ghoul hitman. The Brotherhood was finally and decisively moved away from its Fallout 3 Wasteland Crusaders vibe. I would have liked more of the technological cult of the Brotherhood emphasized a little more, but what they did was fine. Overall, it felt like a Fallout product, albeit a Bethseda one.

And then, the final episode ended up turning into the Mass Effect 3 ending.

Overall, the plot was still the Bethseda "find the family member" plot which is getting quite stale by this point, but having Lucy go through it rather than us going through it ourselves makes the ludonarrative dissonance of Bethseda's "find your family member, but also feel free to dick around literally everywhere" entries into the Fallout series" does make the pill a lot easier to swallow. Her dad being a bad guy was a perfectly fine twist, albeit predictable. I'm not liking how many people seem to keep popping up from Pre-War times as being cryogenically frozen, it keeps losing the magic of the pre-War times with every new Pre-War person.

That being said, some worldbuilding changes I was not happy with. Nuking Shady Sands was something that was desirable for a lot of Fallout devs in terms of wanting to change the world back away from Fallout 2's big established cities to something grittier. But the timing of it throws New Vegas out the window. I believe the writers have said it was a mistake, and it goes back and forth from being an actual outside writer's mistake to a mistake that an in-universe actor made in recordkeeping. To me, it looks like a lack of care for the setting. If that was it, I'd actually be fine with the explanation, but there's a larger pattern at work here.

The change to making ghouls dependent on some magic juice just annoyed me. There was no real reason to change it, and now it opens up a whole of retroactive canonicity issues. It didn't really service the needs of the story except as an excuse plot for the Ghoul to sell Lucy to the organ harvesters in exchange for the magic juice. There were cleaner ways to get the plot to move in that direction without it.

The final episode plot revelations though, about how the US actually won the Resource Wars with limitless power and decided to nuke the world anyway because of the nefarious oligarch business council, was an incredibly stupid plot beat, enough that the series left a sour taste in my mouth. The Resource Wars meant a whole lot to the feel of Fallout, and satirized the jingoist nature of the 1950's Cold War. And what's better is that the entire reason, that they need to ensure a return on investment, makes no sense. The Resource Wars already show us that there's a premium on resources, and the technology level of the Pre-War world is such that having enough power could alleviate all sorts of resource shortages. And it's all under Vault-Tec's control, so there's *no* need to actually get the nukes to start flying from Vault-Tec's perspective. Vault-Tec desires nothing more than money, so it destroys the world to make...a whole lot less money.

That's beyond stupid, and there were so many ways to make it actually work. China attacking the US with nukes in this scenario (which was the prior canon) actually makes sense with this wrinkle - because China has lost and it would rather destroy the world than lose the war. That's well-keeping in line with the themes of Fallout. Even having the US Government find out and attack via Poseidon Energy (a conspicuous absence from the Evil Oligarch Council given the importance of Poseidon to the Enclave). But no, they went with lazy, stupid writing, getting rid of the critique of the warmongering that nearly ran the world to ruin in the 1950's and 1960's for an ineffective satire of the unchecked power of corporations.

That's one of the things that bothers me most in worldbuilding is when lore events are changed, especially for incredibly stupid reasons. It kills the immersion of any series, especially one so dependent on atmosphere and with so much lore as Fallout. It was disappointing to see a series with such potential just fumble the ball in the final minute.

Thanks for the question, George.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[throwingbread]

10 fic for International Fanworks Day. Here are some fics from my bookmarks that need more love, in no particular order.

Those Who Come Closest (30325 words) by dagas isa Chapters: 11/11 Fandom: Final Fantasy X Summary: How do ordinary people become Fayth? It takes a certain amount of desire, dedication and desperation. These are their stories. Propaganda: You want worldbuilding? This fic has got worldbuilding out the wazoo.

Apprentice of the Beast (1651 words) by JetBlackKobold Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Summary: On their journey to the Disk of Cauthess, five men stop to rest and, bound in each other's company, talk a little. Ardyn is a strange man with a fondness for old stories, poems, songs, and rhymes. With a little prompting, he shares a story about a Beast and a Soldier whose good intentions are corrupted by power. Propaganda: Backstory, in Ardyn’s own words.

The Endlings (664 words) by TheBrightestNight Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics) Summary: end∙ling /εndlŋg/ n 1 the last known individual of a species or subspecies. Once the endling dies, the species becomes extinct. Propaganda: Extinct animal feels.

at the last trumpet (9830 words) by liesmyth Fandom: The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir Summary: the line of the Tomb-keepers demands an heir, no matter the cost. Featuring a small-scale genocide, the breakdown of a marriage, an angry ghost of the MILF persuasion, and a normal amount of bones. Propaganda: Yes more worldbuilding. Glorious cursed necromantic worldbuilding.

freedom so liberating that we call it magic (2566 words) by EtchJetty, FlaringK Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Summary: People don’t talk about Sheik that much. It must have been hell for Zelda, to pretend to be a gender she wasn’t. Especially if she had done it before. (or: what if zelda was a girl?

Propaganda: TRANS GIRL ZELDA

setting sail, coming home (5989 words) by beaufort12 Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Hades (Video Game 2018) Summary: In which Zagreus escapes the underworld, keeps running, and never looks back. Propaganda: Shameless fix-it fic.

The Moonstone (21266 words) by Vriah, gisho Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022)

Summary: Morpheus finds a way to avoid killing a vortex - he gives Rose his own heart, forcing her to take his place as Dream. The new Dream has to deal with a life she never expected and try not to repeat her predessor's mistakes. In the waking world, the people she left behind grieve and wonder. And when Roses's little brother Jed is offered the chance to switch from superhero to questing knight, with some help from an old friend, he leaps at the opportunity. Propaganda: My boy Jed!

Lampshades on Fire (5739 words) by ostreatus, stellarators Fandom: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) Summary: Or, How Dr. Olivia Octavius Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Morally Unambiguous Nature of her Violent Actions. Summary A review of the scientist-to-supervillian pipeline, based on a longitudinal case study.

Propaganda: The villain origin story we were so cruelly deprived of in canon.

built a lot of castles (12055 words) by basketofnovas Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Summary: In the eighties, Quynh is rescued by a marine archaeologist, and finds herself in an alien world with no easy way to contact Andromache - or even know she's alive. Propaganda: In which Quynh receives some much-needed comfort in the form of random human kindness.

Inferno Seized (14726 words) by MuseofWriting Fandom: Hades (Video Game 2018)Relationships: Asterius | The Minotaur/Theseus ( Hades Video Game) Summary: The monster went to Tartarus. The hero went to Elysium. Or, depending which storytellers you asked, and which songs you heard, maybe the Underworld got it backwards. Or maybe neither of them were monsters or heroes. Maybe they were just imperfect beings, tied together, messily, terribly, inescapably. This is the story of how they found each other. Propaganda: Look its the most eloquent Minotaur/Theseus fic I’ve ever seen.

