#this is a small iteration a draft of what has and still is becoming a life long work

[afrosatanist]

The astrological philosophical perspective I hold is one that combines several different philosophies at its foundations. It is a polytheistic, cosmobiological, panenthiestic, panpsychic, phenomenological approach. It blends understanding through the application of mathematical-spiritual techniques & interpretations to help querents and astrologers alike come to a deeper reverence, purpose, clarity, and awakenings while engaging with and interpreting the chart.

The polytheistic cosmobiological portion helps us render truth from the power-obsessed and Imperial-minded monotheistic conception of spiritually, and the cosmos itself. This philosophical portion combats the notion that Divinity is a singular entity creating and destroying as it sees fit based on some ancient religion and it's particular precepts, or some other temporal religious/mystical/cultural instantiation of orientation of the divine in it's regional-historical scope.

The polytheistic-cosmobiologal portion discussed how in the multiplicity of Divinity's manifestations truth is everything but singular. Truth, if I must make an axiom, is multiplicity itself. This thus means there are now an expansive, yet finite relevant logics that can offer us a spiritual clarity as we remove the impetus to find a hill to war and die in with our individual conception of the Divine Mystery. It speaks it's truths in ways that create, deeper, and resolve dualities, dichotomies, and tensions through a logic that is alive, conscious, and in inextricable relationship to Time. The celestial bodies of our solar system become a relevant discussion for our understand of the methodology of his astrology is capable of functioning as a diviner's tool, but also as a spiritual/cosmically intelligent arithmetic that provides a language and logic for the material and metaphysical events that happen in our human lives on our own celestial planetary home.

In Western Astrology, we liken the planets unto mythic deities, with desires, tendencies, domains, and intentions and then track what those may manifest as when interpret placements, aspects and other patterns in the slew of different charts we have for our different analyses. If in our practices, both now as a divination tradition passed down historically with it's particular philosophical schools, and as a functional language when applying said philosophical schools notions for interpretations, it's smooth and consistently accurate when we give (divine) consciousness to multiple celestial bodies, we reinforce the logical proof of the next portions of my philosophical foundation, Panpsychism and Panenthiesm.

This becomes logically overlapping and expansive with ideas above. If it makes sense, spiritually through meditative practice or enhanced perception, if it makes sense linguistically and practically through interpretations that lend clarity and healing, and it makes sense logically and atithmetically through the mathematical techniques applied that gave us the interpretative clarity, we run into territory of Panenthiesm's logical forms. Panenthiesm asserts that Divinity is in all things, and all things are within Divinity. There's is nothing that exists that doesn't contain or isn't made up of the same celestial-conscious materials of the very deified cosmos themselves. This also becomes an important backdrop by which can show that no matter the occurrence, it's form, it's energetic presences, it exists and belongs within the cosmos. All things have a significance and purpose under this understanding, taking us to our explanation of Panpsychism. The Deified Consciousness of the cosmos is itself the ground floor of all of materiality, Panpsychism's philosophy asserts. That all things are conscious in varying degrees, but still built of the very same Divine Intelligence that allows our astrological (or any divination tradition/tool/technique) to be capable of provide any worthwhile, meaningful application and answer.

The mathematical, the biophysical, the cosmic/astronomical, the spiritual, the psychic/emotional all become interconnected and layered over each other multidimensionally in this perspective. It becomes the logical tracks that Divinity can communicate to itself, i.e. whether through humans practicing divination or plants growing in predetermined (and also dynamic) shapes and forms.

Next becomes a very important philosophical portion for those practicing and receiving astrological divination. The phenomenological approach of the utmost importance when it comes to both a diviner and a querent. The phenomenological approach asserts that this is matter of cross-paradigmatic navigation every time we communicate anything, let alone what are supposed to be Divined Communiques from Cosmic Deific Forces themselves. The Phenomenological portion reminds us that in the multiplicity of truth, power is humility, grace, an open heart and mind, because in the lack of understanding language, our bodies are attuned to respond to feelings/energetic resonances. What may not make sense in my worldview, individually or culturally, is still capable of being received, heard, and felt (again, even if nonsensically), meaning that spiritual practice and one's personal worldview is inevitably and inextricably linked to the ability to divine, interpret, or receive the fullness of any understanding or awareness. We speak through semiotic veils at all moments, and the more complex of a topic or logic we get to the more paradigmaric curtains must be acknowledged, and to the best of our ability, pulled back. This keeps us from an arrogant assumption of a singular divine truth needing to break through another's world for value and integration, no psycho-colonialism needed, just an open hand and clarified awareness of the moment and the information for the sake of healing, evolution, and further awakenings.

[tellusd20]

Dev Journal 2: The world of Tellus

This is the current draft version of the world map for my homebrew campaign setting. It was cobbled together using a mix of Fractal Terrains 3, Photoshop, and Wonderdraft. It's been interesting going through each iteration and trying to land the particular combination of alien and familiar that I want to achieve. If a fantasy world is too Earthlike, it becomes difficult to break away from expectations of what will be found in each area. But if its too alien, the player's expectations of what might be found in a region become harder to visualize. This particular version has not quite accomplished what I'm trying to find yet, future iterations will likely venture more into the alien side of the spectrum. However, this is a good start and while this world is quite familiarly shaped, it'll have some very interesting geopolitics. As a starter, you may notice that there's not much distance between many of the continents. Seagoing exploration by the Tellus equivalent of the Greeks, Phoenicians, and Polynesians would have likely achieved something equivalent to the Colombian Exchange much earlier than our world. Likewise, trade between the Orient and Occident is much easier, which will create some fascinating opportunities for cultural exchanges. Vast quantities of wealth flow through these vital trade arteries, meaning that any nation with ambitions of being a power worth considering will require a substantial fleet to protect their interests. Tellus is still embarrassingly underdeveloped so far, with vast amounts of blank space in my documents, but I'll provide a brief description of each continent and its major powers and provide more details later. Names are all provisional and may be changed in future drafts; I like to use placeholders and end up changing them frequently. In the descriptions below I include equivalents to RL nations, this is meant as a reference to their closest geopolitical analogue, not that they are necessarily clones of that state. Belus: Obviously this world's equivalent to Europe, differentiated largely by the presence of an inland sea. Directly to its north is the Grey Sea, to the south is the Medial Sea. Its greatest power is the Second Empire of Abdera; a sprawling feudal mess equivalent to a super-HRE, stretching from this world's equivalent of Spain to Germany. More often at war with itself than outside powers, the Second Empire's stability and prestige have had an alarming decline due to the emergence of the Republic of Brennos (eqv. Napoleonic France) within its former territories. The Second Empire's neighbors, particularly Dynne (eqv. Great Britain) play a delicate game of exploiting Imperial weakness while trying not to throw the continent into complete chaos. To the east, the Empire of Melate (eqv. Ottomans) are recovering from a century of decline with a reformist empress on the throne. Their strategic position and the exhaustion of their Belusan rivals fuel the ambitions of elven revanchists.

Azbine: Essentially Africa, Azbine is a huge & diverse continent in terms of politics, climate, geography, and population density. Its northwest coast is largely divided up into feudal possessions of the Second Empire, as well as daughter republics of Brennos legitimized by peace treaty. The northeast corner, south of the large peninsula that is Melate's heartland, are the Majeri Republics (eqv. Venice); an oligarchic federation of city-states that are wealthy and loyal protectorates of Melate. Their cities are among the wealthiest on the planet thanks to the trade routes they sit upon. Along the eastern coastline are small kingdoms and city-states that also thrive on (or prey upon) trade between Azbine and Dahae, as well as Alamgiri colonies (see Dahae below).

Nirimzad (eqv. Congo Free State), the vast territory of a clan of green dragons, encompasses the circular sea in central Azbine and its surrounding coastline. The dragons squabble and intrigue against each other, unified only in extracting as much wealth as possible from their hunting ground. Their warlords and slave armies would likely overrun much of the central continent were they not constantly pitted against each other for the entertainment and petty grudges of the dragons. Alwealde: South America, duh. The northeast coast is primarily occupied by the Kingdom of Selvas - a secessionist colony from the Second Empire that's also a feudal mess of direct colonial holdings and integrated native vassals. A federation of city-states styled along the lines of the Delian League control the rest of the eastern coast; they are theocratic governments run by a priestly class with rulers descended from a planetouched bloodline. Hesperus: A handful of Belusan colonies with competing territorial claims squat on the coasts as well as the independent nation of Ladrinne (eqv USA) where the losing Parliamentary faction of the Dynnish civil war fled and established a government in exile. Ladrinne styles itself as the rightful government of the Dynnish islands. The old guard aristocrats are naturally fading away and being replaced by revanchist radicals inspired by the Brenne Revolution. Eastern Hesperus is easily a potential powderkeg for the next war, whether due to colonial competition or Ladrinne's parliament finally deciding to expel the monarchists from 'their' continent. Elsewhere in Hesperus, the natives are doing better than OTL, having never suffered the same population collapse from disease as that which followed contact. Tola: Obviously an Asiatic continent, Tola's central steppes are the domain of orcish tribes and petty kingdoms (eqv Mongols). To the west, Ryaz principalities and successor kingdoms to an old Orc empire crowd against inland seas and compete for coastal access. To the east are the Golden Lands, the richest agriculture lands in the world thanks to a series of great lakes and high mountain glaciers that feed dozens of rivers. The agricultural wealth of the Golden Lands unfortunately also brings much ambition; the region is divided between six states with a variety of ideologies (eqv. Chinese warlord era)

Dahae: The Dahaen subcontinent is home to what's likely the most powerful empire in the world, Alamgir (eqv. Mughals). Alamgir's orcish ruling class possess sprawling lands teeming with millions, a strong export economy, and a large, well-trained military that is regularly tested in border conflicts with its neighbors. Alamgir shares the subcontinent and its archipelago with several other major powers and dozens of minor states.

