#this paper and i did NOT get along

[jaylynessa]

Had the idea to paint Egyn as that one sand castle scene from Lilo and stitch for this week's ao no summer prompt!

[silusvesuius]

this tree from my new drawing looking goated afffffff 👑👑

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Hey @ntls-24722

Scribbled a Debu in my little notebook and scanned it!

Also this scrimblo I was figuring out the shapes with but the above one is the one I was going for lmao

She looks a bit scared or worried to me lmao didn't wanna leave her out

I haven't been drawing much lately, I've just been getting back to it the last few days so I'm a bit rusty to put it lightly. The Debus are the best things I drew last night by a mile lmao and also the reason I got the scanner working again so uhh anyway I love these guys. Everyone go look at the Debus right here cause they're cool as fuck

[5hrignold]

allan is so loyal to his job its a little scary

[drainbangle]

wait omg i’m curious about your unpopular thoughts about temenos writing wise.. i love when people discuss octopath writing it’s really enriching to see what we all have to say about certain story elements. plus you’re like a temenos representative to me. your thoughts about temenos make me go “so true!”

Aw, thank you! It took a while for me to decide on what to write here, since honestly I could go on for… frankly any aspect of this guy, especially in regards to treatment in fanon. But for now, I'll focus on my thoughts regarding how people treat tragedy in Temenos' story— namely, Crick's death— and why I personally dislike it as a writing decision and why I disagree with the idea that it is necessary.

Note: Goes without saying, but this is my personal opinion. If you believe otherwise, then that's all good. I'm not writing this to say that any one person is wrong, just to talk about an issue I have with the game's writing itself.

To start, I'll say that my main reason for disliking Crick's death in SH route is a matter of practicality. Killing him off causes Temenos to lose the main person that he had a fantastic relationship and banter with, and in my opinion, Temenos works best when he's bouncing off another person; not unlike most under the Sherlock-archetype.

Also, genuinely? It works wonders to keep Crick alive, if just because it provides a fantastic avenue to explore Temenos' institutional trauma. Having a character that's lived a different experience but within the same harmful institution opens up ways to explore the scope of its harm. And yes, this is for Crick specifically; not Ort, not the travelers, but Crick.

I think it really adds something that Temenos was raised by the church while Crick converted as a teenager during a really difficult time in his life. These two are good for each other. Crick sure as hell makes it a lot easier to write Temenos in fic.

(If you have a different experience, again, that's cool. I'm glad for you. I, however, will never fail to take the easy way out.)

(This is a lie, I'm over here making up fantasy church law for fic stuff but that's not related to this answer.)

I won't pretend that disliking Crick's death is an unpopular opinion. I mean, "Stormhail Fix-it" is an entire genre of fic on the OT2 Ao3 tag. What I do feel tends to go unaddressed though, is the fact that the idea that Crick's death is canon, therefore it is necessary, therefore it is the best decision; an idea that I wholeheartedly disagree with.

Within the text itself, Crick is killed off in order to give Temenos a personal reason to pursue Kaldena, thus putting him at odds with Kaldena's motivations being driven by her ideology and worldview that, "because humans committed the massacre, it was the gods' mistake to put us here". I also won't pretend that Kaldena's writing here isn't fucking awful, because Crick's death is also a device to make the player want Kaldena defeated even though she is just as much as a victim of the church; and that's to say nothing of her portrayal as an indigenous and dark-skinned woman.

These decisions are ones I disagree with. Killing Crick off was unnecessary to give Temenos reason to pursue the culprit, because Temenos already had someone close to him killed; and that's Pontiff Jörg. He raised Temenos from infancy, but due to the lack of focus on him outside of banter conversations, it's never relevant to his motivations outside of the desire for truth because a crime was committed. 

We also didn't need to kill Crick off to show that the church was a terrible institution, because Roi already went missing in action. The Sacred Guard is the main body of law within Eastern Solistia, it's not unreasonable to think that the reason why Temenos dislikes them is because they clearly didn't do shit to investigate his disappearance.

However, one thing I really don't agree with is the idea that Crick's death is necessary because Temenos' story is a tragedy. And if you asked me why, I'd ask this in turn: why is death the only form of tragedy? Furthermore, why must a tragedy contain only tragic events? That in mind, what gives anything value in a tragedy, then?

Pretend we cannot completely rewrite Temenos' story. Even then, changing Crick's death to a permanent injury, a coma, or whatever is still a tragic event; and that's nothing to say of living with the consequences. Isn't losing your faith a tragedy? Isn't losing something you worked for years to do a tragedy?

Similarly, I'd still argue that it's more valuable to make Stormhail a near-death experience because not only does it show Temenos succeeding in making someone question the church but also the terror that is feeling like you're doomed to repeat tragedy. Even if you really aren't, it's hard to dismiss that feeling; especially when it has to do with being victimized by institutions.

And before someone says, "but bad things happen to good people in real life", I'm not treating these characters as living, breathing people who are subject to things like gravity, hunger, and exhaustion. I'm treating them as choices, and choices made that I disagree with. 