[direful]

I have to ask out of curiosity if you feel up to responding! What's the appeal of transformers to you? Has it been something you've enjoyed since you were a kid or is it a more recent thing? I absolutely don't go here, the only transformers media I know about is the cartoons and big movies. I've simply genuinely never seen any other transformers fan content apart from recently because of what you reblog. Are you into mech media in general as well or does transformers simply have something about it you love in particular? What's the appeal? Etc etc :3

It’s been a while since you sent this in, my apologies! I figure I’ll answer it now since it’s the 40th anniversary of the original airdate! I've tried to answer each question roughly in order, but Transformers is one of My Things, so I got a little carried away…

It's really interesting to look at as a franchise. Of the “classic” 80s cartoons that found massive success, I think it's definitely one of the most well-known/perpetually relevant franchises. The original installation of Transformers, like most similar shows of the era, is essentially just a series of long commercials - this has never really gone away, because the main purpose of Transformers is to sell toys - and it's very interesting to me to look at decisions that have been made through that lens and how it's impacted various storylines, usually for the worse. Of course, the toys themselves are also interesting - although I have a few little guys on my shelves I’m not actually big into the collecting aspect, but many people are, and in a massive way. You could probably limit your engagement with the franchise to only learning about the many exclusives, gimmicks, flaws, misprints, knockoffs, etc. and be perfectly happy (if toy production history is your thing).

As Transformers is turning 40 (today!), there's a mountain of media to sift through, nearly all of which builds on some combination of previous elements. Like with lots of long-running franchises with multiple incarnations, it’s cool to see comparatively how early - or how recently! - certain concepts were introduced that have become ubiquitous, and what seems to “stick” vs what seems to get overwritten or forgotten. I think it’s super interesting to look at the current configuration(s) and pick out different elements, or how different versions of characters compare & how their characterization has developed through different iterations. (I find it nice that since the "main" streams of Transformers media often use variations of the same cast, it’s pretty easy to pick up a new series once you've got a passing familiarity.)

I think one of the main ingredients for fandom is a desire to improve upon or delve deeper into the source material, and that's certainly a big component of why Transformers interests me so much. One of the elements I really wish they got into more is, well, what's it like to be a giant alien robot that can turn into a car/plane/gun/cassette tape/spaceship/etc? More recent versions have had some fun with this, but I'm still craving a real deep xenofiction take on Cybertronian (er, the Transformer species) existence. So many iterations have such interesting pre-war worldbuilding (gotta explain where all that conflict comes from!) and I mourn every day that I'll never get a five-season-long Transformers prestige political drama. It’s frustrating how much possibility for interesting worldbuilding gets left on the table since it's a children's franchise and marketability comes before everything else - I find that it invokes the “but what if it was good” effect for me and I want to explore it myself.

I got into Transformers late - when I was 14. Still a child, but teens aren't exactly the main target audience, you know? At the time, I was out of school for a week with the flu and ended up on the couch binge-watching the original cartoon from 1984. I couldn't tell you what the initial appeal was besides my basic tendency to like stuff from the 80s (I’m not actually a huge mecha fan and tend to be picky about sci-fi in general), but it hooked me nonetheless! After watching the original cartoon and the corresponding movie, I bounced around a little before finding my favorite bit of Transformers media, the More Than Meets The Eye comic series published by IDW from 2012-2018. I’m sure part of it is just the fact that I was there as it was being published, so I’m pretty attached, but I do also think a massive part of the appeal to me was that this, yes, this, was one of the first pieces of media I saw myself reflected in. How was it that a Transformers comic book had more canonical gay (and transgender!) characters than anything else I was into I truly don't know, but I'll always love it for that. Also, without spoiling too much, the relationships featured over the course of the series all have very satisfying and well-written narratives (to me).

I’ve been heavily into Transformers for over a decade of my life, I just haven’t centered my blogging habits around it recently. It’s baked into my life now on a level that few other things are - it is definitely one of my interests I’ve been into the longest. A lot of my music taste has been shaped by Transformers (the author of my favorite comic would post a few songs on Twitter as the “soundtrack” for each issue, and I’m goth now in no small part thanks to him). I delved deeper into Transformers whenever I was having a hard time - they’re my emotional support robots. My Discord username has been the same Transformers reference since I made the account in 2016. I could probably hit the character limit continuing to talk about all the aspects of Transformers that appeal to me and why I think it’s genuinely really fun to get into, but we’d be here all day, and I think I’m also at risk of leaving out the real reason that I (and everyone else) likes Transformers:

The main appeal of Transformers is that big robots are cool, and big cars and stuff are cool, and big robots that turn into big cars and stuff and fight each other are the coolest.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

PS. It was a real struggle to write this without evangelizing about Why You (Yes You! Blogger Reading This!), Should Get Into MTMTE, so I’ll include my thoughts on that under the cut:

More Than Meets The Eye has a particularly good reputation: “Critics in wider comic and sci-fi fandom have praised it, with many a gushing article and award nomination. The politics, the plotting, and the gender and sexual politics have all come in for favoured nods. Most of fandom holds up 'season 1' as one of the top Transformers stories ever” (TFwiki.net) - a statement with which I wholeheartedly agree. I read the whole thing pretty much right from when it came out all the way through to when it wrapped up - something I'd never done before and still kind of can't believe I kept up with for that long, but it's really good, and I go back and reread every year or so. I find that it gets the balance of action, humor, & emotional moments just right. It’s also pretty gory, but everyone knows that robot gore doesn’t count.

The main premise is that a bunch of Autobots have set out from their ruined homeworld on An Epic Quest, mostly because now that their four-million-year-long war is over, they don't know what to do with themselves and/or are running away from their problems. The issue with that is no matter where they go, they still bring all their baggage with them…

In addition to the aforementioned gender and sexual politics that made MTMTE stick in my developing brain, there’s also a fairly prominent theme of mental illness and recovery (and what that might look like for different people) that runs throughout the comic. I think it absolutely helps the characters feel more relatable, and I’ll add a quote here from a character with his own struggles who decides that he’d like to spend his time post-war helping others so you can see a snippet of the writing: “It’s not just the labeling - it’s the distancing. It’s this idea that experiencing mental illness marks you out as bad different. Show me someone who hasn’t been affected by all the fighting. Show me someone who’s “normal” and I’ll show you someone who knows how to hide things.”

In between (and sometimes during) the wacky hijinks that come with being in a comic book, they’re dealing with the political and psychological fallout of their civil war - what does it mean to be “the good guys” now that the war is over? What did it mean to be “the good guys” in a war that lasted long enough to screw up pretty much everything their species ever touched, utterly decimated their population, and left them with a ruined shell of a homeworld? What do things look like from the opposite point of view, and what does being “the bad guys” in a post-war universe mean for the Decepticons? There’s definitely a balancing act going on between what the narrative/marketing calls for, what makes an interesting character, and what’s a sensitive/nuanced depiction, but in comparison to previous Transformers stories, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it was groundbreaking.