[feralkwe]

tell me more about "all the ways it isn't fair"

well, as i mentioned in the meme post, i have a few fics that are less an organized fic and more a fistful of one-shots that are connected by the source material and written out of chronological order.

there is nothing, imo, fair about being the warrior of light. it is a classic chosen one narrative in many ways, thrusting the main character into the cruel cycle of saving the world through ever-increasing stakes, but never losing grip of it's main theme of hope in all it's messy, ugly, and yes, beautiful iterations.

kit left her home to avoid being thrust into a life that was chosen for her only to become the chosen one of this story. despite her adventurer's heart, she often finds herself isolated, and "all the ways it isn't fair" is snaps and flashes of her grasping onto something she wants for herself while she marches forward, stalwart in her dedication to always do what will serve the greater good.

hilariously, what kit wants was very much not what i wanted, and that complicated both our lives in a way that has been fun to write. her love life, past and present, is a treasure trove of agonizing comedy for me.

have a very rough excerpt of a first draft i wrote back in august that may or may not make the final cut of the story:

"You look like you have something on your mind." As he was wont to do, Thancred surprised her on soundless steps, no small feat in the snow, startling her out of her reverie. He rubbed his hands up and down over her arms when he thought no one was watching. Kit shook her head. "It's nothing that can't wait." His eyes narrowed, disbelief clear on his face, but he didn't argue. "If you say so." He draped his arms lazily around her waist and leaned up just short of kissing her. "Consider me at your disposal should you change your mind." Kit stepped back. "I know you are, and I am grateful for it." It was tempting to try to explain, but Kit knew once she started talking about Elpis there would be no stopping until it was all out. It was still too raw, too recent despite being the distant past. In a way, her distant past. Even thinking about what she'd lost brought a sting to her eyes, even if it wasn't all hers to mourn. She knew Thancred, knew how he'd felt about Emet-Selch. He was nothing if not vocal about it. Despite how Thancred loved her, part of her was certain that he would just not accept or understand everything that now hid in her heart regarding the man she knew she must have loved some twelve thousand years in the past. The man whom she knew beyond a doubt she also loved when she'd very recently killed him. Or, maybe she wasn't giving Thancred enough credit. Despite his loud and even justifiable opinions on Ascians, perhaps he cared about her enough to try to offer her a modicum of empathy. "Actually," she started, bulling her way through her hesitation, "could we go somewhere more private?" He replied with the lift of an eyebrow, then nodded. "Of course." He gestured toward one of the structures that had been converted to a shelter. She took the lead, and was almost there when she caught sight of a flash of fur on a very short body. Stutter-stepping, she stopped, and turned in the direction she'd seen it. "Is that a Loporrit?" She jerked her chin in the direction she was now headed. Thancred followed her line of sight with his own, then frowned. "I believe so." They followed the tracks around the side of the shelter where a sizable group of the moon rabbits gathered. They were looking around excitedly, chattering away, their voices overlapping in their fervor. At their center, fielding their countless questions, was Urianger. What was complicated had just become more so.

reading this now, it's full of buck wild things even by final fantasy standards. i can only imagine how it reads out of that context. enjoy!

[kjscottwrites]

As one of the beta readers, I'm really interested to know what the major changes are going to be for the final draft of Cavernous, if you feel like talking about them!

OOH yeah I'm kinda dying to talk about it actually so ty! I'll try to give an overview without being too spoilery. (Here's a quick link to the progress checklist for anyone else who wants to follow along with these revisions)

I'm relieved to say that there are no major structural/developmental changes, and that basically everything on the docket is small adjustments to internal character voice and dialog to make sure everyone's motivations are as clear as possible, their arcs are distinctive, and the conversations, u know, crackle. Joanna got the most notes and is undergoing the most changes (Which didn't not surprising! She's been a challenging character for me to nail.) This is mostly going to be about turning the dial up on her sense of adventure/enthusiasm and adding more of her backstory (esp. around her parents & upbringing) to contextualize her decision making - in the grand scheme she should still feel like the Joanna that's already in the text, just with more of her to chew on.

In fact, a lot of the changes are about just adding more context and backstory, so while I really am trying not to balloon the word count too much, I've accepted that this thing is going to probably end up sitting between 120k and 125k words. (It's at like 118k currently) Thankfully I already had my meltdown about not being able to scrunch it under 100k, and I've since made my peace with it 🙏 bless

This is getting long, here's a cut!

The two chapters that are getting overhauled, 20 and 28, are both largely about getting Mikah into the story more - he's so important but remains in the background for so much of the story. In both of these I'm doing some cutting - there will be a little less javelin throwing and certain long carriage convos will become shorter carriage convos, and in exchange there will be a little more elder prince drama, so hopefully that's good news!

There's also going to be a lot of shuffling and adjustment going on with the minor and side characters in order to poise readers for book two which is fun! Gareina, the pretty courtesan who helps Joanna, has been renamed to Corina by an overwhelming committee vote of "how the hell do you pronounce that?" and she'll have some different under-the-surface motivations than her current iteration in order to align with her role in book 2, which is small but important. Characters like Sian (Pritta's politically angling cousin), Olma (Stacker's dance partner), and Martem (Mikah's scribe) are all getting slightly expanded roles, also because of their importance in book 2. In exchange, characters who are there but aren't really important (Like Leti, Vanda, Horus, Evie, etc.) will no longer be named or focused on in order to streamline things and make it easier to recall who's who.

I'm also going to be planting little teeny hints of a new character! He'll be very minor in book 1 and very much not minor in book two :) Lots of beta readers noted the ending as being abrupt so I'll be adding a very short epilogue that will serve as a check-in and segue-way as well. Plotting out book 2 ahead of finishing book 1 turned out to be a great strategy, and I'm just desperately trying not to get ahead of myself and start diving into the next installment before I get this first one locked!

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Character Origins: Amon

Amon’s origins are so unnecessarily complicated that it hurts.

Technically speaking, Amon has two separate starting points, and he is so far removed from the initial characterizations of both that it’s honestly kind of insane. The name and general appearance come from a character I designed for Six Shots; he didn’t have much in the way of personality, mainly just existing to be a goon for Marianna and to use his “raise the dead” powers to bring back Yuriko and Randall after they died. He was mostly just a plot device.

When he initially came to be in the rough draft of Rhine City, I actually planned for him to be the anti-villain big bad of the first trilogy. This is where the second inspiration comes in. His initial goal was going to get to betray and kill Eve for all the suffering she caused, and then spend book three working to genocide all angels. This was because he was pulling from an old OC from an untitled fantasy story named Asmodeus Angelslayer, whose main goal should be obvious.

However, over the course of writing the rough draft, as well as planning and writing out some stuff for him in the second book, he started moving away from that initial characterization and became firmly a good guy. Part of this was how Eve changed into being a more tragic anti-villain, part of it was Jack Fairchild shaping up to be a more logical choice for the big bad, and part of it was discomfort at having one of my most prominent POC become a genocidal madman (even if he would be redeemed and not go through with it). Even in the rough draft his charming and affable personality was there, so it wasn’t a huge 180 or anything.

Other aspects of him changed drastically over the course of the drafts as well, helping shape him into what he is now. The biggest thing, which I only dropped partway into writing the draft we’re publishing for your reading pleasure, was that Amon was Nadia’s biological father.

This was still in the story and being vaguely hinted at until a conversation gave me a horrible realization: If Eve is his adoptive mother, and Marianna is Eve’s adopted daughter, that means Marianna dated/had sex with her niece unknowingly. Incest in the books is relegated to fucked up villains and the Deerings only, so I decided that Amon was not her father, which has the added benefit of making a relationship later on less gross and convoluted. The foreshadowing, what little that was there, will still have some sort of payoff, just not a direct blood relation to Amon.

Then there was Amon’s powers. He actually had Tony Sugar’s power at first, creating honey zombies, and even was a famous confectioner in his spare time. This was eventually dropped and these elements created Tony, leaving Amon with no power. I debated for a long time on what he’d have, because it needed to be incredibly unique and powerful but not too busted. I finally settled on him being able to perform impossible feats with magic, but this also led into the above problem. You see, part of the lore of dhampyr is that their powers if they become a full vampire will always have some connection to their vampire parent’s power. In no iteration of Amon did he have any sort of connection to gravity in even the loosest definition, so that fed into his familial connection being removed.

The one thing I’ve always been sure of with him is his name, which comes from the villain from the first season of Legend of Korra. It’s a cool and mysterious name, which suits Amon well, though it’s not as meaningful as it was when he was triple-crossing everyone and had a hidden agenda.

Now there’s one other thing I’ve been sure of with him for a long while, and as long as you’re smarter than Gabby you already know it to a small extent. Amon was the prince in Eve’s origin story, and he was specifically the prince of Atlantis. This is why a lot of his friends like Rhapsody and Tony call him “Namor;” pretty much everyone Amon has told the story to knows he’s the prince. Gabby is, unfortunately, a bit naive. Disney’s Atlantis: The Lost Empire was a huge inspiration on how I described him as well as his tattoos; it’s also why Rasputin couldn’t place where he was from in the prologue.

Amon has been a very frustrating character to get down, but he’s definitely a rewarding one. I’m looking forward to show off more of his relationships with others going forward. Speaking of which, Amon is demisexual. Not sure where else to put this, so I’ll slip it in here at the end.

[exploresmallworlds]

2024 and expectations

It’s a the new year and there is a lot of wrap up posts on social media. There is a generalised feeling that this is the time to start new things and commit to something new including health and wellbeing goals.

I’ve been thinking a bit over the period where I’ve been resting. The holiday period isn’t a celebration of getting through the longest part of the year and we don’t often see our experiences where the heat takes over and it is a holidays to go out and enjoy that.

But more than climate and temperature is the sense of expectations that are and are not explored. I’ve already talked about the expectation to see our stories and experiences being explored and the disconnect we feel when we don’t. Despite these not matching the world around us, we still obsess with them.

In the process of evaluation I was struck by the way that in being more critical of my expectations (through the help of community) I was able to manage outside expectations better. There were serious dips in the way that this manifested. But instead of building new expectations I’m going to continue on these expectations. Without critique many of these expectations are creating problems. An expectation to have security has created inequality, the expectation for connection and community can sometimes feel overwhelming and anxiety ridden when it becomes too much. And these are not the only expectations that need to be examined more. Economists and policy makers have always expected reproductive labour necessary to continue but an informal but effective child strike is causing great concern.

I want to be somewhat of a hypocrite in that I am meeting my expectations for my writing. I have succeeded at the goal I set of getting better with my writing in a structured way. I am on the second draft of a project that I am enthusiastic about. I have evaluated that I want to continue with the progress towards better communication and more joy that exploring the world engenders. I am overwhelmed with the fuller understanding of the place that I live in and learning to appreciate its strange and wonderful places, people and things.

If any expectations that I want to be explicit about, it is the reality that I want to explore more, read more, and learn. I have evaluated that although I have achieved that humble goal I have more progress to go.

Although there is no goals or implications to my writing, I do want to emphasise the progress as a suggestion to explore what you appreciate and are concerned about. Be more mindful when expectations are thrown around and find their genesis and then maybe their iteration into newer, more interesting world could begin. Explore the small worlds that you are present for, your workplace, your environment, houses and institutions. And I hope that when you are confident you’ll share your explorations too.

Even though theses are small and humble it doesn’t remove their significance.

[wozman23]

Alan Wake II - My Spiral into Its Madness

[THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE. AND THEORIES SURROUNDING THE ENDING. IF YOU PLAN ON PLAYING ALAN WAKE II, DON'T READ THIS. GO PLAY IT!!!]

After trudging through every square inch of The Dark Place, credits have rolled on Alan Wake II, and the platinum trophy is mine! It's such a phenomenal game! It's got so many qualities and small details that make it such.