It's why I make different choices. I choose to make Crick have to deal with chronic pain onwards. I choose to make Temenos realize change is still possible. I choose to let them both leave Stormhail alive. Are these better choices? I don't know. But I'll never stop questioning the ones made by the writers regardless; much less stop disagreeing with them.

So, in summary: I dislike Crick's death. I dislike Temenos having to spend the rest of the story without someone he can talk to so easily because Crick's absence weakens a lot of his scenes in Temenos 4. But more than that, I dislike the idea that tragedy is necessary on top of the idea that it is superior. Tragedy's good, I adore the genre; but written in mindful doses and all that.

[cheswirls]

looking @ old fic i started when i was 14/15 is so funny bc im realizing once again why i never mark fics as abandoned even if its been literal years since i've touched them. specifically i was checking docs for stuff i started and either did or didn't post to ffn.

and its like. nothing is bad??? like i can see where my outside-the-box ideal of fic writing comes from. not just fics but writing in general, i'm p sure. even if it's a total cliche plot setup, there are details on each that rly make it stand out like oh yeahhhhhh i did have this great idea once upon a time.

funny too bc was it executed well in prose??? no absolutely not i wrote like shit when i was 15. would i revive an idea one day and revise it to be less cliche or cringy while still keeping the stand-out elements??? yea maybe. i might. everything i'm currently working on that i started from 2021 up to now still holds my supreme interest, but like i'm not gonna say never.

esp since i write fic first and foremost for my own need and specifically what i like to read, it makes it impossible to consider an idea i've thought extensively about "not worth writing anymore". anyway not making this too long i jus found everything interesting to consider

[totally-italy]

do you write?

To be honest, I really would like to be an author, but I haven't had much time to write recently due to excessive amounts of homework, exams and just generally a dooming sense of perfectionism that means that I literally cannot do anything. Unfortunately, this lack of writing happens to extend to some dark poetry that I profoundly enjoyed writing and which was probably also a great form of self-administered talking therapy. I also started writing a musical a bit more than a year ago, but I have not worked on it since last September, at the very latest.

[jewishbuckley]

🙏 🙏 🙏  for the wip game :-)

for the lead up to this snippet... see this ask and this ask. enjoy (or don't) these raw unedited sentences:

If Evan asked Tommy to do anything, he would without hesitation – all because of that face – and he briefly wonders how many others have been where he is standing. He moves a hand to rest on the back of Evan’s neck, fingertips playing with the still damp ends of his hair. “Mmm…” He leans in, catching Evan’s bottom lip between his teeth and tugging gently before diving in for a proper kiss, reveling in the way Evan melts against him and parts his lips invitingly. Tommy presses his tongue inside, sliding against the back of Evan’s teeth, before reluctantly pulling away. Evan swallows. His hands trailing up and down Tommy’s sides, seemingly unable to pick just one spot to hold onto. “Are you going to show me?” He whispers, whining low in his throat. Yeah, that’s a face and voice Tommy would do anything for.

[ghosts-and-blue-sweaters]

[iguessitsjustme]

I'm also so pissed because Phu came back, accepted the job with Nan's company that Nan literally fought to help him avoid, then up and abandoned him AND his fucking job. Like Phu fucks with Nan's personal life so much that now he needs to let that bleed into Nan's professional life? Nan was doing fine. He was literally letting go and moving on with his life when Phu returned and fucked everything up again. Phu has no sense of responsibility. Not even for his own damn coffee shop. I can forgive a lot, but I cannot forgive people fucking with jobs/careers. Nan deserves to feel secure in at least one aspect of his life damn it.

[spiral-wizard]

i finally got a new jobbbbbb :'''-) as a driver for a local mobile paper shredding service?? catch me in Big Truck showing up to your office to shred your Confidential Documents !!!

[kifu]

A little bit of character design. ;) For a comic! That may never leave the brain.

[tgirljoker]

ALSO BANGALOBA CRUMBS IM SO HAPPY

[ulmus-spellook]

Made a set of mini runes with polymer clay. I might paint them later. I didn’t have molds or stamps so I ended up cutting out the shape with a little clay cutter (like a cookie cutter but smaller) and then writing all the runes by hand. I rounded them out a bit too because I liked how it looked when I altered the shape a little.

I’ve only been using polymer clay for two weeks so this could have probably gone faster if I was more experienced. I think I left my glass set at my parents house when I moved and i still need to find it. But I saw it as an opportunity to practice working with clay! Well, polymer clay. I miss real clay 🥲

[riv-rs]

bro kill me now my internship is something else and these 20 weeks are gonna be a test of patience and seeing where my limit is for shit i can tolerate

[goldensunset]

cheers to this guest lecturer for nearly giving me a heart attack making me think there was a paper due tomorrow that i hadn’t even heard about so i couldn’t focus the rest of the lecture and like rushed home and opened the site to find there was nothing at all