[t1meslayer]

Busy with important family events over the next couple of days, and so I thought it would be good to get a day-and-date release for this Debrief on the latest entry in my Sapphic Valley series, "How You Get The Girl." Be sure to read the story before jumping in!

Did you do it? Did you read the story?

Alright, I'm trusting you. Go ahead and hit that 'Keep Reading' button you scamp.

It only seems appropriate to start this Debrief off by addressing the elephant in the room. I haven't posted anything in over a month, and "By Moonlight" came about a month after its predecessor, the conclusion to "Stone-Cold Lovers."

Work, naturally, has been a major factor.

You can see me talk about that almost two weeks ago in this Tumblr post I made about writing in a coffee shop, which came weeks after I actually started writing during a trip to a friend's house.

===

Side note:

Just wanted to take a moment and acknowledge my beautiful Haley and Emily keychains. My friend who's responsible for the affairs of one ghostly farmer named Jizzabelle (Gisabelle to the laymen) got them for me! Only appropriate after I commissioned some art of her and Abigail.

Emily was my first Stardew wife, and Haley currently holds the biggest place in my heart. They make a lovely duo!

And I'll avoid any sister-wife jokes

===

While I've had some other projects like Zine writing to take care of, work and life can't explain the full absence.

The best way I can think to explain things is that:

I had the general writer's block, and

Despite the best intentions and advice of my irl friends and online pals like @alchemicallymoon and @duelbraids, I couldn't force myself to "break" that block by just... Writing something else.

This is entirely the result of my own psychosis. I have a tendency to carefully plot things out and impose a timetable that really doesn't need to exist. When I feel the cause is righteous enough, it's hard to get around that. In this case, I knew I needed to get my poll-winning idea out after dawdling for holidays like Valentine's Day, and then I knew I only wanted to post one more story before jumping on a very special event for my upcoming 30th AO3 post.

Thus, here we are: arbitrarily forcing myself into a spiral of writer's block misery because of a silly promise on Tumblr and my own sense of ordered chaos.

At the very least, this meant it's coming out not long after my AO3 pal InsertACatchyPennameHere also emerged from the woodwork to tell me they're working on something INSPIRED by my four-person friend group farm adaptations.

Much love to them, wherever they may be.

I'll probably start writing more eclectically now that my shoulders are unweighed, but don't expect my next publication to hit until I'm finished working on teasing the big event. All you Pokemon fans better get hype!

And oh how sweet this publication feels. Between my great set of recent ceramics, the figure drawing class I've been attending, and creative writing, I've felt more fulfilled than ever.

You're here to talk about Stardew, though. So let us talk.

This idea began less with any one event as it did a desire to advance the Alexis/Haley relationship, and Haley's characterization in particular. It was always going to end with watercolor painting reference, but 2 Willow Lane was what I really wanted to dig into.

As I see it, a lot of what keeps people invested in Stardew when its comfy vibes becoming routine is the air of mystery in Eric Barone's worldbuilding. Haley and Emily's parents being some world-traveling duo who left their home in the siblings' care for who knows how long (and who knows how many times over their lifetime) really piqued my interest. So much so that the new writing challenge I set for myself in "How You Get The Girl" was crafting a particularly long set of descriptions that emphasize how overwhelming the parents' influence feels — without creating an impenetrable wall of text.

Hopefully I succeeded in that. Let me know!

I tried to include some vaguely real world-adjacent references into that description of the house, as happens with the magical-realism world of Stardew Valley. For example:

The computer sitting next to their bonsai tree is an iMac G3, the kind of old 'futuristic' tech that my dad loves!

A Speedwell refrigerator is based on even more vintage tech, the Mayflower fridge, but named after a different ship ridden by Pilgrims coming to America.

That city that the family visited in an old photograph with a "monument of arching, interlocking steel" is, of course, Paris — with the statue bookends referencing any number of statues in the Louvre.

Haley's FAD magazine could be referencing any number of publications, but Vogue is probably the closest analogue to what I imagine her reading.

Furthermore, I took some notes on describing the home's layout off of my sister's apartment building, and I asked my bestie @trybard for input on what kind of hanging plant should be used in the transitional hallway. Hanging pothos, philodendron, and spider plants were the three options provided, and my response was appropriate:

They know so much about plants.

Go bug them about it.

I drew on other friends' knowledge to help decorate the house. Specifically, I asked one of my witchiest friends what kinds of protective wards someone like Emily would leave around doorways and windows. She had... A lot of reference material.

I picked Hazel given it purportedly "protects against evil; encourages abundance and inspiration." I also picked Amethyst as one of Emily's loved gifts, one that purportedly "absorbs negative energy, promotes harmony."

My witchy friend is the same one who provided the TikTok that I referenced in my advertisement post:

Perhaps the most important thing about 2 Willow Lane was the recurring motif of Barbie's Dream House.

As a surface-level reference, I think the groundwork is clear. Blondie's love of fashion and general queen bee demeanor fits comparisons to Barbie well, and she lives in a big ol' house full of stuff. We all saw Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie last year. It's still in the cultural zeitgeist.

I'm hip with the kids.

Yet, early on I also tried to make it clear that if this is a "dream" house, it's neither Haley's nor Emily's dream. Haley is a Barbie in that stereotypical sense, but also there's much to be mined from the analogy of a sort of powerless doll in an immutable house, constrained by social obligation to her family rather than literal plastic and stickers.

The cold open of Jodi and Sam was meant to stand alone, but in execution I also think drawing Kent's absence into the conversation makes for a more thematically rich comparison to these sisters who appear to have themselves more put together.

My beta reader said this wound up being one of my stronger stories because of how all of that intertwined, which I appreciated given how down on myself I was following the whole writer's block thing.

But also.

Also.

Alexis gets to be horny. She's hitting on lonely MILFs and watching girls shake their asses to the tune of bad reality TV.

We love a buff dommy mommy farm girl in this house.

Haley is probably horny too, she just doesn't realize it yet. For now I think it's fun enough to play into her being coy about building excuses for Alexis to come over, and then getting incensed when Emily barges in on their private time meant to learn more about this farm girl she just can't get out of her head.

===

Fun fact:

Every story in this series is named after a Taylor Swift song, but I know next-to nothing about her discography. All of them are suggestions by my friend whose house I was at when starting this story — the same one who controls Gardenia on the farm.

While I went with "How You Get The Girl," her alternative suggestion was "The Man."

===

All that w|w talk aside, I also want to give Sam the loveable idiot a shoutout. Had to do a fair bit of research into how skateboards are constructed for his failed ollie, and I slipped in a reference to shitty old technology that's exclusively for my beta reader to enjoy.

I also tried doing some agricultural research to figure out how the folks at Kevin Farm could have grown cucumbers so there'd be a jar of legitimate pickles... But that was getting too in the weeds.

Insert laugh track here

Decided to just go with pickled artichoke hearts to save everyone a lot of trouble.

And where does "Kevin Farm" come from, you may be asking yourself. Or the fabulous "Kevin's Special" with its definitely not innuendo tagline.