First off, after a decade of hoping for a sequel, I'm just so happy that it has finally come to fruition! And I'm so pleased that its... RETURN... was in such a superb manner. Director Sam Lake himself said that he's “happy” that this is the Alan Wake II we got. It wasn't Remedy's first draft. Both Quantum Break and Control spun off of Alan Wake failed sequel concepts. Over the last 13 years Remedy has honed their skills, and introduced and iterated on many concepts since the original Alan Wake. And the result here is a culmination of all those years of hard work.

Connected universes and multiverses are hip right now. This has been a concept in video games for quite some time, with people suggesting that merely an Easter egg like a newspaper mentioning a “deadly virus” in Uncharted 3 means that The Last of Us and Uncharted coexist. Some people even go as far as to say that because there's also a Precursor Orb collectible in Uncharted, Jak & Daxter also reside in that universe. At a certain point, it becomes a bit absurd. But Remedy has really found unique and interesting ways to tackle the concept of a shared universe that always feels organic and never forced.

Remedy doesn't own all of its IP, particularly Max Payne or Quantum Break. Yet they've found creative ways to incorporate characters and ideas from both of those franchises. And it feels as if these plans have been in place since their Alan Wake's inception, if not earlier. I never played their Max Payne games (only Max Payne 3) but I'm hoping the talks of them remaking them changes that. Because I'm really excited to see not only what they were about, but how they'll almost uncertainly tie even more things to their connected universe.

Alex Casey is certainly a nod to Max Payne. They share many similarities, even down to the Sam Lake likeness. Yet within Alan Wake, he's also just the lead character of Alan's past novels. Does he even really exist? Was he simply birthed into the world by Alan's writing? Multiple times, events contradict themselves so that were never really sure what the truth is. And I think that's one of the most fascinating things about the Alan Wake franchise, and their other works by extension. Every single character in the world is a walking contradiction, an enigma. Alan Wake, Thomas Zane, Alex Casey, Saga Anderson, The Anderson brothers, Tim Breaker... every character intertwines like a chaotic ball of yarn.

I think this is never more clear than with Thomas Zane. At face value, he's an auteur, a muti-hyphenate, who became trapped in the Dark Place after his own events at Cauldron Lake. In the original game, he acts as Alan's guiding force, often a deus ex machina. Who or what exactly he is or was was one of my biggest questions entering the sequel. I'm still not sure. Oddly, he looks just like Alan. Ahti, an eccentric character we'll talk about later, even refers to Alan as Tom. And much of Tom's work is credited to Alan Wake, either through their Americanized names, or Finnish names. It wouldn't be crazy to say that Tom doesn’t even exist, and is merely a plot device, a character created by Alan himself to deal with his own situation. Yet somehow the inverse could also be completely true. Maybe Tom created Alan to deal with his own trials of being trapped in the Dark Place. Maybe he wants Alan to replace him in The Dark Place...? Then there's the Clicker, a switch that apparently was cut off of a lamp that Tom had, that Alan also had a kid to help him combat his own fears of the dark. It's also known as an OOP – an object of power – thanks to Control's Federal Bureau of Control, postulated to somehow act as the key to making written art come true. The ambiguity and overlapping with everything is both intriguing and maddening. And that nebulousness is exactly why I love Alan Wake and Remedy so much.

The same questioning could be applied to every other character. Has everything just been created by Alan to deal with his situation? Is that situation even real, or all in Alan's head? How do you tell the truth from the lies? At the end of the original game, The Dark Presence, manifested as Barbara Jagger, tries to convince Alan that his entire world is a delusion, a ruse created by him so that he doesn't have to deal with the fact that he was actually the one responsible for the death of his wife. It's a short interaction, and it's brushed off by Alan as an attempt by her to stop him from defeating her, but who's to say that it's not the truth? Maybe everything we're playing is merely a dream. Maybe Alan's bad temper or addictions either drove her away or got her killed...

Alan Wake II really doesn't answer a lot of questions. It more-so just doubles down on this approach of contradictions and confusion. I'm really no more certain who Alan, Tom, and Alice are, or whether or not they even all exist. And now we've just added more characters and more questions.

I tried to go in blind. I really only knew that Alan was in The Dark Place and there was a second playable character, Saga Anderson. I feel like I put a few details together early in the game as to who we were interacting with. I knew we'd be running into Tom. Yet despite knowing Saga's name, her lineage reveal took me by complete surprise! I think the differences in race from the Anderson brothers made me never even consider that. However, because of it, I do have a theory on one of the game's biggest unanswered questions: Who is Saga's father?

Mr. Door, Warlin, is a wild card. We really don't know anything about how he operates or what his motives are. But I have some theories! Some of which I came to. Others which I agree with after falling down the rabbit hole of internet debates. Warlin is Saga's father. There's really not much to go on. Tor and Door himself say a few things that seem to suggest it. Then there's the man researching Door, Tim Breaker, played by Shawn Ashmore – who also gave his likeness to the lead in Quantum Break, Jack Joyce. I don't remember a lot about Quantum Break, but his use of white boards can't be coincidence. Nor can his name which is one character shy of “time breaker.” This has to be another situation of skirting IP. Tim does have family in the world of Alan Wake via the Breaker family in the Bright Falls Sheriff Office. Are these two characters one in the same, mirror images in opposing universes? I'm curious to finding out more about this as well, and what role Tim plays in everything.

The internet also helped with with a few theories as well. Early on, Tim mentions a “redhead.” I assumed it was a reference to Jesse Faden, the protagonist from Control. But it would also reference Beth Wilder from Quantum Break. In these situations, both characters share character models, which isn't unheard of for multiple project from video game studios. But here it just feels like it has to mean more. Could they also be multidimensional counterparts? Clearly as is the case with Casey and Breaker, names don't have to be the same. Yet the person essentially is.

Then on the flip side of things, you have characters who don't look alike, but feel like they're counterparts as well. Mr. Door and Quantum Break's Mr. Hatch share some interesting similarities. Door... Hatch...synonymous...? The unfortunate thing here is that I'd assume Mr. Door was originally intended for Lance Reddick, the actor who played Mr. Martin Hatch, before his untimely death. (Lance is mentioned in the credits.) But a recast was required. Again Martin... Warlin... all to similar as well...?

One thing is for sure: I need to play Quantum Break again.

Details like that also make me consider some other absurd theories. Are Alan and Tom counterparts from differing dimensions? Perhaps either Alan or Tom doesn't truly belong in the dimension we're witnessing. Maybe that crossing of universes is responsible for so much of the chaos, similar to the show Fringe... which also featured multiple dimensions and Lance Reddick. Let's make it canon!

Ahti probably knows, and he's perhaps the most interesting character at this point. Appearing first in Control, as a janitor, he seems to be omnipresent and all knowing. He reminds me a lot of Tom from the original game. The janitor trope has come up many times before: Neil Flynn in Scrubs, Mop Girl in Disenchantment, Ahti... what's that about? Now, finding his way into the world of Alan Wake, he just creates more questions, straddling the line between eccentric old Finnish man and god. Him singing was great. Actor Martti Suosalo who portrays him won a BAFTA for his role in Control, and deserves so much praise here as well. I just watched a podcast with Sam Lake talking about how talented he is as an actor and singer in Finland.

Maybe I need to replay Control as well... There's also so much lore here about Altered World Events, Objects of Power, and parautilitarians to further explore. As well as plenty of direct references to Alan Wake that may now be a bit more enlightening. But back to the the all knowing and the omnipresent.

The Old Gods of Asgard occupied that role in the original game, and still do somewhat. Here we learn that they're immune to the effects of Alan's writing, and by extension so is Saga. While her mother, Freya, is dead in this time line, she would certainly be as well, should she or one of her doubles appear.

I love The Old Gods of Asgard so much, as characters. I'm curious to see what's in store for them considering the conclusion of the game. But I mainly like them for the musical contributions that come from the real life band Poets of the Fall! Remedy has done a terrific job commissioning music throughout the franchise. The songs that served as transitions between chapters in the first game were great. Here, they're even better! Not only is the Old Gods stuff amazing, but the other collection of artists really impressed even though they're outside of my typical genre of choice: rock. I'm not even sure what genre to put a lot of the stuff in. Many of the tracks feel kind of industrially, like a female version of Nine Inch Nails, or maybe Billie Eilish. And their excellence makes me want to explore more artist in that vein.

I talked about this last time when I wrote about Alan Wake. More games need to commission musicians to create unique songs for them. Everything here feels custom crafted for Alan Wake. Similarly, one of my other favorite games, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - which I'm still hoping somehow gets a sequel after nearly 20 years - also commissioned a band, Cold, to write the song "In My Mind," and it was also perfectly executed.

I think Remedy's dedication to partnering the project with excellent music is also indicative of another of the strengths of Alan Wake II. It's a story about an artist, that values artist. The overall art direction is beautiful despite it dire and macabre tone. It's intermingled with beauty. I just read today on twitter about how all of the graffiti scattered throughout The Dark Place was created in collaboration with graffiti artist, Irwin Suimuri. So many times, the art and artists in games do not get the credit they deserve, so it's lovely to see people appreciating some of the finer details in this large project.

This reliance on art and sound really comes to a head at the point that many are calling the game's best moment: it's musical section. Apparently it was almost cut because it was hard to execute, but Sam stubbornly stuck to his guns and made sure it shined. I had a grin on my face the entire time, especially watching both Alan and Sam dance. (Was it Casey or Sam himself since he's also appeared in the world?)

The first game had glimpses of humor, mainly through the comic relief that Alan's agent, Barry, provided. Because of that, he's one of my favorite comic characters in all of gaming. One of my only disappointments with Alan Wake II is that he never appears. Yet somehow the game is even funnier. It's also far darker and more gruesome. So that dichotomy is even more impressive.

There were also the Koskela Brothers, who made some genuinely gut bustingly funny videos. Jaakko's fumbling of the pronunciation of quinceañera was probably the most hilarious moment in the game. Their inclusion was much appreciated. And there's the whole other rabbit hole to go down about their parallel to the Huotari Well incident which makes one wonder who or what is exactly real in the world. Plus, the town of Watery and Coffee World were great additions as well. There's nothing better than a decrepit theme park. Pat Maine had some fun, odd radio shows as well, obsessing over Wendy Davis and her Family Beef Jerky. Hickory teriyaki! It could be that he's losing it, or maybe like the Anderson family, he's immune to the changes in the story and remembering the past.

Another common praise that I see coming up time and time again is how the game seems to project a love for Finland, and feel Finnish. The platinum trophy itself is labeled "Sisu," which is defined by Wikipedia as "a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness... to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English. In contemporary psychology, sisu is shown to have both beneficial and harmful sides which can be measured using a designated scale."

The Koskela Brothers, Ahti often slipping into Finnish and singing "Yötön Yö," Wake and Zane sometimes being referred to as Seine and Viekko. It all makes me want to move to Finland, or at the very least, learn the language just to see if they've tried or try to slip anything past us English speakers.