That story will have to wait for another day, my friends.

[bardic-tales]

HAPPY STS from Idaho!

What’s the story behind your current WIP?

Good morning from NY! Happy belated STS. I hoe you are doing well today, and thank you for the ask.

The story behind 'Fantasy Worlds Collide' is I guess one where I had to focus on moving forward. I had a lot of trilogies planned: a dark fantasy trilogy featuring Cold as Ice (a book that I have been since 2015), the Blood Chronicles (an erotic series that featured a vampire named Bianca), and another series that was set in the same universe as the Blood Chronicles featuring the Order of Divvik who is the last bastion against the Apocalypse. Everything came to a screeching halt when I lost almost 2 decades of planning / manuscripts in a data glitch in 2021 and I couldn't restore them. I was left with a few notes and an gnawing sensation of 'what now'.

FWC is a project that spans multiple fandoms, as well as original work. I wanted to practice a technique that would take a hero (Bianca Moore) and slowly turn her into a villain. When the Final Fantasy 7 Remakes that were released, I decided to take Bianca back to her roots: as she has always been a FF 7 OC since the release of the first game in '97. I had three versions of her that I would use writing: one that got updated when any FF 7 media was published, one that was for pure fluff pieces set in Inuyasha, and one with the original story about how she was turned into a vampire (who in that world are known by incubi/succubi, too) by her soulmate. The first book of the series was called 'Timeless Souls'. It was very kink focused, as well as explored themes like soul-mates.

Now, all three wips that I listed above are part of a huge overarching story. Bianca is the daughter of Asmodeus, who desires powers of his Father: the Creator Deity. To do this, he conceived BIanca Moore, who is part of a prophecy about tearing down the multiverse. She spent her whole life fleeing him: even from when she was a fetus and her biological celestial mother Seraphine cocooned Bianca in a womb of temporal energy and gifted her to Seraphine's most faithful, Sarah Moore.

With a lot of time-traveling (and space-traveling) shenanigans, she is now on the Planet Gaia and convinced that Sephiroth, the man who will try to end that world and become a God, is her mirrored soul. Sephiroth and Bianca are connected with a 'red string of fate'. The string reacts stronger to their emotions: glowing brighter when they have intense emotions. She has fallen from Grace and is completely devoted to him and his mission. Bianca will do anything to see him become immortal as she fell in love with him at first sight and, as a result, she is being denied entrance to the Celestial Realm. Divine law states that angelic beings cannot love mortals and is strictly enforced: as this is what caused the great war in the Celestial Realm because Lucifer fell in love with Lilith and went to the Creator Deity to ask that they be an exception to the rule. The Creator Deity refused and Lucifer went to war. His rebel army, including the primodial demon named Asmodeus, were cast from the Celestial Realm and now call the Abyssal Realm home. Bianca is his living weapon.

While Fantasy Worlds Collide may focus on the relationship between Sephiroth and Bianca (as well as Sesshomaru and Bianca, as Sessh was her first guardian), it is a foray into questioning if you can really overcome fate. Will she destroy the Multiverse and rebuild it into something that Sephiroth and she can rule together? The worldbuilding that I was able to recover from the data glitch is incorporated into the world of FWC. It's my passion project, and it seems I have been working on it for 27 years.

Thank you for the question again. I hope you have a wonderful day / night.

[attourney-at-lycan]

You have mentioned before your idea that the Divine Warriors may have destroyed or taken the place of the previous "gods" before them, which is an interesting idea because it sounds a lot like what happens in Theogony, a.k.a. the Greek creation myth (the channel Overly Sarcastic Productions has a nice short video on the subject). 

Basically, the myth is a never-ending cycle of powerful entities being usurped by their children due to the previous generations' transgressions (the titan Kronos overthrew his primordial father Ouranos for locking his more "monstrous" children away, then Zues, with the eventual help of the other Greek gods, would go on to overthrow Kronos himself due to the mistreatment of his own children in an attempt to keep himself in power after learning one of his children would also overthrow him, Zeus gets almost the exact same prophecy that Kronos got and tries to prevent it by absorbing his first wife so she doesn’t bear that supposed son, etc.)

The Greeks would also tend to base their pantheon around concepts they deemed important during that time period, and although the Divine Warriors were given admittedly vague titles, it's safe to say that they are supposed to represent... something. And, to be honest, I'm fine with these titles (aside from the fact that they were apparently lifted from Final Fantasy, like so much of Jess' world building); the only real issue is that the titles never stop being vague. For example, if Shad is given the title "Destroyer," this would be fine if we were told more clearly what it's supposed to mean because "Destroyer" could mean and represent so many things. He’s clearly represented by some kind of underworld? (Seriously, though, what even is the Nether? It can’t be an afterlife or purgatory of any kind because Irene created the dimension), and his shadow knights can be very destructive, but he was given the title of destroyer before all of that. An idea could be that he was supposed to be a kind of war god. He came from the era of monarchs, so it could make sense that kingdoms would find it important to gain the favor of someone strong enough to sway one of these violent conflicts in their favor. Maybe that is one of the reasons he and Irene fell apart. Irene is a natural healer; it would only make sense that despite her feelings, she would grow to detest a being whose existence brings about conflict.

Also, from a narrative and worldbuilding standpoint, viewing the Divine Warriors as these temperamental beings that represent the worst and best of humanity, such as with the Greek pantheon, would make a lot more sense than viewing them as perfect beings that we should strive to imitate, as Christianity does with the Holy Trinity. Because we are shown throughout MC: Diaries and most of the Aphmau cinematic universe that the Warriors (particularly Irene) were very flawed individuals who would act on their own personal desires even if it meant endangering innocent parties. The cruel actions of the Divine Warriors can be obvious, like Irene murdering her daughter in order to create her relic, or in a more subtle way, like with how they left the world. The whole "Lord system," as you have pointed out before yourself, is a very flawed form of government and doesn’t in any way stop the rise of a monarchy (as shown in the series with O'khasis).

dude… i just woke up.

anyway i took a minute to read all of this and how far did u go to find out all my lore ideas/complaints???

but the idea of theogony placed in the setting of mcd is such a fucking smart idea because it’s almost as if you’re just seeing it happen in real time while the story is going on. you can just see history basically repeat itself with the possibility of aphmau, garroth, laurance, katelyn etc etc being ones next up to claim the role of being the next pantheon (??? i took intro to religion but we didnt touch up on polytheism much wkfsbawh)

even if they dont become gods, with the way that they save the world multiple times and how famous they are, you’d think they’d be seen as some sort of godly beings or next gen divine warriors by people who just watched on the sidelines

for me, i feel like the names of the titles make sense mostly because there are only a handful of them- keep them vague for a way to generalize their reach on concepts? however what DOES bother me is that why is there no origin story for the world that they live in. what is the reason the people of mcd live for? do theh believe in an afterlife? do they have a reason why the sun exists or why they exist? where they come from? because irene and the divine warriors cannot be the reason they exist if they had people living before they popped up-

ALSO YES I LOVE THE CONCEPT OF FLAWED GODLY BEINGS!!!!! it makes sense especially for them because they’re not even gods technically, yes they were the most powerful being at the time, but that’s because they had the relics, even irene used to be a human before she got her relic, or so wiki says. (which SUCKS BC WHERE DO THE RELICS COME FROM???) therefore they’re just as flawed as humans, have just as much desire as humans but much more dangerous because they can do so much damage, exhibit a, shad’s heartbreak for irene

[maskedemerald]

In honor of Worldbuilding Wednesday... How do you present your worldbuilding to your audience without overwhelming or boring them? What techniques do you use?

Hi! Thanks for the ask! Sorry its taken a while to get to it! (I've been decorating and distracted!)

When I'm writing world building into a story I'm thinking about:

How relevant is it?

If its not very relevant to what is going on I either cut it or I only talk about it in passing. Like commenting that there are street lamps. They are there in my magic alternate 1800s setting, A Curiosity Piqued but how exactly they work or function didn't matter to my first book in the series so I mentioned them only in the context of their light not reaching a space. In a future book in the series where they matter mechanically to the mystery then I'd find a way to go into that detail of how the magical energy is moved to them, through out the story so that readers could understand how it impacts the mystery and the solution to the mystery.

How much does the POV character care or know about it?

A big thing for me even in 3rd person is using my POV character to impact what and how I describe something and that applies to the world building as well. If a POV character has a lot of knowledge about something or a big interest in something, then I tend to spend more time on it when I can.

A good example from A Curiosity Piqued is the Rune Step, its a public transport system making use of teleportation runes. Aelfraed my POV character in the first book is not very familiar with how it works, its not his area of expertise so I mostly keep to the more general knowledge things. Like describing shape and how they interact with it. However he does care a lot about how it makes him feel. He hates the experience and gets the equivalent of really bad motion sickness. So I focus on how he feels about it and integrate that into his strong desire not to go where they are going.

Like this:

The Rune Step was a bustle of activity, a flow of people in and out the wide open doorways. Inside it was loud; conductors called out last calls for a Step. Familiar and unfamiliar locations being shouted across the large room. Aelfraed weaved through the crowd to keep up with the pace of his father, trying his best as he went to not bump into anyone. Alcoves lined the walls, in them sat discs of red granite that stood out against smooth grey stone they were set into. Engraved with sharp lines resembling a compass with many extra points darting out all directions. Their edges worn down and the rune carvings rounded and chipped at the edges a little.

A few moments later liquid poured into the channels made by the carvings. Running from the edges towards the middle then through narrow channels filling up the runes. As it crested the top of the channels the world lurched. His head spun. Aethelric caught his arm. The feeling of movement was gone as quickly as it had happened but in its wake it left him feeling rather unsteady. His stomach churning, head still spinning and ears ringing. It felt no better than any previous time, no matter how many times people told him it would get easier. His family around him were no worse for wear. He knew Aethelric used to have it bad too but only a few times when they were younger. His father started moving immediately, shaking each shoe a little to clear off the few drops of liquid lingering from the Step. Aethelric supported him as they followed. They had told him before that it was just like blinking. They’d even suggested that he try to blink at the time of activation. Most didn’t experience the disorientation, lack of balance or the sickness. At least not over such short distances, the longer ones could disorient even the best travellers.

The role of the setting to the character.

This one's a little similar to the previous one but it impacts how I treat world building both in the planning and actual story as a whole rather than just specific bits of it. Basically how the world building is presented in A Curiosity Piqued that I've been talking about is going to be different from how it's presented in my Fae Pocket Dimension setting, Magic Act.

For the first one nearly everything Aelfraed encounters is going to be normal. A lot of it he will see every day. It might be things he doesn't understand or know but it is normal aside from the equivalent of new scientific discoveries. So I treat the world building like science and tech. Its understood on a user level if not a technical one. I try to treat it as mundane in how the characters react to it. I describe it maybe a bit more visually for readers than I would a computer on a desk in a modern setting but in how the characters treat it I use that as the rule. It should to them be as normal as a computer.

It also involves a lot of planning in this setting because of how the tech like magic has to work together and have structured rules to work well in a detective style story. I can go into the nitty gritty of how it works and rely on the familiar feel to help it seem normal. I try to treat for example the Rune Step a bit like the metro system in my local area or other train stations I've been in. Familiar sights, sounds and feelings.

For the Magic Act what the POV character encounters is more unfamiliar and intended to be levels of uncanny and sinister. So I focus on the feelings of off ness and get heavy into the sensory descriptions. What's different from the familiar. I think this kind of world is the only time I spend a lot of words all at once on world building in the text. Its still very WIP so that might change but the chain of unfamiliar things that don't make sense I feel helps with evoking the overwhelmed feelings of the POV character. However as he gets used to things I do less of that but still keep the world building to a very observational thing. He doesn't know how it works so the only time I get into the details of how something works is through other characters interest. Night, the other character that is at home in the world tends to focus on only explaining the social norms if they explain anything at all.

[thecurioustale]

(Re)introducing the Author

I have two main series: a fantasy series called The Curious Tale and a sci-fi series called Galaxy Federal.

For those who are newer here, or wouldn't mind a refresher, here's a little about me and the kind of stories I write:

My name is Josh, pronouns they/he. (I am agender but I don't get upset if you gender me masculine; I do it myself sometimes out of force of habit.) I am 41 years old and live in Washington State not far from Seattle, in the beautiful but troubled United States. I am left-handed, hence my proudest epithet, The Sinistral, and I have been a writer for basically my entire life—even as a kid!

I published my first and so far only novel in 2015, Prelude to After The Hero, which you can currently buy as an e-book or read for free in HTML. Additionally, I have published countless worldbuilding articles and meta-discussions of my fiction over the years (see my previous post about Curious Tale Saturdays), and countless nonfiction essays and personal musings on my personal journal, which in more recent years I have updated much less frequently (but am still active on).

As an author I mostly write stories about "power" and "beauty." I'll have more to say about my specific stories over the next couple days when I do corresponding (re)introduction posts for The Curious Tale and Galaxy Federal, but the bottom line is that I am very interested in human potential, both at the individual and collective levels, and in the beauty of being alive and experiencing "the world," i.e. our material reality and our own headspaces within it. Other topics that interest me and frequently show up in my writing include justice, creation (both the acts and products of creating), civilization, Illumination (what many would call wisdom or "enlightenment"), ambition and desire, animism, and the poignance of the fleeting nature of all things.

I am fascinated by liminality and subliminality; boundaries; vast indoor spaces; megastructures; mysteriousness; "the magical"; surrealism; absurdism; nostalgia; pathos; journeys that do not involve backtracking; and other such things as generally might describe a vast world with hazy horizons lit in twilight. I also strive in my writing (less successfully, I fear) to convey a sense of mystery and wonder.