Another thing I did know was that the game was going to stray from its original design quite a bit, which was a concern for me going in. There was a lot more emphasis on exploration (and thankfully less collectibles). Combat wasn't as center stage as the original either, with encounters feeling fewer and farther between, in favor of new, unique investigating and writing mechanics. Overall it didn't feel anywhere near as action driven, and because of that combat seemed a bit more one dimensional. While there were probably just as many weapons, and more choices for explosives, it didn't feel as if the game was encouraging you to experiment with the combat mechanics as much. So I mainly relied of my favorite guns, and the occasional flare. Wolves, which were a scrapped enemy type from the first game were present, but with their middling execution, I think I'd have preferred keeping the uniqueness of the various possessed objects the original had, whether they were beams or barrels, or a menacing tractor or train. One feature that I'm glad got axed though was the driving mechanics, which were very unrefined in the original. I did really enjoy the inclusion of audiovisual “jump scares.” On more than one occasion I got spooked. And the atmosphere, particularly in the Overlaps, where worlds felt as if they were blending together was a really cool touch. I do think I'd have still been okay with a form more similar to the original, but I do know some criticized it. The changes did really encourage me to really take my time with everything. I tried to explore every nook and cranny over my leisurely 31 hour play though. Letting the game breathe more gave it a nice ebb and flow. I often didn't want to put it down, staying up way past my bedtime, exchanging my enjoyment within it for the tiredness I'd face the next day at work. I managed to find nearly every collectible, solve every rhyme, and close out most of Saga's cases. There were a few things I used the internet to track down, I missed petting one deer, and a few cases weren't closed. But I enjoyed every second of it! I also really enjoyed Alan's portrayal in this installment. In the first game, he was unwavering and pretty clear headed. But 13 years in The Dark Place and with The Dark Presence - regardless of how long it has felt to him - really started driving him mad. We started to see cracks. I assume even the smallest details are crafted by Sam Lake. I felt like the Alan Wake is and has always been Scratch twist was brilliant. There's this back and forth about who is who, and who is writing Return, and even Initiation. And early on to me it felt like Alan's flowery prose was swapped for clunkier lines of thought and sentence fragments. I thought, "Boy, Scratch is such a shit writer." Turns out, it's probably just Alan going crazy, or his mind being invaded by The Dark Presence. At some point it's also mentioned that no one has ever returned from Cauldron Lake unaffected, which should have been some foreshadowing that the real Alan was never going to return completely as himself. Yet up until seconds before Scratch escaped from his jail cell, I assumed an unaffected Alan. Then later, there's the ultimate payoff that the two are one-in-the-same when it's revealed that the thing tormenting Alice is actually not Alan's doppelganger who made it to her reality, but just Alan bleeding into that dimension.

It's not very often that I finish a game and question what the hell I'm going to do next. I've got Super Mario Bros. Wonder ready to go. Jusant is ready on Game Pass. And Spider-Man 2 - which despite being from my all-time favorite developer - which got put on the back burner because I wanted to prioritize Alan Wake II, should be on the way since I picked it up a few days ago thanks to Wario64 mentioning a sale online. But I really don't want to play anything right now. Its a odd phenomenon that happens every so often after a truly great game. I saw someone else online say this as well. The only other time I can think of this happening in recent memory is with The Last of Us, a series I regard as the best ever. I'm kind of sad Alan Wake has now come and gone. In listening to the soundtrack afterwards, I began to weep seconds into RAKEL's "Follow You into the Dark." It's nearly an alien feeling for me. But the finality of finishing up the game and being so grateful for it existence really got to me. And I think those companion music pieces probably exemplify best what makes the game so damn great. Whereas most games feel like games comprised of various works of art, broken down into chunks like art design, sound design, visual effects, etc., Alan Wake II feels like the inverse. It's a collection of beautiful works of art, like custom songs, and custom graffiti, and all of those other more mundane components that go into making a game, that somehow work together to form this amazing game with a riveting story.

I'm sure I'll pick up one of those other games soon. With Mario I expect a series of levels of varing degrees of difficulty. It's a tried and true formula that we've seen in gaming for 30+ years, with a fresh coat of paint. With Spider-Man 2 I expect the modern AAA game: fancy graphics and effects, a large open world, and plenty of side missions to keep me busy and extend play time. It will be Spider-Man 1 with a few more bells and whistles. In both cases, those experiences will probably be fairly "game-y." By contrast, Alan Wake II was created with such a bold vision, reckless ambition, and an overall love that made it feel completely unique, transcendental of video games, and more like an experience than a cliche video game.

Right now all I want to do is talk about Alan Wake II, and go down the rabbit hole of reading about others' experiences with it and their own theories.

It's such a treasure. It definitely wouldn't exist in its current state had it come out around 2013. The wait was horrendous. But like Sam, I'm so happy it exists in 2023. The thirteen years it took felt like an eternity. But during that eternity Remedy continued to toil away at quietly adding more to the Alan Wake lore even when they were busy with other projects, not working directly on the franchise. Alan Wake II feels like a great sequel that builds upon the strengths of a great game. But it also feels like it contains great elements from the projects that they've held us over with since the original. The seamless blend of live action videos feels like the evolution of ideas in Quantum Break. And the connected universe idea pulls heavily from Control. Without those games, Alan Wake II may just not have been quite as special as it turned out to be.

That being said, I hope it performs well commercially, enough to justify a sequel within a much shorter time period. Because I'm so obsessed with the world, and Remedy's grand schemes. I'd like to know who Mr. Door, Tim Breaker, and Ahti actually are. I'd like to get a better idea of what their motives are, as well as those of Tom. I'd like to see what the crazy old Old Gods are up to. I'd like to know if Logan is okay. I'd like to see if Alan and Alice can triumph and return to a normal life. I'd like to know if the Bookers, the latest artists to visit Bright Falls, will play a larger role. I'd like to learn more about all the cool little details and ways that Alan Wake, Control, Quantum Break, and Max Payne intersect. I don't expect much of that to actually be answered, because a lot of the fun of the franchise is pondering the unknowns and unknowables. So maybe I'm really just looking forward to another riveting story, more great music and art, and even more questions that make me wonder what the hell is really going on.

BRING ON ALAN WAK3!!! Hopefully before I'm 53.

[computertrust]

Archicad vs revit

#ARCHICAD VS REVIT HOW TO#

#ARCHICAD VS REVIT SOFTWARE#

#ARCHICAD VS REVIT DOWNLOAD#

The original graphic standards were solidly grounded in AutoCAD, refreshed with a layer of Revit, now with an Archicad overlay of more options. Office standards were a typical patchwork.

#ARCHICAD VS REVIT HOW TO#

“It includes simple things like where to find different commands and how to personalize the interface,” said Jerrod. Tom Simmons, Business Director at ARCHVISTA, provided documentation “cheat sheets” for people with a Revit background to help make the switch to Archicad smoother. Today everyone in the office has at least one project underway in Archicad, while projects started in Revit will continue through completion.

#ARCHICAD VS REVIT SOFTWARE#

“There’s a level of design very evident in the work that we do.” Archicad was a perfect fit for their portfolio.Īnd with integrated construction services, Archicad provides a software platform from concept through completion for design-build. “Design is the motto of our firm, you can look around the Santa Cruz area and tell which projects are Fuse projects,” said Jerrod. Initial hand sketching is still a critical tool but design moves into the computer sooner with Archicad.įluid capabilities to explore design through massing iterations and studies supports the firm’s design focus. “You really have to sketch out a lot of ideas and need a better understanding of the design before you bring it into Revit,” said Jerrod. Engineering coordination is not a major factor in these projects. Two key factors in their final decision were their project types and the firm’s design focus.ĩ0% of projects designed and built by Fuse Architecture are high-end custom residential. It was clearly silly to have both systems in an office of ten users. The partners at Fuse saw that too, and so began a six month debate over whether to fully switch to Archicad. “Very early on using Archicad, I recognized it had SketchUp qualities,” said Jerrod. It became clear to everyone that Archicad was a more powerful design tool than Revit. Jerrod’s colleagues had questions as they watched him work. While a leap beyond computer aided drafting (CAD) programs, Revit’s history as an engineering tool meant it was more focused on documentation than design. What everyone knows about Revit is BIM, parametrically coordinated information drawn in 2D to create a 3D model. Instead, Jerrod’s dilemma became a side by side comparison between Archicad and Revit at this small architect-led design-build firm in Santa Cruz, California. “Rather than refresh my memory on Revit I’d last used 8 years before in school, I used Archicad and committed to taking Revit classes on-line to catch up,” said Jerrod. He’d been working in Archicad and there was no time to re-learn Revit on the job. Verdict? That’s simple.When Jerrod Nicholls joined Fuse Architecture, he immediately jumped in as PM on three different projects.

#ARCHICAD VS REVIT DOWNLOAD#

ArchiCAD has been playing catch up for a few years now, but since is acquisition of Twimmotion and Unreal Engine, we are going to see ArchiCAD renders really take to their own in the coming years.Ī very important note is if you’re an Apple user, ArchiCAD runs natively on mac, whilst Revit requires you to download parallel or any other windows emulator. If 3D is all you care about, well these two projects are where you should be looking. Whilst ArchiCAD inadvertently requires you to download a few extra plug ins that cost just the little bit too much. Revit has a much better documentation platform set up ready to go. As documentation tools they each bring their own strengths to the table. We breakdown the price of both Revit and ArchiCAD, we investigate the conceptual design capabilities of each and well as their parametric design limitations. Today we look at the benefits of learning ArchiCAD vs the benefits of learning Revit. But when they are the two industry leaders, it quickly becomes hard to pick which one is better. Plants, Candles, Frames: Kmart (Australia)ĪrchiCAD and Revit are both very power BIM software tools. My Setup and everything mentioned in this video: ArchiCAD or Revit in 2020? It has been the age old question for decades, now its time to settle the debate.

[meruz]

any advice for comic layouts?? i really like the way you do ur comics

this is a really interesting question!! and it took me a lot of thinking as to how to answer.... I don’t know if I can give advice per se because I feel like I’m still figuring out a comics process myself, but I can try to walk you through what I’ve done thus far

Lets take this one page comic..

my comic process tends to be 2 tiered. once I have an idea of what I want to draw, I have a brainstorming/sketch phase where I will essentially just jot down whatever layouts and images first come to mind and experiment with them, making a bunch of drawings that have minor tweaks (shown above as Draft 1).You can see I really wanted to sell the deadpan expression in the last panel so I sketched out a couple different iterations. And I wanted to explore what the latte art would look like and how it would transform. A lot of this is not very well drafted, just ugly shorthand just to see what resonates with me visually. I generally do this on paper (often with pen) so I don’t feel the compulsion to fiddle with any particular drawing too much. less focus on perfecting and more focus on iterating.

Once I think I’ve got a good idea of the visuals, I’ll bring it into the computer where I can copy paste and move things around with transform tools in order to come up with a rough layout. My thought process kind of goes like this

I know I want the 1st and 4th panel to hit hard so I prioritize them in the layout and make them break the gutters. the other panels I keep contained and focus on pacing/contrast to tell their story. I think a comic page can generally have only one or two big moments before it becomes cluttered so it’s important for me to establish those first and work around it.