At the same time, I am also fascinated by human emotionality and subjective experience; personal relationships; the human condition and the human psyche; and narrative life arcs. Some who know me through my nonfiction or by talking to me in person have been surprised to see how passionate and emotional my fiction is.

My writing style tends to be long-winded and self-indulgent; deliberate and precise; esoteric and bespoke. I usually set a slow pace, and seldom indeed will I resort to cheap action or thrills. Most of my fiction is either long-form play-by-play scenes in high resolution, or Tolkienian epic narration far removed from the ground level.

With certain exceptions for key locations, I usually don't reuse a given location in a story; the locations are usually new from scene to scene, and thus there is a lot of environmental description throughout the whole length of my works and not just at the beginning. This creates a certain quality, where everything is always new, that I find engrossing.

In terms of the three most popular conventions, political intrigue, violence, and sex and romance: My writing mostly rejects the treacherous political intrigue genre conventions that are so prevalent in sci-fi and fantasy today, even though "politics" is definitely an integral part of my writing (and I am not shy about sharing my opinions, though I try to do so through specific characters rather than on narratorial authority). When it comes to violence, there is a lot of death and killing and suffering in my work, but I am not a big fan of writing extremely graphic violence and torture, mainly because I don't have the heart to dwell on it in great detail most of the time. (It's very draining for me.) And on the sex side of things, I eschew tacked-on romantic subplots and in general I would say that there's too much damned snogging in our contemporary storytelling, but I definitely do explore and depict matters of love and sex in my work in my own way—though not at a very high frequency, and, I would like to hope, never gratuitously. (Unless the gratuitousness is a tongue-in-cheek joke that we're all in on—which can be said of many other aspects of my writing as well.) I never write explicit, graphic sex scenes, although I do sometimes write sex scenes.

Which reminds me: My stories tend to have a lot of "competency porn" in them; my characters are usually intelligent, thoughtful, and logical. Ignorance and luck are not big plot story drivers for me, generally.

My favored characters tend to be some combination of fat, left-handed, and female; and, of them, my central protagonists additionally tend to be extremely powerful, demigodlike individuals who are able to operate within their respective domains virtually without limitation. In critical respects my characters are only vaguely-defined; I usually avoid character archetype trope reinforcement, so my characters are ideally as internally diverse as real-world humans are...which means you can't actually know them right away. And that opens the door for you to project your own personality ideas onto them. Which...I suppose is a feature?

I have a cinematic mind, and I think my stories are best appreciated with a strong visual imagination. I try not to smother readers with too many unnecessary details, though I confess I am only partially successful at this and often find myself hanging on every word of my lengthy environmental descriptions. I think some of my most satisfied readers are those who enjoy digesting these elaborate visuals as a reward unto itself.

I am a big believer in the idea that obvious story setups should have payoffs, that narrative arcs should eventually be resolved, and that plots and subplots should be be highly interconnected. I am chiefly theme-driven in my writing, as opposed to character-driven or plot-driven, and oftentimes the central purpose of a given scene will be to express one particular idea (or more than one)—either a conceptual idea, or a specific moment in the story. If you read the Prelude and remember Silence's introduction, I wrote that entire scene just to be able to describe the image of Silence in silhouette standing against the evening sky, and her powerful, predator-like movement as she turns around.

Add it all up, and my stories are definitely out of the norm for today's fashions and quite possibly for any fashion in history. They are slow and heavy and long. Their vastness belies their thrilling internal intricacies and shapes. The characters are highly realistic. The plots tend to feel emergent and organic. Or at least I think so. I am very much "writing the stories I want to see."

My stories tend to be incredibly long. Like...just know that going in. There are many sources for "tight," "fast" writing in the world. I am not one of them.

Oh, one more thing: There are various types of representation that are important to me and which I don't see the current state of sci-fi and fantasy storytelling doing a good job of delivering, so I explicitly lean into that, on top of my natural proclivity to write these kinds of characters anyway. So, if you're ever reading a scene and you find that the demographics of the people in it are noticeably unusual for contemporary American fiction, that's why.

More about me as a person: When not writing, I am a fan of sunsets, sunrises, and twilight; clouds and water; saying "Merciful McGillicuddy!" a lot while sighing loudly; solving Wordle; trying mostly in vain to gain weight; and being a curious information sponge.

[myulalie]

Coming up with plots

A friend of mine asked me about plots and how to come up with one and considering how long my answer got, I thought it might be worth it to share it here too.

So what’s a plot?

It’s a series of events, sometimes steps in a thought process, that usually leads from point A to point B. Of course depending on the genre you’ll find a lot of recurring plots:

thriller: a body is found → the killer is found,

romance: meeting the love interest → getting together,

action/fantasy: being on the losing side of the war → winning the war for large scale stories, from zero to hero for smaller scale stories…

How to build a plot then?

Well for a point A to point B storyline it’s basically answering the question “how did we get here”(even if we came back right where we started by the end).

There are several ways to answer this question that may differ depending on the writer as well as the genre.

For instance, a pantser writing a thriller might end up plotting backwards. They have the killer in mind and they figure out what the killer does until they come up with a good first victim. The bare bones of the investigation have been set into motion and all that is left to do is flesh it out from the investigator’s point of view, following the clues left in the first draft of the story and using foreshadowing to build suspense.

For a plotter it might come from the worldbuilding process, picking and mixing elements of it you’d like to explore in the story and creating a scene or a storyline around it.

When plotting a plot around two people building a relationship (usually a romance but can be about friendship occasionally, or parent-child bonding) the same logic applies: how to get from point A to point B. Relationships are usually built around milestones such as first meetings, getting to know each other, bonding over shared experiences, solving conflicts, first kisses / physical intimacy as a whole, social cues like getting married or more personal desires like having children… These milestones are basically your plot.

When your plot needs to align with a character arc you might have to plot backwards (what needs to happen for this development to make sense), especially if you don’t already have a clear idea of the story you want to write, or what happens within the story.

The way I see it, each step towards point B is going to become a scene, or at least scene adjacent.

Either you already know because that’s something you look forward to writing and you built a whole story around this one scene that inspired you, or you rely on tropes and clichés. Those are expected from you and your story, especially as a writer, so if you’re writing mutual pining there has to be a “sharing a bed” moment. Usually you're familiar with how it goes from experience, you’ve read stories with these clichés.

Just pick the ones that are the most useful to you and your story!

As I was saying above, sometimes you already know which scenes you want to write. It can be “aesthetics” or “vibes” but it’s often the starting (or ending) point of your idea and you can build your story around it. It doesn’t have to be very detailed and it makes plotting difficult, hence the two page long essay I’m writing now!

To summarize:

figure out the beginning and the end (doesn’t need to be detailed, just a vague idea) ;

rely on the genre for plot points, tropes and story structure ;

plot backwards when necessary ;

tailor a scene to your worldbuilding if necessary (careful not to infodump though) ;

figure out the milestones of your plot.

I cannot stress enough that you kind of need to do your homework there. Know your genre, and brush up on story structures, it gives insight on story beats and which structure works best for each genre. If you know how to structure a plot, you can figure out the scenes that need to happen to get from point A to point B.

Most common story structures:

Save the cat guide

3, 4 and 5 acts story structure

Hero’s journey and other structures

I’ll give a quick overview but leave it up to you to research those more in depth.

Save the cat is originally for screenwriters but it gives “story beats” like “steps” to save the cat that you can apply to both character arcs and more generic storylines.

Hollywood movies and a lot of young adult novels use the 3 acts structure which is a simplified version of the ancient 5 acts structure.The 4 acts structure is better suited to tragedies / endings that leave the main character unsatisfied even if they are in a better place.

The Hero’s journey is the basic fantasy storyline: a boy discovers he’s special and goes on a journey, usually with a mentor, to master his abilities and save the world. It’s a bit of a zero to hero story, even though it can become much more complex than that!

And then you have a lot more structures to discover! Most of the time it’s the same overall idea but presented differently such as the Story Circle (or Story Embryo), so I’m sure you’ll find one that works for you.

To go full circle I do need to mention that sometimes there isn’t any plot to come up with. Some ideas are just scenes, or snapshots of scenes (that’s why I write 500 words ficlets and 1 000 words one shots), like a slice of life.

Some ideas are what we call “character studies”, a bit more like an essay or an analysis of the character’s psyche.

At the end of the day, just write whatever you want to write, what brings you joy.

[tiodolma]

You have finished Kaamelot, right? 😗 So, what do you like more: BBC, Starz or Kaamelot?

Thank you for this ask, @the-king-and-the-druidess

I'm gonna put it this way. BBC Merlin (the show) fascinated and pissed me off so much that it opened me to all other Arthuriana and other modern adaptations because of my desire to understand just why everything went to sht in the series (⌒_⌒;)

Meanwhile I like how solid Camelot (Starz) and Kaamelott were in terms of honest characterization.

Kaamelott may be, at most, a gag/comedy show but the love/passion/genius of Alexander Astier (producer/showrunner and Kaamelott!Arteur) is so real it just shines, you know? The care that has been put in the comedy series.... it shows.. it really shows. Kaamelott is a product of sincerity and love. It is honest. It doesn't shy away from unsavory topics. Not one character claims to be the ultimate good. Not one character is the ultimate evil. All of them are idiots and all of them are smart. It's so human. It is disjointed, there's no real plot, it is funny, heartwarming... but when it hits you, it hits you. IT'S GREAT. That's what I can say. ٩(◕‿◕)۶

Camelot (Starz) is a masterpiece in itself. I like it so I really don't have a lot of complaints about it other than certain choices (esp surrounding igraine and leontes/lancelot). The storytelling was more solid. The characters and worldbuilding were more grounded and mature and closer to the legends. The dynamics were pretty much what you'd expect arthur-centric arthuriana should be on screen.

..........................

What i feel for BBC MERLIN isn't hate... it is more like.. disgusted awe. I do admit that they went to lengths (and audacity) that probably no other modern arthuriana has ventured before. The show left behind more What The Fuck questions, idealogies and propaganda rather than answers though. (And that is insidious especially when the show's cover was that it was "just a family-friendly show" and "geared towards children", YIKES).

BBC Merlin is not my first rodeo on a series where everyone-and-their-mother just wants to "fix it." In fact I am used to stuff that needs a lot of "fixit". However BBC Merlin just has this unprecedented level of fixit potential that I have never seen before. I don't know if that is awful or not. I don't know if it's shoddy writing or not. I am still on dying on the hill that the writers tried their best but the producers and bbc just had other ideas. idk.

Perhaps i am at fault though. I am more drawn to things where everyone is morally grey. In true early arthuriana fashion, BBC MERLIN IS NOT MORALLY GREY. There is an intense Black and White messaging that is so prevalent in the seres. It's so... Christian even when it never mentioned Christianity. There was a clear line drawn between who was the absolute good and absolute evil. Regardless of their actions, the characters were never classified as "doing bad when they are on the side of good" or "doing good when they are on the side of bad" because their roles have already been predetermined. They were just all just either "good" or "evil" and nothing else within the context of the show.

That's the irony of it all. BBC MERLIN being so unapologetic, absolutist and propaganda-like actually made it a lot more "Early Arthurian" in spirit compared to the "i know what i did was wrong but i gotta do it anyway" kind of morally gray storytelling that the other modern adaptations such as Starz Camelot and Kaamelott have.

And that's what sets BBC MERLIN apart from Kaamelott and Starz Camelot. It was so idealistic. It disgusts me. It brings me awe. I can't watch it anymore. But I want to study it. I wanna view it under microscope.

..............

If possible I'd rather have unlimited runs of Kaamelott and Starz Camelot. Five seasons of BBC Merlin was enough. We already got the message. Let the bbc merlin actors rest and pursue better roles without always being pressured to return to it.

[shalmonsgamedev]

I think a larger project is starting to form in my head 🤔 probably remnants of wanting to do something more "serious", or at least more grounded (well, 'grounded' relative to Wizkens lol)

So like, fun fact, the latter half of my teenhood was dominated by this story & OCs that I never really did anything with (in many ways I don't think a lot of it aged well at all 😬)

And I'm not revisiting that story in particular (pls no) but I do think it left a residue of wanting to do a more "serious" worldbuildy work at some point

That became very obvious when I started contributing ideas to my spouse's TTRPG setting worldbuilding was clearly something I completely forgot I was passionate about but, with that, my spouse obviously has the final word on which ideas they actually want to use so although that's been a fun creative outlet it's still left that lingering desire for a "serious" setting that I have total control over (and wizkens is not quite scratching that itch either since it's smaller scale & pretty silly lol)

So anyway I think I will probably be channeling my love of nature knowledge into whatever this ends up being like, for example years ago I learned a ton about frogs there were so many neat little facts that I thought would be fun to exaggerate & twist into more of a fantasy thing

And I think it might be something like that; an interconnected series of games(?) about different animal/nature kingdoms--with worldbuilding rooted in real biology, but exaggerated & fantasyfied.  In an almost educational way  =P

Heck I may even go ahead & start this series w/the frog-based one.  You know, after wizkens….i suppose…  But maybe just a little bit of planning/brainstorming in the meantime, as a treat  >>

TL;DR I am approaching that particular dev hell of being tormented by new game ideas 🙃

[firesalamander]

books 15, 16, and 17

i finally read the Southern Reach / Area X trilogy by Jeff Vandermeer! it's been on my list since i first saw the Annihilation movie years ago and i've finally read all three over the past month.

Annihilation was definitely my favorite of the three, both in how radically different it was from the movie and how much i loved the biologist as a narrator. her voice is just a really nice one and having a female protagonist who's cold and solipsistic and all of that was honestly refreshing. that and the descriptions of Area X's mutations being both largely understated while still carrying a proper undertone of menace was most well accomplished in the first book imo.