Similar goes for a slightly longer comic.

The process remains pretty much the same. This one is a scene adapted from a videogame cutscene so I’m working from a bit of a script and a bit of the cutscene compositions. I spend a bunch of time at my sketchbook brainstorming and I figure out pretty early on I’ll probably need two pages between the dialogue I want to fit in, the set up of the threat, and the big line drop. I know I want a panel where asch is standing in the middle of the room surrounded by enemies so I do some sketches to test out his silhouette and try to figure out if I want him to be half turned to the camera or fully turned when he says his big line. By the end of it I’m starting to piece together a layout.

Thought process is as follows:

Every piece of art has to be planned around the format through which its consumed and for comics on the internet its either a scroll or a click. I’m posting this comic in two pages so I want to plan for my impact to be made on clicking from one page to the next which spurs me to put the close-up at the head of the 2nd page. Since I want to build tension up to that reveal I consciously decide to make most of the panels on the first page small and obscure stuff like faces so things feel rushed and uncertain. for comics small panel = fast and big panel = slow. in terms of how the reader processes the information. I save the single big panel on the 1st page for the establishing shot of the conflict and add in a panel at the bottom to start the proverbial drum beat for the 2nd pg reveal.

I make the 2nd panel on the 2nd page a big one to let the page turn line ring in the air and also to solidly establish how the perspective of the battle turns when you realize the character’s resolve.

Of course, I didn’t think any of that stuff to myself as I was making it. I think a common misconception I want to dispel is that, contrary to how it appears when people break down comic pages, few artists will explicitly plan out the way your eye is supposed to move across the page. I think more likely is that if you read a lot of comics and you draw a lot of comics you form a visual (non-verbal! often unconscious) understanding of what has impact and what will create tension and which speechbubbles to read first. And putting it to paper is just trial and error coming off of that instinct. Maybe. I don’t know.

Sorry this is really rambly. And I don’t really have any advice... I guess if I had to sum it up... be aware of what you want the reader to focus on, where you want the reader to gasp and where you want them to laugh. what you want the reader to know vs not know. this sort of stuff should inform your decision making the most.

Also don’t take my advice. There’s a lot of people who are way better at this stuff than me. I recommend reading comics you like and studying them! And heres some resources also I guess

- Understanding Comics/Reinventing Comics/Making Comics by Scott Mccloud

I specifically had Making Comics on my shelf (one of my RISD classes forced me to buy it lol) but the others are great too. I think some may look at the Scott Mccloud books and call them basic but that’s just another way to say /fundamental/. They’re great at explaining the bare bones of comics and entertaining to boot so always worth at least a look, I think.

- Framed Ink by Marcos Mateu-Menstre

This book is less about comics and more about general visual storytelling... iirc Mateu-menstre mainly does storyboarding professionaly. But it’s a great overview of the composition of visual storytelling. This guy is also like a perspective extraordinaire.

- Wally Wood’s 22 panels that always work

This is just this one cheat sheet image but it’s worth studying. Wally Wood was a Silver Age american comics artist who made this page with his assistant in part to coach younger Marvel comics artists.

OK IM DONE TALKING :’ ) happy october everyone

[mira--mira]

One obvious for the ask game. The main protagonist; Naruto Uzumaki and Izuku Midoriya.

@shiryusamarkanda it’s so nice to hear from you again! <3 

I totally didn’t forget to post this and had it fully finished in my drafts for days...totally. 

Naruto

What I love about them:

Naruto's a bratty kid who’s not afraid to speak up and challenge something he thinks is "wrong". This, of course, is part 1 Naruto. I actually like when he's a bit insensitive without being explicitly malicious bc its very fitting for his background/how he grew up but also gives him a clear path forward as he learns how to work as a team/starts to grow. It wasn’t exactly a smart move, but I really liked how he continued to challenge Zabuza in the Wave Arc saying “he’s still my enemy” after Kakashi told him to back off. This is all good and strong characterization that, to me, was more often endearing than it wasn’t. Naruto had goals and a purpose and in early Naruto that was still clear.

What I hate about them:

Part 2 (Shippuden) Naruto. There’s a lot that goes into this but the core deviation is getting away from the underdog story. In Shippuden Naruto is the son of the 4th, the Child of Prophecy, a reincarnation of the Sage of Six Path’s kid, makes friends with Kurama, and has the most OP power of the them all: Talk no Jutsu. What makes all of this even worse is Naruto went from a loveable bratty kid to an insufferable messiah figure. To be “perfect” his natural personality is shorn down until he’s only allowed occasional “stupid” mistakes rather than mistakes that emerge from his characterization. This also makes his ideological “wins” with villains...completely meaningless. Shippuden Naruto doesn’t really...have beliefs. He wants to be hokage and bring Sasuke back to the village. “Being hokage” was fine as a kid but I expected the progression into shippuden to be “what kind of hokage do I want to be?” This seemed natural bc we get in the Wave arc Naruto pushing against “what a shinobi is supposed to be: a tool” from Haku and declaring he’d make his own ninja way. Flashforward to the chunin arcs: hates Orochimaru for messing with Sasuke (esp when he eventually leaves to join him) and Neji for treating Hinata the way he did until he learned more about the Hyuga before declaring it wasn’t fair and you had to fight against fate and destiny. Tsunade’s arc was more about reemphasizing the village was something worth protecting and the Sasuke retrieval arc, while focused on Sasuke, at least kept up this theme. But these moments of growth are only alluded to in shippuden and by the time the war arc and ending come around...nothing changes. Naruto didn’t upset the status quo, he only maintained it. And once that ending was established it was a lot easier to go back and pick out exactly when his characterization started to fall through and the weird messiah figure took over instead. Part of this, imo, is the focus of his ultimate goal being “bring Sasuke back to the village” rather than understand what Sasuke is doing/why he’s doing it and then deciding to help him or stop him. 

Favorite Moment/Quote:

“You’re cute when you’re chubby” [in reference to the frog purse] 

I really love the quiet moments Naruto has and watching him live out his daily life. The frog purse is absolutely adorable and I love seeing it crop up time and time again. A close second is when Gai kicks Jiraiya in the face and, a short time later, offers Naruto the green tracksuit which he’s appreciative of. 

What I would like to see more focus on:

In Part 2 Naruto having a long-term goal alongside bringing Sasuke back to the village or trying to seriously think about why Sasuke does what he does and how that would potentially affect the plot. If I could go back to the very start, keeping the actual heart and intent of an underdog ninja story rather than everything turning into superpowered mecha/kaiju battles and aliens from space this is the big point that I’d want to address. In general, I really like fics that focus on training and give him a range of jutsu besides spamming shadow clones and rasengan variants. I’ve said this before, but if Naruto really wants to keep the “number 1 unpredictable ninja” moniker, learning a variety of small, diverse jutsu and using them in interesting/creative ways would be the way to go rather than spamming the aforementioned two. I also really like fics that buckle down and just go ham and create their own variety of jutsu, especially if it’s small practical jutsu rather than the latest and greatest OP Power #839281 kind of jutsu. 

What I would like to see less focus on:

The messiah figure. Talk no Jutsu. The obsession with having a morally pure hero in a world that routinely employed child soldiers and put them in war. I understand Naruto was a shonen manga first and foremost but like...this was the setting/world Kishimoto decided on having. However, I will say some fics take it to far on the other extreme for my taste, creating a edgy nihilistic Naruto that hates everyone and everything. 

Favorite pairing with:

Uhh...I don’t actually have a strong feeling for this one LOL. The most I’ve read has been SasuNaru (Sasuke x Naruto) because I’ve found really interesting set-ups. I like the ship and it does have a decent amount of backing in canon but it’s the little moments (or my ability to see possible little moments) that really make or break a ship for me. SasuNaru is all Big Declarations and I struggle to see how they’d actually settle down post Shippuden time into something sustainable. My favorite iterations of the ship is focused when they’re genin age and have a better relationship...but then I recognize that this is getting closer and closer to Hashimada. The other big things I run into with shipping Naruto with Sasuke is 1. Sasuke needs a shit ton of therapy/willingness to process his family related trauma and 2. Naruto needs a good support network/family outside of a romantic partner because it personally makes me uncomfortable to read ‘you’re my one and only’ (here being: I have no other friends, family, loved ones outside of you). It’s a ship that can work but it’s not my personal OTP.  

Favorite friendship:

Canon/OoT - Naruto & Sakura

I do have a softspot for fics where Naruto realizes his crush on Sakura is actually a desire to have friends/someone to care about him and then they do become close. In canon Sasuke was clearly the favorite of Kakashi (if chunin arc is kept the same/similar and he takes him away for the month to train) I really like Naruto and Sakura sticking together and trying to help each other. They’re both loud and can wind each other up but Naruto can help Sakura relax a bit from her rigid view of herself and she can help keep him on track/encourage him. 

NOTP:

Again, no real strong opinions here. Probably harems? I remember seeing a lot of those a couple years ago and I fundamentally dislike the harem so it will never be ‘done well’ to my personal taste. 

Favorite headcanon:

Naruto is smart, he just needs things to be explained in a way he can understand. 

I’m not a fan of ‘he’s the smartest person in the entire world’ trope but Naruto is creative, he created the oiroke jutsu before he graduated to genin and has a lot of stubborn determination. He’s just really bad at typical ‘book learning’ and traditional testing and he’s not a genius/prodigy like Sasuke or Neji.

.

.

Read line for BNHA manga spoilers

Izuku

What I love about them:

He’s such a smart kid and while he’s unsure/insecure about himself he still does his best. Honestly the premise of BNHA is amazing and I was so excited to watch this little quirky (heh) boy do his best and outthink heroes, utilizing his intelligence and knowledge of quirks. I really love early Izuku and how he has to approach situations from a different angle bc he grew up quirkless/can’t properly handle OFA. The sports festival arc remains one of my personal favorites and really showed his ingenuity. I also really love that Izuku is openly emotional, he cries, he gets super happy about things, he’s angry, he’s sad, etc.  

What I hate about them:

Why do stories insist on calling themselves “underdogs” when for a majority of the time, they’re not? Or not as much as they would be from the original premise? Look, TDP came about exactly bc BNHA was billed as ‘quirkless boy becomes number 1 hero’ it changed rapidly into ‘Izuku gets the strongest quirk but can’t control it’ and while I was...disappointed with that, it happened so quickly I wasn’t really upset. Fast forward to apparently OFA has...what seven(?) quirks inside it and I just...it’s frustrating. Even more the longer we go the more Izuku strays away from a character that is forced to use his intelligence and creatively outthink his opponents and instead becomes...I just have to hit him harder! The Muscular fight already inched towards this but the Overhaul fight just felt like Super Shonen Smack-down 728329. Which, isn’t an inherent problem, it just doesn’t match up to the expectations I had about BNHA I had at the start and how I hoped the series would go. For a character trait that I hate: Izuku is stupidly self-sacrificing. It makes sense with his character but he shoots beyond what is safe and reasonable and I wish there would be more internal emphasis on the question “is it better to save one person today if it meant I couldn’t save ten people tomorrow?” I think he’d choose the former or forsake the question altogether (we touched briefly on this during the overhaul arc with Eri) but I think it’s a serious question needs to be touched on (or I just need to go back and rewatch things again LOL) 

Favorite Moment/Quote:

See entire sports festival arc. I don’t really have a favorite moment because I love the entire arc and we get so much out of it. 