Authority was in many ways a genre flip to clandestine spy meets office drama in a way that wasn't bad by any means, but was pretty far from what i was expecting. lots of great worldbuilding and some really nicely pulled off moments, but i think some of the nuance of the tiny jabs and conversational fighting was lost on me, making some of the character's arcs not feel like the most satisfying. overall strength was developing the world and surrounding features of Area X while creating more questions and keeping some extant ones wide open still, with the interview/interrogation scenes being incredibly satisfying to read.

Acceptance was good - the first in the series to have multiple narrators in a way that was both a strength and a weakness. While the past narrations describing the creation of Area X and the years of research done prior to book 1 were great for the build up, I found their narrators kind of boring which made them kind of drag at times. The present tense narrations, now back in Area X, were good, but it really took its sweet time building up to the action. Overall a solid book that makes me want to go back and reread the others with this new context, but the overall ending left some things to be desired as far as unanswered questions.

Overall a strong trilogy with some pacing i didn't always agree with, but i always felt drawn in once i started reading and always wanted to keep reading when it was time to put the book down. didn't horrify me in the way i was expecting, but i'm glad to have read them all the same for the skillful layering of pieces into a really cool final whole

[novacorps]

i liked the idea of bill and frank in the HBO series but honestly the execution left a lot to be desired

it reduced joel and ellie - characters we've barely gotten to know in two episodes - to background characters in their own narrative and the relationship between bill and frank never felt earned

i love pull away episodes. but usually when episodes do a pull away like this well, it's as a juxtaposition / mirror for the larger theme, or worldbuilding/background that will pay off later.

while they were clearly trying to juxtaposition bill and frank with joel and tess, it felt forced. tess is gone. the story has already shifted to be centered on the relationship between joel and ellie. nothing that juxtaposes bill and joel is anything we don't already know about joel from the previous two episodes, in no small part because the writers already did a great job showing that through joel's relationship with tess

the only way i could see this episode working to explore that relationship is if the episode happened before tess' death. it could have given tess' death more impact - but coming after it, it felt a little disjointed and totally disconnected from ellie (vs the original)

it didn't even work as worldbuilding that would pay off later like the cold opens. in terms of a world building flashback, it's so contained it doesn't really give us anything new we haven't already seen earlier in the episode with ellie and joel interacting

i didn't need more buy in to the idea that joel needed more motivation to get ellie across country. joel's already after his brother, tess has already asked him to do it and joel agrees. plus, it never quite makes sense for tess to tell joel to get ellie to bill and frank to accomplish the ultimate goal of a cure. they're two isolated dudes in the middle of nowhere in bad health who seem to only interact with tess and joel.

the relationship between frank and bill also felt unearned. i didn't have a problem with the relationship progressing quickly but we get the sense that within two hours bill goes from ready to potentially shoot frank to in bed with him

frank in particular gives off a weird vibe during the whole episode, he's disarming but in the way we usually associate with villains like hornsby in the walking dead where you expect them to be waiting to stab you in the back

frank is pushy and rude, a little too cheery and unconcerned with the threat from bill, and one of the only things we know about him is that the rest of his party is suspiciously dead and he thought about lying about having a weapon. he doesn't feel like a real person in those introduction scenes.

so, i didn't really see the chemistry between the characters beyond how well the actors implied it with their body language. they're SO different - they even fight about it! - but it's pretty much never addressed

i really wish the writers had included some time skips where we see them gradually warming up to one another, which again could have been a really nice mirror to joel and ellie's relationship and thematically talk about unlikely connections

alternatively, the original falling out narrative could have been a great mirror for joel and tommy's relationship and a great way to start introducing that conflict - joel and ellie could have even been a catalyst to bring them back together. or it could have been a great way to introduce riley and give all three characters something to connect over through shared loss.

then killing them on top of that long introduction just felt like shock value. killing them didn't serve any real purpose. narratively, frank and bill couldn't fulfill tess' last wish to joel

[typemercury94]

Why I love "Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun" (Season 1)

"Cozy magical slice of life with occasional urban terrorism" was how a friend describe "Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun". At first, i wasn't sure to give this anime a chance, because it looks very generic and low Budget at the first glance. However, i was totally wrong. You will find out why I consider iruma's journey in the demon World, a hidden gem in my following review.

Story:

Our protagonist Iruma never had an easy life, as he was exploited by almost every person in his environment. His sincere and naive personality, always leads him into self-sacrificing situations. Sadly his parents took advantage of it as well, persuaded him to do child labor and even end up selling his soul to a demon. In result, Iruma was transported to the demon World and expected the worst possible outcome. For his own surprise, the demon who bought his soul (Sullivan), decided to make Iruma his grandson and send him to Babyls Demon School. He spoils him from start to finish and wants to give him a nice childhood. However, Iruma has to hide his true identity as a human, otherwise he could be eaten by his fellow classmates.

The premise seems like any run-of-the-mill isekai anime, but is executed surprisingly well. As you might expect, Iruma's Situation leads to a lot of funny and memorable moments during his daily school life.

While the biggest part of the series is stuffed with cozy comedy and entertaining character interactions, the other part is exploring more serious topics. Iruma-kun is more compareable to old cartoons you used to enjoy in your childhood, instead of an typical isekai anime. I guess this is one reason why it feels so "fresh" to watch the series and make it so addicting.

Characters:

But the biggest strength of the anime are the several unique and distinct characters. Even there are some stereotypes, the main cast is likeable and fun to watch.The small character arcs never feel forced (so far), but organic like the small portions of Worldbuilding. I just love to see the development of so many different characters. Especially in terms of their abilitys, perception about themselves and others.

A perfect example would be Iruma himself, who start to realize his own desires of a caring family, meaningful friendships and being determinate for his own ambitions. In other words: He only lived for the sake of other people and forgot about himself, but start to find a balance between it. At first, he was scared about the demon world and wants to escape, but eventually got used to it at the end of the season.

That said, Iruma's benelovent personality also left an significant impression on his demon classmates.

For example, Clara's ability (to create everything she saw) was abused by other demons, who pretend to be her friend. She was full aware of it, but just accepted it due to her lonelines at school. Iruma doesn't care to get anything materialistic and genuinely enjoy to play with her. This causes clara to prevail against her fake friends and let her experience "real friendship" for the first time.

Visuals:

The Studio didn't have a lot of Budget, but they make good use of it for sure. There is great attention to detail in the background and the colors are bright and vibrant.

Sound:

The opening is an absolutely banger and gave me "90s anime" vibes, while the ending feels more like an Idol Song. Furthermore, there are also some nice extra Songs within the series.

As for the seiyuus, all of them did an awesome Job to play each character. I especially enjoyed the seiyuu of Amerie (Saori Hayami), Kalego (Daisuke Ono), Sullivan (Takaya Kuroda) and clara (Ayaka Asai)

Conclusion:

"Welcome to demon school! Iruma-kun" might not be the cup of Tea for everyone, but I can highly recommend to give it a chance. The likeable main cast grow very fast on you, the comedy is on point and the visuals are pretty. Maybe you will get addicted to it like me and have a good time.