What I would like to see more focus on:

Quirkless Izuku. There’s already a lot of fics, but I really do love them. It deviates a bit, but I do like the creativity of giving Izuku his own unique quirk and then exploring what he can do with that/how it changes canon. Really I want Izuku to keep his original characterization and not trade his smarts for more punching power or deus ex machinas for quirks hidden inside of OFA. If OFA!Izuku is kept, I like story ideas where he still has to rely on means outside of his quirk. Preferably this is isn’t because he injuries himself so much, but I like toying with the idea that Izuku never gets OFA to All Might’s level so he really does have to make the quirk his own and still rely heavily on his intelligence and quirk journals to become the number 1. 

What I would like to see less focus on:

Quirks hidden inside OFA. Strength should have been enough, it was already billed as the most powerful quirk of all. I know this is a common theme for shonen stories, and I don’t mean to harp specifically on Izuku, but again the premise of BNHA was an underdog story. 

Favorite pairing with:

Tododeku (Todoroki Shouto x Midoriya Izuku) 

Friends to lover and battle couples lads, I am weak to them. I like the contrast between their personalities as well as origins (Shouto being the number 2′s (now 1) kid and Izuku from a quiet civilian background). At the end of the sports festival arc both of them are extremely well characterized and it’s easy for me to imagine how their relationship progresses from there and how they can support each other and help each other grow. It’s a very sweet and wholesome ship the way I write and read it and it’s v cute.

Favorite friendship:

Canon- Midoriya Izuku & Uraraka Ochaco & Iida Tenya

I really like the core trio and think their interactions are really sweet. They balance each other out well and their friendship was immediately believable to me. I also like later when Tsuyu and Shouto start to get included in the group and out of the “main” core friends I’m endlessly entertained whenever Izuku and Tokoyami interact with one another. (This is also because I love my bird son, but you know.)

TDP - Midoriya Izuku & Ashido Mina or Midoriya Izuku & Hatsume Mei

Really, I love all of TDP’s kiddos interactions. Their chemistry is one of my favorite things about the fic and all the villain school kiddos meshed really well and had hilarious interactions. Mina and Mei are my faves but just barely. Mina came out of left field for the fic but she plays a similar role that Ochaco does in canon as a usual source of positivity (but unlike Ochaco with additional chaos). She’s Izuku’s first real friend even before starting HIVVE and wouldn’t hesitate to call Izuku her cousin as she views him as family. In return, Mina’s someone Izuku can completely count and depend on if necessary. Mei is...Mei. Izuku is her best “useful customer” and it’s actually terrifying how similar their thoughts are, just Mei has an (un)healthy dose of Hazmat’s insanity and her own business acumen added into the mix. They have slightly different fields of interest but are intellectual equals that work well together and that’s something new to both of them.

NOTP:

Bakudeku (Bakugo Katsuki x Midoriya Izuku)

It’s unhealthy. Unless it’s an AU that changes what the start of their relationship is like, Bakugo and Izuku will always have a toxic friendship to me and I can’t ever see them in a healthy relationship. Both of them have a lot to learn and I am of the opinion that Bakugo should get the opportunity to grow and become a good person and leave behind his past as a bully. However, I’m also of the opinion that no matter how good of a person a bully becomes their victim is never required to absolve them of past wrongdoings. Izuku and Bakugo were friends once, their relationship turned toxic, and now it’s in the interest of both of them to grow apart from one another. I even hesitate to really say they’ll be friends again because the early characterization of their relationship was so imbalanced to me, but for the right author and the right work I may see them being on good terms. It’s still a romantic relationship that I dislike. 

Favorite headcanon:

Crack headcanon? Izuku does have a natural quirk, the force of his tears is clearly superpowered 😂 Regular headcanon, (that is canon in TDP and kindaaa in regular canon(?)) when Izuku gets really engrossed in a super stressful fight he focuses on what will work rather than what is moral. It has...mixed results. 

.

For the ask game. 

[athingofvikings]

I don’t usually do “call-out” posts, but this case is particularly egregious.  It’s not strictly plagiarism, but it definitely qualifies as some form of creative dishonesty, and I need to vent on it.

So last night (Nov 15, 2020), I saw that my “Related Works” tab on AO3 had iterated up a digit and went to investigate.

What I saw made my blood boil.

“An Englishman Among Vikings” by Heinkelboy05

Checking the comments, I found that, unsurprisingly, the serial liar had lied again, saying, flat out, that he hadn’t worked with me on his story.

So.  

Let me get the record straight.

Here is his first message on ffnet, note the date:

May 27, 2018 

Hello there. This is Heinkelboy05. I'm a 21 year old college student studying to become a history teacher. I'm a big history buff and I try to incorporate it into my stories. My current story is one based on the game Valkyria Chronicles set in an alternate version of 1935. It's mostly historical though with some twists into it. Anyway, before I bore you with anymore details, just bought I'd let you know that I've been reading your story and it inspired me to try and do something similar here for HTTYD. I'm still working on it and trying to get some historical background and such. It's going to have historical information but also some small twists here and there as well. Still working a bit on finding historical information on some things. This one is going to be set earlier in the Viking Era. Just thought I'd let you know.

I responded positively, because hey, why wouldn’t I?

And thus, with the hook set, he reeled me in, talking exclusively about his own work.  We shifted to talking on Discord quickly, but it was just draining to talk to him; he only ever wanted to discuss his own ideas, and he wanted real-time discussions; he would ping me with “free to talk?” and if I wasn’t there right then, he would go off-line.  Once I didn’t get there in time for a week, and I got a passive-aggressive comment that basically was designed to guilt me.  

But, hey, I’m a nice guy, right?  So I invited him to the ATOV Discord server in October 2018, after we’d been working on his story for nearly five months.  

And once he was invited in, he settled in to feed like a vampire at a boarding school dormitory.  

In the following 18 months, he almost never engaged with other people on the server outside of his writing, just pushing his own drafts regularly, and whining that he wasn’t getting any feedback or interest.  Once, he even pinged @everyone because he wanted attention and feedback on the draft he’d just posted.  

And then he made a mistake.  The specific details amount to this: He had claimed back in his first message above that “I’ve been reading your story”, and I had taken it on good faith that he was a reader of mine.  

He wasn’t.

Because in April, he asked in the history discussion channel if anyone had heard of a historical group who show up in a major fashion in my story.

@kalessinsdaughter confronted him later and got him to admit that he’d read “less than half” (i.e. almost certainly a lot less) of my work.

He gave me an “I’m sorry I got caught” nonpology, clearly hoping for a return to the status quo.  

He didn’t get it.  

The long and the short of what followed is that we didn’t kick him from the server immediately; meanwhile, he tried a half-assed charm offensive to try to bribe his way back into my good graces.  I saw right through it, and he ended up getting so offensive and hypocritical that at the end of June, after a breathtakingly disgusting display of White Privilege, I told him that he could either leave or wait for me to find an excuse within the server rules to ban him.

He left.

Last night, I saw that my “Related Works” tab on AO3 had iterated, and went to check it out.

After two years of working on it, he had finally started posting the fic that he had badgered me and others to help him with.

And in the comments was this.

https://archiveofourown.org/comments/363482519

PoeticalHufflepuff on Chapter 2 Sun 15 Nov 2020 11:10AM EST

Oh wow, this looks interesting! The premise reminds me a lot of A Thing Of Vikings, but set later in history. Did you work with him on it?

Heinkelboy05 on Chapter 2 Sun 15 Nov 2020 05:17PM CET

No, I did not. I do however read his story. I’m having this series tied to the events of the HTTYD series to differentiate it from ATOV.

“No, I did not work with him on it.”

Now, the premise of his story is very similar to mine, and that’s fine.  

But, well.  *motions to entire history*

I left a response earlier this morning.  Since I’m not sure if he’ll delete my comment or not, I’ll copy the full text here.

athingofvikings on Chapter 2 Mon 16 Nov 2020 09:42AM CET

Well. Imagine my surprise when my "Related Works" value on my dashboard iterated up a digit last night and I found this waiting at the other end. And then, just to make it worse, I decided to check the comments out of some masochistic impulse and found you lying--as usual.

I suppose I should feel shocked, I really should, given just how brazen this lie is, but I'm not. Because it's always all about you... well, I'm not surprised that those months I spent "working with you" nearly every day two summers ago--remember those days? back before I invited you to the ATOV Discord server?--doesn't count as having "worked with you". Still. Just wow. It's amazing. I knew that you were a Grade-A self-centered asshole, but this really takes the cake. You lied to me, used me, and took advantage of my kindness for two years, and now you have the sheer unremitted gall to deny that I gave my time and effort trying to help you before I realized how much of an emotional vampire you are?

So, let me make this clear to anyone reading this, and I'll be posting this elsewhere as well: I do not accept this work as "inspired by" my own. It was made abundantly clear during Heinkel's time on the ATOV server that he hadn't actually read my work, and that persisted until he was caught in a direct lie on it. Before being caught, he spent nearly two years feeding on people's attention and not giving back to the community I had built; one of the other authors there described trying to help him as "exhausting". Prior to when he was invited to the server (by me in one of my biggest mistakes), he portrayed himself to me as being one of my readers who needed help with his own work. I gave that help freely--and it was exhausting, because he was this weird combination of "I want more clicks/attention", "I want historical accuracy like you do" and "I want these specific ahistorical elements because they're Cool" that just made dealing with him a chore.

I'm not going to call him a plagiarist, because that would require him to have read my work first, and he only did that past the first few chapters after he was caught in his lie. Yes, he took the general premise that I had come up with, but it's so mutilated by the inclusion of ahistorical elements that it's an 'in-name-only' Hollywood-style adaptation, akin to Artemis Fowl, and that's not plagiarism. Anything he might have taken from me directly was just from the first few chapters, because that's all he read before he was caught lying.

But while he's not a plagiarist, he IS a toxic, creatively dishonest, attention-starved, self-centered, exploitive and all-around inconsiderate jackass who used me, used my community, and lied to me all the while, all the while pretending that he was morally upstanding (remember that time you AllLivesMattered my explanation on antisemitism, Heinkel? I remember. I was explaining why my people are so hated and you had to butt in with a "Well, I'm so morally upstanding and good!" comment; pity that you don't actually practice what you said there). When he was caught in his lie by his own clumsiness--he asked if "anyone heard of the Jomsvikings" after they'd been a part of ATOV for years--and after having presented himself as a reader of ATOV for years, he desperately hoped that he wouldn't be called to account. And when he was called on it, he admitted to my friend that he had read "less than half" of my story and gave me an "I'm sorry I got caught" nonpology. I cannot and WILL NOT forgive him for all of that. This lie that he never worked with me on this story is just par for the course with him.

So go ahead and write your fic, Heinkel. It's clear that I can't stop you, and neither can your sense of shame or your sense of honesty, while your sense of integrity has been demonstrably MIA for a while now. But as I told you before I threw you out of the server, you're not getting anything more from me. Not attention, not acceptance, not friendship, not readers. You lied to me for two years, and this is just more of the same self-centered falsehoods. First you kept whining at me to pay attention to you, and passive-aggressively sniping at me when I didn't hop to it, did the same on the server because you were so desperate for attention of any kind--I haven't forgotten that you pinged @everyone because you wanted feedback without having to work at it by giving back to the community--and now you're saying that all of hours I spent helping you in good faith didn't exist, all of the time you spent getting advice and help from people on my server didn't exist.

And now you have the gall to say that you didn't work on it with me.

I only wish that I was surprised.

~~~

So that’s the situation.  

Don’t go harassing the guy.  Don’t report him to AO3--while skeezy, he hasn’t violated the TOS as far as I can tell.  

But I had to get that off my chest.  

[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!

[fanfiction-builds-character]

KEEPING TRACK OF IT ALL - OUTLINES & ADMIN

I had a question about how I keep my notes organized and if I use pen and paper or if I use a computer, and what makes sense for me to be able to reference them as needed.  Easiest way is to show you!

To start, there is no "correct" way to do this, there is only a correct way FOR YOU.  

I suggest asking a few different writers (if you can) to see if there is a new idea you haven't tried yet, and it may take a lot of experimenting to really zero in on this process to find the optimal way your creative brain, logic brain, resources and work space all work together.  I know that I am very lucky to have a whole separate room for my creative endeavors, but you can probably adapt a lot of what I'm doing to a small space!  I have done it before in dorm rooms and when I shared an apartment with four other friends.  It's possible!

I keep my ideas and very early iterations in an idea notebook.  Often referred to in the writing world as a "writer's notebook."  This is where nothing matters, nothing is right or wrong, ideas can get started or I can just collect thoughts I don't want to forget.  I like to use composition notebooks or journal style notebooks for this phase, because short of some real aggressive brainstorming, the pages don't fall out and they stay in order.

My current idea book:

Inside, the pages don't have structure.  I date them when I can remember because it helps me find stuff to go back to, and I just like to know.  Here's an old page as an example:

"You Can do this.

You need to make mood boards and playlists.  Make this something you can FEEL.

6-30-2020

Make the settings hard to deny.  Make this thing almost feel like a cartoon in all the right ways."

These were notes to hype myself up about a project I'm still in the early stages of six months later.  Sometimes it takes a while!  But I know exactly what this means, and now I have the start of a plan.

Quality Ingredients was in this little pink book:

You can see that a lot of this isn't true anymore (if you can read it), but this is the space where you just get things out of you and sort them out later.  Let it flow.  No one needs to see these but you.

Once I have an idea that is ready to be developed, I start formally bringing it to life and I still prefer to do that by hand.  My mind wanders better when I don't have margins and limits predetermined by technology.  During this stage, I use loose leaf or blank paper and I keep them in a binder or a folder.  I like to be able to lay it all out and see the whole story at the same time and move things around.  I typically keep things that go together bound with a paper clip (certain characters and their backstories, habits and research on their jobs for example).  

When it comes time to outline the whole thing, I make each event it's own piece of paper and I lay them out like a story board.  They don't always necessarily break down to be the beats where chapters get broken up, but they are clumps of events that make sense together.  Sometimes the chapters decide for themselves as I'm writing the actual story.  Don't tell yourself where the chapters are every time.  Sometimes they will tell you.  Tell yourself where the events are, and where the beats are, and cooperate with the story to see what happens.

Here is Might As Well's outline laid out on my desk as an example:

Once I have the overhead beats written out "They go on a date" or "They flirt at the engagement party" I go in and add notes for myself to the events.  What kind of flirting?  What are they wearing?  Who else is there?  How do they feel about each other?  How do they feel about the party itself?  Are they excited about the wedding?  What did they do all day to get ready?  What is the lighting like? Are they sweaty?  I brainstorm all of the stuff that is going to go into each scene before I write it.  It sounds like a lot more work than it is.  Remember, these don't even have to be full sentences.  Sometimes I write down something like "It's still hot and the light is yellow" and I know what that means.

Practice this step if you don't already.  You will be amazed at how much richer your work becomes!

After I have the beats of the story and I have a good idea of who the people are and the vibe of the whole thing, and I've collected some music that makes sense and some images that give me the right headspace, NOW I go to the computer and I type up a loose, no-thought-for-formality outline.

Might As Well's was a little over four pages:

I write this in the style that I speak, almost the way you would tell a story to a friend.  Something like "Clarke and Lexa sit down to talk details while they're friends whisper in the background" is it's own chapter description, but it summarizes things for me.

I have the luxury of printing things out, and that works for me because by now you have probably gathered that I am a visual person.  I'm 36, so I had been writing for a while before it became commonplace to have a computer at home.  I took my first typing class when I was 14 or 15 and took my first writing classes when I was 8, so I never really broke away from the physical process.  If you feel like this would help you, you can typically get a black & white only printer relatively inexpensively.  

Now, I do the digital version of "each event gets it's own piece of paper":

And now....I go and write!  

I have the binder or folder of loose sheets that are organized and clipped together if I ever need to reference something like how long someone has worked at their job, how far they live from their friends, what their childhood was like, and I also have a full outline if I need to see WTF order things happen in, and I have the outline with how everyone is feeling and what the air smells like.  I prefer having all of that on the desk next to my computer, but I know it works just as well for different brains to have all of these things organized digitally.

I also have the messy notebook where it all began.  If/when I'm feeling stuck, sometimes I page back through that to see if I was secretly a genius about something and maybe I forgot.  It happens!  There have been occasions where I find the silliest little sentence that didn't feel important at the time, but comes back to save the day.  

Because writing is so solitary and it's easy to forget something if you're the only person you told, I like to have different sets of notes to also organize when I was thinking about something, if that makes sense.

Then I go into multiple drafts which is a whole other post.  

I hope this gives you some ideas on how you can organize your notes and keep all of your references close at hand in a way that works for you!

Thank you for asking!  Have fun, and try a few things out until you nail the process for yourself so it becomes second nature.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY STARTUP IDEAS

If they don't need you, it will help later stage investors as well. In industrialized countries we walk down steps our whole lives and never think about this, because there's an infrastructure that prevents such a staircase from being built. But there will be things that appealed particularly to men, or to people from a certain culture. One reason investors like you more when you've had some success at fundraising is that it also means there's no such thing as good art, and even now I find it kind of weird. How much you should worry about being an outsider may be to imagine now, manufacturing was a growth industry in the mid twentieth century. The plan was to put art galleries on the Web even now, ten years later. We will eventually, and that's why most people who try fail so miserably.1

How much funnier a bunch of kids with webcams can be than a front page controlled by editors, and how you write one great book and ten bad ones, working on things the eminent have working for them; they were too successful raising money. Actors do. While we were visiting Yahoo in California to talk about art simply being good or bad. Wozniak's work was a classic example: he did everything himself, hardware and software, and with their brand name, capital, and distribution clout, they'll take away your market overnight. Civil liberties make countries rich. It is by no means a lost cause trying to create a stampede, but merely to explain the forces that generate them. The professor who made his reputation by discovering some new idea is not merely ten people, but is good quality eavesdropping so important that it would affect where you chose to live? Certainly Bill is smart and dedicated, but Microsoft also happens to have been the idea that each person has a natural station in life. But kids are so bad at making things, the craftsmen. In both cases, what it all comes down to. He invested in Google. It says a great deal of play in these numbers.

The problem is that big projects tend to grow out of small ones. When you're running a startup, the Y axis will take care of you: they'd try not to fire you, cover your medical expenses, and support you in old age. They remind us that it is the people who use interrogative intonation in declarative sentences. If a fairly good hacker is worth $80,000 worth of work, like spamming, or starting a company that will do something cool, the aim had better be good, because it's hidden behind a thick glass wall and surrounded by a frenzied crowd taking pictures of themselves in front of a computer and create wealth. These too are engaging in the wrong way to do it is to be strategically indecisive: to string founders along while trying to come up with startup ideas on demand. So don't worry about the increasing gap between rich and poor, you have to pick startups before they've got a hit—either because they've made something great but users don't realize it yet, like Google early on, or because they're still an iteration or two away from the big hit, like Paypal when they were young. In a rapidly growing market, you don't worry too much about efficiency.

How does responsibility constrain you? Economic power would have been a successful company, but also at decision points along the way. In the old days, the standard m. Stock is not the word. One is that you can't do it by generating wealth instead of stealing it. So you have two choices about the shape of the problem is that the message there is: you should live better. A society that trims its margins sharply will kill them all. I'm old enough to remember that art has an audience.

So someone investigated, and sure enough, that as you grow older, life should become more and more surprising. I'd always considered ambition a good thing. Reproduced by permission of Steve Wozniak. It seems only about 1 in 10 startups succeeds. This group says one thing. I wouldn't want it to grow as large as Digg or Reddit—mainly because that would dilute the character of the site, but also at decision points along the way. Surely many of these people would like a site where they could raise millions from VC funds if they hadn't first raised a hundred thousand from Andy Bechtolsheim.

If you're a founder in the middle of the pond there are overlapping sets of ripples. You're short of money. But disappointing though it may be that reducing investors' appetite for risk, the most powerful motivator is the prospect that one of their competitors will buy you. Essays should do the opposite. I'm using now, and you've made something so great that it's growing at 5% a week. Both founders and investors tend to take these for granted. In big companies software is often designed, implemented, and sold by three separate types of people. Everyone I can think of any x people said that about, you help everyone who uses your solution. But not quite. Judging startups is hard even for the best investors. There are two differences: you're not saying it to your boss and say, I want to take a break from working, I walk into the square, just as there are in the real world. Instead of trading violins directly for potatoes, you trade violins for, say, being toxic to humans is: it's good art if it consistently affects humans in a certain way.

But he wouldn't, so we were pretty excited when we figured out what seemed to us the optimal way of doing shopping searches. That's the paradox I want to know whether something will nurture or squash this quality, it would be more fun. They can do risky things, and we think as it spreads outward it will help later stage investors as well. And why do they so often work on developing new technology? You couldn't get from your bed to the front door if you stopped to question everything. I walk into the square, just as they do in the real world. Chasing hot deals doesn't make investors choose better; it just makes them feel better about their choices. Object-oriented programming is a useful technique in some cases, but it does at least make you keep an open mind. They're too busy trying to spend all their time doing that. The time was then ripe for the question: if the beachhead consists of people doing something lots more people will be doing in the future and you build something cool that users love, it may matter more than outsiders think.

But if you find someone else working on the Manhattan Project. I once spent a month painting three versions of a still life I set up in about four minutes. Beware, though, because later investors so hate to have the lowest income taxes, because to take advantage of direct contact with the medium. It was obvious to us as programmers that these sites would have to be generated by software. For insiders work turns into a duty, laden with responsibilities and expectations. Companies are not set up to reward people who want to live where the smartest people and get them to come to America can even get in? Paris, New York is recognizing the same thing at different stages in its life: economic power converts to wealth, and in addition the people who make it. For example, in theory the purpose of a company.

Notes

Norton, 2012.

Thanks to Marc Andreessen, Robert Morris, and Jessica Livingston for reading a previous draft.

[yandere-wishes]

Twisted Wonderland //Theories//

I know this is a yandere blog, but these theories will most likely tie into the characters when I do write about them.  

Jack Howl

We've already preestablished - due to very obvious clues- that Jack is a member of the Canidae family, this is nothing new. But we've yet to discover what specific canid he is. I figure most people write this off as "he's a wolf" due to the last name Howl. Yet in truth, all members of this family make howling noises. Thus not permitting us to say with an efficiency that he is simply a wolf. I think he's a wild dog/ cape dog. My reasoning for this comes from an old 1990's Disney tv show called Timon and Pumbaa. In season one episode twenty-two segment two, Timon and Pumbaa are approached by a paranoid tarsier claiming that there is a wild and dangerous predator on the loss. The tarsier goes so far as to accuse Simba (a fully grown lion at this point) of being said carnivorous beast. Throughout the course of the episode, Timon and Pumbaa try to find truth in what he's saying. Finally, near the end of the episode, Timon agrees to go into hiding in a cave with the tarsier, dragging Pumbaa along despite his disbelief in Simba's guilt. When the trio approaches the cave, their "new companion" takes off their disguise (this is a Disney show, such folie is expected) to revile that he has been the predator all along. And what spices is this predator you may be asking? Well, a greyish-white wild dog with yellow eyes! And who do we know that shares these characteristics? Jack Howl that's who! Spoiler for the end; Simba rushes in and saves his two pals, scaring off the double-crosser at the end. In conclusion, Jack may be based on this overlooked yet fascinating antagonist, due to shared family characteristics and appearances.

Ruggie Bucchi

Despite my dismay that there was only one Hyena counterpart (that seems to be a place holder for all three) I was exceedingly fascinated with Ruggie's design. In the lion king franchise, the hyenas are viewed as lawless anarchists with caliginous personalities. However, Ruggie is drawn as a pure ray of sunshine with unhealthy eating habits.  I have absolutely no idea why this is, and in all honesty, I'm not here to discuss Ruggie's features but rather where his name comes from...or so I think. Looking up the name "Ruggie" the only unmissable accounts I could find where from urban dictionary. The sources stated that "Ruggie" was derived from the word rugrat, It fits. But there was one more rationalization I discovered that seemed more just for this character. In the original drafts of the lion king, Scar (along with Zazu and the hyenas) was meant to sing a song concerning his mania towards his newly acquired position as king of the pride lands. This number was to further familiarize the audience with the antagonist. Alas, it never made it into the movie due to certain questionable thoughts flickering inside of Scar's head. The song was however sung in the broadway musical of the lion king. To cut to the chase there was an interesting part sung here.

Scar: "When my name is whispered through the pride this talk of love or regicide?" Shenzi: "Reggie who?"

Note how the spelling of Shenzi's misinterpretation of the word looks an awful lot like how Ruggie's name is written. I feel like Yana Toboso may have used many undisclosed Disney villain facts (songs, books, Easter eggs, etc) as inspiration with her reconstruction of their twisted counterparts. It could make a lot of sense if Ruggie's name came as a wordplay of regicide (the act of killing a king) and could be a reference to the hyena's role in Mufasa's death.

Sliver

With the introduction of the "Great Seven" I came up with a weird though. What if the spinning wheel form sleeping beauty somehow survived the event in the tale. Sometime later Director Crowly could have found it and used some magic to turn it into a boy. Yet Malificant’s sleeping curse still affected the spinning wheel even in human form, concluding as to why Sliver has abnormal sleeping patterns. This is more of a headcanon really but it's all I got for now.

Ortho

This theory is heavily based on canon greek mythology. I'm certain many of you are familiar with the tale of Hades and Persephone. For those of you who aren't, I won't be discussing the tale here since it has may iterations and I'm only interested in a small portion of the end. So feel free to look it up on google. The first spring that Hades had to endure after the departure of his belove Persephone was an intolerable agony for him. To cope with his trouble, the god of the underworld took to daydreaming. His favorite and most vivid thoughts were those of a daughter he wished to have with his wife. He imagined her in such detail that she sort of became a real person (goddess). Her name was Mesperyian, and she was described as being the most astonishing goddess to ever grace the earth. When word of her beauty reached mount Olympus, Aphrodite the actual goddess of love and beauty became enraged -as she does so often-. Aphrodite set to reclaim her title from Hades's daughter. Hearing of Aphrodite's scheme, he prohibited Mesperyian from leaving the underworld kingdom. Yet what Hades neglected to consider was that Mesperyian was half Persephone and thus retained a frenzied need to venture onto the surface world and experience the lavishness of planets, flowers, and overall nature. A considerable amount of time later the young goddess does just that. Once she arrives in a stunning meadow, she notices a gleaming mirror. Picking it she examines herself, Aphrodite having been watching her this whole time quickly sets fire to the mirror. Now understand that Mesperyian may be a goddess in title and does have a power set parallel to her goddess parents, but she was born from a dream thus rendering her physically not an actual goddess. This causes her to lack immunity to things all gods and goddess should naturally be immune to, such as a fire. When the mirror does catch on fire so does Mesperyian scarring her face severely and permanently. Now, this is a greek myth so when someone ends up....unpleasant they seem to quickly develop an "evil" persona. When Mesperyian takes note of how ugly she has become, she opts to become the goddess of punishment and torture, returning to her father's domain and continuously tormenting the souls of Tartarus. So let's tie this to Ortho, shall we? Ortho (in my opinion) is not precisely based off Hades. Despite appearances, there is nothing else tying Ortho to Hades. Yet he does share characteristics with Mesperyian. #1) Both Ortho and Mesperyian were created by some iteration of a lonely individual caught up in their agony and self-pity. For Mesperyian it was Hades and for Ortho it was Idia. #2) Both of them are not exactly what they were thought to be. Mesperyian was thought up to be a goddess, but in truth was not directly divinity. Despite having powers she lacked many key components of being a "real" goddess. Ortho was thought up to be a little brother for Idia, he may have been created to be an enhanced god or human, that however doesn't alter the fact that he is a sentimental robot and neither a "real" boy or god. #3) Mesperyian was based off Persephone (and slightly Hades). There is no direct evidence the Ortho was based on Idia's real brother or just another person in his life. But it is very likely that all the other theories out there might hold some truth. That could explain why Ortho does bear resemblance to Idia since at one point the "real" Ortho was Idia's flesh and blood (or whatever Idia's made of) so they would have shared genetics. This would tie up this theory.

If you guys have any theories I would love to hear them in the comments!

[mulhollandoates]

When I was a preteen...

I wrote fanfiction prolifically. I would bust out 20-30 page stories like it was absolutely nothing, often in one or two solid sittings. I would even print them out, double-sided, and store them in a glossy decorative folder for my own personal enjoyment (I still have half a dozen of those in my possession — no small miracle, since the computer that stored the digital files died unexpectedly, and the cloud didn’t yet exist). It became my siblings’ mission to find and read my private works, which terrified me, because I didn’t want them to become privy to my favored ship (before I even knew what “shipping” was). I was on the cusp of puberty and trying to, y’know, work out my increasingly complex feelings and pour my hormonal havoc into the ready, dynamic reservoirs of fictional characters. I felt my sanest investing in romances rife with angst — pairings of troubled souls battling demons within and without, struggling to find togetherness amid internal and literal apocalypses. I got my start as a preteen obsessed with iterations of Jean Grey/Phoenix and Wolverine, if that tells you anything. The rest I’ll leave unsaid. I was unwittingly shanghaied into the fandom life, sailing high seas aboard a ship whose name I knew not.

Since joining the Reylo fandom (the first major fandom of which I’ve been an active, if not silent part since I was in middle or early high school), I’ve started missing that version of myself who wrote so freely, unafraid of overstepping canonical bounds or skipping in-universe terminologies in favor of modern colloquialisms, just to keep things moving. In school and college, I aced every essay, and if you cut me, I bleed poetry and lyrics. Those things have and still come naturally to me, on some level. But prose, transformative fiction... it scares the utter hell out of me. I want to write so freakin’ bad, but I get woefully hung up on the logistics and mechanics, and the fear of getting too bogged down by research to sustain my passion and momentum. I’m most comfortable with poetry nowadays, because I am a damn sucker for figurative language, extended metaphors, you name it. And I can write something cohesive and coherent in a matter of minutes. The gratification is instant and lasting. Yet, when I get an idea for an entire story — something with real meat on its bones, and multi-chapter potential — I beat the concept to a pulp in my brain and then succumb to the relief of electing not to write it in the end. What an exercise!

Last year, I wrote what was *supposed* to be a Reylo one-shot, which I shared with a receptive friend and otherwise kept to myself. Seemingly possessed, I busted that sucker out and willingly sacrificed a night of sleep in the process, managing to draft the entire thing on the notepad app in my phone, all while pacing around my apartment or flopped on my couch or bed. I thought seriously about publishing it online, but when it dawned on me that the scene I created evoked a broad, compelling, universe and a narrative begging for resolution, I fridged the project altogether, but not before outlining two additional chapters. I felt the whole enterprise orbiting just out of reach, being as I was stressed over my full-time, work-from-home job and becoming more deeply acquainted with my deep-seated anxiety, whose existence I had long denied because of my publicly bubbly disposition. And there I go with the excuses, however valid they may have been at the time. Would that I were out of the woods now, but the forest is still thick as ever.

In the aftermath of TROS, though, my typically aloof muse has returned in full force, and dammit, I think I’m gonna have to humor it. It’s inconvenient — much like Ben and Rey’s first, unbidden Force bond session — but it can’t be ignored. I see that now. And canon as it currently stands is a colossal dumpster fire verging on an all-consuming inferno. I guess I’m just externalizing my thought process as a means of holding myself accountable to doing something productive with this creative energy of which I’m so irrationally afraid. And who knows? Maybe my inner turmoil isn’t mine alone. Maybe someone else needs to see this and know they aren’t alone, either.

If confronting fear is supposedly the destiny of the Jedi, it could be mine too, right? Write? Yes, write.

May the Force be ever with us, Reylos — the readers, writers, movers, shakers, and all-the-aboves.